What the Apocalypse Sounds Like

Since I'm presently teaching my composition students the elements of descriptive writing,appeal to senses is at the forefront of my mind.

So when I saw a movie with Dave today, where the end of the world was more than shown, it was heard, I was intrigued.

The scuttling of a cockroach up a wall; a dry, dusty wind whistling over a collapsed bridge; the scrape of a metal water pump; the scuff of worn boots across cracked asphalt...In the Hughes' brothers' latest film, not only does sound make Armageddon more real to its viewers, it is paramount to its characters' survival. They rely on this sense to keep safe, to get food.

If the flap of a crow's wings and the buzz of silence don't get you, the music definitely will.

The Apocalypse sounds like "The Book of Eli."

Dos Gringas, Bombaros, & Anne Frank

The first clue should have been the deserted tunnel that ran from San Ysidro to Tijuana.

It was seventy degrees on the Sunday early afternoon, a sunny day bookended by severe storms.

Yet no one but my cousin's wife, Genny, and I strolled past the graffitied walls, over the bridge and across Avenida Revolucion to the plaza.

My dad had warned me against going into Mexico. My husband kept his phone on the whole time, waiting for the call of how much they wanted to give me back. Neither of my girlfriends would go with me. But Genny would, so we headed over the border in search of skeletons and tin art.

After picking up a poncho and straw hat for Dave and several eskeletos for the kids, I realized that Genny and I were the only shoppers in the alleys. Most of the metal doors had remained shut, and in the last open store, we asked the furniture vendor at what point in the day they would open.

From under butterfly flags, she explained that the stores weren't opening. That because of bad media and the recession, the sellers had gone for good.

She went on to tell us that we were the only "white people" she'd seen in a week. A week!

There were no tourists. There was no money.

On our way back to the bridge, Genny and I visited the Bomberos, our international family of firefighters. There were more engines there than in any station I've ever seen. Do you sell shirts, I asked them. They said they didn't. But one insisted I take his.

Of course, I didn't want to take the man's uniform. He probably only had a couple, if that, and I suddenly felt selfish and thoughtless.

But when the man brought me to the back of the bay, to a room not unlike Dave's in Oregon, and when he pulled a shirt from his bag and handed it over proudly, I accepted with humility.

I thanked the man and hugged him, and as we crossed Avenida Negrete, I held up the shirt to a passing van of policia, who got a good laugh.


In the vast customs building, I looked over my shoulder. Thousands of border crossers were herded like cattle through metal stalls. And not one of them, not one, was "white."

Maybe it's true that Tijuana isn't perfect. Maybe bad things happen there, maybe even to good people. But on this day, the worst thing that happened was that it was tough finding a Diet Coke (Coca Light).

It reminded me of Anne Frank's famous quote: "...Despite everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart."

Hello...From Legoland!

We had so much fun in Legoland, California.



This sign made me giggle.

And this sign summed up everything.

The Saddest Book I've Ever Read

On Tuesday between classes, I drove home a half-hour to read more of Still Alice. This debut novel by Lisa Genova chronicles the mental deterioration of fifty year-old Alice Howland--Harvard Professor, author, wife, mother--as early-onset Alzheimer's Disease takes over her mind, her career, her marriage.

My tears plopped shamelessly onto the pages where Alice, once strong and independent, makes memory mistakes at staff meetings; as loneliness swallows her; when she attempts to rely on a preoccupied husband who's in denial.

Genova's work pits the cognitive self against the spiritual one. Alice struggles to categorize her new self between intellect, of which she'd had much, and emotion, which she is beginning to discover.

It's about one woman's search for truth--the sad, hard, complicated truth--while most of her family has given up.

After Alice makes some difficult and unsupported choices, she comes to know the youngest daughter she's never understood.

"'You're so beautiful,'" Alice tells Lydia. "'I'm so afraid of looking at you and not knowing who you are.'"

'"I think that even if you don't know who I am someday, you'll still know that I love you,'" Lydia says.

"'What if I see you, and I don't know that you're my daughter, and I don't know that you love me?'"

"'Then,'" says Lydia, "'I'll tell you that I do, and you'll believe me.'"

This work gently straddles the line between narrating and teaching. Ultimately, it is a call-to-action. For earlier diagnosis of the crippling disease, for the understanding of its victims.

"I encourage you to empower us, not limit us," Alice reads at a conference. "'Work with us...help us. Encourage [us]...

"'My yesterdays are disappearing, and my tomorrows are uncertain, so what do I live for? I live for each day. I live in the moment...I will forget today, but that doesn't mean that today didn't matter.'"

Cranking Up The Silly

These days, Daney has no sense of humor, especially when it comes to mistakes she's made. Granted, ten is a serious age for a girl who is planning to major in biology at Cornell. But in this family of mostly males, "serious" isn't always the mood.

Instead of deep conversation and philosophy, there are various body noises, lots of running, and the daily Nerf war.

You'd think Daney would be laughing her head off.

She's not.

She can't.

She's not that kind of girl.

But we're working on it. Making fools of ourselves.

Like, I bombed the singing part of "Don't Stop Believin'" during the family Rock Band tournament.

And Dominic laughs at his trademark one-word responses.

Rees tells funny stories of himself when he was a baby.

And when Dave screws up, he says "Sorry" like Saturday Night Live's Gilly.

All this doesn't seem to be making a difference in Daney's loosening up: making mistakes and giggling over it. Kind of the reverse of most parental objectives, I suppose.

MLK Days

In perfect timeliness, I've recently finished The Help.

This debut novel by Kathryn Stockett is narrated by three Southern voices in Jackson, Mississippi, in the early 1960s. Two of the narrators are maids; the third is a misfit young white woman who is unmarried but educated. Each tries to balance their lives--love, loss, family, and work--amidst political and social upheaval. Which isn't so different from now.

What is striking, though, is that the Civil Rights Movement happened only 66 years ago. During our parents' lives!

When we were kids, my dad showed us the Park Merced Apartments in San Francisco. This huge building didn't allow any African American tennants until 1971. The year I was born! Even after the Civil Rights Act was passed, discrimination was still taking place. In the west!

The Help reminded me how fortunate we are to live in a tolerant, compassionate community. Ashland is not enormously ethnically diverse, but we have vast varieties of socioeconomic status, of religion, of ages, of sexual orientation, politics, and culture.

It reminded me to keep teaching my kids the essence of the book, of humanity: that we're all just people. That we're all the same.

It reminded me about a trip to Harlem we took our kids on three years ago. Where we had to pay extra for the cabbie to drive us there. Where all the windows and doors were barred up. Where people hung out in groups on doorsteps.

When I'd asked the kids if Harlem is different from Ashland, Daney said, "Yes, really different. There's way more..." she paused, and I held my breath.

Please don't see it, I thought about The Big Difference. Don't see it yet.

Daney went on. "...There's way more...um...fried chicken restaurants."

Breaking the (Environmental) Law

I can't take it.

I can't do it anymore.

If I have to wash out one more mildew-reeking, peanut-butter-slimed, poppy-seed-sprinkled lunch bags, I'm going to die.

And I want to live.

To see at least one book published in my lifetime.

So.

I have to switch to paper bags for a while. I have to. Just for a little bit.

Until I get back on my feet.

But I won't not feel guilty about doing it.

What about you?

Is there any environmental law you have to break?