My Father's Hands...from 2008

By A.E. Bayne

This is a piece that I published about my father a couple of years ago. Today is the 10th anniversary of his death. When people tell you that you will miss someone less as the years go by after their death, they lie.

My father's hands were not oafish, but they were callused to some degree because he worked with tools around the house on the weekends. He had large arthritic looking knuckles, but I don't think he had arthritis in his hands. They felt like sandpaper sometimes, but he had small, short nails which he cleaned with a file. He was impeccably tidy and groomed. Looking back, I have no idea how he was able to stay so neat and clean, almost fastidiously so.



My father's hands were crafty. He built wooden shelves, decks, bookcases, used measuring tools, and painted. He was a mathematician who always wanted to study architecture, but never did. He loved to mow the grass, use his hands in the dirt, and fix machines. He was a handy-man at heart.

His hands were not the type to caress. I can't speak for my mother, but I have the feeling she'd say the same. Instead, I'd receive a strong, reassuring pat/hug when times called for such emotive gestures. His hands were very protective, very solid. I always felt sheltered in the nook of his arm.

When it first happened, when those hands were no longer giving me hugs and pats, I did not cry. After propping him up during a morphine induced struggle for breath at home, after the ambulance came and left with the "do not resuscitate" order, after my hands tightened around his in the hospital and I sang him toward death, it felt like he was merely on a trip, a vacation. A year or two into it, when my mind wrapped itself around the fact that he wasn't ever coming back, the tears fell hot and constant in his absence. Even after eight years I miss him every day. I wonder if the memories will always make me feel as if my body wants to turn itself inside out with grief. My heart breaks, it literally stops and tightens in my chest, and there is no suppressing the tears as long as my thoughts are on him.



It is the deepest cut, to sever the ties of life with death. Even more than my failed marriage, which brought its own feelings of loss, the death of my father utterly destroys me. He left me a compass for sure, but I ache for the steady hands that guided me.

We love our way through this world like blankets thrown over chilled shoulders,
A momentary comfort that doesn’t satisfy the need.
We dwell too long on singular events, and silent glances passing,
And far too briefly on our lives well lived.

The Power of Love

Todd Drake posted these questions for the Mindful Listening meditation group recently, and I took the time to sit down with them myself. The most profound part was that after thinking about these questions with a clear heart for an evening, I did feel less burdened and more open to the world. Thank you, Todd, for providing the opportunity to explore this topic in more depth.

Here is how he started his practice: Love is the most powerful emotion. There are so many ways to love and to express love for ourselves and for others. There are ways of loving that are harmful and ways of loving that are beneficial. Try to answer the following questions from your heart and not your head.




What does love mean to me?

"The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed." ~Jiddu Krishnamurti

Love means sharing your true heart, your true understanding nature, manifested through action, word, and thought. In its truest form, unconditional love, it can be a transformative power. Unconditional love does not deal in the pleasures of the body or the desires of the ego; rather, it feeds the true spirit in each. Unconditional love is evident through action, word, and thought. When you love and are loved unconditionally, your spirit is transformed so that you open your heart to the world. This type of love is unstoppable.

"We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end." ~Benjamin Disraeli

How do I express love to myself and to others?

I have not always loved myself as I should. I have a very strong inner critic, and she was particularly strong when I was younger. Having my son quieted her, because with his birth I learned how to love unconditionally. His birth transformed my spirit, so that I could love myself and all my flaws. Now, I express love to myself though a willingness to allow myself to make mistakes without opening that door for the critic. She's still there, but we've come to an understanding that she will only visit when I am in need of a balanced opinion, and I think she likes her new job. At this point in my life, I try to love myself for every bit of who I am, and I try to show it by appreciating each day, each success, and by feeling proud of my talents without expecting to receive validation from others.

"To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance."
~Oscar Wilde


I try to show love for others through living with a generous heart. I love deeply and openly. I've always been a giver, to a fault sometimes. I am empathetic by nature, and feelings (my own and those of other people) affect me. Emotions run deep in me. When I feel a connection with people, I open myself to them, offer them comfort, show them love through action, word, and thought. One important lesson that I've learned in regard to loving others is that sometimes the most loving thing you can do is listen with intention and respect. In doing this, you often hear people express concern about the natural chaos of life, and you often want to fix things when you cannot. I have come to realize that, while this is a part of loving thought, this is not always an act of love; it is often one's own need to organize, harness and control the ebb and flow that occurs in life. The most difficult part of loving others is recognizing when your own ego has hijacked your emotions and has convinced you that you are doing something in their best interest.

"Love does not dominate; it cultivates." ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe



Do I love enough?

In short, no.

"Do you love your creator? Love your fellow-beings first." ~
The Prophet Muhammad

I was raised in a society that prized individualism, consumerism, conservatism, assigned monetary value to self worth and reliance, was always clamoring up the next step on the economic ladder, and was hypocritical in its practice of faith in relation to true action. I had a very difficult time reconciling these things with the way that I felt the world would best benefit from love. I was being taught that Jesus - a simple, young, idealistic man - loved the beggars, sinners, and "dregs" of society so greatly that he sacrificed his own life as an example of how others might live; yet every day I rode in a nice car to my private school where I attended class with people who lived lives very similar to my own. I knew this was inconsistent with the unconditional love I was being taught, and I could never reconcile these three ideas – the teachings of Jesus, church dogma, and familial practice - so I left the institution, took with me those few teachings of truth that were offered, and found other resources and philosophies to fill in the gaps. As often as relying on other teachings of faith, I rely upon my own instincts about truth and love to guide me.

"Knowledge and ritual without compassion is empty." ~Jesus of Nazareth

To this day, I do not think I love enough. Negative emotions sometimes get in the way of my loving as freely and openly as I might like. I know that I do not do enough for the world as a whole in regard to love. I do not always live as lightly in this world as I might, so that others might feel comfort and joy; however, I am constantly attempting to make changes in my behavior and actions so that I might more closely emulate the truest teachings and practices of unconditional love. I think that is all anyone can do, being human as we are.

"Love your neighbor, but who is your neighbor. Your neighbor is the one who is sent to you from the Divine. Your neighbor can be one who is a total stranger to you from afar. Your neighbor can be someone living close to you. But what is true is that your neighbor is one of the Light who needs your support as much as you need his." ~ Jesus of Nazarath

"Do not consider any act of kindness insignificant, even meeting your brother with a cheerful face." ~ The Prophet Muhammad

What is my daily love practice, if any? (e.g. metta practice, etc.)

I can narrow my daily practice of love down to devotion, loyalty, and care. I love through devotion to my child, family, friends, and profession. That last one might seem odd, but I am in direct contact with 116 young people every day, each with their own raging ego issues, so I attempt to remain devoted to making my work as meaningful as I am possibly able. I love through loyalty each day, because without the trust that develops through loyalty, one cannot truly reach anyone. I love through caring for others, both physically and emotionally, especially in relation to my child and family. Each day, I strive to love with openness and willingness, and to show this through action, word and thought. Above all, patience is required.

"A jug fills drop by drop." ~ Buddha

Observations on the Orange Line to Vienna

By A.E. Bayne

Here we stand, hand over hand, riding this Orange Line train to Vienna.

There you are, a young girl in your steely business suit and crisp tennis shoes. You look like you are playing dress up in your mother’s closet, and you are self-conscious about your armpit being within sniffing distance to the young man next to you. Repeatedly, you raise your arm to grasp the hand hold above, only to lower it when you realize how close the two of you are to one another. Would it be worse to fall into the arms of this man, or embarrass yourself by continuing to stumble about while dangling from the overhead grip when the train jolts? No worry; the young man sees your insecurity and empathizes with your situation. He turns his torso slightly to the right in order to give your underarm some berth. As he does his eyes swing to meet mine, and his mouth twitches subconsciously to form a smile before his ego sweeps in to catch it.

There he glows, lowering his almond eyes to claim a stain on the floor. Mine find the spot and I share a momentary examination of the fibrous dissidence with him, until Xaviar jars me with an involuntary hip bump. I allow myself another glance at the young man: short of stature; muscular arms ending in broad-palmed hands; inch-wide black gauges in his earlobes; and clear skin the color of burnt sugar. He refrains from looking at me, though I know he feels my eyes on him from the way he stares resolutely into the cramped Plexiglas cubicle near the door. The corners of his mouth tweak slightly upward.

Within the tight alcove that draws his attention an old man, half-blind, hovers over a worn Qur'an with a magnifying glass. Like a priest in a confessional, he sits on a folding stool and steadies himself with his white cane as the train pitches forward through the murky tunnel. I follow the glass sliding over the spherical symbols, feminine and flowing on the page, noting his keen devotion and bowed swaying head. His milky eyes don’t leave the book until the train pulls into Roslyn, then he gathers his things to exit through the sliding doors across the car. We part, making way for his tapping cane and hefty sack. The young woman in the business suit follows him from the train.

My gaze slides down the car as passengers move in and out of the doors which warn of imminent closure, and the number of people crammed end-to-end blurs my vision. Now they are drops of paint; now they are part of my farthest reaching sight; and now they are endless, beyond me entirely. I am there and back again.

Among the new travelers is a laughing young woman with a Beatrix Potter tattoo between her shoulder blades. She is budding in her lace baby doll dress, curly crown of ribbon-tied hair, and Peter Rabbit ink. She and her boyfriend clasp hands over a free pole and giggle when the car jostles them into each other, eyes twinkling each time. She steals a kiss and he cradles her body against his, arm wrapped around her slight waist. As the car fills up, barreling west down the line, they move together toward the pole where Xaviar and I are balancing ourselves.

Two burly men in a corner seat of the train are watching them as well, nodding toward the oblivious couple and speaking in hushed Latin tones. The one nearest the window turns away from his friend and leans his forehead against the glass in thought. The man nearest the aisle stares past the heavy plastic frame that separates them from the open car, watching the couple who have reached my pole. Our arms are entwined now; hers snaking under mine to grasp the cold metal, and his searching to secure a spot above. Xaviar’s hand tightens and then releases the beam; he dares to stand alone on the swaying floor, a rush for a teenager on the verge of becoming an adult. The man from the corner seat watches Xaviar now, and I watch too, following his eyes and reading behind their rich warmth the familiarity that he finds in my son’s balancing act.

He and his friend vacate their prime seats just before the train slows at Dunn Loring, and you, a bedraggled mother with weary, glazed eyes, pull your daughter and young son from where they have stood these many stops into the empty confines of the corner. Mother, your children have ridden you as much as the train, grasping your skirt and arms, hanging onto you, their storm beaten Maypole. The boy has had enough of confinement; he cannot contain his joy over the space that has opened up in the car. He sees the wide clear alcove and empty poles, and his eyes widen with mischief. Your daughter rushes out with him, but you call her back in a language I do not understand. He grabs the pole and swings round, allowing the inertia of the moving train to drag him round and round then down to the floor. Laughing and daring, he flashes a devil-may-care smile in my direction. Eyes like the sun ask me if I will smile back. I do. Xaviar and I enjoy his wild mirth on the last leg of our common journey until we pull into the station and exit the car together.

Sell it to me, Baby, uh-huh, uh-huh!

By A.E. Bayne

It has come to my attention of late (we’re talking 2:30 A.M., people) that advertisements have taken a turn toward the absurd. This is especially true of ads on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. Take this one, for instance:

Cats love our Faerie Beds. They're snuggly, comfy, cozy and made in California. Other unique cat products too at www.CatFaeries.com.

First of all, these so-called faerie beds are nothing special; they’re simply cat beds like you’d buy at any PetSmart or WalMart. Second, am I to understand that these beds are special because they’re made in California? If that’s true, then why not make them from something uniquely Californian, like redwoods or marijuana plants?

Here’s another one:

Krystal Ball for Congress! Virginia has no women in Congress! Help Virginia elect the youngest woman ever to Congress, UVA grad Krystal Ball. Donate today!

This is fantastic. Congress could really use more women, and more crystal balls. If you walked into Congress tomorrow and told the old guard that they were getting birds AND crystal balls, well things would turn around in no time – especially if the women were wearing stilettos. Precognition, sex, and vulnerability all wrapped up in one name. She’s a shoe-in.

Some of my favorite ads are those that make me feel like an inadequate dater, like this one:

White collar escort service: Are you a loser? Want to look like the beautiful couple in this picture? Smell the money at www.datewhietcollar.com. (Models available in Beach Baby Tan, Bermuda Blueblood, and Ultra Rico Suave)

Okay, so that’s not what the ad really said, but it’s a close facsimile.

Now this one really ropes me in:

Dominican Salon in PG (Prince Georges County, fool): Cheap blow-outs, hair care, and bounce!

THAT is a look I’ve been attempting to cultivate for years: a mass of cheap, bouncy frizz. Awesome!

Other ads that pop up include promises that I might live in Falls Church (done that), that I can buy a Wilco album at their next show in Delaware (damn, missed Wolftrapp tickets), that a team of decorators will design my dream kitchen (happy with mine), asking me if I know Taalam Acey (spoken word poet?), and that I too can find serenity now (if I visit a shop in Alexandria that sells wind chimes).

I think I am taxing the website’s resources, because the ads are taking a turn into the realm of the bizarre with no rhyme or reason. Look at this one:

Join Quacky Raffle FREE! Quacky Raffle is the free raffle that picks a new winner every week. Your ticket could be the lucky one - Sign up today and GOOD LUCK.

Seriously? This is what I’m left with – a deranged looking white duck with wild schizophrenic lettering that screams, “Time Suck!”

A Question of Faith: In Honor of Father's Day (revisited)

by A.E. Bayne

I was prompted to consider my father’s faith last night while watching a television show about the history of gravitational theory. According to modern physicists, Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity shook the faith of many in the scientific world because it disproved a portion of Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation. Einstein found that once an object is in motion, say the apple falling from the tree, Newton’s law holds up; however, if an object is sedentary, then a secondary force is needed to set that object into motion. He postulated that space itself pushes down on objects, unlike Newton’s law which suggests that gravity exerts a force that pulls things toward the most massive object in their vicinity. Einstein’s colleagues balked at his theory, as their faith was staunchly rooted in Newtonian physics. His answer to the disparity between the laws was to prove his own by providing tangible proof that space bends around massive objects. He did this by showing how light bends around the sides of the sun from the stars behind during a solar eclipse. With empirical data on his side, Einstein shifted the faith of an entire community of believers.

Like Einstein, my father was a mathematician with the keen mind of a practical observer; but he had no experiential data to prove the existence of God, a quandary that Einstein also faced in his life. My father once said that faith is the true contradiction of the universe. I came to understand that he meant that faith was part of the basic thread that made up his nature; yet it was ultimately intangible and illogical to his highly pragmatic mind. He could not tell me why he had faith, only that he did. Without proof, he could speak of the God of his faith; but he could not say unequivocally that such a God existed. He never espoused me to his faith, but I knew that he was knitted and bound by it. Nor did he ever proselytize, which made it even more of a mystery since I was being raised in my mother’s religion, Catholicism. Subsequently, he never forced me to acknowledge God or religion, but rather allowed me to experience spirituality within the realm of my Catholic upbringing. He never called his brand of teaching religion, but I realize now that what he believed was a much stronger variety of spiritual faith than that which I was being taught at school. My father and I spoke lengthily about God and faith; I just did’t realize it at the time.

It is difficult to explain how my father did end up providing me with details of his belief in the existence of God and the mystery of faith. Initially, he related the simple versions taught through bible stories and the Ten Commandments. I don’t think he wanted to contradict what I was learning of faith and God in school, and I know he didn’t want to confuse me. However, he would talk to me about ethical decisions, right and wrong, and I remember that he always asked me if I thought I was making the right decision when I was faced with a moral dilemma. I’ll admit that often I went with my desires rather than my gut instinct and got into trouble; and I can say for sure that part of that was because he didn’t stop me from making those mistakes. I do know that he had faith that I would eventually make the right decisions, just as he had faith that the universe has an ordered sequence and some reason to it.

As I grew to adulthood and my father was nearing the end of his life, he did question me about my own beliefs and the faith that I chose for myself and my son. His idea of faith was bound by the model of his youth. He had a difficult time understanding my wider view of faith, but he never told me I was wrong or degenerative for basing my faith on a variety of sources. Like the Newtonian physicists, he simply asked how my theological beliefs could be true. If I had faith, then how was it that I did not believe in the God with whom I had been raised? If a, then b must be true. Like Einstein, I attempted to show him how my faith was simply an extension of the one in which he had allowed me to be raised. If a, then b, but taking into account the added variable c. I bent the light for him, and once he understood he left me with one last phrase to guide me, “Do you think you are making the right decision?” He had faith that I was.

An Excruciating Exercise in Memory

Nine-hundred and seventy: That is a close estimate of the number of students that I have worked with on a daily basis over the past eight years as a high school and middle school English teacher. I started thinking about this number after running into three of my former students at Blockbuster last night. I am always a bit surprised when I bump into students, which shouldn’t be the case, as I live in the same part of the county where I teach. It shakes me up a bit though, because I tend to live in my head a little too much at times. The conversations usually go something like this:

Student: “Ms. J!"

Me: “Huh? OH…HI!”
If it is a young person, I always say this in a pleasantly surprised tone because most of the time I don’t recognize them right away.

Student: “Do you remember me?”
They always ask this with a hopefully expectant look on their face.

Me: “Yes! Remind me of your name though…”
I hate to ask, but 970 people, come on!

Student: “It’s (fill in the blank), from (insert school name here). I was in your eighth-ninth-tenth grade English-creative writing-SAT prep class-newspaper-literary magazine club-etc.”

Me: “Of course!”
The student’s face slowly becomes recognizable with the two new points of reference, as the synapses and neurons in the recesses of my cortex fire rapidly to open some dusty file.

Me: “How ARE you?”
This is usually a productive way to stall for time, as most students will tell me about what they have been up to for the past year or two. It doesn’t always work though. Some students respond with “fine,” in which case I might have to prompt them for more information.

Student: “Fine.”

Me: “Great…How ARE you?”

Damn, I just asked that. I meant to ask, “What have you been up to?”

Student: “Fiiinnnee?”
Okay, I messed up. The student looks confused and is probably thinking I have cracked.

Me: “Well, what have you been up to? How is high school-college-parenthood?”
Phew; back on track and now the ball is in their court again.

Student: “Oh, you know, I’ve been _______________________.”
You can fill in the blank here. Some students have done well; others are more vague about how things are going, which means that they are probably not on a track that they think I would find acceptable or respectable, or whatever they perceive society’s opinion to be that year. I am always disheartened when this happens, because if they knew me at all they would understand that I threw expectations out the window a long time ago.

Me: “That is so great.”
I am not a very eloquent speaker.

Student: “Yeah…”
An awkward silence ensues. The student knows they should ask something about my life, so they ask the only thing they have a reference for concerning my life.

Student: “So, how are your classes this year? Do you still like teaching?”
They always ask this.

Me: “Classes are really great this year. We have many bright students on the team.”
As I said, I’m not an eloquent speaker.

Student: “That’s cool.”

Me: “Yes, it’s been a great year. Well, it sounds like you are doing well. Good luck next year, and thanks for saying hello.”
I don’t mean for this to sound like a dust off, but it’s apparent by now that we have run out of things to say.

Student: “Sure, Ms. J. It was good to see you.”
They look relieved, but happy to have talked with me, nonetheless.

This is not to say that I do not have students that I remember well from the past eight years. There were those who were the intellectual giants among their peers, who seemed to have an eerie combination of perfect well-roundedness: Andy, Aaron, Daniel, Rebecca, Jacob, Erin, Molly, and Dana. Some, I remember for their sweet quirkiness and charm; and still others for their struggles to excel despite inhospitable home environments: Devon, Daniel, Abby, Amy, Tyresha, Kyle, Erica, Alex, and Amanda. Unfortunately, there are also those who remain infamous in my memory, for threats made against me in the classroom, or for crimes later committed when they were adults. Despite each student’s inherent worth and individuality, some memories do tend to fade over time.

So what? This post is rather banal, and I apologize for that. It does make me dig further back in my memory for teachers from my own school years. Read further if you wish, but know that I’m conducting this exercise solely for the purpose of jogging my own memory:

Parkwood Elementary

Kindergarten: Mrs. Eaton

First Grade: Mrs. Easton (not to be confused with the Mrs. above)

Poignant Parkwood Memories: May pole on May Day; performance of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” complete with costumes; showing a boy my underwear behind the trees; singing songs from The Sound of Music while swinging with friends; having my best friend purposely stamp on my hand so that I would fall off the ladder leading up to a tree house on the playground; See Spot Run; first and second grade combined in a classroom; my starring role as Fern’s mother in Charlotte’s Web; raising my hand to go to the bathroom; and pencils and crayons.

Our Lady of Good Counsel

Second Grade: I cannot remember her name, but she had her boyfriend come in and sing Cat Stevens songs to us and play his guitar; she left teaching two years later

Third Grade: Mrs. Goddard (or maybe she was the other teacher)

Fourth Grade: Mrs. Petersen

Fifth Grade: A young teacher, only taught one year, cannot quite remember her name

Sixth Grade: Sister Helen

Seventh and Eighth Grade: Mrs. Petersen; Mrs. Graham; Sister Helen (a different one); one more I cannot remember

Outstanding Memories from OLGC: Using the parking lot as a playground; Chinese jump ropes; scratch-and-sniff stickers; being boy-crazy, as my mother put it; writing notes to friends; rumors of a girl having sex in the 8th grade; paddling; fun fairs with fish prizes; a cafeteria that wasn’t a cafeteria; projects, poems, and art prizes; dance recitals; church on Fridays; Catholic ceremonies; frenemies; catty fights with girlfriends; betrayals; new friends; loneliness; parties; feeling like a fat wart; looking for people who were more hideous than I was so I’d feel better about myself; class clowns; meeting my oldest friend, Lee, in 2nd grade; and cliques.

Bishop O’Connell High School, Falls Church

Freshman Year: English - Mr. O’Brien; Latin – yet another Sister Helen (“you be yellin’, Sister Helen"); Band – Mr. Jackson; wow, that’s it

Sophomore Year: Biology – Mr. Carpenter (had a big toe sown onto his hand in lieu of a lost thumb); Religion – Sister Marie DeLourdes; Latin, year two – Sister Helen, again; Choir – Mr. Milton

Out-of-the-Ordinary Recollections from O’Connell: Goofing around in English class; hating P.E. with a vengeance; Drama club; sitting above the stage in the rafters of the auditorium during play performances; skipping class to create scenery for Once Upon a Mattress; adolescent betrayals by a best friend; my first broken heart; a suicide attempt; school dances; breaking a boy’s heart because someone more popular asked me to Homecoming – wow, bitchy moment there; writing for the lit mag; skipping choir a few times each week to hang out and watch the P.E. classes; driver’s ed movies (ugh); marching band rehearsals; hearing this line from a good friend I had started to like, “We just don’t mesh”; eating an apple for lunch every single day; watching a friend drop acid in geometry class; dosing on No-Doze; The Dead Milkmen, R.E.M., and Pink Floyd; passing notes; and walking into a pole when my father came down the driveway in his very loud, frog green Datsun to pick me up one day.

Paul VI High School, Fairfax

Junior Year: English – Father Fitzpatrick; Science – Mrs. Kecena (“the key to chem is try,” I called her a very nasty name beginning with a “c” once while walking away from her in the hallway, hope she didn’t hear); Math – eh?; Social Studies – Mr. Hostuttler (goofy Parrothead, jock guy; we ignored each other); Spanish – nope?; Choir – Mrs. Piplani; Newspaper club – Mrs. Carson.

Senior Year: Religion – Mr. Diavies (didn’t agree with a thing he taught); English – Mrs. Draude (her husband was in the first Gulf War); Government – Mrs. Becker (showed us All the President’s Men, a favorite movie); Math - ?; Choir – Mrs. Piplani, again; Newspaper – Mrs. Carson, again; Creative Writing – a teacher I loved, but cannot remember her name

Pics from Paul VI: Chicken pox, finally; a red Mohawk; punk rock; falling in love with my first serious boyfriend; sex at 17; VA Beach choir trips; friends in a hardcore band; first car; first car accident; McDonalds and Little Caesars by the school; passing notes; graffiti on my bedroom wall; boredom; feeling jealous; feeling pretty; feeling ugly; friends whose parents allowed us to stay overnight and drink; blacking out while drinking (well, I don’t remember it, but I heard later I was quite a sloppy drunk); kissing in the hallways; getting yelled at for kissing in the hallways; smoking in the bathroom; smoking at McDonalds; burning incense in my car in the morning; meeting one of my best friends, Kathy; dances and games; and Wintergreen Lifesavers in a dark car.

Yes, siree; memories are slippery little things. I should remember more of these teachers; I should remember more of the friends who have influenced my life. Perhaps my profession pushes out some of my own school memories in favor of making new ones with my students each year. Perhaps my life as a single parent, raising a phenomenal young man who surprises me each day with his wit and candor, has replaced some of the less monumental moments of my own past. I accept that compromise willingly. I suppose I should be happy when my students approach me out in public, because one day they may not remember our time together at all.

In Memoriam...

By A.E. Bayne

Tuesday night, I attended the viewing for one of my former Drew Middle School students, Aaron Shacklette. I heard about Aaron’s car accident over the weekend from a Drew colleague, and I immediately remembered him as one of the brightest students I have ever taught and a true young man of character. Former teachers and coaches were quoted in the paper testifying to Aaron’s natural leadership abilities, his affability, and his popularity among his peers, a point proven by the line snaking out the doors of Covenant Funeral Home in Stafford. The parlor was opened wide, with a viewing and congregating area stretching across three rooms; and it was packed with his friends from Stafford and Randolph College, where he attended this past year. Aaron was involved in such a variety of activities while in high school and college that at least five groups had arranged stations to highlight their memories with him. While standing in line, I found myself thinking about the Aaron I knew, the 8th grader Aaron, with his goofy smile and poetic sensibilities, and his talent as a visual artist, a truly gifted young man.



Inevitably, my thoughts turned toward the senselessness of a death such as Aaron’s, and the brevity and unexpected nature of time. I do not believe that death has to have a reason, so I don’t tend to ask why someone has to die. As my father said when he was facing his own death, “Why not me?” However, when a person is as young and filled with promise as Aaron was, it makes you grasp for something that you can take from the event that will honor his life. As I waited to pay my respects to his family, I took notice of the effect that Aaron’s death had on his young friends, and I remembered an eerily similar experience from my youth.

I grew up with a girl named Chrissy Cutonilli, and we were quite close when we were young. Chrissy and I shared many important milestones, being that we ran with the same group of friends throughout elementary and middle school, and because we enjoyed many of the same things when we were younger. We went our separate ways during high school, and I recognize now that it had a lot to do with where I was at the time more so than the path that Chrissy took, though I wouldn’t have admitted it then.

Like Aaron, Chrissy was a person of great character and faith, with a large group of friends and an amiable personality. She had a natural aptitude for scholastics, carrying above a 4.0 throughout high school, and she worked with great fervor and diligence on anything with which she was involved. Teachers loved her; parents loved her; and most of the student body knew her, respected her, and called her a friend – she was just that type of girl.



I didn’t know this at the time, but Chrissy was diagnosed with a tumor on her spine when she was in 9th grade. She and her family kept it quiet, and her doctors removed it without incident. Tragically, a small amount of the tumor remained undetected. When Chrissy was a freshman at UVA in 1992, still carrying a 4.0 in her classes and participating in a sorority on campus, she became sick with bronchitis that she couldn’t seem to shake. The campus clinic finally decided to do a chest x-ray and found tumors on her lungs. Further investigation showed another tumor on her brain stem, and she died later that year. She was not yet 20 years old.

At the age of 19, I did not face Chrissy’s death well, and by that I mean that I didn’t face it at all. Our families had known each other from the time we were in second grade, yet I chose to relinquish those memories in lieu of a lie that would make her death easier to deal with. I refused to approach the casket at the viewing. I convinced myself that she and I had nothing in common, that there was no practical reason for me to attend the viewing and funeral, and that it was pointless. At the funeral, rather than sitting near my former classmates, I sat toward the darkened back of the church and dug my fingernails into my arms until they broke the skin rather than cry in front of everyone (and I did need to cry, badly). I barely spoke to the people I had grown up with at the Cuttonillis' house after the funeral; I was so damned angry. When I left their house, I didn’t want to ever think about Chrissy again, because hey, we weren’t really great friends toward the end of her life, and who needed to remember some dumb girl who up and died anyway.

Well, you know how it goes: never say never. I have never forgotten Chrissy, even in those early years after her death. She’d pop into my mind at the strangest times, what I called my, “What would Chrissy do or say” moments. I remember her warmth and her charitable nature when I find myself thinking that I don’t have any more to give. I think about her off-the-charts intelligence when I’m problem solving or organizing. I think about what a fantastic friend she was to me when we were young, and how much she meant to our circle of friends in those early years when we were searching out who we were going to become. Today, I feel fortunate to be able to say, “I once had a friend named Chrissy…,” and to be able to tell other people about what a phenomenal person she was. Despite trying very hard to forget her, she’s stuck tight to my moral compass.

Chrissy was there with me on Tuesday night, just as Aaron will be there for each of the people he influenced in his short nineteen years. I imagine his friends and family calling upon his name in times of trouble or doubt, remembering what a solid person he was. Maybe they will attempt to become just a little bit better because they knew someone who lived his life trying to do the right thing and behaving with compassion and love in his heart. Chrissy and Aaron were not perfect, but they chose to act, be involved, and bring happiness into other peoples’ lives, which makes them worth even the smallest memory in my book.

As we were leaving the viewing, I ran into another former student from Aaron’s class. Unlike Aaron, she was one who had always been a bit of a spitfire in class, one who was not above gossiping and making crass comments about her classmates. You know, a person just like the rest of us. I asked her how she was handling the viewing and we talked about Aaron for a bit. Then I asked her what she was doing with her life. She is studying occupational therapy at VCU. Yeah, the kids are all right.

We’re Going to Have Good Time, Even If It Kills Us!

By A.E. Bayne




My mother is crazy, and I say that with the best possible sentiment. She does not have a mental illness; rather, her insanity comes straight from the heart. She’s the type of person who would give you her shirt, take the bullet, and build you a classic Cape Cod from the sticks and stones thrown by that bully back in third grade, if you’re still hanging onto that baggage. However, like any great super-hero, she does have her Kryptonite: Hattie Mae Rogers, her mother. Yes, my grandmother, who is loved by all who meet her, who makes the best potato salad on earth, who has never known a stranger, is my mother’s Achilles heel.

On the surface, they appear inseparable. My mother dotes on my grandmother, drives her to see doctors and to restock at the grocery store, and pays for prescriptions and medical procedures when she needs assistance. Conversely, my grandmother satisfies my mother’s need for company, which abates Mom’s fears of solitude. For my mother, she is someone to care for, someone to talk to, and someone who relies on her daily. They dance around each other with symbiotic gestures; and yet, like any two objects exerting the same electrical charge, they are bound by the laws of physics to repel one another.

Conversations between my mother and grandmother often reflect each one’s need to control any given situation. I present the following example for your consideration:

While returning from our trip to Colonial Beach today, my grandmother repeats a story about a woman named Heather who lived in Memphis when she was there and who helped her often. They worked together, and Heather was very good to her – dare I say, like a daughter. My grandmother never misses an opportunity to revisit all the kind acts that Heather bestowed upon her; yet my mother feels slighted because Grandma rarely pays her even the briefest compliment for all the things Mom tries to do for her here in Fredericksburg. My mother has asked many times why my grandmother never seems to be grateful for the things that she does for her. Grandma’s response, “Because you’re my daughter and you have to do it. Heather just wanted to do it.” So be it; we hear the story of the time when Heather bought her a cell phone in case my grandmother was to break down while driving to work, and wasn’t that the sweetest thing, and how much she missed Heather.

I am rolling my eyes to the ceiling, mouthing the words to the story as my grandmother gazes out the window in the retelling, when we hear the rotating gear of my mother’s lighter spin and the lighter fluid ignites. She doesn’t say a word, but purses her lips around a Carlton Ultra Light, pulling smoke into her lungs like a rope. We all roll down our windows and there is silence for half a minute.

“You don’t see many women smoking anymore,” my grandmother says from the backseat, as if she is stating her thesis for a much longer piece of rhetoric.

Silence again; my mother is bent forward over the steering wheel, barreling down Rt. 218. She purposefully drags the cigarette up to her berry lips, sucking the dense fog into her lungs like a spirit. We wait, surrounded by murky expectancy, while she continues to stare at the road ahead. She finally blows out the smoke long and full so that it slides around her, hugging her in a haze.

“You see more women smoking than men,” she slyly responds.

And then my grandmother is off and running, “Well, Margaret Ann, you may THINK more women smoke, but they don’t. Women don’t smoke much anymore because it’s a dirty habit. I never could smoke. I tried, but I couldn’t inhale. I wanted to, tried very hard to do it. My friends all tried to show me how, but now I’m GLAD I couldn’t do it because it’s such a disgusting habit. I’m so glad Amy never took up smoking.”



I shift a sideways glance at my mother and say through clinched teeth, “You just had to say something back. You knew what would happen, but you had to say something! You can never just let it go.”

“Well, what do you want me to do?” Mom sputters at me.

“What? What now?” Grandma is demanding from the backseat.

“Nothing, Mother! Nothing.”

“Oh, it’s something, alright! Oh-ho, it is something.”

“Look at the scenery.” My mother flicks her cigarette out the window causing tiny flashes of lit ash to bounce behind the bumper.

There is silence again, but for the whirr of the tires treading along the canopied country road.

“You know, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should call Pearl today. She was so like a mother to me. It was so strange, and I’ve wanted to call her so many times the past few weeks,” my mother’s eyes tear up visibly. Pearl was my grandmother’s sister who passed away in April. She raised my mother for a few years when she was very young.

“I know; me too. It feels like I should talk to her,” Grandma says, and then, “Emma Jean called me to wish me Happy Birthday yesterday.”

My mother sighs, “That’s nice, Mother. That’s very nice.”

And so it went; and so it goes. Mother and daughter, twisting and untwisting knots in a desperate attempt to overcome the friction, to hold fast against the repelling forces of their genetic bond. They are two negatives that make a daily attempt to create a positive, beyond all odds.

The Testosterone Zone

By A.E. Bayne

Here I sit, listening to the cacophony of four sugar-hyped, video game-pumped, extremely excited fourteen-year-old boys who are sprawled about the living room. The sound is music to my ears. You see, my son turned fourteen on Thursday and this is exactly what he wanted to do for his birthday: hang with his buds. We made the foray to Gamepad earlier in the day where the boys convereged and played the age-old game of cops and robbers, now modernized in the form of Halo Wars with rocket launchers and semi-automatic weapons. In this place that I have dubbed The Testosterone Zone, they killed each other in competition for two hours and bonded over bloody massacres.

X has always had friends in school. He has always mentioned them at home and has invited them for birthday parties each year. However, he’s never consistently travelled outside of our home to hang out with friends. In fact, I used to worry about him in elementary school because he didn’t play with kids during recess, not even his so-called friends. Every time I would question him about it, he would say that he liked hanging by himself because he didn’t enjoy running around or playing sports with the other boys. I was afraid it would make him the target of a bully, but he made it through unscathed (to my knowledge). As close as he and I are as parent and child, there are some things that he won’t discuss, his aloofness and insecurity with peers being one of them. To his credit, he is fairly feisty when confronted, so I doubt he would let a bully’s comment go without reply.

When he entered middle school, he chose the orchestra (cello, and later bass) as his creative outlet. He joined the LEGO League, the school newspaper, and the science club. He started meeting a group of boys with whom he had things in common, and I started hearing more conversations at home about cafeteria banter. Over these past three years, names have come and gone, some hanging on with the true tenacity that it takes to make a friendship. A Taylor has stayed, and a Mitchell, a Kevin and a Reid and a Zach as well. X has attended parties more frequently, and has started texting consistently with this group of friends. I’ve met them, and they seem like really kind, polite kids. Some have girlfriends and talk about cars and older siblings; others, like X, just tease about the girlfriends and ask questions about the cars and siblings. The one commonality: they love to play video games. When they play the games, everything else falls away and they are just kids, just a bunch of buds hanging out.

Here is where I find myself at the crossroads of our journey. Here is the point where I am trying (really trying) to cut the rope so that it begins to fray; the single strings that form it are popping like those mooring a titanic ship just pulling to cruise toward the horizon, waves and all. I can feel the tension building, and I know the line was not constructed to hold forever; thankfully, I know that the dock will be here long after the ship has sailed.

May Be Poison

So, I don’t usually write this kind of commentary on my blog, but I am feeling tightly wound tonight after attending my son’s unexpected (well, to me anyway) orchestra recital. Really, it was a lovely concert, and I only have good things to say about how the kids are progressing, but some evenings just need further reflection. Let’s start back at 3:30 this afternoon, when X walks up to me with a permission slip in his hand and says, “I have a concert tonight.”

Oh, we laugh about it at the time (har, har), but in reality I had already determined that I would spend the evening catching up on chores and doing laundry (did I mention that my laundry pile seems to multiply exponentially each day). So, after swatting him with a folder and gathering my things to walk out the door, I start rearranging tasks in my mind that I can put aside for later. The phone rings as I am walking out of the classroom.

“Do you have any work for *Bob? I’ve got him in detention for two and a half hours and he has NOTHING to do!”

I’m thinking, why am I the one who has to find work for this kid? Of course he has work, he has a 43% in my class, but I don’t have his make-up work!

I don’t say that; instead I say, “Well, I’m walking out the door, but I’ll grab some worksheets that he is probably missing and he can work on those.”

Off we go! I throw the worksheets to Bob, who has been waiting by the door downstairs, and X and I dash for the car. Drive, drive, drive - we are home. X hops out of the car to check the mail and I park in the carport. As he walks up the driveway, I can see that he has one of those small white postcards from the bank in his hand; the kind that, upon pulling the perforated edges apart, reveals an overdraft. What the duck! I rip open the postcard thinking that I couldn’t possibly have overspent when I just deposited a money order from you-know-who in Cali not five days ago! Sure enough, a $70.00 charge for two items. Oh, the bank was kind enough to cover the check and ATM withdrawal that came in ON THE SAME DAY that my deposit was registered, but in their infinite fiscal wisdom they saw fit to register the withdrawals BEFORE the money order was registered. It’s a money order. Money orders can be cashed like…well…money. If I deposit a money order it should register immediately, like…MONEY. I look at the statement online. Yep, there’s my money order deposit, then the check and ATM withdrawal, then the $70.00 the bank took out to shaft me. Crap!

We go inside, and X starts on his homework as I call the president of the bank to complain. She’s looking into it. Um, yeah.

“Let’s go get dinner,” I say after X has worked on his Algebra and Latin for an hour.

Now, you may not think that going out to dinner is the most financially responsible decision after finding out you have just been charged $70.00 at the bank, but hell if I am in a mood to mess up my already messy kitchen further; and, after all, we do have a concert to attend tonight. After scrambling for the proper attire, we grab the double bass, which rides in both the front and back seats of our car, and head into town for dinner.

Yum, dinner, fine and dandy…moving on.

We arrive at SHS at 6:00 P.M. and X takes off with the bass that is, incidentally, taller than he is at this point in his development. I am left to park and twiddle my thumbs for what I am led to believe is one hour before the concert begins. There are not many people in the auditorium when I arrive, but it begins to fill up after I find a seat in the sweet spot. I cross my legs, look around, text Kat up in D.C. for a bit, and settle in to read a bit of Anna Karenina. Reading, reading…”My son is up there!”…shake it off…reading… “You know he’s been doing this since fifth grade”…Russian name, Russian name, rea…”Oh, yeah, that’s great. My son…blah, blah, blah.” Reading? “Blah, blah, blah, HI SON!” READING! I want to cry.

And then the 6th graders come onstage to tune…for 25 minutes. Twenty five minutes of tuning. TWENTY FIVE MINUTES OF TUNING! I hear scales; I hear squeaks; I hear giggles; I hear scratching bows; I hear stomping feet, clattering chairs, and stands being shifted about. One boy is merrily twirling his cello at the front of the stage; another is sticking the end of his bow in the ear of the girl sitting next to him. Squawk, squawk, squawk, squawk, squawk, squawk, squawk, squawk, squawk…that is a scale. Can you tell? No? I can’t either.

OK, I’m not going to rag on the 6th graders anymore, because once they actually start to play they sound very decent for their level of training; so, I’ll shift my ire to the family sitting behind me. They come in quietly enough, all ten of them; but then the babies get restless and start yammering and jawing in thick twangy accents. Mawmaw and Pawpaw start yakking loudly to one another about the youngun’s gettin’ restless; they compete with the 6th graders onstage for decibels as they argue over whether they should take the kids out because THEY are making too much noise, or whether they will miss too much if they leave, or whether the kids should be allowed to sit near each other since they’ll probably get in a fight. They do this through the sixth grade concert and continue into the seventh grade concert.

Seriously. I am a patient person. Those of you who know me know that I am a patient person. But tonight I wanted to turn around and scream, “YES! For god’s sake take the blabbering babies out of the concert. And YES! It means you will miss some of it. DO YOU REALIZE THAT YOUR CONVERSATION IS LOUDER THAN THE KIDS’ CHATTERING AND THE CONCERT ONSTAGE?”

You know I don’t do this though. Some of you would, but I don’t. I get up and go to the bathroom. Ah, quiet, solitude; all I need is today's Post. I return before X goes onstage and sit across the auditorium, on the quiet side of things. X and his group play and I am proud of them. Three years of hard work as a group, and they are sounding like peas to soup.

I am at home now, relaxing. I’ve checked Facebook and cracked open one of my last bottles of Magic Hat. The heater is running next to me. Tig is chasing hand shadows on the floor. X comes in to tell me that my beer is poison. I debate it; tell him to find the statement on the bottle that says it’s poison. Right there, where it says, "May cause health problems." Pish-posh, so it "may" be poison. I'll take my chances tonight.

Some evenings just need a bit of reflection.

I once knew a guy...

By A.E. Bayne

Certain people impact our lives without even meaning to do so. They are not people with whom we share childhood memories, become close friends, nor good neighbors; rather, they are those who drop into our lives, seemingly from the ether, and blow our minds, cascading us forward toward a new way of thinking or understanding. They have come into my life, these unlikely guides. There was the rebellious nun, Sr. Helen, who saved my soul after a serious bout of clinical depression during my freshman year in high school. In Blacksburg, it was Tim, a graduating college senior, so terrified of what lay ahead of him that he teetered in the moment by talking with me for four hours about Buddhism on a knoll overlooking College Avenue. Later, Rebecca, the chain smoking psychic, taught me about grieving one evening over beading and beer. Then, there was this man.

I once knew a guy named Jimmy Kola, a man with considerable charisma seasoned with a hint of insanity. Jimmy was a shaman of sorts, playing surf music for the local college radio station into the wee hours of the morning, and eeking out a living by trading his jewelry and doing odd jobs around town. He was a person whom I understood immediately would be an adventure in the knowing.

To the casual observer, Jimmy looked like a resplendently bejeweled and wildly hirsute counterculture hippy: the Green Man incarnate. A highly decorated soldier of the Wastelands, Jimmy wove bracelets up his arms and hung heavy contraptions of copper and clay from his neck. Multicolored tribal beads and copper twining linked the piercings that perforated his earlobes to his prominently bushy beard. On any given day, one might watch him pedal his battered and buckling bicycle barefoot through the center of town. I never saw him with shoes on, even when he came into the co-op for food. Jimmy’s clothes were always a mish-mash of textures and styles: one day a faded flannel shirt and dirt smudged chinos; another, a dashiki and shredded denim shorts. Whatever the fashion, he was instantly recognizable, even as he remained on society’s fringe.

Jimmy ran with the Kola family, jewelry makers by trade, a nomadic group. Legend had it that the family had been living out of authentic teepees in the mountains of West Virginia, but Jimmy ended up in Kent after hooking up with a cat named Jexo who ran a local art gallery, drum circle and children’s theater. Sometimes Jexo would take off for Maine or Canada to pick blueberries with the migrant workers, and Jimmy would join him for the extra cash and commradare. Or maybe it was the other way around, being that Jimmy was the nomad of the two. Jimmy’s family travelled through Kent from time to time, but most often he maintained an active social life with people from the co-op and shops in town.



I first met Jimmy while working behind the counter at
Kent Natural Food Cooperative. Already a familiar member of the co-op’s inner circle, he padded in on dusty feet one day to collect profits for his jewelry that was on display. The jewelry in the case had ensnared me on my first visit to the co-op, intricate pieces wrought with a heavy hand and an eye for detail. Copper coils deftly encircled rough agate and crystal stones, snaking back and looping through subtly mottled earth colored beads. The pieces were not gaudy, yet they had presence. Perhaps it was the natural elements; or perhaps it was the hand that crafted them, for Jimmy oozed a kind of sensual natural grace and wisdom. In any case, I was inspired by the jewelry, wanted to purchase a piece for myself, and was awed by the man who had dreamed and designed the artistic loops and twirls that gleamed under the glass countertop.

We didn’t talk about anything significant during our first encounter, though I did let him know that I admired his artwork and would like to eventually buy a piece for myself. The hair on Jimmy’s face shifted about and I knew that he was smiling appreciatively. He took the money from his recent sale out of the cash register and bought a few sparse groceries, some hummus and fruit, a little bread. I watched as he stopped in the back room to chat with Brian and Amie, both of whom knew him well.

The next time Jimmy came in, he struck up a conversation with me about organic fruit versus farm grown fruit. He told me about how satisfying it was to work with the migrant farmers harvesting berries, though the work was difficult and the hours long. I noticed how toned and sinewy his leg and arm muscles were, likely due to the physical labor of pedaling around town and working with the copper in the jewelry, in addition to laboring during the harvesting season. Eventually, and after numerous visits, Jimmy’s magnetism became such a potent force for me, that one day when he came into the co-op I nearly fell on the floor in a swoon. To me, he was simply dynamic.

Jimmy was the last person I saw when I left Kent. My soon to be ex-husband had travelled back to town after an extended trip to his future home in Arizona to help me pack up the moving van that would take my son and me to Virginia. While he and Xaviar were inside packing and cleaning, Jimmy rode by the house and circled the street in front of the driveway two times. I waved to him. He raised his hand lazily and continued down the street toward the center of town.

Now, I realize that none of this seems especially riveting or life altering, but knowing Jimmy for this brief time left me with something that I carry to this day: I am a wild woman at heart. For many years, my untamed self fought with tradition, enraging me and causing me deep and silent distress. Insecurities and self-doubt ripped through me on a daily basis. And while most of the people that I met while I lived in Kent helped me realize my true self through their examples of alternative and cooperative living, it was Jimmy Kola, in all his weird organic beauty, who became locked in my mind as the ultimate example of how to be true to one’s self. I keep two bracelets and a necklace that Jimmy made because they remind me of whom I really am, even as I traipse around in this other world.

Learning to Breathe

By A.E. Bayne

Sometimes I am just not ready for a thing to happen. I have been in such a hurry for life to move me forward, out, away, beyond, that I have forced a thing, a next step, when it is not its time. And so, I have been unhappy with my lot, and have sought to change those things which I cannot. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the way I’ve lived my life, not horribly, but rushing, always rushing away from the present without first learning the lessons to take me forward.

So, I ask myself what is terrifying about today? I woke at five, sweating and restless, not quite ready for this warmer weather under my flannel sheets. I spent the early morning enjoying toast with strawberry jam and jasmine green tea, and then later making boiled eggs and the same toast for Xaviar. Six forty rolled around the clock face and Xaviar headed out to catch the bus over to the high school for his morning Latin class. I took a quick shower, but lingered in my room while picking out an outfit and brushing on my make-up. I left the house around seven fifteen with plans in my mind to teach three separate lessons to my eighth grade students about Anne Frank and WWII, the erosion of Jewish rights in Nazi Germany, and a model of intolerance. Roughly twelve minutes later I was traversing my hallway at school, dropping in on three colleagues to chat before reaching my own classroom door.

Homeroom and the first three periods went smoothly; I even had time to grade papers while the kids watched part of an Anne Frank documentary. So far, so good!

I brought an enormous Granny Smith apple for lunch that threatened to break my apple slicer with its girth. Winning that battle, I lightly salted half of the sliced apple and tucked the other half away for later. My colleagues and I chatted about various students, all the “he said, she said” drama of the eighth grade microcosm, and tuned out the din of the noisy lunch room behind us. We rolled our eyes as children squealed when helicopters flew close to the top of our building. Upon leaving the lunch room, I checked my mailbox and found a flyer for a traveling theater group that reenacts Edgar Allan Poe’s life and poems. This is the year of his 200th birthday, which is impossible; yet it is comforting to know that people still care enough to keep his memory alive.

Back in the classroom, I finished teaching my final two classes for the day and took a breather for a quick five minutes to check my email, both work and personal (oh, I know, so bad). It was time for hall duty, so I grabbed a bundle of papers to grade and headed downstairs to the desk in front of the library. Not quite, “Stop! Who goes there?” I chatted with Rocky, our technology specialist, whose name always makes me think of the Beatles’ song, and made plans with him to reserve an I-Book cart so that my students can make poetry podcasts in April. I graded enough papers to fell Skyline Drive; most were fairly well done, and some will go back for corrections. Such is the way of the hormonally challenged eighth grader.

I stopped in the library after duty to tell Cindy, our librarian, about the Edgar Allan Poe theater group, and she reminded me that the author, Roland Smith, will be visiting our school in two weeks. He has written many adolescent novels, including most recently Elephant Run and Peak. She mentioned that we are also going to take him to dinner on the Monday evening prior to his visit to the school, so even better. She also reminded me of the upcoming book talks from Rhonda, a librarian from the public library in town. She always has the kids on the edges of their seats. The future looks bright!

I returned to my classroom with time to grab the flyer for the theater production and start downstairs to see Jane, our bookkeeper, for a chat about English department funds; but my fellow eighth grade language arts teacher, Linda, had questions about an upcoming test that we are trying to publish to the LAN server so the kids can take it on the computers. We figured it out and I still had time to run down to see Jane to talk cash. “Looks good,” she said, I would just need to get the principal’s John Hancock. He’ll be back tomorrow.

I jogged back up the stairs because it was time for the kids to arrive for afternoon homeroom and bus call. Turned the projector on…quieted them down…”Yes, you may go see your math teacher”…”No, I do not have any candy for you”…”Off the desks!”…”Second load can go to their lockers now”…”OFF the desks!” I talked to a student about her grade in class; I talked to another about a teacher who was “unfair”; I talked to a boy about how he hadn’t seen his father since 2006. I chatted with the last two students about what fun live theater is to watch, and then waved to them as they left the room for the day. I smiled, a lot. It may be the last one they see for the rest of the day.

I breathed.

Xaviar arrived. He read; I entered grades for an hour. We left the school and headed toward my mom’s house to help her unhook all of her Verizon Fios boxes so that she can send them back to the company. She asked for help because technology has always made her nervous and she thinks she will break the boxes. She offered me jewelry that would go in her yard sale next weekend. I took a few pieces.

We called for pizza from Primavera – two for one deal. We headed home for pizza and salad on the porch, only to arrive to find Dusty sitting in the middle of a bag of trash that I left in the laundry room that morning. “Oh, Dusty!” My fault for not removing it. She trotted outside, ignoring me. I picked up the mess, then we ate, after which Xaviar headed inside to watch an episode of Star Trek: Next Generation. I checked Facebook (mindsuck that it is) and cleaned up the dinner dishes (what few there were), then put a load of Xaviar’s clothes into the washer for tomorrow. Then I grabbed my notebook and headed outside to think about what it is from which I am running.

I’ve been asking myself this question a lot lately, to the point where I don’t even like to make plans too far in advance so that I can live more wholly (holy?) in the moment. As I read back over my day that I have recounted here, I realize just how beautiful each moment of it was. My son, the kids at school with their reactions and sorted tales of woe, my supportive colleagues, my mom, my messy dog - hell, even waking up was a moment to relish, rather than one from which I should run (back under the covers?).

Now, I’m kicking back on the porch, watching the hairs prickle and stand on my arms as the sun warms them and the wind through the screens chills them. I’m listening to the dry leaves shush each other like a frenzied gaggle of librarians, and I notice there is an enormous branch hanging from the maple tree over my bedroom and resting on my roof. My body jerks to get up, to fix it now, to rush forward to the next thing, but I remain seated and let the rolling wind calm me once more.

Conferences : Self Medication as...

The following are things I found out after a long evening of conferences and a little self medication:

Keyboard keys are tricky little things.

My slippers can run away from me.

Words don't quite look the way they should.

I can see better out of one eye.

Comedic movies are fucking hilarious!

If you close your eyes it feels like you're standing on your head.

I can hear the toilet running in any room in the house.

The guy from "How I Met Your Mother" is wicked funny and has a large penis.

Facebook if fun...ooops, those slippery keys again.

I will probably regret this in the morning, but damn it was worth it after conferences tonight!

My arms are heavy and my lips are numb? Strange.

Seriously, I can see better out of one eye.

Man, those slippers are slippery.

Okay, forget the slippers, too difficult.

Words have no meaning.

My head feels like a balloon...wait, I think someone already wrote that.

I find the line "He beat someone up with a starfish" to be hilarious.

I would like to be rich. Yes, that would be fun.

How the hell did my jeans get onto the middle of the living room floor?

I never realized I'm a mouth breather.

Is Hawaii the mediation spot between American and European sexual traditions? I mean, can people come together in Hawaii over such disparities as monogamy and free love?

Why do we celebrate romance on the day of a bloody massacre?

Where the bullocks are my slippers!

When Human is Not Enough

by A.E. Bayne

I am an average human being, but I couldn’t always admit this to myself. While in grade school and middle school I strove to be more than human, wishing for heroic recognition and powers to annihilate my enemies. I would dream about this constantly in the miserable stew that was my pre-teen and early adolescent hormonal smorgasbord. Here’s how it would go down:

Cue sweeping 80’s metal band anthem, something along the lines of Metallica’s “Master of Puppets”, or Guns & Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle.”

The setting: Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic School, the playground (though most people call the asphalt space with lines painted on it a parking lot).

The situation: Preppy bop-girl terrorists have hijacked the school. They have used their evil mind control device to turn everyone into sheepish followers who love listening to Madonna and Huey Lewis and the News. The student body is being brainwashed, and I am the only one who can save them from these bitches and their diabolical plan to rule the school.



Pan cameras (there were always cameras in my dreams) over the top of the school and focus on a black helicopter moving in from a distance in slow motion.

Zoom in toward a lone figure, riding astride the landing gear of the copter and holding onto the doorframe with one hand. The original Lara Croft, that’s me, decked out in warrior regalia – camouflage fatigues; insanely long wavy hair flying; combat boots reflecting a patent sheen; machine gun belts crossed over my chest, showcasing my buxom figure, with the gun held at a perfect 45 degree angle in one hand, because I am that strong. Fucking badass!

I jump from the helicopter which is hovering some 20 feet above the ground. Metal music is blaring, hair bows and friendship bracelets are flying, and I’m kicking some girlie-girl ass.

Fade out.

That was always the end of the fantasy. Considering the enormous hormonal imbalance I was experiencing, it’s surprising that the school was not obliterated by the sheer psychic vehemence of my daydream. I never could imagine actually killing anyone; but damn, they got the scare of their lives. I mean peeing in their pink and yellow flowered cotton panties scared. And wasn’t I the hero in that story! They noticed me then, for sure.

The daydreaming continued into my young adulthood, and I tended to live simultaneously in a world where I felt invisible and one where I made all the rules. Boys weren’t noticing me in the real world; no problem. In my dream world I could be any kind of mystical princess/warrior/sick skater chic/rock star/actor that I could imagine; and every one of those characters could snatch a guy within her reach (and chew them up and spit them out if she wished). No one would vote for me for student council; screw ‘em. In my fantasy I was President of the world – no, the UNIVERSE – and you better believe that it was not a democracy. Didn’t make the school play, or passed over for the solo in the choir recital; whatever. In my mind I was a multi-platinum recording artist with a lucrative contract – no school for me! With dreams like these, who needed reality?



A time came though, after my first year in high school, when my dreams began to change. Instead of feeling invincible, I just felt pathetic. My dreams continued to be based on a familiar storyline, recognition and fame; but now they became morose and masochistic. Perhaps I would never be a famous person who was loved by many. Perhaps the only way to get noticed was through pain and showing people that I was hurting. These dreams were wrought of guilt with a touch of self-deprecation and loathing. Death appeared and disappeared as a constant theme for two full years during my early high school days.

Alas, none of the dreams were true, and reality prevailed. I have fully grown into an average human female, 35 years old with one fantastic son. I have a solid job with good benefits, and I pay taxes. I tinker with writing and do the things that I enjoy to keep life interesting. I’m not a world traveler, or a famous novelist, or a poet laureate. I’m not stunningly gorgeous or vivacious. I’m simply a good person. Pragmatic. Average. And that’s okay.

So when I read a recent Washington Post article about
people who believe that they are vampires, these thoughts and memories flooded through my mind. I was like that once. I understand what these people are feeling. It’s not easy being normal. You wake up one day from the haze of adolescence and all of the promises of youth have been for naught, and it’s damn hard to face yourself in the mirror and hold your real life up to those lofty expectations. Real life cannot compare, because the tangible is often too solid in light of those warm hopeful dreams imagined under the blankets in the safety of your parents’ home, where they paid the taxes and worried about the bills. Some day the vampires will come down to earth with all the rest of us, mundane and human though we may be. They will find the extraordinary in the ordinary, and I promise the pain will be short and sweet. Here’s wishing a safe and easy landing to all.

Everything Wrong is Right Again

by A.E. Bayne

I was prompted to consider my father’s faith last night while watching a television show about the history of gravitational theory. According to modern physicists, Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity shook the faith of many in the scientific world because it disproved a portion of Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation. Einstein found that once an object is in motion, say the apple falling from the tree, Newton’s law holds up; however, if an object is sedentary, then a secondary force is needed to set that object into motion. He postulated that space itself pushes down on objects, unlike Newton’s law which suggests that gravity exerts a force that pulls things toward the most massive object in their vicinity. Einstein’s colleagues balked at his theory, as their faith was staunchly rooted in Newtonian physics. His answer to the disparity between the laws was to prove his own by providing tangible proof that space bends around massive objects. He did this by showing how light bends around the sides of the sun from the stars behind during a solar eclipse. With empirical data on his side, Einstein shifted the faith of an entire community of believers.

Like Einstein, my father was a mathematician with the keen mind of a practical observer; but he had no experiential data to prove the existence of God, a quandary that Einstein also faced in his life. My father once said that faith is the true contradiction of the universe. I came to understand that he meant that faith was part of the basic thread that made up his nature; yet it was ultimately intangible and illogical to his highly pragmatic mind. He could not tell me why he had faith, only that he did. Without proof, he could speak of the God of his faith; but he could not say unequivocally that such a God existed. He never espoused me to his faith, but I knew that he was knitted and bound by it. Nor did he ever proselytize, which made it even more of a mystery since I was being raised in my mother’s religion, Catholicism. Subsequently, he never forced me to acknowledge God or religion, but rather allowed me to experience spirituality within the realm of my Catholic upbringing. He never called his brand of teaching religion, but I realize now that what he believed was a much stronger variety of spiritual faith than that which I was being taught at school. My father and I spoke lengthily about God and faith; I just did’t realize it at the time.

It is difficult to explain how my father did end up providing me with details of his belief in the existence of God and the mystery of faith. Initially, he related the simple versions taught through bible stories and the Ten Commandments. I don’t think he wanted to contradict what I was learning of faith and God in school, and I know he didn’t want to confuse me. However, he would talk to me about ethical decisions, right and wrong, and I remember that he always asked me if I thought I was making the right decision when I was faced with a moral dilemma. I’ll admit that often I went with my desires rather than my gut instinct and got into trouble; and I can say for sure that part of that was because he didn’t stop me from making those mistakes. I do know that he had faith that I would eventually make the right decisions, just as he had faith that the universe has an ordered sequence and some reason to it.

As I grew to adulthood and my father was nearing the end of his life, he did question me about my own beliefs and the faith that I chose for myself and my son. His idea of faith was bound by the model of his youth. He had a difficult time understanding my wider view of faith, but he never told me I was wrong or degenerative for basing my faith on a variety of sources. Like the Newtonian physicists, he simply asked how my theological beliefs could be true. If I had faith, then how was it that I did not believe in the God with whom I had been raised? If a, then b must be true. Like Einstein, I attempted to show him how my faith was simply an extension of the one in which he had allowed me to be raised. If a, then b, but taking into account the added variable c. I bent the light for him, and once he understood he left me with one last phrase to guide me, “Do you think you are making the right decision?” He had faith that I was.

Insomnia ex vinum est ingravesco!

Star Date, October 27; the year, 2008. This is Captain A.E. Bayne coming at’cha from the Mothership, just inside the Dreamian Galaxy, orbiting Somnia 1027. Starfleet Command lost contact with the Somnians during a routine transmission three days ago. With growing concerns, they tore the roof off the mother sucker and sent us to turn the mother out. Thus far, we’ve had no luck in reaching the Somnians; but we chill, we chill.



Actually, it’s been quite some time since I was hit with a bout of insomnia, so I suppose I am due. In this case, my battle with the Sandman stems from a little thing called Wine-Awake. As I seem to have some time on my hands, I decided to do a little research on the subject. According to the medical web journals that I consulted, wine does commonly cause insomnia. Unremarkably, wine acts as a sedative, hence the warm toasties after a glass or two. Mmmm, love those warm toasties. It makes you very sleepy, but then it plays a little trick on you. Just as you are preparing to plummet into REM sleep, it flips a switch and acts like a stimulant. Those warm toasties become wide-eyed confusion around two or three in the morning. This effect, coupled with its diuretic and dehydrating qualities, may even last after the alcohol has left your system through the kidneys. A sedative and a stimulant in one handy-dandy package; why, someone should market this stuff. Oh…yeah, they already have.

So, why is it that when I experience insomnia it always wakes me around 3 a.m.? Ray Bradbury gives an answer in Something Wicked This Way Comes, a gorgeously written novel for those of you looking for some purely poetic literature. Bradbury’s protagonist, Charles Halloway, postulates that 3 a.m. is the soul’s midnight. He ruminates, “Doctors say the body’s at low tide then. The soul is out. The blood moves slow. You’re the nearest to dead you’ll ever be save dying. Sleep is a patch of death, but three in the morn, full wide-eyed staring, is living death! You dream with your eyes open.” Now there’s something to chew on and spit out. Perhaps my subconscious mind is simply trying to cheat death by taking back a bit of the night. Maybe there’s something in me that doesn’t enjoy the ebbing of the blood, or the turning of the tide.



Ah, but why be so morbid about this situation. I choose to place a positive spin on things; so, rather than tossing around in my balmy flannel sheets for an hour or two I will view these hours as life gained. What to do with my extra hours? Why, I could write the fourth chapter of my web novel; or I could clean my room (yikes). I could work on a hat I’ve been knitting, play with Photoshop, or clean up the dishes that I left on the counter last night. I could join countless other humans in surfing web; or I could draw in my sketch book. I could play with my Rhapsody account. I COULD try to go back to sleep. Nah! There is definitely something to be said about gaining three full hours of waking life on a night when I hardly expected it.

I am feeling a bit drowsy now. The writing helps, as does the missed hour of sleep. Maybe I’ll climb into bed and try to get comfortable. Yes, those flannel sheets are beckoning. I forgot how chilly it gets at this time of the morning, and I do have a long day of teaching ahead of me. I have exactly…fifteen minutes until I have to make my funk the p-funk. Shit! No time for sleep; the Somnians have all left the building. Now the only choices are whether to lace the coffee with rat poison or heroin-substitute, with shower to ensue. Maybe next time, eh?

Surprise me, I dare you!

Not to tempt fate, but nothing surprises me anymore. The duplicity of my conventional/unconventional nature has always made me look like a fence-sitter. Hell, I voted Independent for years. But as I sit here listening to my son sing "Paranoid" in the shower, and ponder the truly beguiling nature of perception, I realize that my contradictory nature allows me to be a keen observer. What I've observed lately is that peoples' perceptions of things are not reality; that no one really knows what motivates another person to act; and that everything changes. I hate to take the tact that we should never have expectations in life, but it does come down to that. No one knows which decisions they are going to make from day to day. No one can promise you anything for certain. Trust is a dead word. Be more specific. Accept the inexplicable, that no one really knows what another person is feeling, and no one can walk in another person's shoes. People have proven that lately. It's a lesson, as well as a conundrum.

On August...

By A.E. Bayne

It is the season of sticky watermelon juice
on the kitchen floor.
My sandals suck the linoleum on the trek to the sink.
This season is for random thoughts and altered memories,
when we compromise the reality of situations
in its humid physicality.
It is for sunlight pouring through a meandering gloom,
forcing its way toward the seared grass
where only weedy things thrive.
It is the season for losing keys and misplacing identities;
when insect rhythms match stereo sounds tone for tone,
and bore their way into my mind.
This season unnerves me
with its wasted hours not wasted on chores.
Too much time for thoughts of pulling weeds;
so I turn toward things to come and textures I can grasp.

The Art of Being Late

I wake up early, truly I do. I set the alarm for 5:15 a.m., leaving just enough wiggle room for me to hit the snooze button three times and swing out of bed at my actual rising time of 5:30 a.m. That gives me plenty of time to wander rock-eyed into the kitchen and set the coffee pot, shuffle into the office to press the button to turn on the computer, return to the kitchen and fix the cup of coffee when it is finished brewing, and sit down to read the Style section of the Post and any late email from the previous evening. I keep an eye on the clock as I read, making sure that I don't dally past 6:15; but when the minutes tick over, I convince myself that it won't actually take all of thirty minutes for me to take a shower and dry my hair. I can push it to 6:30. I am reading, and writing, and 6:30 comes and goes while I'm occupied so that when I finally glance down at the clock again the hour reads 6:43 a.m. Cripes! I finish the last line of the article on graffiti artists in D.C. and spin my chair around to bolt into the bathroom for my shower. Soap, scrub, rinse and I am off like a bullet to the bedroom to diffuse my wavy layers.

What to wear? What to wear? I throw on the black top with the dark jeans (nope), switch the top for a blue jacket and tank (ugh), then pull everything off in favor of a jersey Pucci print wrap dress (god, I look so bloated). It will have to do. The clock wears its 7:25 a.m. face as I fluff and spray my hair frantically. I have to leave the house by 7:30 and I haven't even done makeup yet!

Sit, powder, line, brush, color, blush, lips, stick in the earrings and slide on the wedge heels. Run, run, run down the hall to the purse on the chair – no time to eat – keys on the counter, no, where? Crap! Keys, keys, keys…okay, where did I drop stuff when I came home yesterday? Ah-ha! They are hiding under the dish towel on the kitchen counter. The clock says 7:32, well enough, and I AM OUT OF HERE!