I've been gone long enough.

It was July, 2000, and I was sitting by the side of the pool, watching my Summer school students laugh the way through their swimming lessons. I was struck mid-splash with the proverbial bolt of lightning inspiration to return to college. Two weeks later I was enrolled full-time in the the Art program at Southern Oregon University.

I never would have fathomed that it would be eleven years later and I would not be back in a classroom.

Yet.

I'm ready and excited for now.

I miss my work with the classroom-challenged warriors of academia. I have always been inspired by the perseverance these students employ, showing up day after day to a place that is frustrating at best, confounding and defeating at worst.

I am a proud advocate for the brilliance in all of us - it isn't always found on paper or in the results of a pop quiz. It is the teachers I worked with in Oregon who taught me how to be flexible and responsive to the needs of students around me. They showed me that being present, being truly with each student was the key to success. Teachers are true heroes and I miss my work with them, learning from them and laughing with them at the end of a well-earned good day, as much as I miss the work with students.

I am so looking forward to getting back into it all, ready for all the new lessons awaiting us...

Leaving on a Jet Plane

My son is leaving home, flying away in that way that we all do - if we're fortunate enough to have the wings and means and way
and curds.
I am proud and sad for him, that I don't have more to send him with... more money, more inspiration, more of an example. I sleep a lot. I eat a lot. I read a lot. I watch a lot of movies. I sit and think a lot. I smoke a lot. I want a lot. These are the things he has learned from me... I wanted to say I laugh a lot and write a lot and swim a lot and meditate a lot and bake a lot.
I don't.
My lots pretty much has my day covered.
I'm happy a lot.
this is true. without really understanding how it can be true, without being able to give examples of a happy life that other humans would recognize and agree with, I am a happy person. I am loved and I love. a lot.
well, there you go.
Fly, Garrison Cleveland Bennett Burrell. I love you a lot.
+8

I am a fat fuck

As my husband reminded me this afternoon, I am a fat fuck.
When Rose asked me, with her wise and teeth less mouth, what is a fat fuck?
I told her she should ask her dad, wanting him to be feel ashamed of his words.
She suggested that it probably means fat mama, and I agreed, feeling sad that she had heard him abuse me.
Really, though, he's telling it straight up. no chaser.
I am a fat fuck.
a round romp.
a large lay. a voluminous vagina.
a cavalcade of cunt and a tidal wave of tits.
huge heart and loud laugh. strong spirit and wise ways.
I am big and beautiful and he is blessed.

I will remember to tell her in the morning, first thing.
Him, I don't have to say a word.