Following Where the Road Leads

In writing it’s called the turning point—the resolution of the plot crisis.

It begins as a problem and, after any number of twists and turns, culminates in the main character resolving the conflict.

For me that turning point came with the answer to a simple question.

A couple of years into my position as an assistant professor in journalism at University of Illinois, I was teaching a news editing class for college seniors. Unfortunately, the stories that I had collected for my students to edit were having the unintended effect of leaving them discouraged with nonfiction writing.

“Is there any good writing out there?” they wanted to know.

Clearly a change in content was in order. As a graduate of the University of Oregon’s Literary Nonfiction program, I knew the answer to the question was a resounding, “Yes!” I dug into my files to find work by emerging writers that would inspire these young editors to continue.

The next class, as I was explaining how the writer and editor on a particular story had worked to make one paragraph deftly flow into another, I swept my hands high over my head as if conducting an orchestra. “It’s a symphony, and you have the baton,” I said, pointing from one section of the room to another. “You, as the editor, are responsible for making sure that the cymbals that the composer included in the score crash together right on time!”

In the silence following my dramatics, a timid voice.

“Do you miss working with writers?”

My shoulders sagged.

“Every single day,” I sighed. It was not the politic answer in a department where my responsibility was teaching editing; it was an instinctive answer. How could I not miss it? I loved it. That’s why I had been hired to be in this classroom — to teach young journalists that same passion for writers and their words.

At the end of the class, another student asked me whether I would be willing to work with her on a story she was writing for the student newspaper.

“Absolutely!” I said.

Two months and ten editing sessions later, Meghan O’Kelly’s story was the front-page centerpiece of the student paper. By year’s end, it had earned a Third Place Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Award and inclusion in the Associated Collegiate Press contest for Story of the Year.

The week Meghan sent me an email about her awards, I happened to be in New York on my way to have a beer with a former student from the University of Oregon. Joel, who is now a senior associate editor at Men’s Health magazine, had won awards as editor of Flux when I was the faculty advisor. After giving me a hard time about how many edits I had once put him through, he asked, “Don’t you miss working with writers?”

There it was again: The question that wouldn’t go away.

“Yes,” I said, again. “I miss it every day.”

And with that answer went my teaching career —halting abruptly in one direction and accelerating at warp speed in another.

Within months, I decided to resign my secure, well-paying faculty position in Illinois and point myself in the direction of my passion. I was determined to re-engage with writers.

Some people might be anxious in these economic times to strike out in pursuit of passion, but since I answered that question, I have found myself both exhilarated and inspired.

I remembered why I started writing in the first place, the power of storytelling, its ability to lift people up, and the transformative force it can be in our lives. It is in times like these that people’s stories are most needed. And for those of us inspired by that creative passion, the symphony is too compelling to ignore.

In the six month since I left the university, I have been able to teach a wonderful series of workshops in Oregon, working with a delightful array of writers.

Next week, I’ll start teaching those same writing workshops in the Urbana, Illinois.

Proving, yet again, that if you are willing to tell the truth to the questions the universe throws at you, the outcome can be dramatic.

Opportunities Abound

The Smiling Duck Empire continues to expand.

Well, that might be a bit of an overstatement, but it makes for better copy than: New ways to support the Smiling Duck.

But bottom line, that’s what is going on. I am adding, adding, scheming, planning, adding, adapting every day to try to entice you, the smart, talented, desirable reader to fork over cash.

If you are a big old sentimental dreamer like me, you could just send me a buck.

If you are a collector of … well everything from vintage dishware to salt and pepper shakers, you can visit my ebay listings and live the Midwest auction experience.

If you are a grammar nerd you can visit my HUGE grammar Web site and support the advertisers who support the site. (The site itself is free but it should cost zillions for all you can get there.) Also feel free to visit my grammar blog where I often dabble in grammar poetry.

If you are a writer and need a kick in the butt or hand holding, you can join one of my writing workshops (I will have a series starting in Illinois in April.) or work with me one-on-one via Skype from ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD!!!!

And finally, new, neW, nEW, NEW,  you can expand your mind all while keeping a duck smiling by perusing (and buying) books from my half.com bookstore.

So many ways to support a Smiling Duck. So little time. Best get on it.

Looking for the Magic

My plan to raise the money to buy my writing studio in Oregon is at best ridiculous and at worst embarrassing. At least that’s what my doubts and recriminations tell me, especially in the middle of the night during one of my mental searches for the “spark.” If you had the misfortune to be in my brain in at one of those moments, you would probably conclude that the only reason to read this blog is to see just when I will give up.

Luckily, you are not in my brain and can escape that particular roller coaster ride. And luckily for me, time and again morning arrives and I rededicate myself to coming up with the words that will inspire people to dream with me, like so much magic potion. (Hmmm. From “spark” to “magic potion” … not exactly sticking with a consistent metaphor here, but you get my point.)

The thing that has me hung up right now is that clearly a number of “early adopters” are on board with the Dollar for a Dream idea. I have the blog hits and a Facebook group to prove it.

Yet, those numbers are not translating into dollars or dreams or both. (Right now I have more than $800 in donations, but that is a small fraction of the apparent support.)  Why? What’s the roadblock? My decidedly unscientific assessment is that people who support DREAMING BIG are getting hung up in one of three places. (That I can come up with right now)

1. Supporting but not giving: These supporters read the blog, join the FB group, send me encouraging emails and generally think it’s a cool idea, but they don’t send the dollar. These are the people I think about at night, and I think about it in fairly clinical terms. What is the thing that will get them to pull out the envelope, stick a dollar in it, address, stamp and mail it? (Should I remind them that they are helping keep the USPS in business?) What is the spark that will propel them to make it all the way through Paypal? (Does a dollar just seem to little to bother with? Would they be more likely to click if it was Ten Dollars for a Dream?) In other words, what is the distance between buy-in and action and how do I inspire people to cross that distance?
2. Giving but not dreaming: These supporter send me a dollar, but when the time comes to send me their dream to post, they slip quietly into the background. From what I hear, they are struggling to “capture” their dream in an image. I get that. But I also think it speaks to an underlying truth: It is not only hard to put your dreams into words and images but also to put them out there for public viewing (even when the majority of the people looking at them don’t know who you are.) Why? Because our dreams are the longings of our hearts. The things we hope “do really do come true.” The dreams posted on the DFD may seem straightforward, but I can tell you that each person has STRUGGLED to be brave enough to put it out there.
3. Watching but squirming: I am guessing at this one based on how I can imagine myself reacting, depending on my mood. These are the folks who are intrigued by the idea. They maybe come back for regular visits, but there is some part of them that is a little annoyed or disgusted by the whole idea. “Great. One more jerk trying to get someone else to pay.”  Like I said, I can think of any number of people I know, myself included on a cynical day, who are wary of posers, scammers, con artists and just plain lazy bums. My thinking on this one, and I am fully willing to admit I am off base, is that there is a part of each of us that wants to believe in dreaming. We are skeptical because we don’t want to be suckered. We don’t want to be stupid. I get it. The only thing I can tell you is that I maybe be desperate, but I am not trying to get something for nothing. In concrete terms, it’s why I remind readers that I maintain a FREE grammar Web site, that I teach writing, that I am a sculptor and a photographer and a haunter of auctions and seller of books — In other words, I am not sitting on my butt waiting for opportunity to come my way. In more abstract terms, I created the Dollar For a Dream blog in hopes that it would become a giant, vibrating ship of dreams. My original premise remains the same: If I can get enough people to join in, enough people to NAME their dreams, I might be able to be part of creating something big and life changing, for me and for everyone who jumps on the bandwagon.

If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it. — William Arthur Ward

So, what do you think? Am I on target? Off base? I would love to hear what you think.

A Purpose-Driven Blog

Today, as I was standing in front of a table holding the tableau of an Illinois life (I was at an auction), I couldn’t help but think about purpose. What was the purpose of all of the animal figurines? The boxes of broken watches? The stacks of random plates? I know the easy answer is that people get attached to their stuff, but what about the deeper meaning? Why keep a box of broken watches? Did they imagine that some day their kids would be selling them at an auction?

Actually, I am not sure that is even what is niggling at me. The thing is, as much as I LOVE the auctions, it makes me a little bummed to watch a family’s history sold off to the highest bidder. (And, no, I don’t think the the bidders are vultures.) I just find it a discouraging that a family is no longer attached to its past, at least in its physical manifestation. Basically, they have gotten to the point that the “stuff” no longer carries enough meaning to outweigh both the desire to be unburdened and the potential income. I understand it, and at the same time, out of context it all becomes just another commodity on the “collector’s” market.

The auction is an unique opportunity in watching a life disperse.

Of course, my struggle with that kind of disappearance is why, as of today, I own two 1800s bibles and a marriage certificate from 1868. ($1) I just couldn’t stand to see them go into the junk pile. It’s the same reason that up in our attic we have a stack of HUGE photographs of the original owners of our 1894 Victorian. I bought them at the auction where the people we bought our house from (the second family to own it) put them up for bid. I refused to let them go to a random antique dealer. They belong with the house.

Back to the point. I am standing at the auction pondering the purpose of stuff, which got me thinking about the purpose of the stuff I carry around, which led me to think about the purpose of what I am doing in my life, which eventually led me to think about my attempts to get home and all the stuff in my parents’ barn. THEN in the midst of it all, I get an email from a friend saying she has been pondering the point of blogs. Which then gets me thinking about the purpose of THIS blog.  I know, a looooooong walk from a box of watches in St. Joe.

I am loathe to wade into the muck that is “What’s the point of blogging?” but I do want to keep in mind that in addition to my desire/need to write about home, the search for connection, dreaming, etc., I am trying to get everyone who reads it to give me a dollar. Maybe because they are entertained a bit or because they appreciate a slightly insane idea or, who the hell knows, because they like one of the verbs I choose.

So, even if I seem to wander a bit from economic impact to Illinois auctions to Facebook, don’t forget the purpose: A Dollar for A Dream.

It's about an exchange

Signs, Signs, Everywhere the Signs …

You are tempted to tell a part of your story in a way that is very different today. You probably shouldn’t keep your vulnerable spots hidden now because if you do, there’s no room for anyone else to connect with you. Get past any false pride and show up in a way that informs others that you are being true to yourself and completely authentic with them.

This is my horoscope from a couple of days ago, another one of those signs I was talking about.

The thing about examining “signs” is that we see them through our limited field of vision. So, even as I ponder its meanings, I run the risk of adjusting it to whatever mission I happen to have in sight.

Right now, my mission, at least on the surface, would appear to be buying eight acres in Oregon and happily running my little writing studio. So, I can read that horoscope and think, “Wow! Maybe I should be more vulnerable in explaining how much it means to me.” (The “it” being the property and teaching and living in Oregon.) With that translation, I must not only dig into what owning the property would mean but also admit that as a seemingly sane adult, I am attached to home in a way that feels a bit overwrought. You want vulnerable, Universe? There it is. I am homesick. Now, THAT makes me a uncomfortable. First of all because I have a pretty strong internal voice telling me not to be a wimp, and second because several times a day I think, “Come on! Get the hell over it. You can teach writing anywhere. Lots of people live where they don’t want to.”

Then I think that maybe I am off the mark, and the lesson is that I need to take another shot at explaining the deep grief I am experiencing about the loss of the Oregon I once knew and my equally intense desire to do SOMETHING to protect it. That, of course, means admitting to myself and everyone else that paradise is no longer paradise. Yes, it would be wonderful to be in Oregon, but make no mistake, the home I left six years ago is gone. The current economic crisis is devastating the Rogue Valley, Portland was just picked by Business Week as the most unhappy city in the U.S. and the meth epidemic continues to ravage the rural communities. Oregon is a mess. But, problems or not, it’s my home and I understand it.

Which then leads to me to consider the possibility that buying the property may not be the mission. Maybe it’s just an outcome. The potential result of a search for a sense of belonging. So, is this a sign that I need to be more vulnerable in expressing how out of my element I feel in the Midwest? At first blush, I find it hard to imagine that I need to talk about that any more, given that I complain incessantly about how much I don’t fit in here. But, again, expressing something is not the point. Being vulnerable is. And complaining is the near enemy of vulnerability.

So what is the vulnerability under the complaint? Why is a blog dedicated to exploring my attempts to raise money to buy property in Oregon, caught up with complaining about living in the Midwest? Part of it is a function of time and place. I am in Illinois right now, which increases my desire to make this work, which increases my propensity to focus on why I DON’T want to live here. But it’s also an effective smoke screen.  I don’t want to admit that I am the problem. When it’s all said and done, the truth is that I am not strong enough for life in the middle of the pond. Try as I might, I lose my sense of the shore, of myself. That’s a pretty bitter pill for a “No Wimps” personality to swallow. It’s easier to complain.

How Long Will I be in Grade School?

Not exactly hard to see why I didn't fit in.

Maybe it is growing up in a house imbued with religion. Maybe it is having a mother who has always put significant stock in her premonitions (and not without reason). Maybe it’s just looking for help in what often feels like an overwhelming world. But I tend to look for signs.

If I see the same message coming at me in different ways, I am likely to stop and consider what it might mean in my own life, try to discern what the universe is trying to tell me.

I have been getting a whole bunch of messages lately about emotional vulnerability and what it takes to really connect.

One of the first arrived via Facebook. Yeah. I know. Facebook. Yesterday’s news. Call me a late-bloomer. I avoided FB when I was teaching at the university because I didn’t want to be bombarded by thousands of students, but once I became a Rogue Scholar , I dove in with enthusiasm.

At first, I was friends with just a few people in Illinois. Ironically, it was the most connected I had felt in almost six years of being here. (I still can’t quite grasp what that says about the University of Illinois community and my place in it, but there you go.)  At any rate, eventually I added some friends and former colleagues from the West Coast, some family and even a few former students. It was all relatively manageable.

Then came high school, or more accurately, a guy my brother went to high school with but I became friends with years later. A great guy. Yippeee FB!!! A lost friendship re-established.

Oops. I forgot that FB friends come with all of their friends. And their friends may be people you would rather not exist for. Suddenly I had friend requests from people I went to grade school with. Damn! I hated grade school. If ever there was an outcast in grade school, I was it. Damn! Damn! Damn! Close the door. Turn off the lights! I am so not home.

Never mind that all of the friend requests were from nice people with whom I associate nice thoughts. They KNOW me, or at least the misfit I have spent the past 40 years reforming. AND, more important, they know those people who tortured me. I have seen their (much older) faces on their friend lists. Seriously, I need to run.

I explained my FB horror to my sister. Her response: “Oh, my God. I literally just got sick to my stomach for you. Defriend them all.”

I told her that even I, who was spun around on the merry-go-round by those friends of friends until I puked, thought it might be a bit juvenile to unfriend seemingly nice people for associating with the adult versions of my childhood misery. She wasn’t convinced.

I told my mom that I was so not liking this FB thing any more. Her response: “I am thinking this is going to be a healing thing for you.”

Ugh! Healing my effing ass, I mutter. But, I don’t get rid of anyone.

And then someone from my actual high school (185 students, 33 in my graduating class) sent me a friend request. He’s the first classmate I have found on Facebook. On one level, I was delighted to see his face pop up on my screen. He’s another great guy, one who seems to have grown into a wonderful man. (Well, except for his posting high school photos of me, but what’s the fun of FB if you can’t tease?)

But on another level, I am wary. Certainly high school was a vast improvement from grade school and middle school, but part of the reason was that I knew no one and no one knew me. I had the room to reinvent myself from misfit to, eventually, valedictorian. But, let’s not forget, I was the only non-Catholic in a Catholic high school. The only one (that I know of ) who came out in college. The only one who would not be allowed to teach there. I have never been back. Not for a basketball game. Not for a reunion. Nothing. Best to keep away from all of that.

Except that no matter where you go, there you are.

And with Facebook, so are your friends. The whole damn lot of them, the ones who knew the grade school misfit, the ones who performed in school plays with the high school nerd, the ones who roamed the streets of San Francisco with the wild one, the ones who embraced the university experience in the classroom or the office down the hall, and the ones who go to church on Sunday with the ex-professor and her partner and two kids. All of them. All gathered in one place.

I’m with my sister. It makes me just a little bit sick to my stomach.

Like I said, the FB incident was the first of several signs that, maybe, just maybe, I have some work to do around vulnerability. I think there are lessons to be learned from how much I am struggling with expressing the urgency I feel about getting home and sharing that with people in a way that inspires them to help. I am not sure what those lessons are yet, but I am looking for clues.

In the next couple of posts I guess I will grapple with the other “vulnerability” signs and see whether things get any clearer.

A Duck out of Water

Battered and Bruised

“Everyone craves authentic interaction.”

When I read that line today on Geekdance.com — a blog about social media and entrepreneurship — I had a reaction that I seem to have a lot lately: An intense desire to fling myself into the streets screaming, “See! I told you so!”

In my imagination, I am screaming at the flock of people I have (I admit unfairly) tagged as so Illinois. It’s a definition that may take several posts to flesh out, but in this instance it would mean the people I have met in east central Illinois who seem genuinely afraid of connection. I know I am being narrow-minded and painting with a wide brush, but really the weather is not the only thing here that is cold.

I imagine my Illinois friends reading that, and I worry. I know from experience that some might be offended and tell me that they are sick of defending Illinois. (Clearly I am not the only one complaining.) But I also know that some might just as likely agree. After all, a woman I have known now for almost six years said to me with great warmth, “I was thinking that you must feel so bad here. I mean, you always greet me with such a big smile and, you know, we Midwesterners, we’re just not like that. We’re just not into the demonstrative thing.”

Not into smiling when you see someone? What am I supposed to do with that?

The thing is, it’s not like the theory of people’s desire for connection is new to me — I taught a version of it to all of my journalism students: People want to tell their stories. — or that I am still surprised to find this part of the country operating in resistance to the theory. So, why did such a big reaction right now?

Part of it, no doubt, can be attributed to the same jarring reorienting I go through every time I return from Oregon to Illinois. And this return, after more than a month away, has been much more teeth rattling in its culture shock than in the past. My latest round of workshops was extremely successful. I connected with the writers I worked with in significant ways, and I was reminded that I am a good editor and teacher and writers transform in my care.

That should be a good thing, right?

Absolutely. And it also brings into sharp relief how in the time I have been in Illinois, I have endured one failure after another in making a social life, building friendships, basically connecting. I have to admit that a contributing factor to my social crash and burn is that I have failed (refused?) to fully accept that “connecting” means different things for different people. Especially when those people are from the Wild, Wild West and the Nice, Polite Midwest.

Instead, I have railed against the reserve of the prairie, insisting either that there is something wrong with them and “true” connection is only possible with my version or that there is something wrong with me and the West Coast version of connection is needy, over-exposed and, well, freaky.

I have come to believe that both perceptions are true, and false. It is true. I can’t connect here. I have given it six years. I have joined every group I can think of, returned to attending church, donated art and time to several local non-profits, hosted more gatherings and parties than I can count and volunteered in the kids’ school (where I spent 1-2 hours every day for a solid year, created a reading promotion video and wrote a grant for one of the kindergarten teachers and STILL never got more than a nod from the principal.) But more important, I would venture to guess that if you asked any one of the other people involved in those activities, they would say they were wonderful and they had a meaningful experience. I was the only one it didn’t work for. You can’t fault the place for that, can you? (Well, I can, but I am trying to be philosophical here.) It is also true that by Midwest standards, West Coast “emotiveness” is downright scary. That doesn’t make me scary. It makes me from the West Coast.

Even as I have come to understand the differences, I have also come to understand that I can’t bridge them. Call it my last and greatest failure in connecting here, if you want to, but I need to go home.

Not because this place is bad, but because this place is bad for me.

Time Passes By

Previous Header

previous header duck

I changed the duck in the header image today. The new duck, like the previous one, lives in my grandmother’s house. In this shot, it is sitting on a plate with some French toast and blueberries.
I suppose it goes without saying that a plate of food is not its regular home. I put it there to get a little more light when I was taking pictures of all of my grandmother’s duck figurines. Who knew she had so many?!?
The French toast is what my mother made for breakfast that Sunday morning. She makes my grandmother breakfast, lunch and dinner every Sunday on my aunt’s day off.

A break for back story

My grandmother (who is actually my step-grandmother but in title only because she has been my grandmother for 45 years) lives in southern Oregon. When my grandfather died three years ago (at 97 years old ) it was clear that my grandmother would need a little extra help to be able to stay in her home. My dad’s sister was looking for a landing pad and a purpose. So, it worked out for both of them.
My aunt has a place to live in the same trailer park and a job. My grandmother has someone to fuss over her several times a day. And my mom, after almost a decade of being on daily parent duty and ultimately being the one to shepherd her dad through his final days, is able to visit daily but does not have to manage the details of cooking and shopping.
Except on Sundays. On Sundays, my mom and dad join grandma in her tiny kitchen and share some version of the whole-grain, organic, free-range meals they eat all week long. And when I am in town, I join them.

Return from back story

I won’t be there tomorrow to share breakfast or to spend time with my grandmother. I am back in Illinois.
When I left her last week, she wagged her finger at me. “You need to come home.”
I told her I was doing my best and tried not to cry.
I remember the last time I left my grandfather. He was always one for getting to the heart of the matter.
“I may not get to see you again, granddaughter” as he patted me on the head. (How is it you can be almost 50 and feel 10?) I didn’t bother to argue. When someone is pushing the century mark, it is a little ridiculous to pretend that they will be around forever.
It was almost a year before he died, but he was right. I didn’t get back again.

The High Cost of a Low Price

Out of Business

Spending money (or not) has consequences. And those consequences are being shown in stark relief by this economic meltdown, and not just in the obscene consumer debt and corporate profit. The closing of the American wallet, among other things, is taking a huge toll on the little, homegrown shops that dot the “old highways” of America. So much so that if and when consumers feel secure enough to begin letting the cash out of our wallets again, we may not have anywhere unique left to spend it. It seems as if the dire warnings from the anti-WalMart contingent are coming to pass. In choosing fast and cheap over slow and local, we have made small businesses so fragile that they simply cannot survive such a dramatic pitch in consumer spending.

Oregon’s Rogue Valley has been on the leading edge of that crashing wave, struggling for what seems like an eternity. Not limited to retail giants Home Depot and Pier 1 and Circuit City, rounds of layoffs and closures have swept locally owned businesses from beverage distributors to music stores from cafes to drugstores. The places that give the individual towns their own special something are being chipped away one (or 10) employees at a time.

Among ones with no room to give: Ashland Artisan Press. At the end of December Don Dedrick III was forced to close the 47-year-old Ashland company. His grandfather started the business. Artisan is not alone and sadly no longer unique, just a telling example of the effects of this mess on both civic and family legacy.

I see my own grandmother’s history being battered. In mid-January, Rogue Valley icon Harry & David laid off 100 workers. Admittedly, H&D is no longer a strictly local operation, but it is still the company where my grandmother ran the “General Files” department until her retirement in the late ’80s and the place where she led me from one “girl’s” desk to the next selling Campfire Girl candy. (Can’t imagine anyone getting away with that kind of pressure today!) And even as the company has grown, the corporate building on Hwy 99 has remained for me a decidedly local example of creating retail FROM the region. (There was a time when that famous Harry and David fruit was picked in Harry and David orchards throughout the Valley.)

What will it mean for us as a nation to lose those ties to community and family? What will be the civic cost in terms of identity and sense of pride? Everything seems so damn complicated. The list of home foreclosures printed in the local paper is so dense and continues for so many pages that I find myself caught between wondering whether the cost of the ads is keeping the paper afloat or whether the endless gray text is driving away even more readers. I read the names and wonder, “How long did these people own their homes? Are their troubles the result of buying too big for too much money or are they one of the thousands of people laid off in the Valley in the past year? Does it matter really? After all, it is still home.

And that is the bottom line. It’s home. My home. And I am determined to get back there for and create a business with a deep connection to that local, uniquely Southern Oregon experience.

With your help, I can make it happen. Go ahead, send me that dollar.

The Times They Are A-Changin’

When I was a kid growing up in the Rogue Valley, I was expected to walk to school every day. It was (in my mind at least because I was not one to argue too much with my parents) a point of contention. When I did complain about walking, my mother made the case that each us (my three siblings and I) were more than capable of walking six blocks and that kids should be required to do what they were capable of doing. Self-reliance was an attribute worth pursuing, my parents taught us, but it should be measured, not without social connection. As the odd kid, struggling to find a balance between claiming my independence and avoiding the misery of “the social,” I found the path to school (and the path to self-reliance for that matter) fraught with admittedly a lot more uphill climbs than downhill coasting.

There were points of success — being chosen as a crossing guard complete with orange belt and flag — but more points of struggle, like, oh all of sixth grade, ruled by mean girls and dismissive boys, a nerdly vocabulary that had the not-too-surprising effect of making me a pariah, junior high P.E. that added locker rooms to the mean girls’ arsenal of torture arenas and a social awkwardness that left me standing on the outside more often than not.

And while I struggled and floundered, ultimately, those experiences, rather than making me more determined to shelter children from childhoods bumps and bruises, put me more firmly in my parents’ camp (ala Bob Dylan): “Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone.”

So what does all this mean in the context of this blog and my efforts to buy the land where I teach? In all honesty, I am not really sure. I just know that the same verse that followed me around as a kid has been strumming in my head for the past couple of days:

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’.

Help me grab this chance. Send me that dollar.