lauren loves apples

Ugh is the sound I make when kicked in the stomach.

Tonight I went to a  “how to help your child with their studies” class and then it happened to be open house at my oldest son’s school so I wandered thru and talked to some of his teachers. This is good because I want to poke him. I want him to know I’m watching and keeping in touch with his school. I was in fact delighted because they all seemed very enthusiastic about his average performance. He isn’t really an uptight learner, he’s sort of mellow. He’s sort of social, thinking about where he fits in with the world.

Then I talked to his reading & English teacher, we talked a little about various things and he mentioned he co-teaches in reading with a special ed teacher. I mentioned that I’m taking SPED 208 and was interested to know how the co-teaching is working out. Then I felt compelled  to explain why I’m taking that class, no I’m not majoring in special ed. though I should. I’m getting certification to teach art. And then it all starts feeling like a flashback, only in reverse. 

Remember that day I was assistant manager of my store, and found out what my raise was going to be, and the very same minute looked on the company intranet and saw basically that they were bankrupt and beginning closings? Well today I did the reverse, sort of. Paid my bill. Wrote a check for what to me feels like a heck of a lot of my very own money to my school. Later was told by this middle school teacher I was talking to that basically there aren’t a lot of art teacher jobs in the district, not a lot of openings. Fabulous.

As I sort of crawled away from him, my spirit hovered above my body, looking down upon myself from the acoustical tile and fluorescent fixtures…wandered around blindly soul-less for a few seconds till a kindly math teacher showed me the way to the door.  Sorry ma’am. No zombies allowed.

I have been chugging home made ayurvedic smoothies… almonds dates milk honey, oh and some frozen peaches and strawberries and the odd blob of yogurt. Almonds and dates especially are good for sick people. Well, for me anyway. I’m a big fan of the placebo effect, if nothing else.

So I had a little left in the fridge and took it out to swig while I made the guys some melty ham and cheesey wraps. And my youngest looked at my glass of smoothie and said “Can I have a taste?” and I said “no, I have a sore throat, don’t drink after me.”

Mainly I didn’t want to share, so guilty of being stingy, I felt I had to come up with something good. I made a face and “Anyway,” I said “It tastes a little like old bananas.”

“Old men?” he asked, and nodded. He seemed perfectly satisfied with that as a reason he wouldn’t like the taste. I realized he didn’t hear what I really said, so I said, “no, old bananas,” and made my face. Again.

So as I finished up cooking the wraps and my beverage, I thought about that. Obviously I’ve been trying to apply some kind of teacherly behavior to my interaction with the boy. But mostly I wondered what he’d come up with!

“What exactly do old men smoothies taste like, Mr. C?” I asked.

He looked a little thoughtful and replied, “Oh, you know, green stuff, ear wax, and pimples.”

In other news, I finished Chapter 6 – having spent all day on it. I have possibly renounced my ADHD self-and-other-experts-diagnosis with the even more accurate and psychiatrist diagnosed LD … the Chapter was on Learners with Learning Disabilities and it’s childhood-me to a tee… spacey, makes people uncomfortable, (as in, behaves in bizarre, “I think I’m a pony, so I’ll gallop around the bases and toss my mane while we play kickball, that’ll teach you to pick me last,” ways) social-emotional problems, completely devoid of self regulation, learned helplessness, memory problems,  inattentive if I’m not really interested or you aren’t teaching reading, blah de blah de blah. Oh. Meh. Gawd. That poor child.

So what. I failed math for 12 years. It took till I was 30 to stand on my own two feet socially. I’m still here.

I want to teach art. This requires huge leaps of faith daily. Daily I remind myself I can do this, and once I’ve done it, there will be a job for me. Because it’s the only thing that makes sense.

Once upon a time I was a student. I do not recall much in the way of art education in grades K-12.

I was born in Louisiana, which is a very interesting, historically creative and colorful state. I spent K-4 in Cameron, Louisiana, which for all practical purposes, is no longer there. I spent 4-12 in Springhill, Louisiana.  I repeated 4th grade. I know why it happened. I failed math consistently for 8 years.

I spent time in both gifted and talented classes and special education classes. I was evaluated in 7th grade and diagnosed with a learning disability “in math” – or maybe just in memorization. I don’t know my multiplication tables and I don’t think I could tell you what an adverb is either. Or other grammar things. Can’t define them but obviously I can use them well.

I went to college at NLU which is now ULM and used to be other names, like when my dad went there. I felt I was well educated, challenged, I think they did a good job of teaching me, and at the end I had a bachelors of fine art degree.

But what do you do with that? I asked myself that continuously. After I got it.

I got an interesting education just living my life. In spite of the fact that I have a huge hugewonderful family in Louisiana, I was dragged somewhat reluctantly to Iowa, to live among my then-husband’s few relatives. In need of family I learned to tolerate his local relatives well. I gave birth to three children, and an ex-husband (insert strange social/emotional/statistical assumptions here).

I have three kids!

In the course of divorce, I lost my home of 9 years but gained my independence and my very first apartment. I lost all faith in the local “ex-family” and found my first true love best friend.

Here in  Iowa, I had a few jobs with varying success. Well. Two. Church Secretary being the unsuccessful first. The second was what I thought was great at the time. Having failed dismally to keep a job as a church secretary (I was there about seven years, so how hard could it be? Well it’s not hard if your thyroid gland cooperates!) I admit it. They didn’t want me anymore.

I got a part time temporary job at the grand new Sioux City Linens N Things and worked my way up, in only three years, to Assistant Manager. Goal accomplished. Kids had health insurance, & I could afford food without food stamps. According to me, I could do anything. Well there was a small hitch, right there at the end. Linens N Things filed for reorganization. Oh that means bankruptcy. The very day we figured out exactly how much money I’d be making as the assistant manager, that was the day LNT began a long slow painful decline.

Then I closed it down. I watched the liquidation of our merchandise. I watched the sale of all our fixtures. The shelves I’d worked so hard to fill the beginning, gone. The ladders I’d built strong muscles climbing daily up to the tippy top shelves in the ceiling of the building, gone. I locked the door the final day myself. No more successful job. No more staff. No more insurance for my kids. No more real world. No more store.

So what now?

I took a class at the AEA required to obtain substitute authorization. Because I have a degree, and several years work experience, Iowa will allow me to substitute in  grades 5-12. The class was incredible and I was so inspired by the opportunity I saw there. But.

The more I thought about it, it seemed like teaching would just be the coolest thing I could do. I’m an artist.  But there really aren’t any companies out there hiring people like me. (Well, I hope to teach at the art center next year.) I’m a mom, I have great kids, obviously I can do that right. Most of my favorite people are in fact children.

So that is why I’m here. Children can see better than adults. And by see, I mean to look at the world around them and see with amazement the things that most adults just walk on by. If more people knew how to keep that ability, there would be a whole lot more happy people. If you can see what’s amazing about life, it’s so much easier to handle the parts that aren’t quite so great.

bubbles in the back yard July 23, 2009, (c) RLL