Hokey Smokes

It's been a while. Sorry about that.
Lately I've taken up piano. I've wanted to play forever but never had the chance. One drawback is that I don't own a piano or a keyboard, so I have to sneak into school, lock myself in the music room, and wait for all the people to leave so I can start butchering Jingle Bells. If I hear voices, the music suddenly stops. There's a reason for that. There are five-year-old kids better than me who can keep a beat and can remember how to match the keys to music in no time flat (piano reference intended). Maybe in four years I'll let somebody hear me.
That's all I have to say about that.

Also, school is finished.
No big deal.
Kidding. It's a big deal, and every time I think about how I don't have to plan out another whole week of lessons and grade a billion stacks of papers, I get this overwhelming feeling of serenity and peace. You mean I get to go a whole day without having to hear my own voice? It's been a long time coming. Now I'm going to finish crocheting a blanket, spend time with family and friends that I've been neglecting for a while, get pumped for Dani's wedding and to see all my Canadian friends (I stinking miss you people!) hang out with Grandma in Montana and just do whatever. Oh, and plan for next year, but can we just dismiss that fact for a bit? Please? Thank you.

Praying you're all doing well. I'll write a better post later, one with lots of reflective bits about education and a newfound determination to hunt down Justin Bieber, tell him he's ruining the minds of young high school girls, hand him a pink slip, and walk away. Oh what a changed world we would become if we could fire celebrities.

Indiana--Whereabouts?

It's official. I am an Indiana resident, complete with my licenses (which I should have aquired a long time ago) and voting registration. They told me where I vote each year. They took the old Montana driver's license without letting me say goodbye. I was 20, would turn 21 that summer while in Alaska, and it was the best picture ever taken at the license bureau, a million times better than a frightened and worried 15-year-old girl half-smiling because she'd just failed her first driving test. Anyway, the Indiana license bureau lady took my latest one, sealed it in a bag, and sent it off to somewhere in the government.
This happened about a month ago.
Since then, and since summer, the only places I'd really toured in Indiana were Merrilville and Valpo because of their shopping districts. I've also been watching Parks and Recreation, which is set in a small Indiana town.
Yesterday I heard a feint calling: "Just drive. Juuuuussssst driiiiiive." Kidding. Not sure I did. But, anyway, I practically ran away from school, hopped in my car, changed into jeans at home, grabbed a Bible and left.
Before I left for Indiana last summer, Dad had set a new alas in my backseat. "You'll need this." From years of trucking he knew every major highway from LA to New York. He knew all the little highways and backroads to bypass weigh stations when a load was too heavy. "Thanks, Dad," I filed through the pages to Indiana, its territory still so unfamiliar. They had many roads, quished closely together, it looked like. Montana is this huge open space, where roads mostly follow the land, where you can't just plow through mountains to get where you want.
I always wondered why he was such a big dreamer, why one small idea was not quite enough for him, why he had a bigger idea forever brewing in his mind, and now I think I understand a little more. These backroads of the US have an unchartable terrain. Just think of the first men and women who settled here and there and staked their claim on the soil. They might have drawn maps of the territory, marked a river here and there, sent it back home for others to see, but you don't understand it until you go there. Try to be narrow minded while traveling the world. I dare you.
The music was loud, the windows were down on this 60+ degree day, and my car Electra was fully quipped, atlas and all. I followed a couple country roads, hit a couple backroads, found another highway, and kept driving. Kouts. Lacrosse. Went South from there, following nature preserve signs.
The Kankakee river is almost overflowing right now. Jim, the man from whom I rent, told me back in October that the river is unnatural. DeMotte and surrounding towns are built on a marsh, so the people of Jasper county and other areas built it up in order to irrigate blueberries, strawberries, and corn. So when the river overflows, and it overflows often, the town deals with flooding.
I followed the Kankakee river a little ways then crossed it on a country backroad. Potholes everywhere. Soon after I parked my car and marked on the map where I'd just traveled. Then I saw it. Bass Lake. 15 miles to the East.
A person ought always to keep driving.
The terrain, the understanding you get from just going a bit further...suddenly the map you see becomes real, and you begin to believe there are such places not just know they exist.
Not that Bass Lake was brilliant. Not that I hadn't seen a hundred little lakes just like it before. Not that I didn't think a tiny Montana mountain lake was more thrilling. No, I didn't sit there in awe or marvel at this lake. Instead what made it beautiful, what makes everything beautiful in the evenings, was the sun. It had begun to set over me and my Navajo blanket and Bible and books. In time I'd like to discover every part of America where the sun touches down on our hungry crops and beautiful stretches of beaches. It is a yearning deep within me.

Last night as the sun was just going down, I read Psalm 84: "How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty! My sould yearns, and even faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. ...Better is one day in your courts than a thousand eslewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked. For the Lord God is a sun and a shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withold from those whose walk is blameless. O Lord almighty, blessed is the man who trusts in you."

Get to know a place. Let the sun shine on it. And let God bless you.

Pan

For once I'd like to dive into bed and realize it's a pool instead, engulfing my stomach, my nose, my feet. That'd be a surprise.

For once I'd like to drag race my 1999 Buick Park Avenue through the two-mile strip in town and not face jail time.

For once I'd like to climb a birch tree and weigh the very tip of a branch so low that I could slide down and reach ground again.

For once I'd like to jump off a ten story building and string a web from my wrists or unfold an umbrella or span my wings

For once I'd like to shave half of my hair or bedazzle my face or quirk-ify my style.

For once I'd like to bust out a musical talent somewhere and write witty, angry, funny songs like the queen herself Kate Nash.

For once I'd like to say, "People (eople...eople...eople) of our great Nation (ation...ation...ation). Now is the time (ime...ime...ime) to stand up and stay strong in a world of strife (ife...ife...ife)" on the steps of our Lincoln Memorial

For once I'd like to "shake it like a Polaroid picture," but that's been a dream since high school when everyone else dreamed the same thing

Peter Pan is teaching me that when the first baby sneezed faeries were shattered all around

And that thimbling is so much more fun than giving kisses

And that maybe dreams can co-exist with reality.

Thank you, Mr. Barrie.

What to Say?

It has been said that three things you should never talk about on a first date are religion, politics, and and past relationships. It's best to keep things light, not to burden someone to make those big decisions about you right away.

Maybe the same rules could apply to a blog. If I were a politician, I'd probably have 30% interest out there, talking about Obama, slamming him or adoring him. If I were to say angry remarks over the traditionalism of some churches or the wavering innovations of other churches, I'd maybe lose a few more of you. And come on, aside from the random mention of the fact that there have been past guys, you don't need the details. And to preserve their dignity, maybe it's best to mum onesself.

I bet there are more rules out there: no talking about sex; no discussing huge lifechanges; no talking about money; no talking about views on marriage; no being too negative.

I guess those rules don't leave much left for a blog except maybe for topics on weather. Speaking of weather, it's sunny today, a bit cloudy, but deceivingly chilly here in Indiana. My pedicure will never see the light of day again. Will I ever get Florida back?

Yes, this entire blog was one round-about way to say that I love Florida's weather. If you're at a loss for words, don't want to step on any toes, don't want to make any big decisions about life, just know that it's okay to talk about Florida.

I'll be going back there someday. My skin can almost handle it.

RESPONSIBILITY

one deep breath annnnnnd.....go

no title, just thoughts here

What teacher stays up past midnight?
Me. Grading papers. Woe is I.

Anywho, teacherisms aside, I think I'm still Laurissa.

And maybe I'll be coming to a town near you in the future...preferrably between the months of June and July.

Later gaters.

Slam poetry

I challenged my students to write a slam poem. So I wrote one, too:


Word Stealers

To the spacey story lovers who find more importance in a single word than in a lifetime of talking.
I am you.
Or maybe I want to be you.

Today we say too much, we ramble on and on and on and on
And we can't keep a story straight to save our lives. Yada yada, he said she said.
Celebrities fought, critics cried, politicians pleaded
I'm up to my head in all the world's talk.

Leaders and politicians are still saying more
Because their "Ladies and gentlemen"
and "To whom it may concern" and their
"we'll make it better" tributes
are believed to turn tides. But come on, guys. You're talking too much.
You're consuming all the words.

And the heartless, made-up, done-up, congenial,
perfect white smiles on the 5 O'Clock news,
it's your cheesy grin,
your latest jokes and a not a second later, you take more cues
to speak about death and riots and your hair hasn't even moved
much less tears ensued. And don't you care? There goes Uganda. There goes Egypt.
Oh, that's right.
You're a projector.

The senseless chatter, the subjects that don't matter,
"Oh and God," I pray. "Please be with us in this day.
And bless this day, and bless her and him and the grass, the leaves. And Lord, cure the hangnail on my finger...wa. wa. wa. wa"
No better than Charlie Brown's teacher. And I wonder: "Is God ever telling us
to just be quiet?"

Just shhhhhh


think


Maybe it scares us, the silence.


Because we can't control the silence but we can control the noise


And now I remember. It's in First Kings, nineteen.
God says: "Go out and wait for me" and so we do
we stand on the mountain, and a great gusting wind blows us half away down
and shatters a mountain. "It's God! It's God!" we cry,
but he is not in the wind

Then an earthquake. I can see it. We're all yelling at the top of our lungs,
and it shakes us to and fro, and surely this is God with all his gusto.
But he is not in the earthquake.

A fire blazes, and our pyromaniac faces glow in the phases
of read and white and hot, fiery oranges. "It's God! Surely it's him!" and we're sure
He'll show up with a robe aflame.
But he's not in the fire.

Then a whisper. Hush.
I
said

a whisper.


Shhhh.

Be quiet Ron Swanson. Shut your face, Obama. You dutiful prayers. Not even you are worthy.
Quit believing God is in all our raccous noises. Stop rambling. Stop.

It's time we listened.