She’d stopped going out on the streets years ago. Stopped going to protests. What was the point? You marched. You chanted. You waved your placards. They still won. It made no difference. They ground you down in the end. Nothing changed. Why put yourself through this, her husband would ask, and after a while, she started to agree with him. She started to believe it was futile even to try and change things. They were too big, too strong, and her knees weren’t what they were. But there was something about these kids, goddammit, these kids and their energy and the way they refused to quit, the way they went out in the streets in all weathers, the way they would not let themselves be cowed or intimidated. They reminded her of herself at the age, when that fire still burned within her. They reignited something deep inside and she knew she couldn't stay indoors anymore. She couldn’t just sit in her apartment and watch things be ripped apart. She had to do something, give something. So she went into her kitchen, and she did what she knew how to do best - she baked. A simple cake, apples, cinnamon, and a little brown sugar. She waited until it had cooled and then she packaged it up and took it to them. She felt a little foolish bringing them cake, these students who were putting themselves and their future on the line. It felt too small a thing, too small a gesture. But they accepted it with smiles on their faces, they recognised her need to feed them for what it was, and they devoured that cake, every last mouthful, as somewhere far away in time someone with a guitar sang: “Una mattina mi son svegliato, O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao” and she knew in that moment that she could not go back to her apartment, her husband, her kitchen. She would stay with them. She would stand with them.
There was sixty-four dollars and thirty-six cents in my red wool sock. Last night’s rain and the open window in my kitchen left my plants drowned and a Rorchach of dirt in my kitchen sink that vaguely resembled Carmen Miranda. My right shoulder, usually a screaming concrete mixer, was blissfully silent. Hustling pool for 17 straight hours means a half bottle of Advil chased with Jim Beam. But a miracle of sun glanced off my windows and lifted me into my shoes. I craved sunny side up eggs but ate a Milky Way bar and drank yesterday’s reheated coffee with monkish appreciation. I finished the New York Times crossword puzzle, and Friday’s is usually a straight up bastard. If I believed in astrology, I would say the stars had sashayed into alignment. Singing John Hiatt’s ‘Real Fine Love’ I stashed my cash and rooster walked to the Clipper Joint, where the green felt cooed my name.
Yassss! Sixty-four dollars and thirty-six cents is such a satisfying number. So many specific images, and to end …the green felt cooed my name. Great stuff Deborah.
You write so soulfully, Deborah. A painter using a palette of words. Hope you write a novel one day. Would love to read that. I’m also a John Hiatt fan. First saw him back in ’81 or ’82 at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver, BC opening for Graham Parker, if my suspect memory is correct. Have seen the tall man from Indiana six times and 'Real Fine Love' is a much loved song. I'm a proud owner of the 'Stolen Moments' sheet music book. :) Also wanted to say your photographs and art are wonderful. “Some Frieda Love” and “Mixed Media Abstract Ballerina, number nine in the series on your Etsy Shop jumped out for me on your IG page. Such beautiful work. I’m with Kyle that sixty four dollars and thirty six cents is a number with a cadence that resonates. It reminds me of a song I can’t place at the moment, but I’m sure it will return.
Since second grade, I began to struggle in math. Numbers colluded with each other on black-and-white ditto sheets to gang up on me, making fun of my bowl-cut and my budding ineptitude. My father would sit with me at the dining room table putting his head in his hands. "This is SO EASY!" he would yell, to me, to nobody, to God, to the dining room ceiling lights, "you HAVE to know THIS one!"
I didn't. I did not know this one.
I had the good fortune to live in Lower Merion and attend some of the best public schools in Pennsylvania, including that high school Kobe Bryant went to. I don't remember his number because I was a theatre dork and because, well, numbers. Teachers would continue to pass me along to the next grade even though I failed nearly every test because... I don't know why they did it. I should have been held back, numerous times, but I guess Lower Merion had its Blue Ribbon Standards to uphold. I guess they looked at me with a mixture of affection and pity-- the way I'd always hoped girls would-- and said to themselves, "I mean... he wears glasses and tucks his shirts in. He's GOT to be worth SOMETHING." So they passed me along, to be some other teacher's problem the next year.
In 11th grade, Ms. Dilks arrived; a long-term substitute. Brand-new, fresh-faced, kind-eyed, with no idea what she was up against. She saw me struggle and she came to me one day and said, "I am determined to help you, if you want help."
I didn't, mostly because I didn't think such madness was possible. But I accepted her offer. I would come to school early and do math with her when only the janitors and cream cheese kids were in the building. I would have lunch with her sometimes, corned beef on mini challah rolls and do math. Sometimes, when I wasn't called for play rehearsal, I would stay after school with her and do math.
My final grade that year was a C-. It was the highest final grade I'd ever received in math. "Well," she said to me, "you passed; on your own merits. And now you don't have to take math your senior year." She paused for effect, "unless you want to."
I smiled at her.
"I'd rather roll around naked on broken Coke bottle shards."
The day before graduation, I wrote a note to the principal letting him know what Ms. Dilks had done for me, how hard she tried, and I requested that she be hired full time. She was.
Decades later, I had lunch with Mr. Stettner, my former 12th grade astronomy and geology teacher. I brought my senior year yearbook to the Golden Bowl Chinese Restaurant and, while we waited for our food, I pulled it out and said, "We're going to play a little game. It's called "Lower Merion teacher: alive, dead, or insane."
Stet grinned. And I opened the book and turned to the staff pages and pointed to a random teacher and he would tell me if they were alive, dead, or insane. I pointed to Ms. Dilks.
"Well," he said, "not quite insane, but she left a year or two after you graduated."
"Ah," I replied, "it just wasn't the same without me, huh?" Stet smiled.
"She was really overwhelmed, and had a lot of bad headaches, she missed a lot of days, and then she just left."
Less than a year later, I got a Facebook message from Mr. Stettner's wife, letting me know that Stet-- good natured, big-hearted and sweet to the bone-- had died of a heart attack in his basement, in his t-shirt and Super Mario brothers pajama pants.
"I read some things over the years you two guys had written back and forth about you, and I knew he'd want you to know," she wrote. I was devastated, and sobbed in front of the computer screen.
Alive, dead, or insane.
One day, I'll look up Ms. Dilks, to let her know how I feel about what she did for me that year, what she gave me; that I know and understand. Maybe we'll have lunch. But I'll leave the yearbook at home.
Gabe, what a wonderful story. I was pulling for you all the way and then…the iconic savior arrives! A C- was better than any math score I ever got. Great stuff. Let us know if you look her up.
I shared this with my teacher niece. Here is what she said “Thank you for sharing this;I really enjoyed it. It’s an interesting self-reflection and has a good balance between humor and vulnerability. This part really resonated with me personally, “ Numbers colluded with each other on black-and-white ditto sheets to gang up on me, making fun of my bowl-cut and my budding ineptitude.” Man, I knew that pain, but I like how it’s said in a way that’s not self-pitying.
Very nice way to memorialize the teachers who made a difference. “
Thank you so much for your warm response, Kathy! And thank you so much for sharing with your niece! Please let her know how much her thoughts meant to me.
That is great Kyle. I am on a HAIKU kick today. I have had a hell of a week. Leftovers from the weekend acting workshop and trying to manage my husband's depression and a play rehearsal and trying it figure out how to continue to write a movie script that I am quickly loosing steam over because of past trauma coming up. The bright side of this is my director from the Anderson County movie wants me to help him with his other projects. Yes life is really hard right now but it totally could be much worse. I think we are all in a place of some kind of hardship right now. I did manage to film 3 music videos down in Conroe, Texas and shoot some photos of the town and I got to film and work with professional actors in this workshop and explore the possibility of having a acting workshop set up here in Palestine. Yes ,life does find a way to carry on and to make the changes it needs to make for it to get better. Opposition is good because it can help us see a bigger picture of what is important to us and it can show how we can fight to make ourselves better. Man I have been bottled up to much this week. Some of this is depression on my part and my husband. Leaving town takes a lot out of him but he was great in the acting workshop and people want to work with him. We are on the verge of something big in the near future. My husband's mudic will be in the Anderson County movie. How cool is that.Right now is the time to regroup and recover from a new trauma that came out of nowhere from something that was a big misunderstanding. We are ok and life has managed to get better for us. I was able to keep up with what had been happening in LA all week and said prayers 🙏 forever one there. I truly hope we can find away to help each other with words instead of a brick or a fist. Why has it become so hard to talk out our problems? Do we not have the right to ask these questions of ourselves? Has there really been a brake down on our beliefs, that we can't just listen to what what someone had to say weather we agree with them or not. I have friends on both sides of the political spectrum and I am always wanting to listen and learn what they have to say. Do we not know how to do that anymore? How do we teach ourselves not to forget the simple act of right and wrong when it come to treating each with respect? For me I will always keep it simple. Pray for humanity 🙏, charity is always best, help one another no matter what, and know that evil will never win. Love Never Fails. It is written in the bible that it evil can't win. My faith will always be love will win in the end.
thanks for this Sheila. Life keeps coming, it doesn’t stop. When you are doing lots of thing, for me, especially creative projects and ideas - it seems like so much can get in the way or distract you. My super, not-a-secret trick which I’m sure you already know - is to include it all: the business, the depression, the trauma, the joy, the newness of it all. Then, we’re not fighting against it, we’re being inclusive, inviting it all to the table. It ain’t pretty and sometimes you collapse, but sometimes you can include it.
Actually ,I am just now including all of the madness in my life. I learned in my acting class to always understand where we are at in life and how to use what we know that is inside of us. I have always thought that was the right way to be when it comes to the creative aspects of my life. I have always been a visual artist. Painting, mixed mediums of altered art,photography,sketching. Explaining my art has been wonderful and now adding the other aspects of the art world will help. To be able to add the writing, acting, and directoring will open myself up to a new experience that can help heal the pain that is inside of me. Learning how to express one's self is a beautiful thing to accomplish in this crazy world. What I feel is a overwhelming sense to share a story about trauma and pain right now. Now tomorrow that may be a different story. I have been trying to finely sit down and watch the movie "The Burtalist" the other day and I will finish. I found this line to be very inspirational and fitting on how I feel at the moment.
"No matter what the others try and sell you,it is the destination, not the journey."
My art world will always grow. What is really cool about is ,I can pin point when it all started. Most of can but how many of us are willing to take it apart and examine it and put it back together again and learn from it. For me life will always find a way to be a better artist but also a better human being in my art.
Ah Natasha! Thank you so much for this! Quite stunning, powerful, and simple (like cake). The ending is as liberating as it is devastating. Fist raised!
Stay the Course everyone .We need each other. My town right now has been with massive flooding from all of the rain we have had plus, Anderson County right now is in a fight for it's life for all of our water. Some brain dead moron of a company has decided that it would be OK to apply for a permit to drill 21 wells down into our aquifer and take the water and send it elsewhere in the state. Why? No clue. Our county judge can't even find the reason. Town hall meetings are going on everywhere. Also this not just our county either. There are three other East Texas counties in question. Oh and to top off the craziness of this week. I just found out there might be a protest here in tiny little East town of Palestine. I have no problem with it but we have a bigger problems right now for my town to have this kinda of event to happen here. Flood waters and stealing water . Our resources and personal are depleted at the moment. If a protest needs to happen here, it needs to be against the drilling of the wells. We can all have a voice on any topic but the minute someone throws a brick or massive looting happens we do have the right to defend ourselves. Now what does that look. For me it will be going out a photographing the protest if we should happen to have one. I doubt it will happen . I feel for the people of LA and what they are going through. I feel for the police who are trying to restore order and the every day people who ate just trying to live there life.How do they go about doing that? When it seams some people want violence and no order. It is my prayer 🙏 that our country will turn from there wicked ways and pray for one another. Ask people how they are doing and ask how I can help you today. The simplest acts of kindness can help us all. Go out help your neighbor with something. Hold a door open for someone, help someone carry there groceries for them. How about just being nice and smile at someone. Simple words of affirmation of love. We all can do better. Let us all Stay the Course. God bless.
There was a young girl from the Midwest
Who sang songs of hope and protest
And though she tried hard
To support the vanguard
Some days her soul was distressed
Beautiful.
Even in distress
we sing.
Yep. It keeps me going
She’d stopped going out on the streets years ago. Stopped going to protests. What was the point? You marched. You chanted. You waved your placards. They still won. It made no difference. They ground you down in the end. Nothing changed. Why put yourself through this, her husband would ask, and after a while, she started to agree with him. She started to believe it was futile even to try and change things. They were too big, too strong, and her knees weren’t what they were. But there was something about these kids, goddammit, these kids and their energy and the way they refused to quit, the way they went out in the streets in all weathers, the way they would not let themselves be cowed or intimidated. They reminded her of herself at the age, when that fire still burned within her. They reignited something deep inside and she knew she couldn't stay indoors anymore. She couldn’t just sit in her apartment and watch things be ripped apart. She had to do something, give something. So she went into her kitchen, and she did what she knew how to do best - she baked. A simple cake, apples, cinnamon, and a little brown sugar. She waited until it had cooled and then she packaged it up and took it to them. She felt a little foolish bringing them cake, these students who were putting themselves and their future on the line. It felt too small a thing, too small a gesture. But they accepted it with smiles on their faces, they recognised her need to feed them for what it was, and they devoured that cake, every last mouthful, as somewhere far away in time someone with a guitar sang: “Una mattina mi son svegliato, O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao” and she knew in that moment that she could not go back to her apartment, her husband, her kitchen. She would stay with them. She would stand with them.
There was sixty-four dollars and thirty-six cents in my red wool sock. Last night’s rain and the open window in my kitchen left my plants drowned and a Rorchach of dirt in my kitchen sink that vaguely resembled Carmen Miranda. My right shoulder, usually a screaming concrete mixer, was blissfully silent. Hustling pool for 17 straight hours means a half bottle of Advil chased with Jim Beam. But a miracle of sun glanced off my windows and lifted me into my shoes. I craved sunny side up eggs but ate a Milky Way bar and drank yesterday’s reheated coffee with monkish appreciation. I finished the New York Times crossword puzzle, and Friday’s is usually a straight up bastard. If I believed in astrology, I would say the stars had sashayed into alignment. Singing John Hiatt’s ‘Real Fine Love’ I stashed my cash and rooster walked to the Clipper Joint, where the green felt cooed my name.
Yassss! Sixty-four dollars and thirty-six cents is such a satisfying number. So many specific images, and to end …the green felt cooed my name. Great stuff Deborah.
thank you Kyle!
You write so soulfully, Deborah. A painter using a palette of words. Hope you write a novel one day. Would love to read that. I’m also a John Hiatt fan. First saw him back in ’81 or ’82 at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver, BC opening for Graham Parker, if my suspect memory is correct. Have seen the tall man from Indiana six times and 'Real Fine Love' is a much loved song. I'm a proud owner of the 'Stolen Moments' sheet music book. :) Also wanted to say your photographs and art are wonderful. “Some Frieda Love” and “Mixed Media Abstract Ballerina, number nine in the series on your Etsy Shop jumped out for me on your IG page. Such beautiful work. I’m with Kyle that sixty four dollars and thirty six cents is a number with a cadence that resonates. It reminds me of a song I can’t place at the moment, but I’m sure it will return.
Thank you Paul! It's criminal that I've yet to hear John Hiatt live. One of these fine days, I shall. . .
In my bones the king’s heart is a stone only fire might soften.
Ooooo. Nice. 👍
Good one Paul!
Since second grade, I began to struggle in math. Numbers colluded with each other on black-and-white ditto sheets to gang up on me, making fun of my bowl-cut and my budding ineptitude. My father would sit with me at the dining room table putting his head in his hands. "This is SO EASY!" he would yell, to me, to nobody, to God, to the dining room ceiling lights, "you HAVE to know THIS one!"
I didn't. I did not know this one.
I had the good fortune to live in Lower Merion and attend some of the best public schools in Pennsylvania, including that high school Kobe Bryant went to. I don't remember his number because I was a theatre dork and because, well, numbers. Teachers would continue to pass me along to the next grade even though I failed nearly every test because... I don't know why they did it. I should have been held back, numerous times, but I guess Lower Merion had its Blue Ribbon Standards to uphold. I guess they looked at me with a mixture of affection and pity-- the way I'd always hoped girls would-- and said to themselves, "I mean... he wears glasses and tucks his shirts in. He's GOT to be worth SOMETHING." So they passed me along, to be some other teacher's problem the next year.
In 11th grade, Ms. Dilks arrived; a long-term substitute. Brand-new, fresh-faced, kind-eyed, with no idea what she was up against. She saw me struggle and she came to me one day and said, "I am determined to help you, if you want help."
I didn't, mostly because I didn't think such madness was possible. But I accepted her offer. I would come to school early and do math with her when only the janitors and cream cheese kids were in the building. I would have lunch with her sometimes, corned beef on mini challah rolls and do math. Sometimes, when I wasn't called for play rehearsal, I would stay after school with her and do math.
My final grade that year was a C-. It was the highest final grade I'd ever received in math. "Well," she said to me, "you passed; on your own merits. And now you don't have to take math your senior year." She paused for effect, "unless you want to."
I smiled at her.
"I'd rather roll around naked on broken Coke bottle shards."
The day before graduation, I wrote a note to the principal letting him know what Ms. Dilks had done for me, how hard she tried, and I requested that she be hired full time. She was.
Decades later, I had lunch with Mr. Stettner, my former 12th grade astronomy and geology teacher. I brought my senior year yearbook to the Golden Bowl Chinese Restaurant and, while we waited for our food, I pulled it out and said, "We're going to play a little game. It's called "Lower Merion teacher: alive, dead, or insane."
Stet grinned. And I opened the book and turned to the staff pages and pointed to a random teacher and he would tell me if they were alive, dead, or insane. I pointed to Ms. Dilks.
"Well," he said, "not quite insane, but she left a year or two after you graduated."
"Ah," I replied, "it just wasn't the same without me, huh?" Stet smiled.
"She was really overwhelmed, and had a lot of bad headaches, she missed a lot of days, and then she just left."
Less than a year later, I got a Facebook message from Mr. Stettner's wife, letting me know that Stet-- good natured, big-hearted and sweet to the bone-- had died of a heart attack in his basement, in his t-shirt and Super Mario brothers pajama pants.
"I read some things over the years you two guys had written back and forth about you, and I knew he'd want you to know," she wrote. I was devastated, and sobbed in front of the computer screen.
Alive, dead, or insane.
One day, I'll look up Ms. Dilks, to let her know how I feel about what she did for me that year, what she gave me; that I know and understand. Maybe we'll have lunch. But I'll leave the yearbook at home.
Gabe, what a wonderful story. I was pulling for you all the way and then…the iconic savior arrives! A C- was better than any math score I ever got. Great stuff. Let us know if you look her up.
I shared this with my teacher niece. Here is what she said “Thank you for sharing this;I really enjoyed it. It’s an interesting self-reflection and has a good balance between humor and vulnerability. This part really resonated with me personally, “ Numbers colluded with each other on black-and-white ditto sheets to gang up on me, making fun of my bowl-cut and my budding ineptitude.” Man, I knew that pain, but I like how it’s said in a way that’s not self-pitying.
Very nice way to memorialize the teachers who made a difference. “
Most teachers have no idea the impact they have had on students. Such a beautiful story. “Hope”-ing you reconnect with Ms Dilks.
Thank you so much for your warm response, Kathy! And thank you so much for sharing with your niece! Please let her know how much her thoughts meant to me.
Together we can help
Summer can heal us
A voice of reason from within
Life will get better
East Texas warm sun
Don't Give Up each other
Nice, Sheila. It inspired me:
Ant crosses the road
Vapors rise from East Texas sun
A car! watch out ant!
That is great Kyle. I am on a HAIKU kick today. I have had a hell of a week. Leftovers from the weekend acting workshop and trying to manage my husband's depression and a play rehearsal and trying it figure out how to continue to write a movie script that I am quickly loosing steam over because of past trauma coming up. The bright side of this is my director from the Anderson County movie wants me to help him with his other projects. Yes life is really hard right now but it totally could be much worse. I think we are all in a place of some kind of hardship right now. I did manage to film 3 music videos down in Conroe, Texas and shoot some photos of the town and I got to film and work with professional actors in this workshop and explore the possibility of having a acting workshop set up here in Palestine. Yes ,life does find a way to carry on and to make the changes it needs to make for it to get better. Opposition is good because it can help us see a bigger picture of what is important to us and it can show how we can fight to make ourselves better. Man I have been bottled up to much this week. Some of this is depression on my part and my husband. Leaving town takes a lot out of him but he was great in the acting workshop and people want to work with him. We are on the verge of something big in the near future. My husband's mudic will be in the Anderson County movie. How cool is that.Right now is the time to regroup and recover from a new trauma that came out of nowhere from something that was a big misunderstanding. We are ok and life has managed to get better for us. I was able to keep up with what had been happening in LA all week and said prayers 🙏 forever one there. I truly hope we can find away to help each other with words instead of a brick or a fist. Why has it become so hard to talk out our problems? Do we not have the right to ask these questions of ourselves? Has there really been a brake down on our beliefs, that we can't just listen to what what someone had to say weather we agree with them or not. I have friends on both sides of the political spectrum and I am always wanting to listen and learn what they have to say. Do we not know how to do that anymore? How do we teach ourselves not to forget the simple act of right and wrong when it come to treating each with respect? For me I will always keep it simple. Pray for humanity 🙏, charity is always best, help one another no matter what, and know that evil will never win. Love Never Fails. It is written in the bible that it evil can't win. My faith will always be love will win in the end.
thanks for this Sheila. Life keeps coming, it doesn’t stop. When you are doing lots of thing, for me, especially creative projects and ideas - it seems like so much can get in the way or distract you. My super, not-a-secret trick which I’m sure you already know - is to include it all: the business, the depression, the trauma, the joy, the newness of it all. Then, we’re not fighting against it, we’re being inclusive, inviting it all to the table. It ain’t pretty and sometimes you collapse, but sometimes you can include it.
Actually ,I am just now including all of the madness in my life. I learned in my acting class to always understand where we are at in life and how to use what we know that is inside of us. I have always thought that was the right way to be when it comes to the creative aspects of my life. I have always been a visual artist. Painting, mixed mediums of altered art,photography,sketching. Explaining my art has been wonderful and now adding the other aspects of the art world will help. To be able to add the writing, acting, and directoring will open myself up to a new experience that can help heal the pain that is inside of me. Learning how to express one's self is a beautiful thing to accomplish in this crazy world. What I feel is a overwhelming sense to share a story about trauma and pain right now. Now tomorrow that may be a different story. I have been trying to finely sit down and watch the movie "The Burtalist" the other day and I will finish. I found this line to be very inspirational and fitting on how I feel at the moment.
"No matter what the others try and sell you,it is the destination, not the journey."
My art world will always grow. What is really cool about is ,I can pin point when it all started. Most of can but how many of us are willing to take it apart and examine it and put it back together again and learn from it. For me life will always find a way to be a better artist but also a better human being in my art.
We can't give up on each other. Stay the Course
Ah Natasha! Thank you so much for this! Quite stunning, powerful, and simple (like cake). The ending is as liberating as it is devastating. Fist raised!
Stay the Course everyone .We need each other. My town right now has been with massive flooding from all of the rain we have had plus, Anderson County right now is in a fight for it's life for all of our water. Some brain dead moron of a company has decided that it would be OK to apply for a permit to drill 21 wells down into our aquifer and take the water and send it elsewhere in the state. Why? No clue. Our county judge can't even find the reason. Town hall meetings are going on everywhere. Also this not just our county either. There are three other East Texas counties in question. Oh and to top off the craziness of this week. I just found out there might be a protest here in tiny little East town of Palestine. I have no problem with it but we have a bigger problems right now for my town to have this kinda of event to happen here. Flood waters and stealing water . Our resources and personal are depleted at the moment. If a protest needs to happen here, it needs to be against the drilling of the wells. We can all have a voice on any topic but the minute someone throws a brick or massive looting happens we do have the right to defend ourselves. Now what does that look. For me it will be going out a photographing the protest if we should happen to have one. I doubt it will happen . I feel for the people of LA and what they are going through. I feel for the police who are trying to restore order and the every day people who ate just trying to live there life.How do they go about doing that? When it seams some people want violence and no order. It is my prayer 🙏 that our country will turn from there wicked ways and pray for one another. Ask people how they are doing and ask how I can help you today. The simplest acts of kindness can help us all. Go out help your neighbor with something. Hold a door open for someone, help someone carry there groceries for them. How about just being nice and smile at someone. Simple words of affirmation of love. We all can do better. Let us all Stay the Course. God bless.
Life is hard
Summer sun melts
Life gets better