About Oahu

Four blocks up from the Hilton Village is an Oahu few tourists choose to see.

It's just past the canal that runs through Waikiki, a vessel for rainwater run-off and hotel sewage, that crew teams paddle their boats over. Just past this canal, barely out of range of the luau ukulele, are high rise apartment buildings strewn with strings of drying laundry, with strings of children running up and down the stairways. With skateboarders in the parking lots.

Between these skyscrapers are tiny, flat-roofed huts, upon which mango trees release their fruits that roll onto the dirt. The siding of the huts is plywood and aluminum, and lizards slip in and out of the chain-linked fences.

Piles of trash wait on street corners: stained, saggy mattresses; broken bookshelves. Diapers spilling from opened bags.

In the afternoons, tents sprawl around swings and slides: a city park for the homeless, whose scruffy shoes park outside the door flaps.

There are feral cats and enormous cockroaches and birds who sing above it all.

There are few big gas companies and no "mainland" banks.

Each street you cross has a disabled pedestrian with a tiny arm, a shortened leg, a hunched back. The result of lack of prenatal care? Of alcoholism? Of nuclear fallout?

For these kama aina ("Children of the Land"), Life Cereal is $9. A loaf of French bread is $7.29. It is cheaper to eat a McDonald's Big Mac than an apple. And a two-bedroom apartment costs
$1,200/month.

There are lots and lots of service jobs--hotels, restaurants, shops--but really, no other industry.

And the public schools are irreparable.

You'd think this poverty and collapsed infrastructure would get these natives down.

Not so much.

On Saturdays, they open their trunks and drag their Weber Grills over the sand, and they raise canvas roofs and play the guitar from their tattered Coleman camp chairs. They gather as brothers and sisters and cousins and grandmas, and they grin and flip their ono chicken, and shoot around the soccer ball at Ala Moana Beach.

The sun sets and the coffee-colored babies sleep on turtle-printed towels, and everyone listens to Auntie talk-story about the time before the Hilton Village and the skyscrapers, the time before the '60s. Before Life was so expensive. The brothers and sisters and cousins, they listen. And they eat the bread Auntie has made from the bananas in her yard.

What's Fascinating About SEA?

"How could you spend five weeks studying South East Asia," I've been asked since I've been home.

It's a good question, really.

Those ten (or eleven, depending on how you count them; different post) seemingly insignificant countries on the way other side of the earth wouldn't appear to affect us much here in the US.

In order for me to make sense of it all myself, I deconstructed everything I learned at the National Endowment of the Humanities' Institute (on Oahu). Oh, we had experts--speakers flown in from Indonesia, from Wake Forest and other east coast universities, from California, from the midwest. We were learning about things as they were happening. It was crazy.

Then, I reorganized all that information according to discipline, and analyzed it for a so...what? Where does it all lead?

Here's what you might find interesting:

The islands and mainlands are diverse in many more ways than they are unified: by geography, outside influence (including that of South and East Asia, Europe, and the US), religion, political authority, culture, and the 1,000 languages among them.

Japan bombed Pearl Harbor for access to SEA's rubber, oil, tin, iron; and to prevent US access to it.

The concepts of time (minutes, hours, days) and printing emerged with Buddhism in the region.

Indonesia is the world's fourth largest country. (And is the largest per-capita Facebook-using nation!)

While globally, the birthrate is declining, in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, it is spiking.

This region shares the same issues as the US: our relationships with China, terrorism, trade, the environment). Our citizens also strive for human, labor, and women's rights.

It comes down to the dollar; 6 of the 10 or 11 nations rank in the top half of world economies, some of which have catapulted themselves from the bottom within the last several years.

Is it clear--the economic power here?

That's one of the places all this goes.

I found the bottom line with SEA film scholar Wimal Dissanayake, a bright, lovely man, who said pointedly: "While SEA is a rapidly expanding region, it is severely understudied."

This area is sure to keep rising, in wealth, in population growth, with technology.

And???

Do you know how the US will be affected by that?

By trade, sure.

But also in our higher education systems. We'll be competing for the earth's top potential innovators. Within the next 20 to 40 years, our classrooms are likely to be filled with the greatest thinkers on the planet.

And, since 4 out of 5 foreign scholars end up staying in the US when they complete their programs, we'll be competing for jobs, too.

What do you think? Is that good or bad?

Will more and more university slots go to Jakartans, Manileños, taking up seats from Americans who "deserve" them?

Or will the ambition of these academics add to our melting pot, spawn our creativity, help us stay a super power?

Not Buying It

When we got to the part of To Kill A Mockingbird where Tom Robinson is found guilty of raping Mayella Ewell, my kids were livid.

"What?!?"

"That's not right!"

"It's not fair."

"This book is so dumb."

"Why did she write it like that?"

It had taken a long time to hook my kids into this read--the catalyst for that would be Boo Radley--and when they were finally willing to settle into setting, to know the characters, Harper Lee blew it for them at the climax.

"Well, wait," I told Dominic (13), Daney (12), and Rees (10). "What do you think this book--the Book of the Century--is about?"

They told me it was whether Tom was let go or given the death penalty.

"Is that everything?" I asked. "What does that have to do with killing a mockingbird?"

This was a different read for our family. It was not fantastical Harry Potter or spirit-of-survival Little House on the Prairie. As the kids get older, we read deeper. The last book we read together was The Boy in Striped Pajamas.

But this--this timeless, timely tale--this was the most slow, the most rich, the most complex (I'm gearing them up for Grapes of Wrath).

"Could it be," I asked, "That this book has less to do with what happened to Tom Robinson than what Scout and Jem think about it? That they felt like you do: that it wasn't fair. And why wasn't it? What does that say about how things were? And are things ever that way now?"

If Tom Robinson were let off, how could we review the essence of human nature? How would we know how difficult, if not impossible, it is to set aside reason from prejudice, even if a man's life is at stake?

What kind of folks will Scout and Jem grow to be? How were they different from most of their community? Why did their dad, Atticus, choose to foster that? Why does it matter?

Again, I believe that the difference between commercial and literary fiction comes down to conclusion. Mockingbird didn't end as we'd thought it would. It didn't end happy. We were dissatisfied, unravelled, even.

Days after we finished, the kids are still talking about the book. Yes, they were glad they got to "see" Boo. Because of that one scene, they raised the book to a B-, A-, A. But they're still walking around, grumbling that Tom Robinson got the chair. And that is why Harper Lee is a genius.

What They Won't See

I leave for the NEH Institute in Hawaii in just over two short months, and if the last three weeks of spring term is any indication, that is going to fly by.

After lots of thinking and looking up airfare and doing yoga, I've decided. The kids won't come out to see me, but if I miss them unbearably, I'll fly home for a quick weekend.

Dave works hard, and he is super supportive of my 5 week study, taking off a whole month from high fire season to shuttle the kids to swimming lessons, take them to the library. We're 19 years into this marriage, he and i, and we've not yet had a long, exotic vacation alone. This is the time.

Yes, I will crave my kids' arms around my neck. I will cry knowing that Dominic can't show me the fort he's built, that Daney can't crawl into my bed and talk about her day, that Rees won't brush my hair.

I will not see my favorite thing in the world: my cuties pulling their suitcases through the airport, that is one thing I'm sure I will miss.

But there are other things I won't see, too, because they are things my kids would have shown me. Like the assassin bug the boys spied in a bush in Cabo, or the morray eel Dominic spotted in the rocks in Hawaii, or the fried chicken place Daney found in Harlem.

With their sharp little eyes and their open hearts, my kids have always seen the things I don't, and I'm sad to know I will blindly pass plumeria and pufferfish and singing kingfishers. And while I'm nose-deep in Asian studies and the art of the Polynesian Cultural Center, I will promise myself to bring my babies back and show them the sunsets, the beaches, the carving in the palm tree. I will show them the best of the best.

What We're Doing in Writing 121

Because my class is about critical thinking, today I am changing the room around. So my dedicated students never forget to see things a different way.

Today's lesson is "Corn." Yes. As in "on-the-cob."

I will show these eager learners a big spider-y brainstorm on how to integrate implications. Like: "What is the political perspective on corn?" and "How is corn related to anthropology?"

And while we're thinking and writing, we'll be eating Doritos and drinking Coke. Breakfast of Champions. To taste our content.

Yummy.

Outside Shot

So, I have a reputation for being a bad sports mom.

I don't wear the jersey and go to every game, clanging a cowbell.

But I'm trying.

The deal was that if Dominic (13) didn't play football this year, I'd step it up as a basketball mama. I would go to more games. I wouldn't bring any papers to grade there. I would pay attention, and at the end, I would know whether Dominic's team won or lost.

Last night, Dave and I drove an hour and a half to Klamath Falls to watch our boy on the court. From under the basket, he waved at me enthusiastically. I love that kid.

By the third quarter (44-24, Klamath Falls), I got a little antsy, though. A grandma sitting near me was scribbling down her shopping list, and I was coveting, obsessing over that notepad.

Eyes on the game, I couldn't stop thinking. What if education drew the same support that sports did?

What if parents drove an hour and a half twice a week for Brain Bowls, Odysseys of the Mind, Spelling Bees, music recitals? And what if half the school showed up to watch?

What if teacher to student ratios were 1:6?

What if money used on transportation for coaches' stipends and team transportation were matched in school libraries?

What if the learning process used the team concept, where students shared a common goal and worked together for months to achieve it?

What if academic school pride matched that of the athletic kind?

What if hordes of parents got together to cheer on students with math?

What if kids practiced reading and writing for two hours every day after school?

What if the arts were as valued as baseball?

What if weeklong celebrations like homecoming revolved around science instead of football?

The bottom line is that athletics are great. They keep kids fit, involved, and out of trouble. I played soccer forever, was on swim team, joined college intramurals. I married a two-sport college athlete; together, we made us some sporty babies. I know the stats, too: higher SATs, lower drug use.

But, from the bleachers, I can't help wondering why if a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of these young athletes will go on to use their talents professionally, what is happening with the much larger number of them who won't?

Ptah

When I was an undergrad at San Francisco State, I took some fabulous art classes. One of them was a sculpture class which was assisted by Ptah*, a tall, wiry Rastafarian with a real smile.

Ptah was a graduate student. He was broke and 40-ish, and any day, any time, you could find him in the studio: helping strugglers like me, or mixing or firing the clay, or smoothing his art with his large, kind hands.

One day in class, Ptah told us to look at our works from a different perspective. From above, perhaps. Or from below. To turn it, and see it from the side.

I was making a big African head--maybe a planter?--that I thought was almost finished.

But when I turned it, I noticed that the chin and cheeks were under-defined and the nose was way too big.

It needed some serious work. Revision.

Twenty-one years later, I've been thinking about how I can apply all this to writing.

Can anyone help me pay homage to Ptah and use his advice?


*The last day of class, we found out that Ptah named himself after the Egyptian God of Creation.

Marriage is Hard

It is.

In fact, there's a whole industry, and we writers are part of it, that capitalizes on this.

Take "Sex & the City 2," for example, in which Carrie tries to define and adjust to the concept of marriage. She can't do it. So she gets her own apartment changes her clothes twenty times and hooks up with another guy. And her husband rewards her with a big diamond while they snuggle up on their new sofa.

Okay, bad example.

Take the play I saw the other day, Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Now that was an interesting perspective on marriage: 1955 Mississippi, where the women were oppressed, and expected to have broods of children, but where they were beginning to voice their dissatisfaction and longing for better relationships. Maggie (the Cat) craves attention and love from the washed-up athlete. She scrambles for security--emotional, economic--and clings desperately to her uninterested husband.

In both stories, there is sacrifice. There is conflict between maintaining autonomy and preserving tradition.

But we girls don't need to go to the movie or the theater to know this.

We live it every day.

Dave and I have been married almost 18 years. (Yes, we were young. Incredibly.) Believe me, when you fall in love at 8, there's some stuff that has to get worked out, though, and it seems to take years, no, decades.

It's been good, most of it, but it's been hard, too. Last summer we hit a rough spot that took some serious work and commitment (and a big setting aside of egos).

Like Carrie and Maggie Cat, (I think) I sacrifice quite a bit. But Dave definitely gives up a lot, too. I have to remember this. It's my job. (It's literally my job. I teach Critical Thinking, which is considering plural perspectives.)

It's easy to take marriage--husbands--for granted. What's hard, what's better, is to see them for what they are: men, strong but fragile, putting forth effort but falling short, hoping to achieve perfection but falling short.

Human.

Just like us.

In the Trenches...After Being in the Trenches

Today, I taught in tennis shoes. The sleeves of my sweatshirt were pushed up, and my hair was pulled back in a ponytail. By 9:30, I had chased a(bad) cup of coffee with Diet Coke on ice.

A half-hour later, I was in front of 30 eager community college writing students, denying my exhaustion to share what I'd learned over the weekend at the SCBWI Western Washington Illustrators/Writers Conference. So between each pair of students I'd set a different postcard from a conference illustrator's portfolio sample.

Our class opened with a quickwrite. The students each had to tell the story behind the postcard. After they revised, they read to their postcard partner.

Of course, the stories were wildly different. Is there any better way than art to prove plural perspectives? It's all about interpretation.

After two classes, I was wiped out.

I can't begin to imagine the hours of work the Conference committee puts in to pull off a show like that--and to make it look as smooth as it does.

This year was abundant with inspiring writers and artists, agents and editors. Wasn't this blue just invented for author Mitali Perkins?Mitali's keynote was another good reminder of having faith in vision and voice.

And here's fan-favorite teacher/librarian Chadwick Gillenwater. That guy was all smiles 48 hours straight. I loved him even though he wouldn't spill how I could get a "Diva" name tag like his.

I posted this previously, but she's so noteworthy, I'll say it again: Egmont editor Elizabeth Law rocks. I mean, what New York editor just plops down at your lunch table and asks what you want to know? "L-Bone" is witty and real, and she lives for "Glee." Just don't submit anything about dreams to her.

Jordan Brown, HarperCollins editor, is also pretty awesome. He plugged and plugged and plugged the success writer's achieve by taking risks in their work.

Clarion Editor Lynne Polvino took a big plunge, herself--by suggesting that before the recession, the children's book market was overpublished. Interesting...

Harvey Klinger agent Sara Crowe was brave, too. She courageously left a nine-month old at home in New York to share her wisdom with us: to really know our characters.

And new-to-California agent Michael Bourret? If he'd let me, I'd be his best friend.

Arree Chung won the Art Award for his fantastic creations, including this ninja:

I could've used today to re-read my pages and pages of notes. I could've re-written some scenes, revised some plot points, taken some risks and refined my vision.

But I had to wait till tomorrow.

Because today, in tennies, I was in the trenches.

And, it was good.