Organization is Good for the Soul

My sister lost her husband last week and we are going to Minnesota for his memorial this weekend. He wanted Glenda to have an informal gathering of friends and family at their house to remember, laugh, and cry.

Yesterday, she e-mailed me and the other two sisters a long 'to do' list. It is full of things like "rent tables and chairs", and "clean the patio". I was very relieved to get this list. I've been spending the week since my last conversation with John feeling his loss, but not knowing what to do about it. Glenda's list helped give me "little chores", as Mother used to call them, to help focus my grief.

It reminded me of the days after Mother died. Each evening we four girls would gather at the kitchen table and go through our 'to do' lists. We took comfort in the busy-ness of cleaning, writing thank you notes, making phone calls.

As I reflect on this, I think we react to grief in this way for several reasons. One being that we have the good old protestant work ethic that makes us want everything just right for our guests. But deeper than that, I think we need these chores because they are something over which we have control. We can make decisions about how the chores will be completed and we can see that they are completed on our schedules. These situations follow a time period where we had no control. Sickness and Death pay no attention to our schedules or decisions. We are swept along into the world of dying with few options, none of them pleasant. We need the 'to do' lists to help us regain some semblance of control. And control has always been a pretty big issue with the women in my family.

Thank you, Glenda, for sending the list. And a special thank you to Tori and Royce who will be the List Czarinas. I, for one, am grateful for this way to channel my grief and regain some control.

Stretch,
Jo

Stretch?

Jason asked why I write Stretch at the end of my posts. It is just my sign-off, like Walter Cronkites', "And that's the way it is." or Tracy Ullman's, "Go Home!" Stretching is good for body, soul and mind. Stretching keeps our muscles younger and when we stretch our minds to really consider what others say and how they feel, we become better people, I think. So STRETCH means just that. STRETCH!

My family lost a member Sunday morning who helped teach all of us to stretch. My brother-in- law John passed away. I met John when I was in seventh grade. He was as opposite from me as anyone I'd ever met. He stretched my mind by helping to introduce me to Chinese food, Asian art, Car Talk and Mozart. He gave me my first driving lesson. He accompanied me on the piano and coached me as I learned my solo for UIL contest. He showed me shiatsu. He taught Jack card games and talked football with him. He stretched my faith by challenging me to think about what I really believe and why I believe it.

My life is richer due to the directions John helped me stretch. I'm grateful.

Stretch,
Jo

Today I saw another “Best Books Ever Written” list. This latest list was from one of the editorialists at NPR. He limited his list to The Best 100 Books of the 20th Century. Embarrassingly, I’ve only read eleven titles on his list. Goodreads, a social networking site for readers also has a list. I’ve read many more of them. Project Gutenberg, a collection of electronic books has several best book lists available, too. You might enjoy some of the lists. Just click to get to them.

I use all these lists to help make purchasing decisions for my library, help recommend books to patrons and to help build my own “need to read” list. Some titles appear on many of the lists, but none of the lists are exactly alike. Literature is, after all, a matter of taste.

Since I know you are all eagerly awaiting my list of favorites, I’ll share it. Tomorrow night my list might be different. These, though, are books that come to mind right now that I enjoyed or that made me think. Some of them even changed my life. Let me hear yours, too.

Stretch,
Jo

MY TEN FAVORITE BOOKS THAT COME TO MIND RIGHT NOW

SOMEWHAT IN ORDER BY FAVORITE

• Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (It's a good thing my children were girls because I would have named boys Augustus and Capt'n Call)
• Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (Students read her The Bean Trees in English class, but I think Poisonwood Bible is her masterpiece)
• The Believers by Janice Holt Giles (I read it the first time in seventh grade and I love it more every time I read it.)
• The Good Old Boys by Elmer Kelton (I've known men like the main character. The best and worst of manhood and the American West.)
• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (I don't know if I'd feel the same way if I read it today, but it changed the way I looked at the world.)
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (A really, really great book about friendship, regret and responsibility.)
• One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest by Ken Kesey (The movie is good, but the book rocks.)
• Shane by Jack Schaefer (The ulitimate western novel. Every Hollywood gunfighter owes his existence to Shane.)
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (She may have only had one book in her, but it was a great one.)
• Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (One of the only books I actually got spooky scared as I was reading it.)

Bluebonnets! One of the things I love about being Texan.

Other Texas things I love:
BarBQ
Small towns
The Wind
Sunsets
Dairy Queens
Big Tex
Drill Teams and Twirlers
Helpful Neighbors
UIL
Mexican Food (mostly Margaritas)

What do you love about being from where ever you are from?

A special thanks to the nice neighbor who didn't call the police when I went in his yard to take this picture.

Stretch,
Jo

Kudos to Teachers!

I just taught four classes today. I told the students in the first three classes how to find literary criticism on Oedipus, Hamlet, and Glass Menagerie for papers they are writing for college English Composition II. I talked for about forty minutes in each of the three classes about using the catalog and databases. The fourth class was on using the internet efficiently. You know, the class where I teach students that "Wikipedia is the devil's workshop!" (Just kidding.) I teach classes often but it is pretty rare I have four scheduled in one day. I am exhausted.

How do elementary teachers stay "on" all day long? They never get to relax. I begin to lose my "teacher voice" after class two and my feet hurt in the middle of class three. I would think that every muscle in an elementary teacher's body, including their voice, must be absolutely worn out at the end of each day.

How do jr. high teachers deal with the adolescent eye rolls and apathy? I quickly develop a profound dislike for students who display a, "This is beneath me" attitude. I would imagine that is a specialty of seventh and eighth graders.

How do high school teachers teach the same material six times in a day? Don't they forget what they have said? By my last class I wasn't sure if I was repeating myself to this group or just remembered having said it to the 2:00 class.

How do college teachers remember students' names? I've always been glad my co-workers wear name tags or I'd have to call them all sir and ma'm. There is no way I could remember all the students' names if I taught four sections with fifty students each and only saw them a few hours each week.

Though it doesn't sound like it, I really like the teaching portion of my job. It is a nice combination of performance and scholarship. However, days like today make me very grateful for the days I get to sit at my desk and buy books with tax payers' money. I send a hearty and heart felt THANK YOU to all of you who have dedicated yourselves to teaching all day, every day so I don't have to.

Stretch,
Jo

Home Is Where Your Heart Is

I have a nephew who has just left for the Virgin Islands to work for a few months. Another nephew is moving with his wife to Honduras soon to work for an NGO. Yet another nephew is thinking he will probably go to college in Liverpool, England. I have a niece who lives in New York City even though she has no blood related family nearby. One of my good friends has a niece who plans to move her family to Africa in the next few years. Another young couple with whom I am acquainted has already done a tour with the Peace Corps in Africa and has had another job in Costa Rica.

I am perplexed by, yet envious of, these twenty-and-thirty- somethings who are so brave and who are willing to step off into adventures without the security of extended family or childhood friends. For heaven’s sake, I was so homesick and lonely when I went to Abilene to go to college that I came back and finished college in Canyon, where I grew up. And they almost speak the same language in Abilene as in Canyon! Then it took me two years to get over the trauma of moving from Amarillo to Fort Worth and I was thirty and had two kids by the time that happened. As I was growing up I barely knew anyone who had traveled overseas, much less lived there.

Young people have a very different relationship to the world than my generation had. They feel a global responsibility that never occurred to me. They have created circles of friends and surrogate families which provide support and care. They also provide support and care not only to their circle of friends, but to a great many strangers. They feel genuine concern about the citizens of the world. My concerns when I was thirty involved how many square feet could our mortgage provide and where would I find a good hairdresser in the new neighborhood. These young heroes are maintaining power grids, planting trees in deserts, teaching the poor and healing the sick.

Many other young relatives I haven’t mentioned are staying closer to home and family and have chosen careers of community service. They have taken on responsibility for parents, family and community far beyond their years. I am so very proud to know these men and women. I have great hope for our communities, our nation and our world as their generation assumes the seats of power.

God Bless Them All.

Stretch,
Jo

A Season of Lasts

As I sit here at work (I didn't take a lunch hour so I don't feel too guilty writing this on company time) Angie is playing what will probably be her last high school soccer game. Jack has called a couple times with updates. The Lady Raiders are behind 2 to 0 and it is killing me not to be there. However, it is probably for the best. I know I would stand in the bleachers and bawl. Not because they may lose, but because I'll never get to watch Angie play soccer again. I've been watching her play soccer since she was 4 years old. She insisted on having number 4 on her first jersey because she was 4. That was her number for years. As she grew, she was never the star, but she was always a solid, contributing team member. She took it more seriously than most but not too seriously like some. It was a good activity for her. I'm sad to see it end.

We've had lots of "lasts" this year; last cross country meet, last Youth in Government trial, buying the last formal for a dance, last Youth Sunday and soon we'll have the last CTCYM Mission Trip. In typical Jo (and Holladay sister) fashion, I've cried at each one, embarrassing Angie and giving Jack and Addie something to razz me about.

I think I am taking these lasts so hard because I am so very proud of what they represent. They represent the woman she is becoming. Angie is everything I was not at eighteen. She is confident, committed, intellectual, sweet, funny, unpretentious. I could go on and on but Roget's Thesaurus only has a finite number of words for the concept.

If you see me in the next few months with tears streaming down my face for no apparent reason, just know that I have probably realized another "last" has just happened. Just pat me on the shoulder and remind me that I won't have to do this again for five years. Poor Addie, I will be a total basket case when it is time for her lasts.

Stretch,
Jo