Blanca

Blanca sits on the bleachers
of her cholo's basketball game,
men's D-league.
Thursday night.
She sits
between two brown-eyed babies,
Blanca,
a baby herself.

Blanca,
toenails red,
black stilettos.
No ring on her finger.

She's the same as she was
in eighth grade English:
liquid eyeliner on her lids
full lips
long legs.

Blanca,
then,
talking and laughing during Anne Frank.
Getting referrals to the dean.
Getting detention.

Blanca,
then,
in short, swishy skirts.
Popping gum in the hallway:
"An' I tell him, if he gonna treat me that way, uh uh."

She's the same as she was,
only different, now, too.
The fire in her eyes,
gone,
even when her cholo dunks.

Blanca,
now,
in a too-tight pea coat,
tied hard around her.
Now,
with sippy cups,
with binkies and bills,
and after the two, with birth control.
Dios knows the cholo isn't worried about that.

Blanca,
checking outside the gym.
Where did they go, those babies?
Where did they disappear?
Blanca,
finding them again.

She sits in the bleachers,
center-left,
by the open door.
While her cholo drives the ball down,
right into the White Team,
fouls.

She sits.
Her babies,
talking,laughing, outside.
She sits,
checking her phone,
waiting.
She doesn't know for what.

Who Is Valedictorian?

Your odds are better at being one of Ashland High School's valedictorians if you're female, from a two-parent family, and have worked hard enough for 12 years to want to take a year off.

AHS, which consistently ranks in the top 3% of US News & World Report's "Best High Schools," has a legendary Speech & Debate Team, an honorable Math Team, a Quidditch Club, a Gay-Straight Alliance, Knit Wits, Model United Nations, Multicultural Club, Pagan Club, and Crew. Every year, the Drama Department partners up with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to produce, direct, costume, and choreograph a professional-level musical. (This year's performance of "Chicago" rivaled the production I'd seen on Broadway of Sacramento.)

According to the Medford Mail Tribune, of AHS' 14 Class of 2011 valedictorians, 12 are female. Eight of 12 are listed with parents of the same last name. Many scholars are in Honor Society, have math honors, played soccer, are musicians.

And several are planning on taking advantage of the new trend; they'll take a "Gap Year" of travel or volunteer service, or dabble in the arts before heading back to the books at Stanford, NYU, Pomona, or George Washington to study neuroscience, physics, engineering, or journalism.

I know some of their parents: professors, doctors, authors, entrepreneurs.

This morning at breakfast, Dave and I sat by an AHS grad from a few years ago. She went to Harvard for a year, and returned to work at an Ashland coffee shop.

A simple, quiet girl from my own high school in California went to Berkeley and is now the headmaster of a private school in Marin County.

You never can tell, I guess, who will succeed, and at what. Part of the fun mystery of life is the element of surprise.

Maybe it will be an AHS 2011 valedictorian who cures AIDS, or maybe it will be the kid who sat in science in the middle row, who graduated 60th in a class of 200, who went to community college first.

This One's For the Girls!

Here they are! Meet them and love them -- the amazing women in my life!

There's Mary, my auntie, my Godmother, my friend, with whom I chat and laugh and scrap. And Jeanne, my younger auntie, who I stayed with in San Francisco so many high school weekends, who gave me freedom and trust to run all around the city.

I wouldn't be the same without my sisters: Amy, smart and beautiful; Erika, ambitious and resourceful; Brigit, big-hearted.

Mo's been my bestie since kindergarten. I still remember her peeking out at me from behind her mom's legs on the first day of school. Mo and me, we've played socccer and survived Catholic school, and when we get together like we did last month at the American River to catch minnows and tadpoles with our babies, it's like no time has passed at all.

Andrea made it through St. Joseph's with us. She had the whole collection of Strawberry Shortcake dolls, and she didn't get mad when I took them swimming the summer of second grade and they lost all their smells.

Lisa W. had a knack for making papier mache. She zipped Kristen, our deep and wise gal pal, and me all over in her brown Toyota. And Lisa A. had an infectious giggle and superhuman algebra ability.

Wendi was Dave's friend first. They lived in the same neighborhood, and Wendi got her first speeding ticket with him in the passenger seat. Twenty years after long, lazy summers of lifeguarding, Wendi and I have kids 10 days apart, and we live 12 minutes from each other.

In college, Stephanie lived on the other side of my wall. We both ended up teaching middle school.

Karlee, from the college days, is a part of my every day. She is one of the kindest, hardest-working people I know.

Then there are the writers: Christy, Julie, and Anjie: insightful and bright, and right more often than not.

And Daney, who I haven't known a long, long time, but who I've known the very best: my daughter, who I'll have a rich, deep love with forever and ever.

And many, many more sharp and talented women: Maddy and Miah, my nieces; my cousin, Heidi; Genny; Aunt Nancy; Polly, Linda, and Leslie. Kim and Amy. Daney's bestie, Gracia, and Gracia's mom, Becky. Dominic and Rees' friends' mamas. Holly Root, agent extraordinaire! And all you super cyber-women.

I'm a lucky, lucky, lucky girl.