Week One is Done!

I am a total school geek and will admit to really liking the first week of school. I like the newness, the sharpened pencils, and the back on a schedule.  We got through our first week here in the McMahon household with very little carnage and I am grateful. I am also pooped, wiped out and exhausted.

Me.

The boy did great!  First year of middle school and while my stomach was in knots about it, he was very calm.  Probably too calm, but that is the boy.  He found his classes, he opened his locker, he found a friend to eat with in the cafeteria and he got on the right bus coming home.  All successes!  He did set down his papers the first day along with his schedule and instantly lose them, but he knew to ask for help.  He made it to the counselor’s office to get a new schedule and then came home and told me where I could go online to download the forms he lost.  He even wrote his homework down in his planner.  His lunch box made it home every single day.  I know this is a honeymoon period for him with the newness of it all, but I will take it.  Happy honeymoon to me!

For the girls, school is all old hat.  Maizy is a senior, A SENIOR, and is already harboring an advanced case of senioritis.  This should make the spring semester interesting.  She is taking it all in stride and even gave her siblings a ride to school on Friday.  Sniff.  SG in her last year of middle school is calmer than ever, even with a schedule change!  Next week she starts cross country practice and probably softball practice, oh and guitar lessons and that is all I can stand to think about right now.  A busy SG is a calmer SG so practice away I say.

The happiest member of our household this week was Bill.  He will admit to being jealous and dare I say sulky about our summer off while he worked.  The man was giddy on Monday.  There was a song in his heart and a sparkle in his eye that continued throughout the week.  He lovingly made us all breakfast twice and did so with a flourish because his joy at our being back to school was that great.

My week was crazy busy and as such it immediately wiped out all the good intentions I tried to start the year with.  No Diet Coke quickly became YES Diet Coke on Day One.  My “I am not going to eat things just because they are there” became I NEED TO EAT THIS RIGHT NOW.  I also vowed not to be so tired. HAHAHAHAH.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  I must have been wrapped up in the every day is a nap day of summer to make that deal with myself.  I am definitely tired but I did make it until 8pm on Friday before falling asleep, sitting straight up, in the chair and that is a half hour later than usual.  Small steps I guess. 

I love my job but our library is a crazy place.  We are the Ellis Island of the school and it makes our days insane.  Don’t know where to put someone?  Send them to the library.  Can’t log on to the computer or software or wifi?  Library.  Send us all your clueless, your troubled and your roomless teachers, we will light the way!  Plus we had full classes checking out books.  Oh and I am in charge of our students as teachers until they get a room assignment so I lesson planned and taught four classes as long as I had them there to practice on.  Yes, and we started having homeroom this year and there are six different homerooms held in the library.  That first day was almost hilarious in trying to get kids to the right sections for their homerooms.  My colleague commented later that we all should have held up signs with our names on it like chauffeurs at the airport and I am sad we missed that opportunity.  That would have been fun!  I have found that homeroom is my favorite part of the day.  Me and twenty kids getting to know each other and me being a teacher like person on campus they can go to for information and help, I love that.  It makes my day less tiring right there. 

So yes, full on school craziness has begun and while I admit it almost defeated me the first day by dinner, I am in it. Bring it.  Oh wait, it’s been brought and we survived it so let’s just keep on going.  Plus I am a woman who learns from her mistakes and I have set no good intentions for myself to break by day one again this week.    And as for the kids, I am trying to not set good intentions for them either.  They can set their own or not and at the end of the week, we’ll meet back up to see where we need to put in our efforts for the following week.  I enjoyed them so much this summer; I want to enjoy them this school year too.  Being a crazy, shrieking, goal-focused mom does not lead to anyone’s enjoyment.  They might sink a little but I am confident I have taught them how to swim and they can bob back up.  I am not saying I will be totally hands off, but I don’t want to be hands pressing on them either.  They can do this, I can do this and Bill is doing it as he smiles and sings, so for now, it’s all good.

August is a Giant

Natalie Babbit, author of “Tuck Everlasting”, once wrote of August that “August hangs at the very top of the summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning... motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.”  I appreciate the picture she paints, but the fact that it is a Ferris wheel gives us hope that it will one day turn and move and change.  Here in Austin, August is forever.  August is really more like a giant: a lumbering, crushing, havoc-wreaking giant.

Watch out; he'll chew you up.

Like Jack’s giant, our giant is brought on by our careless prodding.  True that Jack went a little above and beyond by stealing his giant’s goose, but our careless talking brings our August giant to life.  Statements like “It’s been such a mild summer!” start our giant stirring and follow ups like “I don’t know when I have enjoyed summer more!” bring it fully to life.  Within days, our August giant is here, he is tearing up the town and we only have ourselves to blame.

The August giant comes in with booted, heavy steps and while he does not make the earth rattle, he makes it crack and fracture.  The earth groans with the weight of him and cracks appear and grow and fissure along once healthy gardens, open fields and even our front lawns.  These cracks continue to widen as if begging for water, but there is no water.  Our giant uses his shoulders to shrug away any moisture bearing clouds.  A quick upwards twitch of his shoulders takes our slight chances of rain and sends them soaring to the Midwest, the East Coast, and beyond.

This giant takes his dry, calloused, chafed hands and rubs our landscape between them until that which was once green and resplendent, is now brown and brittle and flowerless.   Grass crunches under your feet, leaves atrophy and poke when touched, cicadas come to die on your door and crunch as they are eaten with glee by your really dumb dog.  He has made everything you see brown or yellow or dead and he is still not done.

The August giant’s favorite thing to do is to breathe.  His breath is as hot as the sun. As hot as an oven.  As hot as hell.  He exhales over us and all hope is lost.  He inhales and takes away any chance of a cooling breeze and when he exhales, the air is one hundred degrees or hotter.  His hot breath lies in the air and does not move, it does not stir and it settles over us like an unneeded blanket.  We can no longer move freely, we are trapped under it and we hunker.  We hide from his breath, from his air, from his oppression. 

The giant is not done with us, not yet.  We are dry, we are thirsty, we are hot and uncomfortable and that is when he starts his favorite task: picking.  The giant’s large fingers pick and pick and pick at our nerves until they are frayed.  He unravels them until our thoughts are mean; our words are harsh and are movements are careless.  Watch interactions between parents and children at the grocery store right now, you’ll see this for yourself.  He reaches over the edge of the earth to pull the sun up early and holds it in his hands, high above his head, for longer than the sun wants to stay.  He squeezes every bright ray out and when he finally bores of it, fifteen or sixteen hours later, throws it over his shoulder until the next day.

The August giant is here and he is here to stay.  Even in September, this giant persists.  He might lay off some, or forget a rain cloud or two, but he is still here.  There is no chopping down a bean stalk to slay this giant.  The only that will kill it is the hope, the belief, that one day Autumn will come and push it out.  Autumn will slowly slide in and as she does, she makes no room for the August giant.  She will use her colors, her crisp air and her fragrant breezes to uproot the giant.  He will startle and try to take us back, but Autumn will have a foothold that cannot be shaken and the August giant will stalk away, forlorn and forgotten.  At least until next year when he hears someone say “I can’t get enough of this great weather!”, and makes his way back to settle and crush us once again.

1,562 and Whew!

One thousand, five hundred, and sixty-two miles were driven over the past six days making it our fastest and most furious road trip to date.  I have a bit of a road hangover today: trying and failing to get motivated, feeling a little bit blah and my stomach is just unhappy. Our fast trip was definitely worth it.  For me a road trip is always worth it to see something new or to just get a change of scenery.  It was humbling to see how much of America is still so undeveloped and to drive twenty solid minutes without seeing another car.  Actually, that was kind of eerie.  With Austin building up as fast as it can, it becomes so easy to forget that there are places left where it is not all strip malls and fast food and asphalt.  Let me tell you that there is plenty of undeveloped land in West Texas and Southeast New Mexico.

You know they are high when they swallow the clouds.

The mountains around Taos were amazing!  We definitely did not spend enough time in Taos.  There is a ton to do there and so many hikes to take and just beautiful scenery to take in.  We did try one hike up Wheeler Mountain but we didn't get too far up.  The boy heard us talk about how a headache is an indicator of altitude sickness and crazy enough he had a headache ten minutes later.  But even my nanny goat of a hiker, SG, was overwhelmed when she saw how high a mountain really goes.  We took a lower elevation hike the next day and that was gorgeous.  The wildflowers and long grasses and smurf-house mushrooms swallowed the trail and everyone hiked along happily because the weather was cool, it was an easy amble along and we wanted to see a cave at the end.  I both enjoyed the hike and worried that bears would eat us the entire time because if I was a bear, that is where I would live and if clueless hikers came ambling by, I would probably eat them.  I took some assurance that we had a dog with us and that the dog would either flush out the bears or the bear would grab the dog first and give us time to escape.  Sorry Oona.  

Also interesting to see in Taos is the locals.  My cousin took me to a brewery which was also holding a rave and the people watching was spectacular.  I believe what I saw is what people are asking for when they say to Keep Austin Weird.  I am sorry Austin, all your weird has moved to Taos.  I have never seen so many dreadlocks and free flowing armpit hair in one place before.  You couldn't call this group granola because they were crunchier than granola.  I'd say that they were more millet.  (Millet is supposedly a grain but I think it is really French for tiny, indigestible stones.)  I just sat there and drank my locally brewed and unfortunately not great beer and watched.  We then headed to another bar with a better view of the mountains and this one too was packed with people.  This time is was packed with mourners who were holding a memorial and yet the bar was open to the public.  Don't worry, my black sport shorts blended in well and we kept to ourselves.

Me and Billy the Kid.

I wish that I could report that the Billy the Kid museum in Ft. Sumner, NM was as moving an experience as Laura's white farmhouse in Mansfield, MO last year, but sadly it was not.  The admission fee of $11 for us all was by far the very best and very worst $11 I spent.  It was good because the people there are lovely and so very proud of their museum and bad because it had so very little Billy and so much other stuff.  Truly it might be better named "Old Stuff From Around Ft. Sumner, Junk I Liked to Collect Over the Years and Oh Yeah! Billy the Kid's Gun".  There was lots and lots of old stuff inside, outside, behind glass cases, laying out in the yard, just not much stuff on Billy.  I felt closer to Billy the Kid when I drove past the sign that said Lincoln County and I yelled out "Regulators Ride!"  Also, unfortunately the Billy the Kid Museum had that smell that antique shops and old houses get and it didn't bode well for SG's stomach.  I am not sure what that smell is?  Arsenic? Asbestos? Years of dust, desolation and despair?  Whatever it is by the time we hit outside, SG was done.  I will have you know that it was SG who broke the docent's heart this year and not me.  This lovely, ancient, old man mentioned we should see the auto yard and SG looked at me with eyes that said "I will kill you.", so I was forced to tell this tiny, crinkly, stooped old man thank you but we are done.  It broke his heart and he crumbled into a million pieces that were swept up on the hot wind and settled as another layer of detritus over the museum.  

Next up was Roswell and all of it is alien hoo-ha.  SG loved it.  I did not love Roswell.  It was hot, it was crowded and we were accosted by a crazy man brandishing a screwdriver.  I did appreciate how cool it was inside the UFO museum and they did do a nice job of presenting the material that they had.  I will now admit to being an 11 year old boy and giggling over the alien statues and the attention to detail they put into the alien posterior. 

Who knew aliens worked out?

Really.  They could have given them a gentle U butt like a Ken doll, but these aliens were given buns of steel.  This cracked me up and is still my favorite part of the museum.  So having been there do I think a UFO really landed?  All I know is this: if I lived in Roswell, NM I would pray that a UFO, airplane, weather balloon or even a tree showed up to break up the landscape, I really would.  Desolate scrub land all around, that is all this part of NM has to offer.

We are home now and while I might feel a little road-hazed, I am so very glad we took this fast trip.  It was great to see my aunt and cousin and spend time with them at their homes.  The mountains were beyond beautiful and the cooler weather was gobbled up and appreciated.  The museums may have been a bust, but they were still adventures.  SG took her role as navigator very seriously which was great because Google Maps is occasionally bipolar and I needed someone on point.  The boy played a lot of video games, but he did look up when I said "Look up!  Appreciate the mountains".  He would also provide one line of commentary from time to time that had SG and I doubled over laughing.  They were amazing and are true road warriors; they know how to enjoy a road trip for the escape it is.  The only time they complained is when I made them wait 111 miles to use the bathroom which may seem cruel but there were not a lot of places to stop.  Honest.  This year my road trip left me humbled and grateful and anticipatory:  humbled by the scenery, grateful for the company and anticipatory for where we can go and what we can see next year.