The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd

The narrator of this story, Lily Owens, shares a variety of issues that I can't really relate to. Being the only white girl in a black household. Having an abusive and distant father. Helping someone break out of jail. Beekeeping. It's all interesting stuff, but I can't say that I have experienced it or am part of a world that has this stuff happen. What I did relate to however was the guilt Lily carried around, mostly subconsciously that was seen through her thought processes when she discussed her mother. The guilt of being the one to ruin someone else's life, to have your existence be the very reason why someone else's life is changed. Whether or not it was a warranted way of thinking, I liked how the author realized that at age 14, that's probably how a young girl is going to think given the facts Lily had from her family's past. Thinking that she did it. It's all her fault. That she ruined it. I remember being that age and feeling like it was my fault that my mother wasn't happy, that it was because of me that we were poor, that we couldn't live a normal life, all because she had to ensure my existence in the world. It felt like a heavy weight being carried around all the time. How hard was it to be happy and carefree while knowing that I was the cause for someone's unhappiness and struggle? The simplicity of childhood is sometimes so deceiving.

There is a sharp, pulsating pain shooting up and down my left leg for some strange reason. With my education in physical and biological science ending at the end of high school, I like to this that this pain is caused by excess sugar blockage, ingested hours before at a ritualistic Starbucks gathering. See, the body could not take the sugars, and now my veins are paying for it as the indigestible sugar cubes are stumbling their way through the body, and me feeling every second of it. It's a miracle my veins do not pop. And it is my gift to society that I did not go pre-med.

These past few days have been so historic, yet contradicting. We have the first African American president, and yet Proposition 8 taking away the legality of gay marriage passes in what is one of the most blue states in America. YET, although the state is not ready for gay marriage, it is ready for people to undergo abortions without parental notification. My current personal political alignment would have been best suited if all three were left leaning, and undoubtedly was very surprised when the results were not 3 for 3.

6.7 Billion

The most recent report of the world population is 6.7 billion (6,700,000,000). That's 6.7 billion stories, each with a different take on the same world we share. It is 6.7 billion different ways to live a life.

To me, it is such a big number, and to think that right now as I blog comfortably in my heated two story home while others can be fetching water for their grass hut tribe kind of makes me stop and wonder about the distances people can be from another. Physical distance yes, but also world view and thought. Stuff I currently care about, the unsolved and ongoing conflict between selfish desires and familial responsibility; is it just an imaginary battle I have concocted in my mind? I'm not stupid. I understand the importance of stepping out, fulfilling the basics, building a future. I get it. Despite the plethora of compelling arguments for settling down and "getting serious," I cant help but wonder. Is it okay to look for answers, journey to far ends of the Earth if need be (literally and figuratively speaking), driven by in my opinion the selfish motive of personal self discovery, a quest to find some of the answers that keep me up at night? Or continue wondering, and always wondering, until I become tired and old and let the questions die. And would dying for a living then, be what a person needs to do to make it? I can't help but think that maybe, just maybe, my answer may be hidden somewhere in the stories of some of the 6.7 billion people. There has got to be something more to this life.

The print out by the air con

Posted in the classroom next to the aircon where I teach my afternoon class is a print out "Today is the first day of the rest of my life." And everyday when the kids shout "Ms. Teresa!! It's so hot in here!!" and when I go to turn on the air con, I pass by that print out. It's actually a very long paragraph about how people should spend their time wisely, that they should use the day they were given to the fullest, and how when it's over, its really over, or something along the lines of that. It's good it had a decent opener.

Every day when I pass by that print out and read those words, I can't help but wonder. Although it's been mentioned by many that they see me here, I still have a hard time coming completely to terms with really being, here. Here as in moved back home, spending afternoons in a classroom full of rambunctious 4th graders, being engulfed by the smell of crayons, and happy children books, with my mind occupied with the next days lesson plan. Sometimes, I wonder if the government budget cuts will eventually trickle down to cutting me, and then if not, I wonder if they will get around to paying its employees the fair amount. Mostly however, I wonder if this life is for me, right now.

So much has changed. I feel like I reached the point where idealism failed to stop the fall and instead I was caught by Starbucks, multiple meetings, time sheets, and parent conferences. Being bi-lingual is useless when neither of the two languages are Spanish, lesson plans on paraphrasing are put to waste if kids can't even read, and creative writing is shot when they write about wanting to "join a gagn, do badthgis, and drank."

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. The question now is what happens now. And never mind me, what is going to happen to the kids? In 10 years, they will be 20. 10 short years. There is so much I want to tell them. Transfer schools. Make better friends. Stop putting crap in your stomachs. Try to learn something. Don't think your life sucks. Today is the first day for the rest of their lives too.

An early Christmas present to myself:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K Rowling

A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams

The Sun Also Rises, by Earnest Hemingway

The Giver, by Lois Lowry

Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, by Lynne Truss

A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving

The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini

This Side of Paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho

Franny and Zooey, by J.D Salinger

The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd


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