Are We There Yet?

On By Alicia McCauleyIn Teacher TalesLeave a comment

A new school year is nearly here and I’m so eager to get started that I feel like I’m perpetually leaning forward, kinda like when I’m watching a tense movie and I can’t wait to see what happens next.  It’s not that I’m tense about the new school year.  I’m just about to burst waiting to see what happens next.

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks giving my room a complete overhaul.  Re-arranging furniture to facilitate partner work stations.  Cleaning out files, cupboards, cabinets and ridding my room of anything resembling clutter.  I recovered my bulletin boards in different fabric, replacing harsh colors with calming blues and greens.

My summer was spent filling my brain with books on literacy and writing instruction.  Just when I thought I would overflow with good ideas, I went to an Interwrite training and left with even more ideas on how to provide dynamic instruction.

Yesterday as I wrote out nameplates for my incoming kids, I couldn’t help but wonder what they’re like.  Which kids will make me laugh?  Which kids will devour books so quickly I can’t keep up?  Who will beg to be my after school helpers?  Which kids will blow me away with their compassion?  Who will puzzle me and make me discover new ways to teach?  Which of these little ones will take my passion for writing and make it their own?  Who are these kids?  I’ll meet them Friday and Friday can’t come soon enough.

The Auntie Diaries: A Day at the Park

On By Alicia McCauleyIn The Junk DrawerLeave a comment

It’s no secret that I’m not cut from Mom fabric.  Motherhood isn’t for me and nothing proves that like when my big brother’s kids are in town.  I take each of the five of them on a special date.  My first date went like this:

12:00 Pick up 5-year-old Kyleigh to go to Kids Kingdom.

12:14 Realize that when it is 112 degrees swings, slide, and tire swing sear through shorts when sat upon.  Climb around on jungle gym instead.

12:30 Follow Kyleigh over to the sprinkler area where she plays for a few minutes.

12:37 Sit with Kyleigh in the shade waiting for the water volcano to erupt.  Want to poke my eyes out after telling her over and over that the water volcano won’t erupt until 1:00.  It’s “Are we there yet?” times a thousand.

12:49 Tell weird babysitter guy with a toddler that perhaps he shouldn’t set his cigarettes and lighter in the woodchips on the playground because, ya know, there are kids here and stuff.

12:51 Move away from weird babysitter guy who apparently took my scolding as an invitation for conversation.

1:00 Finally the volcano erupts.  Kyleigh is afraid to get near it.

1:02 Volcano stops and we sit in the shade waiting for the next eruption at 1:15.

1:15 This time Kyleigh runs for it, understanding that if she doesn’t get to it ASAP, she’ll miss out and will possibly shrivel up into a raisin if she doesn’t get wet.

1:22 Introduce Kyleigh to a little girl from school.  They splash around like old friends.

1:30 Volcano erupts again and Kyleigh has wisely staked out the spot that gets the most water.  She guards her area fiercely and gets completely drenched.

1:40 Weird babysitter guy moves near my shady spot, bringing with him 2 other pock-marked, skinny legged meth users.  One sits behind me, one to the side, and the other in front of me so that when they want to talk to each other they have to yell.  After being caught in the middle of yelling conversations about a festering rash, a stolen truck, and the (insert colorful word) government, I tell Kyleigh that after the next volcano eruption, we’re going to get frozen yogurt.

1:47 Practically injure Kyleigh as I rub her dry with a towel, simultaneously pulling on her shorts and shirt.

1:48 Walk so briskly to the car that Kyleigh runs after me calling “Wait for me!  Wait for me!”

1:48 Think briefly about the Pirates of the Caribbean Code: If anyone falls behind, they’re left behind.

1:49 Grab Kyleigh and hustle her to the car.

1:50 Peel out of the playground parking lot.

2:00 Sit happily in the clean, air-conditioned yogurt shop.  Smile as Kyleigh tops her yogurt with gummy worms, gummy bears, chocolate chips, cherries, sprinkles, more sprinkles, and whatever else she pleases.

2:01 Smile even bigger at the mom who explains to her kid that he can’t do the same thing because they only put healthy things in their bodies.

2:22 Kyleigh puts her sweaty, ice cream covered face up to mine and says “Thank you, Aunt Alicia.”  She tops it off with a kiss, leaving sprinkles on my lip.

Riding Bikes with My Brother

On By Alicia McCauleyIn Bike Adventures2 Comments

Yesterday morning my alarm went off at 5am.  Yes, it’s still summer.  Yes, I set it for 5am on purpose.  Yes, I did the same thing again this morning.  On Saturday That Laura, my little brother Pete, and I headed out for a 17 mile jaunt along the river.  This morning, Pete and I did the same route again.  My brother has recently started cycling the two miles to work and back and when he expressed an interest in doing longer distances, I jumped on it.

I have a simple rule: If you like bikes, I like you.  If you ride a bicycle, or even its ugly cousin the unicycle, you pretty much have to be Satan for me not to like you.  I don’t know much about bike parts and that kind of geekery, but I can talk to you about rides until your face falls off.

I already like my little brother, so I knew taking him on a bike ride would be great.  We rode along the Sacramento River when the air was still cool enough to send goosebumps skipping up my arms.  I know this trail like the back of my hand.  I’ve ridden it in the dark, knowing exactly where I was based on the rise and fall of the pavement beneath my tires and the black shadows of the trees around me.

Since this trail is an old friend, I chattered about bumps in the road, blind corners, the mint that grows here, the blackberries that grow there, the gravel that always gathers around this corner, the fence that marks the end of the hardest part of the hill and all the little details that I have learned about this trail over the last few years.

When Pete was 3 and I was 8, he used to copy what I said.  Not in that irritating way when someone instantly repeats you over and over.  Although he did that, too.  The copying I’m talking about was when I’d hear phrases I used come out of his little mouth within the context of normal conversation.

As we rode in the quiet of the morning, I heard Pete say some of the same things I’ve said on The Rocket.  It’s so relaxing.  It’s better with company. Of course, there were familiar utterances of another vein, too.  My butt hurts.  My legs are sore.  I wanted to get off and walk the hill, but I didn’t let it beat me.

In a lot of ways, riding my bike with Pete feels like we’re kids again.  Only better. When we were kids, we were just brother and sister.  Now we’re friends and I can’t wait to show him another one of my favorite rides next weekend.

Hands

On By Alicia McCauleyIn The Junk DrawerLeave a comment

My hands are a book of stories, a criss-cross of scars, both seen and unseen. The scar across the back of my hand reminds me of my clumsy, carefree childhood, chasing my brothers through the house.  Stomping, yelling, running when running was just for fun.  Then the acute pain of catching my hand on my dad’s wire bristled sanding wheel, the bristles, like porcupine quills catching under my skin.  And then my mother’s tender hands, silky smooth bandaging my own small hand.

My cycling gloves have drawn tan lines across my wrists, a promise that adventure is mere pedal strokes away.  Steering my bike up mountains, beside rivers, through waves of wildflowers bowing over the plains.  My bike is escape.  My legs turn circles while my hands brake, shift, and guide almost without thought.  My mind moves beyond the daily clatter.  It is my space to think about big things and small things all under the careful guidance of my hands.

My left hand wears the promise of love.  Love in all its joy.  Love in all its pain.  Love without condition.  Love like I thought I didn’t have the capacity to give.  Or receive.  How my lovely hands took care of me this year.  Wiping away tears, both his and mine.  Our hands clasped in the spare doctor’s office, trying to hold onto light and hope.  If we just entwined our fingers tight enough, maybe our life together would not slip away.

My hands twisted medicine bottle lids, rubbed his back after lonely nights, and threw my raw prayers up to heaven.

The skin of my hands began to peel, as if my heartache had descended into my fingers and my hands could only respond by peeling away the layers.  It was painful, the forced exposure of new skin before it was time.  And still my hands continued to do all the required jobs just so I could make it from one day to the next.  Soon one day became many days and we’d held on long enough, tight enough, that our life together did not slip away.

My right hand wears another ring, the promise of eternity, of peace beyond my most vivid imaginings.  We cling to this and it clings to us.  It is here in our morning prayers, hands folded that we rediscover our life together, cognizant of the fact that we balanced precariously on the edge of it all and didn’t fall.

Stories balance on the tip of my tongue and the callous on my finger reminds me of my childhood spent holed up in my room, poetry spilling out, filling pages with graphite.  Now, my fingers tap at the keys of my computer.  It’s the rhythmic tapping of letters becoming words becoming paragraphs becoming the story of my life.

So far it is a story of joy, heartache, and healing.  I think of fairy tales and that phrase “They lived happily ever after.”  It always comes at the end of the story.  In my life story, we are living happily ever after.  We are living happily ever after right now because we are aware, so very aware, of just how precious now is.

Clipless Pedals

On By Alicia McCauleyIn Bike AdventuresLeave a comment

Clipless pedals.

The name itself is totally misleading. Clipless pedals are the kinds of pedals you clip your bike shoes into so you are in essence attached to your bike. This can be a really good thing when you’re pulling up a hill and want a little extra power. It can also be a really bad thing if you come to a stop and forget to clip out. I’ve spent some time making asphalt angels after realizing I stopped and didn’t disengage. As if it weren’t bad enough, I’d look over and see the driver of the car next to me cackling.

It turns out bruises, scrapes and humiliation are pretty efficient teachers in my cycling life. After a couple of falls, I was vigilant about unclipping my right leg so I could come to a stop and stay upright.

This left me with one more pedal issue to resolve. After clipping out to stop, I needed to learn how to clip back in without swerving all over the intersection while the light changed from green to yellow to red with me still stranded in the middle. I called on the expertise of a far more experienced cyclist. He told me not to worry about trying to clip my foot in right away. One foot was still clipped in and I could use that leg to pedal across the intersection. Once in a less trafficked area, I could look down and clip my other foot in. It was definitely one of those “Why didn’t that occur to me moments?” From that day forward, I’d stop confidently and start up again with my one legged pedaling.

A year later, I was leading some new cyclists on a ride and we came to a stop. One newbie tottered back and forth, clipping out just in time. When it was time to start up, she tried without success to clip in her dangling foot. She made her inaugural asphalt angel and from the ground asked, “Can you help me figure my pedals out?” I helped her up and smiled because I’d been there. I’d so been there. We spent the next few miles stopping, unclipping, lopside pedaling, and clipping in. Over and over again until she got the hang of it.

I won’t say that I’m an expert or even that I possess any expertise because I’ve spent way too much time on the ground for that. I will say this, it takes humility to ask for help. And when asked, I’m always willing to share my experience.

Now if someone will just explain to me how I can avoid crashing that would be great.