May 30: The Tree

It was my birthday not long ago. Among the birthday wishes shared with me over social media was one that came in from a former student from long, long ago. She was a member of the very first class I ever called my own, one of my original first graders from 1992. 

That was nearly thirty years ago now. I have a lot of memories from that year, both because it was the beginning of my career and because any teacher is going to hang on to memories from any class they teach. Despite how many moments from that year still stand out for me, I know there are hundreds of others that haven't stuck as solidly, but may have been important to other people. We all have our own ways of perceiving how events unfold in the world around us and define the important parts of our lives. 

One thing I didn't remember was how my team of first grade teachers had passed out tiny baby pine trees to our students to celebrate Arbor Day. Maybe it was just our first grade team, maybe it was the entire school; even after being reminded of this, I still only have a vague memory of it happening. I know enough about myself as a teacher to construct a narrative around that, even if most of it would be false: We'd get the word we were passing out the trees; my first-year teacher self would have been taken with the feel of school community that would have surrounded such an endeavor, since that had been something I'd been richly anticipating since I started looking for a job; the actual day would have arrived and there would definitely been something mildly annoying about making sure my 26 first graders at least got the new trees they already loved so dearly safely into their school buses. After that accomplishment, a feeling of relief would have followed. I'd know everything had been taken care of, potential crises had been averted, and it was time to direct my attention at whatever the next job on my never-ending To Do list would have been, and any thoughts I had left devoted to baby trees would have quickly evaporated. 

That wasn't the case for at least one little girl, though. She took her tree home to her incredibly supportive and loving family (that's not part of my constructed narrative; I remember this family and that was absolutely true) and they made space to plant that baby tree in the yard. Maybe they were simply being indulgent for their enthusiastic little girl, thinking that all eight inches of that thing would be done in by the elements after a season or two. It didn't turn out that way, though. 

Arbor Day falls on the last Friday of April; I looked it up. That means the baby trees would have been sent home in the spring of 1993. This is what that tree looks like now. 

This little girl is now a mother of two boys. From everything I can tell through social media, she is just as involved in the happiness and well being of her children as her parents were in hers. She sent me this photo as part of a birthday greeting, reminding me of how its backstory was traced to Arbor Day in first grade. It left me astonished and humbled.

I've thought about this picture and the story behind it several times in the week since it was shared with me, looking for some kind of metaphor to take from it that wouldn't be simplistic or trite. I could relate the growth of the tree in a parallel to this girl herself, and say something about how planting the seedling was just the beginning, and how the care it received made so much difference in its growth and development. I could reflect on how elementary teachers eventually send their students out into the larger, greater world when they either go off to middle school or move away and we rarely, if ever, see them again and usually never get to know how they turned out later in life or whatever difference we might have been able to make for them. I could think about the soil where it was planted, and what nourishment the tree received from that as it grew into this enormous not-at-all-a-baby-pine we see in the picture.

Maybe because I have the end of another school year at the forefront of my mind, with only two more calendar weeks left in the school year and only seven more instructional days with my current students, but I've come to see this tree as something that could represent teaching, instead of just a result of it. After all, it was planted as I was finishing the first year of my career. Even though I made more than my share of mistakes in that first year, I still got through it successfully enough to establish the beginning of what has turned out to be a rather long career. Depending on the conditions of the surrounding environment, that tree, like any other, likely had periods when its growth seemed stunted or threatened, as well as times when it thrived and grew tremendously, just as I, and every teacher in history, has had good years and bad years. 

Then there are years like this one has been. I can't think of a single person who is ready to close off The Covid Year and call it a success. We've experienced challenges none of us could have anticipated, hopefully doing the best we could with the situations we've been given but too frequently knowing that it wasn't going to be enough. We all would like to think that the decisions made this year about what could lead school to be successful were at least well-intended, but such decisions are only made by people trying to do the best they can, which means at least parts of them are inherently flawed. Inconsistent learning models continually adjusted to avoid a deadly virus, the exacerbation of mental health issues in both children and adults coming from the uncertainty of the world, and a growing awareness in society of the social turmoil that too many people have already been dealing with for so long -- it's been a year with more than its share of the kind of obstacles that are unavoidable detriments to what should be anticipated growth. As anyone who has ever seen the cross section of a tree knows, there are going to be years when the rings are much closer together. 

Right now though, the future seems to have so much promise. Even the most consistently dire pandemic experts have been more optimistic in their recent reporting, which makes it much easier to feel hopeful that better days are on their way, and relatively soon. Will this bring us back to a school year in the fall that could reflect more of what we're used to? There are still going to be children in crisis, who take out the feelings they don't know how to process on the world around them. There is still social injustice and poverty and hunger and neglect to be dealt with. There will still be many people making the job of teaching far more difficult for their colleagues than it needs to be, even if they think they're doing the opposite. There will still be many, many nights next year when I know I'll fall asleep on the couch within an hour of getting home, because the job is so mentally and physically exhausting. 

But there are also many students who will be excited to try new things, and many co-workers each teacher will have to help and support the others around them, and many parents who will be just as excited to support their children through all of the challenges and successes they'll face, pandemic or not. 

Some of those teachers could even end up sending home baby trees with their students next year. Some of those parents will even be willing to set aside a small part of their yard to plant a tiny tree and nurture it. 

In the end, all that even the best of us can do is help to make our situations better in the moment, then watch and wait to see how things will eventually work out.

May 29: The Music of 2021, So Far

One thing I love about music is how there’s so much of it, and so many different things people can love about it. Most of the music I connect with doesn’t get a lot of widespread attention, though it’s deeply loved in certain fandom communities. I know if I were to list my lifetime top 10 albums, there would be a few on that list that many people haven’t heard of before, and I’m sure the converse would be true. Which is okay. Great, in fact. If someone has music in their life that they love, they’re lucky to have it, regardless of what gets played on the radio or what any critics have to think. 

I know that the end of May isn’t quite halfway through the year, but it feels close to that with the school year wrapping up so soon. About halfway through 2021 seemed like a good time to reflect back on the new music I’ve acquired so far this year. So here, in the order of which they were released, are my albums of 2021. 

Steven Wilson: “The Future Bites”

Steven Wilson is an experimental/progressive/rock/pop musician who I’ve followed for about twenty years now. This is the first album he’s worked on in that time that I found somewhat disappointing. There were touches of the recognizable sound I enjoy so much, but it’s a further step in the pop direction he’s recently been taking. I don’t dislike it, but I didn’t connect with it very much. 

Transatlantic: “The Absolute Universe”

This band started as a side project for a collection of extremely talented musicians about twenty years ago that they keep coming back to every few to several years. There are actually two versions of this album: They share a lot of musical themes and ideas, but they have slightly different arrangements and lyrics. It’s a good album, but for a band of this caliber, I feel like they played it pretty safe by staying so deeply in the pocket of their recognizable sound. 

Foo Fighters: “Medicine at Midnight”

Very much a Foo Fighters record, and a good one, but with a slightly funkier sound to it. Unfortunately it didn’t have that one anchor song that really got my attention and kept bringing me back to listen. Plus it came out very close to another album that overwhelmed it in my rotation. Namely….

The Pretty Reckless: “Death by Rock and Roll”

I heard the title song on our local hard rock radio station once in the winter, and it really caught my interest. I was surprised by how much I liked this, since I hadn’t known anything about the band before it came out. Nothing special about it, but it has a really solid hard rock crunch to it in a time when that sort of thing is hard to come by.

The Hold Steady: “Open Door Policy”

One of my favorite Hold Steady albums in a long time. It still had a rock sound, but not one that overwhelmed the songwriting. Craig Finn is a phenomenal narrative songwriter, and a lot of that comes through on this. 

Architects: “For Those Who Wish to Exist”

Another band I discovered from the radio. More modern rock than hard rock, but still pretty heavy. It took a few listens to really connect with it, since some of the songs get redundant, and the vocals drift too far into screamy too much, which isn’t something I’m into. I did warm into it eventually, and I've come to enjoy it as a change from a lot of the other stuff I listen to.

Evanescence: “The Bitter Truth”

Eh, you know, I gave it a shot. It’s not a bad album by any measure, but it just felt bland to me. And to be honest, it’s just hard for me to think of Evanescence as a band when it’s really Amy Lee and her current employees. I have a cousin who really likes them, and, you know, good for him for having a new album that he’s probably been listening to a lot this spring. There just wasn’t much here for me, though.

Cheap Trick: “In Another World”

It’s Cheap Trick. Either that means something to you or it doesn’t, and if it does there isn’t much more I have to say. A good rock/pop album that could be part of a perfect soundtrack for driving with the windows down on a summer road trip. The songs could fit into a mix with just about anything else from the band's *ahem* FORTY-SEVEN YEAR CAREER.

Liquid Tension Experiment: “LTE3”

LTE is another progressive side project made up of superhumanly talented musicians from other bands that have reconvened occasionally to record an album (the drummer also plays in Transatlantic). There was a falling out between some members so it took them close to twenty years to get past that and record a new album, which they did during the pandemic. They play instrumental progressive rock at what is arguably the highest level of the genre. This isn’t an album made up of songs; these are compositions (or, in some cases, slightly reworked improvisations). I think it’s safe to say that any teenager learning guitar, drums, keyboards, or bass who would give this album to listen even once, their mind would be absolutely blown and maybe even their life changed.

Manchester Orchestra: “The Million Masks of God”

Another album strongly focused on the songwriting. It’s definitely a rock album, but one that focuses more on communicating emotion than any kind of sonic attack. Grandiose in its melancholy, it’s filled with moments that could make you tear up a little without realizing if your reaction is coming from how sad the lyrics are, how painful the singer sounds, or how beautiful the moment is. I love this one.

Weezer: “Van Weezer”

I wrote about this earlier in the month. Some really enjoyable moments, but more amusing than anything else.

Myles Kennedy: “The Ides of March” 

This guy is probably the best singer that too many people don’t know about. The lead singer for Alter Bridge, which is also probably the best band that too many people don’t know about, he was invited to audition for a Led Zeppelin reunion project when Robert Plant said he wasn’t interested. His first solo album, “Year of the Tiger,” came out not long ago and honestly didn’t do much for me — it went a different direction than what I was expecting, and it became too much for me to see past that. This one, however, is a straight up rock album, and a darn good one. 

Frost*: Day and Age

Another entry in the progressive genre, Frost* (the asterisk is theirs; I have no idea why but it’s cool) is a shared favorite band of my best friend and me, so when they were releasing their first full album in years the week before my birthday, I knew to expect a copy. I haven’t listened to anything else since. I’ve even been plugged into my noise-cancelling headphones during the non-instructional work times of my school day during the past week to squeeze in more listens. There’s so much astonishing genius on display here, it’s hard to believe this music was created by mere people. It’s likely going to end up being my favorite album of the year. 

However, there are still seven months left in 2021, so…time will tell….

Day 28: Credo

 This post will be kind of a test for me. Instead of working it up on the word processor or collecting notes throughout the day to give me some starting ideas, I'm just diving right in. That's the test, though. I really want to see how this turns out with just a purely spontaneous attempt. 

I have seven days left in the school year, which is to say I actually have nine days I'll be required to show up at my school and work, but I count myself in the group of teachers that only keeps track of instructional days. Once the teaching part of the year is done, we start shedding stress minutes after that final bell that sends the kids home for the summer. I don't mind coming in to work another two days after I'm done teaching. In fact, a part of me is kind of looking forward to it. (It's worth clarifying that I have one less instructional day and one more non-instructional day because distance learning staff is on a slightly different schedule. 

The reason I'm bringing this up is because as soon as my summer break is officially underway, I plan on starting to write my next manuscript for real. I've played at it a little during the past several months, and I've collected a great number of invaluable notes, but I knew I wasn't going to be at my best while trying to wander through Pandemic Fog, so I pushed the start date back to the beginning of summer. Now that this date is so very close, I feel much more ready to begin than I did six or three or even two months ago. Because of that, I think it's time to write out my credo. 

I got this idea from one of my writing professors. I was declared as an English major with a creative writing minor once upon a time, before I switched over to elementary education. I already had enough English credits to just reconfigure them into a minor, and that included two of the three creative writing classes I was slated to take. One was playwriting, which I only took because fiction was full that quarter. Ironically, a play is the only thing I've actually been paid to write...so far. If you were a fan of Elk River Community Theater productions back in 1995, hey, thanks for coming!

Surprise! I digress. I told you this wasn't prewritten -- now you see the rambling evidence. Anyway. The idea of composing a credo as you are about to begin a big writing project is supposed to put you in a mindset of what it is you want the new project to be. It gives you a document you can refer to later that will let you reflect on what you wanted to story to be like in the beginning, what it's becoming, and how much of the original idea do you still want to preserve. With that in mind, here are ten big things I've learned during these past months about what I want out of the manuscript I'm about to write: 

1. It's horror. When I started getting serious about writing back in college, I wrote horror almost exclusively, probably because most of my fiction of choice was Stephen King. This one is a ghost story. I don't want readers to react to it with jump scares from shocking moments or stomach turns from scenes of attention-grabbing gross-outs, but I want them to get chills. I want goosebumps rippling through their skin. I want them turning more lights on if they dare to read it at night. During those last intangible moments before falling asleep, I want them speculating about what in the supernatural realm could possibly be real, and hoping it isn't.

2. I want my cast of characters to be so thoroughly and intricately developed that they could be taken out of the ghost story and dropped into nearly any other story and remain intact. 

3. I want the story I tell around the scary parts to be compelling enough on its own that it could stand as a novel without having to rely on the haunty parts.

4. At least once, I want the readers to hurt. The kind of hurt where they have to put the book down and walk away from it for a time, if not holler and curse me out for what I've made happen.

5. I want readers to have characters they either love or pity or fear, or maybe all of those things at once.

6. I want to establish a sense of place so tangible that someone reading the book and getting really into it would feel surprised to find themselves at home when they look up from the pages.

7. I want moments, either of the story or the characterization, to border on literary. It's hard to explain precisely what I mean by that. I tend to think of literary fiction as the kind of book where the structure and style of the pure writing is just as important, if not more important, than the story itself. (It's possible and super likely there are hundreds of people in publishing who would say my description of literary is completely wrong, by the way, but I'm kind of in the "who cares" camp on this. It's my credo after all, not theirs.)  I'm not looking to write literary fiction; this is legitimately the first full manuscript I'll be attempting with an adult audience in mind, and I honestly don't know if I even have "literary" in my skill set. But moments of it? I can accidentally back into writing the occasional good line, so I think I can pull it off. 

8. I want things to happen that people will not predict. I don't want to color so far outside the ghost story lines that I'll find myself working in a completely different coloring book, but I do want to steer around the more obvious tropes of the genre.

9. In my mind, I'm aiming for somewhere around 400 pages. Of course, there would be at least nine different hoops to jump through before attaining that number, even if it turns out to be reasonable for the story. But I like the idea of writing something with just a little bit of heft to it.

10. I want to write something that will make readers remember my name. Not because remembering my name is all that important to me (other than hopefully getting them interested in a follow-up someday), but because I want it to be that level of good. A story strong enough to make people pause and look at the cover and think, "Damn. Who is this guy?" 

And there we have it! Credo established, notes taken, mind organized. The real work begins in just over two weeks. It'll probably be ready for my usual circle of aggressively-recruited volunteers to read in...well, let's be honest: God alone knows how long. But someday.