I wandered old files tonight trying to find something interesting.  I abandoned the darker stories for this one.  This is the opening of a small collection of stories that I wrote when I wanted to play with my own version of Siddhartha and Candide combined.  I thought it was a nice spring story although we are buried in snow here in South Dakota. 

Happy Easter

Jamie

Evida

Or How a Forest Girl Discovers the World

Evida Takes a Walk and Finds Herself Separate

There could be no better place on earth than this the young girl thought as she stepped her toes into the muddy edge of the pool of water to catch a closer look at the water spiders skimming the clouded surface.  She was in a small clearing carved out by road workers who had taken the red soil for their road-like purposes and left behind the moon. The clearing was dotted with rough craters that filled with water.  Each pool birthed a new universe and was teaming with tadpoles, water spiders, bugs, birds feeding.  Scruffy grasses poked up between the reddish mounds. 

She was eight years old the summer she awoke from childhood to find herself encased in a wrapper of skin that separated her from this beloved world.  Up until that moment, it had not occurred to her that she was separate. 

Evida lived along the northern edge of the nation in what she simply called Blueberry Country in honor of the low bush berries that filled her forest.  No one else ever came to this small, scarred piece of earth but her, and she came daily that spring to watch the transformation between winter and spring.  It was, in truth, a muddy mess, but she loved it.  She ran along the plowed ridges that separated one small pool from another so often that her bare feet padded and packed the sand as if it were an ancient road carrying tribal inhabitants across the Bering Strait. 

Life was good.

Down the road her parents had built a house that sheltered her and her five brothers and two sisters in a cocoon of warmth and safety.  That her dad had tried to defy Mother Nature and built his house in a swamp seemed not to matter to them.  When the ditches filled with murky water, Evida and the other kids leaned over the edge to see the wigglers that bred there by the millions and would soon turn into mosquitoes.  It was a small price to pay for paradise-a few hundred red, itchy welts and the little screamers buzzing them to sleep each night.

Evida couldn’t figure out what was different this spring, different from all the others she had endured in her full eight years.  Something had changed.  The color of a single green leaf bud opening on a twig belonging to the larger tree pierced her eyes almost painfully.  The dry grasses of last year, as they gave way to the newer shoots poking up from some mysterious earth ethos, seemed to say reassuringly, “Never mind.  We go gratefully.  We’ve had our season.” 

Wind, sun, birds, the tiniest flowers-all spoke to her in a language once incomprehensible but now understood clearly as if by magic.  Going to sleep each night was almost a burden, that she must close her eyes to such beauty for the dimmer world of sleep and dreams. 

She took to speaking aloud, only when alone of course, to the many offerings of nature.  I love you, little bird.  I love you tiny clover.  I love you big mamma tree.  I love you creepy little spider on my hand. 

What had caused such an awakening?  She didn’t know, couldn’t understand.  She simply drank the realization in, letting it fill her soul and spirit with such rich nectar that by noon she was drunk, intoxicated and asleep on the grass. 

When she opened her eyes again there was a blue-silk sky wrapping her like a sari.  It was exotic, foreign, scented with the spice of Mother Nature’s unique perfume.  When she stood again and stretched her arms to touch the blue silk, she glanced down and saw the imprint of her own small body in the grass.  She felt just the slightest shiver of what could be fear or foreboding, a wisp of warning of things to come, but she tossed her blonde hair and walked off.

Thirty years later, she would return to this same spot, now an overgrown piece of the forest once again, desperate to find the slightest indentation she had left on Mother Earth.

I walked into the college center and saw the hum of activity, the buzz of nervous excitement, and the meet and greet as dozens of students roamed the halls trying to find the right room. 

And then I remembered.  That’s why I make that drive-for those students.

This semester is the first “official” semester where there are two distinct levels of my developmental English class.  This means I have one class filled with brand new students, many of them entering their very first semester of college, and the other class consists of my two classes from last semester merged now into one.  The difference between the two classes was stunning.  The “new” students all snatch the back row chairs, stay silent, look wary.  My returning students greeted each other (and me) with happy hellos, smiles and sometimes hugs.  They are excited to be back in my room and ready to learn.  In fact, they have become a learning community. 

My usual “first writing” assignment for new students is to have them write about the three things that will support them in finishing this semester-and the three things/obstacles that could possibly toss them out.  This accomplishes two things for me.  It gives me a first glance at their writing skills, and it lets me know what the primary struggles (and supports) are for each student.  Again and again, the major obstacles are transportation (it’s winter), child care . . . and either getting up or simply showing up for classes.  Sometimes, the health of a family member plays into the scene.

One of the things I’ve become convinced of is that many entering students show the residual symptoms of E-PTSD.  That is my own term for Educational Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Because, in their educational histories, they have not been allowed to learn in a natural way or have spent too many years in a classroom feeling afraid of making mistakes, ashamed when they do make them, and then punished for making them, they are now afraid to take a chance with learning.  Signs of E-PTSD are low self-esteem, reluctance to participate, stress, and fear of failure (not to mention a high drop-out rate). 

The differences between my first and second classes are indicators that recovery has begun.  I work very hard to create an environment where mistakes are natural, expected and willingly shared so we can all learn more.  The more I discover how a low-stress, excited about learning environment can support the abundant growth of new neural structures, the more pissed off I get at how we do education in America.  But that could be a book . . .

I, too, am a natural born learner and figuring out the best way to boost writing and reading skills is a high for me.  Doing it in an environment that, by all indicators, is considered “disadvantaged” is an even greater high.  Besides, I really like these students.

Enough for now.  Anybody interested in learning more about what we are doing to boost retention and learning can email me and ask.

Plowing ahead.

Jamie Lee

I love this work, and I love working with adult learners (we are all that, right?).  My post tonight will be short because I have set a goal to edit/revise 25 pages per session on my novel, One Drum.  It is a book of my heart, begun nearly 15 years ago and based on a momentary meditative thought that said, “What would it be like if all the great beings, all the spirits from the other realms were to converge in these Black Hills to help us poor humans figure out how to do it better, how to do it with love.”  Now, these many years later, it seems not at all whimsical but real–we need a little help here from the Creator. 

No story or essay added below.  Maybe tomorrow.

Good night.

J. Lee