zest

zest
a hint of it
flavors a cupcake
so moist it melts in your mouth;
having another
would taint the moment:
w/o that citrus, you'd have 2:
not enough of a good thing

lemon 2

i bit into a lemon today
and found my reflection...
thick-skinned
scarred
labeled
Lemon : Woman
#4053 : statistic
Chile : Alleyway
shocking
layered

Words

3-dimensional: they peek out thru walls
bring out miraculous shapes from (non)ordinary things
solidify the average man as Hero
look lovelier w/age
permit viewers to be honorary guests
paint just enough: there's music in blends & morphemes, in syllables & lines
elate, enrapture just by being made

Monga Drove the Half-Circle

My best friend Tami and I stood at the bus stop ruing our lame academic destiny. It was totally bogus to have to go to school: most of the teachers were clueless, and most of the kids were assholes. So, we decided to ditch our books under some bushes down the block and skip school.

Tami and I strolled silently for a few minutes before we realized that we had nowhere to go, nothing to do. We lived up in the orchards--all the shopping and stuff was downtown. Walking by the back of McGhee Elementary School, we were discussing this dilemma when a familiar brown van manifested in the horizon. It was Monga dropping my sister Jessi off at school! Why hadn't I thought of that?!

"Shit, it's my grandma!"
"Whadda we do?"
"Let's run. Maybe she didn't see us."

We took off, blindly running to away-from-Monga. Monga honked her horn, but Tami and I kept on running. We ran our way into a culdesac. Trapped.

Monga screeched her brakes beside us, leaned across the passenger seat and flung open the door.

"Get in you two." We climbed into the van. "Just what do you think you're doing?"

"We missed the bus," I lied. "We ran cuz we thought you'd think we were skipping school."

Monga drove the half circle it took to exit the culdesac and re-routed the van toward Sacajawea Jr. High. There was total silence in the van. My baby sister Dani wasn't even kicking the back of my seat. After a few minutes, Monga told Tami and I that we had to tell our parents that we'd tried to skip school, and that if we didn't say something, she would. She dropped us off at school. We earned our unexcused absences.

That evening, I sat in Monga's living room waiting for Mom to get off work and take me and my sisters home. There wasn't enough noise or activity on the TV to drown out my racing thoughts of "How am I gonna tell Mom".

When Mom came in, Jessi and Dani ran to greet her, talking a mile a minute about their days. I stood watching them while Monga stood watching me. "Tell her. Now.", her piercing eyes and tightened lips told me. I pleaded with all the pleading my teen eyes could muster.

Somewhere in there, Mom and the kids had gotten all belongings gathered and were headed out the door. "I can't tell her", I whispered to Monga before I left.

15 years or so later, at Christmas, I told my Mom this story, sure that she'd known all along.

Monga had never told her.

lemon

Bite carefully: tender, shocking layers to explore

Waiting

I'd asked Monga to come have lunch with me at school the day before, so I told my teacher I'd have a guest today. He put me down for one more. I'd watched several of my peers eat from plastic trays the treasured Friday meal: spaghetti and homemade cinnamon roll. I wanted Monga and I to be a part of the cult of kids whose hip adult figures laughed with them at long cafeteria tables. I wanted Monga's insignia on a disposable carton of milk.

All morning, looking forward to being seen with Monga at lunch replaced math concepts, spelling words, volcano facts. During recess, I bragged about my upcoming lunchtime visitor.

Finally it was time to line up at the door for lunch. I marched silently with hands to myself down the hallway to the "cafeteria lady". My eyes were open wide, so as not to miss Monga in the crowd and keep her waiting.

She wasn't here yet, so I stepped aside and waited against the wall. Occasionally, a teacher would join me on the wall and ask if I was going to eat lunch. "I'm waiting for my grandma", I'd say, "She's having lunch with me today".

The bell rang. Lunch and recess lapsed. It was time to return to class.

I went into the bathroom and waited for the second bell to ring. I counted to 30. I wanted to make sure enough time had passed--wanted to make sure I'd given my teacher enough time to move on. I didn't want anyone to know I'd spent my entire lunch standing against a wall waiting for someone.

29...30...

I pushed open the bathroom door. Looked both ways. No one coming.

So, I started my journey back to the classroom I'd marched from. I tried to walk softly. I didn't want anyone to hear my backsteps. When I walked into the room, everyone turned. "You're late. Where've you been?" my teacher asked. "The bathroom", I said, and completed my trek from the wall by sitting at my desk, picking up my pencil.

At 3:30, I avoided my usual route home, not wanting anyone to walk beside me and ask what happened with my grandma not showing up for lunch.

When I got to Monga’s, I asked her what happened--why she hadn’t shown up. She responded by tightening her lip and going into the kitchen for a glass of grape juice.

Where I'm From- digital

When I am Listened To

When I am listened to, it's a flower being re-potted after sitting in a dry bed at Walmart's nursery
When I am listened to, sometimes I can barely contain all that wants to be heard
When I am listened to, my skin is less touchy and more touchable
When I am listened to, it's easier to imagine doing things like getting out of bed in the morning, taking a shower, actually opening my mail
When I am listened to, the point to smiling at people on the street seems easier to find
When I am listened to, my writing glows and pulsates
When I am listened to, I'm wrapped and safe
When I am listened to, sand is warm and massaging: less like grit between my toes
When I am listened to, I marvel at my voice
When I am listened to, even on overcast days I can feel the sun
When I am listened to, seeing myself in another's eyes doesn't burn
When I am listened to, I sing in the shower
When I am listened to, sleep and dreams are lovers

Teaching Philosophy

A Vibrant Community of Learners

In a vibrant community of learners
there lives:
transparency
safety
respect
a tangible atmosphere of
celebrating one another's uniqueness of
everyone has a Voice

personal interests are accepted
various learning styles embraced

expandable boundary lines are drawn for
exploration of independence

writing is active reading and
peer-to-peer reflective

laughter is paramount: without giggle lines
there are no maps of our journeys

pride is taken in our work--
including our mistakes

In a vibrant community of learners
there live:
ideas, thoughts, mis-thoughts, and reflection
In a vibrant community of learners
there lives:
dynamic growth

To Tell Who Said It

"Dyke!"
"Are you a boy or a girl?"
I walk between buildings in my business attire
with my power stride and
straight-ahead stare
"Chin hair!"
"Bitch!"
There's no way to tell who said it
It's a mob of them:
15-year-old boys in jeans belted below their asses and
baseball caps askew
This isn't the first time
so I clutch my binder like a
Roman soldier his shield, and
hope with tight shoulders that I'm not
stoned to death by the
years of verbal schrapnel

"If you fuck me, I'll be your friend..."
"You always do what you're told?"
I'm empowered. I'm not s'posed to allow this
I'm not that little girl anymore

So,
I hide in the teacher's lounge restroom, throw
cold water on my face
I report what I call abuse and
face the crowds
They're told, "Don't talk like that; it
isn't nice" and "Say you're sorry"
But it doesn't matter what they say
Their smirks say more

"Dyke!"
"Chin hair!"
"Bitch!"

I ended the year running to my car,
driving off to Vegas and
not looking back

Next year, they'll be gone

But I won't

Nor will their voices

They echo on in my head, reverberate from
mind to heart to stomach and back
And they repeat thru the years like
a water cycle out
the mouths of generations

Symphony

Stream making its perpetual marks on rocks & soil--

You can feel how cold it is by the wind that

Moves over the water's surface and carries

Pleasant chill to your face.

How many rhythms the birds explore with

Overtones of freedom and grace!

Now with such displays of syncopation

You notice the shrubs rustling against your calf!

Black Cadillac

Monga drove (and treasured more than she did some people or even her diamond rings) a black '78 Cadillac Eldorado with white-walled tires, black leather interior, 8-track player, power everything, sunroof.

She was in love with a man not her husband who lived in Spokane. Frequently, we'd drive up there to see him--my Grandpa Lucky (his real name was Bruce. I don't even dare ask how he got the nickname)--my mom's dad. In the summer on these trips, Monga would open the sunroof and let us wave our hands in the air to "Jailhouse Rock". When we got older, we'd take off our shoes and stick our naked toes out into the wind.

Monga always "joked" that when she died, she wanted buried in the Cadillac--fill in the pool with dirt, her, and the Cadillac.

While Monga sat in the nursing home forgetting how to talk and eat, the Cadillac was sold and the pool removed; including the concrete framing the pool that held my infant handprint.

[handprint]
Jodie Anne
1974

Put Your Feet Down and Stand Up

Monga was in the shallow end of her swimming pool trying to climb onto an inner tube. She managed to get mostly on when suddenly but slowly, her eyes bugged, her arms flailed...you could hear the squeak of her bare limbs against the wet rubber of the inner tube as it flipped upside down.

Mom and I (we'd been batting a beach ball back and forth) stood there laughing and watched for Monga to pop up. She didn't.

Mom, still chuckling, moved the inner tube so it wasn't looming over Monga's head. I tried to grab Monga's hand and pull her up, but she scratched me and hit my hand out of the way. My freshly torn skin stung in the chlorinated water. Monga was panicking. She really thought the water was going to swallow her! All she had to do was put her feet down and stand up. But what she was doing was kicking (slipping) and waving her arms around (splashing Mom and I in the face).

I rolled my eyes. This is so like Monga. She lived her life this way: frantically grappling for a way to stay afloat, though she was safe and breathing just fine. I went underwater. I grabbed Monga under her armpits and pulled her up out of the water. "Stand up!" mom yelled. I was holding Monga up, but her feet were still slipping around. She kicked my shin; I had to let her go to get my own feet under me. Then, determined, I pulled up on her again. "Put your feet down, Mom!" my mother yelled right in Monga's face. Eventually, she did--sputtering, her eyes still bugged out. It took a few minutes for Monga to believe she was okay. Then, she climbed the ladder out of the pool and never got back in it.

My family remembers this moment every summer as we play in the pool. Monga's is now gone, but this year my sister Jessi had one put in her backyard.

"All she had to do was put her feet down and stand up," we say, shaking our heads.

It's so true.

What She Could Do

Shuffle-ball-change in
the kitchen. Dance
on roller skates. Spin cookies
in empty lots, banter for sport (or blood) with
the best of 'em

Listen endlessly to
Elvis Boy, can he sing! Cry
over Hank Williams. Whistle to
her own tune,
mock you to tears and laugh

Pipe and flower wedding cakes. Master
recipes. Break wooden spoons over
backs of brats, take in
lost-and-broken sons, daughters,
grandkids

(nearly) Drown in
the shallow end. Win at
Scrabble. Lose at
pickles in whiffle ball,
conquer breast cancer (but not her own mind)

Thanks to Elizabeth Holmes

Where the Airplane Now Is

At the airport, there's an old fighter plane on a pedestal, pointing towards the sky that, as a child, I'd throw rocks at or look waaaaay up there and imagine a man flying. Where that plane is, used to be a house. And in that house is where my Mom spent the first years of her life.

Mom says she can remember when none of these houses were here--it was all wheat fields and orchards of apples and cherries (that's why this area of Lewiston is still called "up in the orchards"). She, with her older brother Ray and younger sister Debbie and best friend Janice, would play hide and seek in the tall weeds for hours.

Janice was a bossy protector: a year older, quite a bit taller and heavier than my mom. She was always trying to diet. Mom remembers: "She had dishwater blonde hair, red cheeks and tiny, red bumps on her skin (she always had cracked heels and ingrown toenails). She had a slight speech impediment...she couldn't say her 'r' correctly...kind of like Bostonites." Janice was the daughter of Monga's best friends Don and Rita Sumpter, a married couple who lived down the way.

Whenever we look at old family photos, Mom talks about growing up in the house where the airplane is. How Monga and Rita did everything together. Monga would cross (what's now an airport and a few houses) to Rita's place to can peaches, bake pies, and laugh.

The Sumpter household was a comfortable, 'Leave it to Beaver'ish kind of place. Don and Rita showed affection, and did things with their kids (vacations and camping). Mom remembers, "There wasn't all the fighting and dysfunction that was felt in our house".

There's a photo of Monga--her dark, curly hair (it had probably been in rollers all night)pulled glamorously back from her face, affected by a slight breeze. She's holding a puppy, looking down at it with an amused smile. Monga's waist is tiny, defined by a white blouse that's tucked into a hugging dark skirt. She looks like a movie star. You can see through the black and white picture to the red of her perfectly lined lips. Monga's vibrancy blurs the house and trees in the background. She could be Jackie O. or Judy Garland.

In this picture, everything's youthful. Monga's frozen in a moment of what looks like true happiness.

This photograph always makes me wonder what happened to bring about such an expression in Monga, and what happened that wouldn't let it stay...

Eventually, the Sumpters moved away. Monga turned inward and took with her: youthfulness, spontaneity, and the freedom to smile.

The plane is propped there, pointing towards the sky.

This Obstacle Rocks

Obstacles appear bold: masterpieces of your potential failure

They glimmer in mockery of your goals
(the opposite of that beautiful rock you
found in the creek & pocketed to
remember the trip by to
bring you back to
that moment of peace & relaxation that
even when it dried & was dull made you smile).

Obstacles are sharp, jagged
large, round, or square
or shapeless
but their intensity dulls once you're past them:
what was glaring at you is just staring in
awe that you dared make it past-- & they're
staring with dull eyes.

Or...
if you choose...

Obstacles aren't mean & scary at all:
they're the rocks you'll pocket to
remember a moment by.

a jet flies overhead

a jet flies overhead
its engine echoes through clouds
across grasses hiding the tiny world of ants and beetles
above and beyond the much-too-large world of
people and their steel
(which becomes small anyway with the climbing of the plane
and IS small anyway with eternity all around)
a jet flies overhead
taking a part of me with it--sigh--if i
could see how
miniscule
fears
are
from a cloud's view,
if i could see how grain-of-sand
how microscopic (like the ant whose muscles strain under a crumb of bread)
if i could ride the sound waves
of that jet
what could i Know about
the value, the art of breathing

Monga and her damned keys!

Monga had this way of jangling her keys that told everyone "I am not at ease around you", even when everyone was someone she loved and had begged to spend just a cup of coffee with her at one time or another. And if wasn't her keys, it was her rings-- the 3 or 4 she wore on each finger (and thumb) of both hands. She stood (never sat) and clinked the gold that hugged her fingers...Did it remind her she was here, or did it take us out?

She never removed her coat. Indoors for several hours and there she stood, in the corner of the room-- keys jangling in one hand, rings clinking on the other (all those pure gold diamond rings that had become, in a way, her best friend), and her coat on-- zipped up even. Was she keeping herself held in tightly (like the rings enveloping her perfectly manicured hands)? Or was she keeping us out?

It always felt like we were being held at bay, but held on command for on-call purposes, should some sort of breakdown occur. We were not expecting any kind of meltdown, because, for us, seeing you in the corner that way at every social gathering was the fracture.

from letter to "story", regarding Monga

Dear Monga,
Remember when I emailed you that I couldn't afford rent for my apartment and had to move out? I didn't know what to do next. You said I could move in with you. So, I did. The next day. You watched as I moved heavy boxes of books into the basement. "That's too heavy for you", you said over and over as I ignored you and kept going. I think you and I both knew that I didn't want to move into your house, but that I was grateful to you for taking me in. But, just in case you weren't aware of my gratitude...Thank you for taking me in.
Love,
Jodie Anne


I was still recovering from the flu when I shut the door to my apartment and read the eviction notice posted there. Options of where to go, what to do, raced through my mind. I coughed, blew my nose and cried. Monga was my only real option. I used the 3-block walk to campus to gear myself up for the begging she'd wring out of me. Her "yes" would be waiting for just the right dramatic moment. And then: "I supPOSE. If you have nowhere ELSE to go." Translation: "I'm so lonely and have always wanted all you kids with me, anyway. Of COURSE you can live here! Stay for the rest of your life!"

After class, I got online to see if Monga and I could chat through instant messaging. This seemed easier than hearing her voice. I could skim the difficult parts. The next day, I was moving in.

Monga watched as I lugged heavy boxes of books to the basement where I'd be staying (the window-less dungeon). "That's too heavy for you", she'd say, hands on hips, supervising. At one point, I hauled a dresser down those 13 stairs: walking sideways and pulling the dresser, letting it thunk emphatically at each step-- my punctuation to ANOTHER "That's too heavy for you".

I don't think I said a word until I was completely finished. I sat panting on the couch in the living room. Monga came in with a glass of water for me, and a tissue (my nose was dripping and I couldn't stop sneezing). "You shouldn't have done all that yourself." I refrained from blunt sarcasms like, You obviously weren't gonna help me. "It's amazing what you can do when you have to," I said.

Monga sank into her recliner and picked up the crossword puzzle book. "I suppose."

I sat there sipping my water, ruing my new home (its loaded past and stifling secrets). "Thanks for the water," I said. "Well, I'm glad SOMEbody appreciates me around here," Monga said, solving a clue in her puzzle.

Writer's Marathon poem

seagulls own the sky-- even
right up to the point that it
touches water: where its
reflection lies;
and there,
the seagulls dip their toes or their
beaks into the cool divining
line,
are shocked & delighted by how
this feels,
& return to the vast freedom
of currents that carry you
or you ride like roller coasters,
to where rest & risk are safe

Where I'm From

I am from fridge with no handle and 70's orange shag
I am from three houses built by grandpa's hands

I am from the walnut tree
The ammo that fell from that tree
whose long gone limbs for climbing I remember
as if they were my own.

I'm from German potato pancakes and scalding sarcasm
from Monga and mother
I'm from poolside water fights and disown-you fights
and from secrecy

I'm from You think you're so cute and What's so funny?
and Anyone can leave you, but you always have your family
I'm from black licorice ice cream cones dripping down baby bellies
I'm from 425 Airway Avenue and never beyond 10 blocks from there
home-made mac & cheese and Stove Top stuffing
From Monga talking her way out of tickets
squealing her tires and calling it an accident
the angel & star Mom and I hung on our first Christmas tree
kept in a box to be brought out, and hung again together 32 times now

I'm from the generations of photos we sorted after forgetting took Monga's final breath:

Well, I'm glad SOMEbody appreciates me