A Rough Draft

So, I have messed around with writing a book as a hobby for a while now. I have started a book about rage, that has a couple chapters, but I don't feel rageful, so I find it hard to conjure anything more with it. I have also started a young adult book, that I work on in secret (not so secret now) by writing chapters on little index cards which I number and file. I am going to post sections on the blog in hopes of getting live editing. It will all be first or second drafts of the section. I will still blog my normal things when so moved, but I figured why not throw something else out there...the skeleton at least.

Part I
I

On the day Walker Sutton's mother died, Eaton Fork Elementary's 5th grade class had walked out to the softball field to release balloons in honor of cancer awareness. The mass ambled and giggled their way up the small hill to the field. Their fingers reddened as they clutched their ribbonned balloons tightly, desperate to no be the one kid, the one jerk who let their balloon go too early.
When the mass of eleven and twelve year olds congealed into an acceptable shape, Principal Rooney took a megaphone and spoke to the class.
" Today children we release these balloons in both hope and remembrance--the hope that cancer will one day be defeated, and in remembrance of our friends and family who have lost their battle."
Walker thought of how Principal Rooney's eyebrows reminded him of woolly caterpillars. Dark, fuzzy...the thought of the hundreds that crossed his road from cornfield to cornfield every spring. Principal Rooney began to read names off the list before him. Alice Channing, Martin Keller, Tate West. People had paid $5 to have a name read in public and a flower planted in their honor in the school garden. Walker Suttons's mother's name was not on that list, for no one yet knew that she was dead-- and even so she wasn't dead from cancer.
Just after reading the last name, a light breeze stirred the crowd. The pink and salmon balloons swayed and leaned to the east. Children in red and blue ball caps, pink polka dotted sunglasses, looked up at the vast blue sky in anticipation. Principal Rooney gave the command to release the balloons, and the reddened little fingers released their grips. The balloons jolted upward in a bright cloud of cotton candy. One child screamed out in joy over the vision. Another child said it looked like a spilled bottle of Pepto Bismol Walker strained his neck upward watching the giant tangle of balloons. He thought it looked like a sort of impressionistic flamingo if he squinted real hard.

II
There were many rumors in the days and months that followed about how Walker Sutton's mother had died. Busic, the school custodian, told a kid that she had fallen in the shower and hit her head.
"That's why the cleanup didn't take long, cause the water had washed all the blood down the drain."
He said he'd seen that kind of thing before. Bea Kurtzwilde told the girls in the kickball line that Mrs. Sutton had shot herself in the head. Said she was tired of not knowing where her husband was, and of having a son that was ugly as the day was long.
"It's true," she shrieked as she ran to the plate, waiting for the round ball to bounce its way to her foot.
The fact was no one really knew how Walker's mom had died. The ambulance came, the police came, people were questioned, but not much had been said.
They had a funeral on a sunny afternoon. The casket was a simple pine box that had been varnished and shined. People had cut branches off their lilac bushes, their forsythias that lined long, paved driveways. They had pitched the floral tokens into the clay red pit. The purple and pink globes of lilac reminded Walker of fireworks. He stared down at the casket. The flower heads arched and burst under the stretching comet tails of the yellow withes. He through his withe into the stream that gurgled next tot he cemetery after the service was over. He watched it float, amble and swirl down the stream. His aunt waved him over to the long, dark car, where he climbed in on hands and knees carefully next to his cousins. Walker cried the entire way home.

III

Walker Sutton Sat in the last row, 2nd seat from the left in Mrs. Maggie Landing's 5th grade class. Mrs. Landing was know for order and precision. Every diagram of the water cycle hung perfectly straight, perfectly level in sync and in row with its cousin and brother. The lines and angles of Maggie Landing's room were sleek and sharp. Walker drew all the time. He drew many pictures while sitting in that last row in Mrs. Landing's class. She new that the pictures help calm Walker, and taht there wasn't much sense in worrying about Walker mastering one-step equations or not.
"One, Most likely he would anyways at some point, and two, his mama was dead and no algebra was gonna heal that wound, " she said to Prinicpal Rooney when he asked why Walker wasn't working on his math like the other student in her room. Principal Rooney held a metal clipboard in his hand with yellow carbon sheets of paper attached to the top.
"He has to learn Mrs. Landing. Ignorance isn't going to heal that wound either."
Walker could tell they were talking about him. He could see their heads jabbing in his direction as he peered up away from his sketch of a rabbit running through a briar thicket. He stopped shading in the shadows of the brambles, and began to work on solving for X. He didn't want Mrs. Landing to get in trouble, and he certainly didn't want she or Principal Rooney to walk over to him and start asking him questions, or poking around in his desk. He had the list taped to the right inside corner. He knew it would make them nervous, and he wasn't ready for that right now--not just yet.

IV

Truman Copely...Mrs. Blackburn...Reggie Stivers were just three of the names on the list. Walker had just finished scribbling the "y" on Lena Charlsey when Mrs. Landing had called his name from the front of the room.
"Walker, time for your meeting."
Every Tuesday Walker met with the district's school psychologist. Sophie Chapman was a large woman with a round face and tall brown hair. Most sessions she would catch Walker glancing at it after he had mumbled some answer to something she had asked. Walker traced his finger along the grooves of the cool bricks, dragging his finger behind him as he walked down the hall to meet with Mrs. Chapman in the cafeteria. He moped down the ramp, found her at the usual round table and sat down across from her. On Tuesdays it was just him and her. Sometimes on Thursdays he met with her and four other children whom had lost someone too. "Lost" was a word that Sophie Chapman used often when talking to Walker. She would ask what it felt like having lost his mom? What was his aunt doing to help him deal with his loss? Today she started the session with making him point to a picture that described the level of sadness he felt because of his loss.
Walker didn't like the term loss.
"Please stop saying the word loss...and lose to me."
He fidgeted with a penny he had found in his pocket.
"Why don't you like those words?" she had asked him.
Walker didn't answer. He just kept flipping the penny over and over in his hand while he looked at her blankly. He didn't tell her that he didn't like the word(s) because it didn't feel accurate, didn't feel the same way as he viewed what had happened to him. Taken...stole...broke, these were all better words he thought.

A Story of a Lazy Little Seed

I am lazy. Always have been. I used to just say that I was a procrastinator, but I don't think that is accurate. I don't procrastinate on things that I enjoy, or things that interest me, or things that are easy, and offer the instant gratification. I am selective about what I delay and put off--that is what is the kicker. That selection, that cost of pain analysis is what makes it laziness and not procrastination.

It isn't that big of a deal from most angles and perspectives. It means I work feverishly on grading things, typing in scores that barely make the gradebook before progress reports are ran. It's a picture of me on my couch, legs propped up on the chocolate cushion, a still life of full can of garbage. They are petty little things that don't really effect my life other than they annoy my wife, whom gets over things quickly.

But it is more than that. If somebody were to investigate, dig through the evidence and details of what my laziness has done to my life, there would be some substantial finds. They would find opportunities to make money thrown out with the trash. They would find tiny cracker cookie fortunes of white lies told so not to become involved in the lives, problems of others. They would see stacks of worksheets thrown in the trash--right now they would see a half mowed backyard.

And, I guess in some ways there really isn't any harm in it. It mainly effects me. It makes my life busy in waves of short durations of time. It makes me crazed for an hour as I do work in a fervor trying to make up for all the other days when I lallygagged through, but I have become an expert at the fervor, an expert at the perfection of rushing through a job. That would be fine if I were only lazy with tasks, but it is sort of like a little dandelion seed that finds life in a sidewalk. It is nothing, an oblivious speck unknown to anyone, but it grows quickly, upright and tall, and before you know it, the roots have made a crack that widens and splits the whole thing in two.

And that is how it is with me. Laziness was just a dandelion seed, a mere scratch on the car hood of my life, but it is what has continually caused the major cracks and breaks--the things that have taken months to get over. It urges me to not work on my selfishness, or my weight. It tells me thirty minutess is enough on the elliptical when I know I need more. It spreads into my relationships, how I know my friends and family will still love me even if I invest very little in them. It lets me hold on to things I should have given over years ago, because its easier to not do the work it would take to actually let go.

I talked about that today in my class. This poor girl has a guy who dumped her so he could have sex with girls on Spring Break, and she still wants to be with him. It's easier to go back to what we know, than to do the work to become something better and unknown. It is easier to not read my Bible everyday, than to do so and think about my mess ups. It is easier to get out the book of worksheets and copy one, than make a meaningful lesson with manipulatives and more impactful learning.

One time, several years ago now, I did a lot of work on myself. I wasn't lazy about who I was. I was told to become something different, something more complete than I was. I was given the strength to do it, to not be sad...it was awful. It took months to grow and change, to let go of people who were bad for me, to place my faith and worth in a loving God and not in what a girl or friend or a girlfriend thought of me. It felt like someone was pulling a ghost out of me, a clutching, raging ghost, when I would give over control of the things that hurt me. I hurt almost every day for over a year.

Looking back on it now, it was probably one of the greatest times of my life. I was pushed through to the other side, and when I got there I was stable. I had meaningful friendships. I met my wife. I was firm in the idea of who God had made me to be. But that lazy little dandelion seed was still somewhere in there telling me I had done enough--my life was good enough now, and over time it grew, it sowed its own seeds, etc. So, I have some cracks now that I need to work on. I only can hope that this work will be as rewarding as the last.

A Blog for my friend Jarboe

This afternoon we were got a nice visit from our friend Jamie Jarboe, who moved last summer to Boston for a fellowship at the oncology unit at Tufts University. She brought her terribly adorable daughter Kimber, and her mother, who was always taking care of all of our friend group when we were in college at Western. It was nice to be around them, since they have known me for a long time. When you share longevity and time with people, there is a richness to even the most mundane conversations that is hard to duplicate...a satisfaction that settles nicely in the conversation.

We were talking about her husband (Christopher) who was my roommate in college and also a good friend of mine, and how he made fun of her for reading people's blogs. He is a manly sort with a tender heart, but you know the type. He isn't much for sharing the underlying with people he may or may not be close to. We laughed when Jamie spoke about how she will try and tell him something, and he will reply, "If you read it in a blog, don't even bother."

And I get that opinion. A lot of people have that. They see blogs as a way for people to whine about things, to rant about things they hate, or to post the most trivial details of their days. I guess there is a point in not liking those things too. I mean most of us experience enough of that at work or school from our friends , so why subject yourself to it when you go home? I mean why would I want to write about the girl who puked in the hall, when I got to experience it in person too? Yes, I see why some people don't get it.

But, for me there is something about writing these things down that helps pacify me. I don't really know how many people, or who (if anyone) really reads these. I don't really publicize my blog, or even mention it directly to my friends. If someone does mention to me that they like what I said, it sort of embarrasses me for some reason, and I awkwardly say thanks. I don't know why I get awkward about it. I get awkward about lots of things I do publicly for some reason. I called a drill sergeant "mam" on the phone today by mistake, but I digress.

When I write about my inability to understand the happenings around me, or my desire to connect to people deeply, or about my faith --- how figuring out my relationship with God often seems like me digging holes to simply fill them back up again, this lightens the load I carry. I don't know if anyone reads it, but I like to think, that maybe someone out there reads it and gets it, and for that moment, we are not alone in the struggles of these things. That for that instant, we have a connection, a strengthening of will, as if our similarities weave the cane together that makes the basket for us to carry the things that bother us in.

And, I see why that isn't for all people. Some people can carry a lot on their own, can carry a lot with them and God, or them and whatever. I find myself needing more than that. So even if no one reads this, even if some do read this and just think "well, what was that all about", even if this were to be read and discarded quickly, like a cigarette flicked out a car window, for me it gives order to the chaos in my mind. It catches the thoughts that bounce and zig off every nook and cranny. It makes me pause and think about God and who I am in him, and I certainly need help with all those things.