The APES

So I had this great AP Language and Composition class three years ago. This class of students took AP English because they loved to read and write and wanted a challenge.

Perhaps you will understand better why they were great if you consider the reasons they did NOT have for taking AP. They were not in my class in order to boost their GPAs, nor were they there to have an AP on their college transcripts.

It was awesome.

We read and wrote and discussed and wrote and read and wrote some more. We began to form an identity as a group. We had inside jokes. One involved a hobo and a knife. If you were in that APE class, you remember what I'm talking about. (In case you forgot, a clue: Lockdown).

The students called themselves APEs. There is a photo of us making monkey faces.

It was awesome.

It was one of those classes that a teacher remembers for the students' pure academic courage. These students loved to learn. They had positive attitudes. They were supportive of one another. They were fearless in their writing and in their expression of ideas. They all passed the AP exam with high scores and I wasn't even surprised. Of course they did. They were the APEs.

I'm still in touch with several of these students. And their moms, dads, aunts, sisters. A class like that can only occur in a school that fosters true community. True community spreads and creates lasting friendships and wonderful memories. I'll always be grateful that I had that time.

For Emily S., Emily L., Caitlin, Megan, Hannah, Stephanie, Grace, April, Abbie, Melissa, Annie, Mercedes, Morgan, Whitney, Nora, Brianna, Halie, Adrianna, Diana, Sophia and all of you beautiful, goddess APEs, here is (on request) the journal we used to do to make magic:

The Law of Attraction Journal Game

WARNING: Where focus goes, energy flows, as my yoga teacher says. This works so be careful what you wish for.

Step 1: Number your journal page down towards the bottom 1-20.

Step 2: Write I am so happy and grateful across the top.

Step 3: For 1-10, write down ten things that are already manifested for which you are happy and grateful. These things can be big or small, it doesn't matter. They just have to make you really glad and happy to think about.

Step 4: For 11-20, write down ten things that you wish to have manifested but have not yet arrived. Do not skip a beat from the 1-10 happy things that have already happened. Use present or past tense as though the 11-20 items have already happened.

Step 5: For each thing on 11-20, meditate for a moment and pretend in your mind that it already happened. Feel how happy and grateful you are about it. In class I used to encourage a few people to share one of their 11-20 items, and then I would spend a moment talking to each person in congratulatory terms.

"I'm so happy for you that you got into that college that you always wanted. How wonderful!"

See? It happened, didn't it? Look back in your old journals and see how powerful this is. Reflect for a moment on how Mrs. Wanket is always right.

Remember to always use positive language. Say "I am happy and grateful that I am in excellent health", rather than "I'm grateful I'm not sick."

Say "I am happy that I am free" not "I'm happy that I'm not in jail."

(Not that this would apply to you.)

Say "I am so happy that I am gorgeous and brilliant and brave and good."

Because you are. You always were. I am so happy and grateful to have known you.

Stuff My Family Says

Serengeti: The technique of ransacking the house for dollar bills and coins behind couch cushions and in coat pockets in order to rake up enough scratch to go to McDonald's for dinner. It's called the Serengeti because we're hunting for our dinner just like our ancient ancestors did on the African plains. This one was my idea.

e.g. Hey I don't feel like cooking tonight. Let's do Serengeti and see if we can grab a Happy Meal instead.

Awnooje: Orange

Swanje: Sandwich (both awnooje and swanje come from mispronunciations by baby Margaret and Baby Ciara, respectively)

e.g. For lunch I think I will have a swanje and an awnooje.

Youtique: Another word for technique or ritual. An action that is taken with regularity at specific times to achieve a reliable end. Ciara made it up when she was four.

e.g. First I eat breakfast and then I get dressed. That is my morning youtique.

Young People Shouldn't Have To Work: This was a phrase my mother actually said to Jim and me the summer we were seventeen years old in order to lament the fact that we both had to go to work at our jobs instead of frolic in the clover. Jim and I have repeated it to one another in similar lamentation every day since.

e.g. I can't believe I have to go to work today. Young People Shouldn't Have To Work.

Late For The Festivities: This means being overly hasty in general or driving too fast specifically. It comes from the time twenty years ago when my sister-in-law Lisa was making fun of crazy drivers on our way to see fireworks in San Francisco.

e.g. Look at those crazy drivers. They must be Late For The Festivities.

What are some of the things your family says?

Houseguest

I love being a guest. I mean a real guest, not the "guest" like what Starbucks and Target call you now for buying their stuff. I hate how corporations toss that word around like its meaning is malleable. A guest is a very specific, special person. A guest is invited on purpose into a home for dinner or sometimes to spend a night or two.

As a guest you give up control of your destiny for a time. You are at the mercy of your hosts, especially if you are a houseguest far from your own house. Whether or what you eat, how comfortable your sleep, how at ease your feelings—all are in the power of your hosts.

Last week I descended on my friends Laura and Evan for two nights. Two nights is a long time to have someone over. That is over 48 hours of disrupted routines and the necessity of good manners. I knew what I was asking. Two nights is a lot of time.

I had not seen Laura and Evan for eight and a half years. Laura and I have had a handwritten correspondence that is deep and wonderful and essential to my life. Still I wasn’t sure how it was going to go. After the six hour drive I made five u-turns on their street because I kept driving by their house and losing the courage to pull up and park.

You see I wasn’t at my best. There have been times in my life when I have felt strong and successful and good-looking. This past year has not been such a time. When I finally quit the shenanigans I creaked out of my car and up to the front door in my wrinkled shirt and messy hair, at loose ends and weak and deeply tired. Soul tired.

My friends let me in. My friends and their outstanding sons and Evan’s sweet mother let me in their house and they treated me with the sort of friendship that heals weakness. I don’t know how else to say it. I brought them handmade candy and cookies. I left with my soul stitched back to my self.

The readings in church today were all about the Magi bringing gifts to the Holy Child. After a long time traveling, the three kings ducked into the sacred space and left hopeful and healed and better than they were before. My understanding of the Gospels is that Jesus even from infancy models how we are supposed to be a source of love for others. Love is our main job.

My friends didn’t care that I wasn’t at my best. We talked about everything and crammed the two days with everything we have been thinking and feeling about the things that are important to us. They were honest with me so that I could be purely myself. They allowed me into the sacred space of their home and I left two days later feeling whole again. Yes, my friends were excellent hosts when it came to meals and sleeping and my comfort. But I will never forget this visit because of the way they took care of my heart.

This year I look forward to hosting as many of my friends as often as possible. This year I work on my friendships as though they are my main job. These may be hard times, but real friendship is stronger than corporate manipulations and furlough days and bad news.

Friendship teaches you to forgive even when it is difficult (Yes, Ysidro and Aristotle and Laura you are right about that. Of course you are right). Friendship urges you to drink enough water and to go to yoga class and to wear something besides that old flannel shirt because you deserve better.

Friendship doesn’t make you buy anything. Friendship isn’t just free. Friendship makes you free.

Family

Family can be a word to extricate you. I have to get home to my family. Conversely it can also be a word to imply a knot to bind you. I am in the family way. I have a family obligation.

When I married Jim I gained five brothers-in-law and five sisters-in-law. (In-law is an awkward term. My brother-in-law Gus and I call our selves the outlaws because the word outlaws sounds way more badass.)

My husband’s brother Dan was the first to be married. I can't hear the song Born to Run without thinking of Dan and Lisa's wedding in 1987. They stood on a table and gave high fives as everybody ran down the dance floor. My husband was not yet my husband. We were teenagers sitting at the corner table waiting for our chance to sneak off and make out. Dan and Lisa had everything figured out. I looked up to them. They were cool and fun and above all, kind.

My wedding was five years later. Looking back I can recall my husband’s family’s kindnesses like knots on a nineteen-year long string. They are too many to name but for a sampling:

They arranged with our hotel to pay for dinner every night of our honeymoon. When Jim had just started grad school, they pre paid our motel room so we could afford to go along on the annual tree trip.

Jim's sister Anne looked after my youngest daughter when she was a baby and I had to go back to work. Anne was one of my baby's first words. Just last month Anne took my oldest on a road trip to explore college campuses.

My daughter’s aunts and uncles and cousins take them to the city, to the park, to restaurants, to ice-skating, to the beach. The cousins tell inside jokes together and appear in family photos together and share a history that began with their first memories and will stretch out into their old ages. My girls were born into an enormous web of support and love. Our family has been their greatest birthright.

After Thanksgiving this past year, Greg and Elaine gave us their gently used oven for free instead of selling it on Craigslist. It works like new. Our old stove had one working burner. Every time I make dinner now I want to weep in gratitude.

Ed and Kristine have the loveliest children you've ever met. Ed and Kristine were brave enough to have six and they are gentle and beautiful and intelligent and so kind to each other that you just want to watch them be together because it makes you feel better about the world.

Any time I've needed advice Tom has made time to talk with me despite his busy schedule. Tom and Kirsten hosted Christmas Eve and ordered cracked crab for everybody and compiled a photo slideshow of twenty years of tree trips and summer vacations and times together. Kirsten is so good at taking pictures.

Last night Dan and Lisa hosted Christmas dinner. They are still cool and fun and kind. They still love Bruce Springsteen and have a signed Born to Run poster hanging up in their TV room.

At dinner Anne’s husband Gus sat next to me and said he knows that I will make it as a writer. He said it is just a matter of time. I felt like weeping in gratitude.

We snapped Christmas poppers and donned paper crowns. We wedged in at long tables, some of our children older than I was at Dan and Lisa’s wedding. They are strapping, self-confident, good people with the integrity and self-sufficiency of their fathers and mothers. We said our Grace together before eating and I said my own private prayer too.

Because lately I have been feeling at loose ends in my life. Because last night I was reminded that when I married the best person I’ve ever met the day after Christmas nineteen years ago, I also tethered myself to the good and loving people he came from.

Our family.

Let Them Know It's Christmas Time

Some things about Christmas time I like:

Live Aid Singing Feed The World
Every one is so hopeful and beautiful and pleased with themselves. I was fourteen when that song came out and it made my heart as big as a cathedral. Who is that beautiful Marilyn guy with the pissed off girl way of walking and the long coat? I love that guy. You see and hear how earnest and nervous Bono is? That's how I feel ninety percent of the time. It's not an easy way to go through life. At least he found a way to make money off it. I could listen to this song nine million times in a row and not get tired of it.

David Bowie and Bing Crosby Singing Little Drummer Boy
David Bowie freaks me out. I dream about him now and then and we are always old friends. He's always glad to see me. Bing Crosby seems like an evil person what with beating the crap out of his sons and all. But even Bing turns good for the length of a song in the presence of magic David Bowie. This video is maybe the weirdest two and half minutes in the history of videos. This video makes me want to bite somebody.

Scrooge (1951)
Jacob Marley forces Scrooge to look out the window at all the ghosts in chains floating around the poor lady sitting in the snow. That is my favorite scene in the whole movie. Scares me so. Ghosts are awesome. Christmas is so haunted and I knew it all along. Charles Dickens knew it and this film footage proves it.

Going on the Tree Trip Every year the Wankets descend on Mt. Shasta like a giant 40 person J. Crew catalog gang come to life only way smarter and even better looking. God forbid a Wanket get a tree the simple way in the Save Mart parking lot. Nay, a Wanket gets a permit and drives three hundred miles from home to a remote mountain road only then to park and then walk a mile or more to find the perfect tree and then cut it down with a hacksaw.

Jim does all the driving and all the work and I eat snacks and sit around the fire in the middle of the woods and talk with my sisters and brothers-in-law and my nieces and nephews. We laugh like crazy and tell jokes so inappropriate that we had to go out into the middle of the woods to say them out loud. I laugh so hard that it feels like I did sit ups after. Then we go back to the hotel and soak in the hot tub and swim. Then we cram ourselves into one suite and eat potluck chili dinners and ask one another questions from Trivial Pursuit cards while the kids play hide and seek.

The Tree Trip is awesome. The Tree Trip is the meaning of life.

Chewy Brach's Peppermint Candies With The Christmas Tree In The Middle
Those are awesome and also the meaning of life.