My Curriculum Vitae....as I see it....

In my Senior English class, we are starting to read Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer.  The book is about the journey of one young man, Chris McCandless, into the wilderness of Alaska.  One of the tasks, prior to reading, that we ask of the students to do is to write a curriculum vitae.  I felt that the assignment was important enough that I gave them my own personal curriculum vitae.


1) Born in rural Missouri, head first almost arriving before the doctor.

2) My birth year saw a “Purple Haze” of the Hendrix’s kind; Oscar was “A Man for All Seasons;" and PBS was born.

3) My father walked high on steel beams across the Gateway to the West.

4) We moved East to The Bay State, the place of my father’s childhood.

5) We returned to the State of Misery

6) My 5th birthday party, my kindergarten class mates were invited but no one came.

7) Sundays were filled with sounds of an arm-chair football coach for Cardinals and their giants, Dierdorf and Hart. but the Steelers of Pittsburgh with Bradshaw and Swan were supreme.

8) After 2nd grade, another house, a new school, no friends

9) 4th Grade saw the arrival of the Fat Fairy and Mr. Alcorn that made a little girl who loved school, hate school.

9) After 4th Grade, moved to the house of my inheritance. New school … now parochial not public. Superficial friendships.

10) My father often slept at the kitchen table or on the back porch in his lawn chair induced by the intake of Budweiser. There were arguments...threats to leave.

11) We traveled to Iran, “to where???” many said….to return 6 months later because of a revolution, Islam, and Khomeini to questions of “where did you go?” “Iran” “Oh, my, there????”

12) 8th grade came with the Big C….Cancer that is. Innocence is ripped away, a little girl skips being a teenager and is forced into adulthood.

13) Her body becomes the canvas for insurance paid tattoos. The burn of 3300 RADs of radiation a day, 5 days a week 4 weeks long. The stares, mostly from adults. The smells, the burn, the ice, the vomit….all chemo, 2 times a month for 6 months. NO PIZZA! How will a 13 year old live!

14) 1985, She knew Stacy’s mom but not the one that they sang about. College, away from home, to the land of Sycamore Trees. Anti-sorority socority girl…..sisters were made for life.

15) 1991, first year of teaching….not much older than her students. She learned from them more than they probably learned from her. 24 years later, they are some of her true and best friends.

16) 1997, she married at 30 to a man and his son. 1998, she adopted her oldest son. 1999, she gave birth to her son, a toddler size blessing.

17) 2001, 9-11 A marriage starts to be enveloped in mental illness, verbal and emotional abuse, the strength of the girl that became a woman was slowly dismantled. 2007, The Big C comes again.

18) 2008, her world was rocked to the core with the KIA of a former student and the daddy’s girl lost her daddy on this earth to her Father in Heaven… 2 guardian angels she knows they were made..

19) 2012, the marriage implodes...she realizes that she is dead to herself, her family, her friends, her students. She says it is time to bury the marriage and heal.

20) November 2012, her Destiny becomes her Forever 16 Guardian Angel...her heart is broken, her son’s heart is broken, it was so dark, so desolate, there was no light.

21) Her world continue to spiral until one day, she saw light…..faint light….but the little girl….that skipped her adolescence….the woman she was slowly emerged…

22) Today, the light is bright. She is perfectly imperfect.

Walls

Walls .... the purpose of Walls?  What are they made of?  You are probably thinking, "Really? The purpose of walls is simple." Then you start to think, maybe it isn't so simple.   Or you do think they are simple but are continuing to read this because you are curious about what I am getting at.  It really isn't all that simple, even when you are only talking about actual physical walls.  I think we can all agree that walls create rooms which are then typically part of a structure of some kind.   But then, if you are say someone that is working on the 150+ year old home she grew up in and plan to live in again, you being to look and realize at these walls simply do not just create rooms and those rooms create structures.  First there is are load bearing walls and non-load bearing walls.  Then there are walls created to retain things.   There of course is the wall that has been listed as one of the 7 wonders of the world, The Great Wall of China.   There then is the challenge as to the type of materials used to make a wall.  In the particular case of the 150+ year old house, they are hand pressed bricks.  They are fired but not fired to the degree in which we know bricks to be fired today.  Today's brick is not a living brick.  Hang in there with me and you will understand and no, this is not the use of personification.  Brick of 150+ years ago was, as I have discovered, a "living" brick.  Here is why I call it a "living" brick.  The brick use is a brick that breathes with the temperature.  A scientist would say that they contract and expand, but to the lay person (ie...me), they breathe.  If it breathes then it is "living."  Then there is the mortar.  You know that stuff that is used to keep the brick in place.  Today's mortar is made of cement (Portland Cement to be exact).  What happens when cement dries or cures?  It hardens.  You no longer have the ability to mold it.  In a sense, it stops breathing.  The mortar used 150+ years ago, was made of limestone.  When limestone hardens, no we can not continue to manipulate it or mold it, but like the brick it surrounds, cushions, it breathes. It is a substance that is slightly less hard than the brick that it surrounds.  They breathe (contract and expand) together.  When the brick of 150+ years ago meets the mortar of today (the Portland Cement)), the ability to live and to breathe is no longer possible for the brick.  They begin to fracture.  Their faces break off.  Parts of the brick even fall out.  Moisture becomes trapped in them causing more damage because they simply cannot breathe.  The limestone mortar used also has a very unique characteristic, it denigrates...turns to powder ... when it is no longer useful.  Meaning, when it can no longer breathe to allow the bricks to breathe, it dies.Those are physical walls.

As part of my journey to find Miss Marjorie, I have discovered the walls that I have put up are very, very thick.  My walls are thick like that of the house I am working on.  During the time the house was built, the walls were built two bricks deep. The mortar that holds the bricks of my walls together to create my walls are the experiences of my life.  I examine my walls periodically for structural concerns.  That meaning, are they holding strong?  Are they impenetrable?  My walls are there for a reason, to protect a heart that I used to wear on my sleeve.  Sitting behind these walls, nursing this heart back to health has been an amazing journey.  As I have said before, it is my path less traveled and I am all the better for it.  I have learned to ask questions first, not later.  I have learned that I am stronger than I thought.  But I think that the biggest lesson that I have learned is that I deserve to be taken care of the way that I take care of others.  The way that I inspect the walls of my mother's house.  I tap on the mortar carefully with a chisel, brush out the dust, and replace the mortar with the appropriate mixture.  I have run my hands down the walls and have talked to her in an attempt to comfort her as she grows older.  Grows older alone.  I realize that the house's heart is the same as mine.  That both of us deserve to shine.  Both of us deserve to be loved by someone the same way in which we love them. That we owe it to ourselves to love ourselves the way in which we love others.

I have come to embrace that God brings people in and out of my life for a purpose.  It is not always clear to me as why.  Is there something that I should be doing for them?  Them for me?  In the past three years that I have  been on this journey, I continue to encounter individuals that are in places in their lives where they question their self worth; question if they have done something to deserve the situation that they are in; question if they are strong enough to push back....I find myself sitting with them, dissecting the situation much like I have dissected the old house.  Much like I have dissected myself.  I find myself looking back on my journey and seeing just how far I have come.  That having chose the path and headed out on it on my own,,,I can look back and see that along the way, I was supposed to walk certain portions of it alone.  As I have moved along, there are people that have joined me.  They have either lifted me up or have picked me up.  Some of put me back into my place where I belong.  I have shared details of my path with some in more detail than I choose to go into here and I am met with the same response and I reply with the same, "It is my path to walk and God will take me through it.  I have put my faith in him and I have gotten this far."

Is there light at the end of the path?  I cannot tell you.  I have stopped looking ahead and I have stopped looking back.  I am taking it one day at a time.  I am learning still.  I am protecting this heart, like I am protecting the house.  This heart knows what it wants, what it deserves, what it needs...What I also know, is that I am the one responsible for all of it.  My walls have a purpose and like limestone mortar that disintegrates when it's life span has exhausted itself; when the time is right, my walls will come down.  I can tell you that the person that gets through them, will be amazing and deserving of all that I protect behind those walls.