What we've been up to lately - photos

Eagle scout project - and lunch committee

Waterpark fun

Damming the waterslide

Jr. National Honor Society Induction Ceremony

High school track meets every Friday night. My kind of fun.

Kids triathlon - our 7 yr old took home the gold in two different competitions

Finishing before the bikers

The five year old comes in second out of the girls 8 and under.
And looks darn cute doing it.

Another water park, another day. This is the Manta. Super scary.
Super fun. Takes years off of you.

Educational fun at the Agricultural Department Open House.
The culinary arts students cooked local foods and vegetables - and
roasted wild pig. Some of the best food we've had on Guam and we
brought home free plants and produce. I'm hooked on soursap sorbet.
The leaves of the soursap brewed as tea may destroy cancer cells.

Second meeting of the Catholic Home School fellowship group.
Kids read reports on saints lives or recite a poem. Then we eat and they play.
Most of the families go to the Latin Mass at the Franciscan Friary on island. They
are the most laidback Latin Mass types I've ever met. They also run the surf club.

My orchids bloomed bigger and better the second time around.

More garden shots - false bird of paradise

Wild ginger never stops blooming.

My newest orchid, purchased by my 12 yr old at the Ag fair
as my mother's day present. It is supposed to be a mother plant, so I can propagate more. We'll see.

Flowers found by the 12 yr old at the track meet.

First Communion. Happy Day!

Finishing the Perimeter Run with my teammates. 10 person teams ran 50 miles.
Started at 4 am. Ended at 11:30. Lots of fun in between. Lots of tiredness after.

Course evaluation - notes to self that may bore others

Last Tuesday was the final meeting of my literature class. I drove home wishing I had prepared a farewell speech, but I was so happy that all I had to do was prepare a final exam that I didn’t spend any time thinking about what I might say to the students as a valedictory. Fortunately, one of the kids had made chocolate chocolate chip cookies, so I wished them luck with their future studies, handed them their tests, and told them to help themselves to cookies if they needed a sugar pick-me-up.

Fortunately, the week before I had taken a little bit of time to thank the students for coming and asking them about how they thought the class went.  No course evaluations here, and the students seemed satisfied with the classroom experience they received for the price of their tuition. In fact, they were quite kind.  Some asked me to keep in touch. They asked after my family and talked about theirs. They said they now were interested in poetry and would read more. A couple of students still didn’t pass the class because they didn’t turn in their papers, but for the most part they were more attentive, more personally involved, and more intent on doing well than the students I had my first semester back in the classroom last year.  I don’t know if it was just this group of students or if it is the culture, and the fact that most of these students were also working and probably paying their own way.

My own attitude at the end of the semester is quite different that first experience at the community college in Mississippi, when I passed out the course evaluations with a shudder.  Generally this class flowed pretty smoothly.  My flaws: talking too much, not coming up with interactive/entertaining class plans, spending too much time introducing the class’s topic and not enough time on the topic. This is because I often thought more about what I was going to talk about than about what I was actually going to say.

Another stumbling block: few students actually did the reading. For poetry, this wasn’t too much of a problem, but for the short story unit, we didn’t have time to read the story in class.  A couple of times, I actually did have some plans for discussions, but if few or none of the students had read the story, there wasn’t any discussing. I was always hoping I wouldn’t have to do all the talking.

Successes: The drama unit went pretty well when I had them perform; they especially enjoyed paraphrasing Shakespeare. The best short story classes were the first class when we talked about folk tales and fables, and they told me some Chamorro legends, and the class dedicated to setting when I had them write their own description of their favorite place. They all really liked O’Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi,” which made me realize I need to pick a few more uplifting tales, despite Flannery O’Connor’s injunctions. No one cared for “Young Goodman Brown” and although “Harrison Bergeron” got people talking a little bit, hardly any students liked the story. It felt too flat.

That students like sentimentality was obvious in the poetry unit also. Multiple students wrote about Tony Hoagland’s poem “Beauty” because it was easily accessible and had an obvious message about beauty being what’s on the inside.  I chose the poem to illustrate differences in diction, even though I can’t say it’s one of my favorites.  I never did get around to talking about “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” even though it’s so handy for talking about figurative devices. I had it on the syllabus, but after rereading it, I was afraid that much of the imagery and nuances would mean little to my students. The descriptions of city life and ennui just seemed too foreign for this crowd. They enjoyed Frost’s “Two Roads Diverged,” despite the fact that the woods are always green, never yellow, here, but they didn’t have anything to say about some of the religious poems – John Donne’s “Batter My Heart,” Herbert’s “Easter Wings,” Hopkins’ “Pied Beauty.” But I’ll keep them on the syllabus next semester, nonetheless.

While teaching in Mississippi, I feared I was repeating what many students had learned in high school, but this semester, I gathered that few, if any, of the regularly anthologized works were familiar to the students. Everything was new. This made my job easier in some ways and harder in others.  I really should have spent some time teaching how to write a thesis statement. That lesson would have paid off.

And although it pains me to have to cut the number of poets, I think it would be better to focus on just a handful of poems that exemplify either a particular form, figurative speech, or a particular style. Let’s say we spend 6-8 weeks on poetry, with 2 classes a week. Probably 3 poems are max we can cover well in an hour and half.  So what are the best 36-48 poems for introducing poetry to the over 18 crowd?

That’s my challenge over the summer. That, and organizing notes, and keeping the kids safe, fed, clean, catechized, and occasionally intellectually challenged, while running around the island, and possibly taking a trip somewhere.

After the funeral

May already! Time for catching up:

First a funeral.

Each rose represents a member of the family.
The different colors are for different generations.
There were 54 roses altogether. And my grandmother
was an only child. . . 

My trip back to the states for my grandmother’s funeral was very brief.  It took me as many days to get back on schedule as the number of days I was gone.  My husband convinced me that I should take one child with me as a representative of the others at the funeral.  I feared cries of injustice from the five left behind, but they all seemed to accept that one getting to go was better than none – maybe they realized that the house would be one-sixth less noisy.  And we also explained that others were going to get opportunities for traveling at other times. So my nine year old daughter was my travel companion, and a very good one she was. We never really had a heart to heart conversation, but we enjoyed the serendipity of airplane meals, watching travelers in line for security checks, and resting on each other’s shoulders during brief naps on the flight. And my daughter carried six roses up to the vase in the picture above, while I carried two, to help fill in the overflowing, somewhat chaotically enmeshed, arrangement of flowers that represented my grandmother's fondest accomplishment: being matriarch of a close, loving, although sometimes quibbly, but always faithful family.  She presided happily over birthday parties, Christmas celebrations, graduations, marriages, and the other ceremonies and daily rituals that mark the rearing of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

I debated returning for this funeral because I had just made the visit with my grandmother in January. At the time, I had decided I would rather spend time with her living than dead.  And we had a wonderful visit.  Knowing that it might be my last, I made an effort to be present, to listen, to ask questions.

But despite the financial sacrifice for the airline tickets, as well as the sacrifice of sleep and health, I’m glad I made the trip again, not because I felt the need to say goodbye, but because there was more of her to get to know. Listening to what my cousins and aunts and uncles had to say, browsing through all the old photos, hearing the pastor talk about my grandmother’s ministries in her church, all made me realize there were questions I didn’t ask, stories I didn’t hear during the last visit, that would help complete the picture of the person my grandmother was. As my mom has mentioned while cleaning up my grandmother’s house, here are all the pieces of a life, one that was well-lived, but perhaps underappreciated, as all lives might be. Everyone's memory of the same person reveals some additional facet of her personality. How can we ever really know another fully…

In one of her journals unearthed in a visit to the home emptied of her physical presence, but full of her spirit, she had written this piece of advice: "Look for everyday blessings that sometimes seem very mundane. A flower! A butterfly! A phone call! A special book! A song! A beautiful day! In all things be thankful."

One of the photo collages my sister-in-law assembled.

Four generations a generation ago.

I really admire the custom here on Guam have holding several nights of rosaries, sometimes entire novenas, after loved ones pass away.  Barbecues are held at different family member’s homes, or all at one central place, so everyone has a chance to come and pray and talk and share stories.  And often there are advertisements in the paper for one year anniversary parties after a death.  Maybe these are just excuses for the living to gather for good eats, but why not use any opportunity to revisit good memories and strengthen family ties? I'm glad I grabbed the chance to spend time with the siblings and cousins. Worth every penny and lost minute of sleep.

On the way home we had a short layover in Tokyo. The airport was clean, modern, and quiet. The lighting was cool, the waiting area decorated with geometic, but comfortable chairs, and the toilets all offered bidets, which my daughter mistook for the flusher.  One of the little stores had an origami exhibit that we meandered through. A fine introduction to Japanese culture.

Little Red Riding Hood

A soul ascending? The little matchgirl?

Other benefits of travel: ample time for reading (some books which I finished on the plane I may review soon), a brief experience of spring, a visit with our old dog, a view of the Alaskan skyline, time to laugh with cousins.

More updates soon. I give my class their final tomorrow night, and then I'll have more time for gathering thoughts.  

Gathering eggs just after sunrise.

Bosco has lost weight on the farm.

An out of focus mayapple, one of my favorites.

A bouquet of dogwood, phlox, and asters gathered
by the granddaughters.

Meanwhile, back at home, soccer season ended with a win.

From the plane window over Alaska. Seredipitously,
the movie on the flight was Big Miracle about the rescue
of whales in Barrow, Alaska.

A Feast and a farewell

Today is the feast day of Blessed James Duckett, who was martyred after he converted to Catholicism during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He is the patron of book sellers and printers because he converted after reading a Catholic pamphlet and from that time was fervent about distributing Catholic books on the sly. His bookbinder turned him in, hoping to receive a lenient sentence for another crime, but they both hung together. Duckett will always be memorable to me as a reader, and as a failed collaborator in a literary project.



Tomorrow I leave to go to my grandmother’s funeral. She died peacefully this past weekend after being diagnosed with a strange stomach cancer back in the fall. I’m so thankful for the visit we had in January. Her death was not a surprise except in that it was so soon and that it came without suffering, a mercy for my grandmother and my mother. My grandmother had nursed my grandfather through Parkinson’s and seemed fearful of being a similar burden.  My mother was looking forward to nursing her, but her prayers for answered.

And now we pray for her soul and for safe travels.

Back soon.

New Book

My copy finally made it all the way to Guam! After reading all the promos, I'm finally getting around to enjoying Style, Sex, and Substance, edited by Hallie Lord, and contributed to by all your favorite Catholic bloggers.

Way to go, Sister and friends!  Fun book!  I'm looking forward to sharing it with friends here. But I might not let my kids read it yet - they'll have a whole new perception of their aunt . . .

Resurrection week in review

Christ is Risen, Alleluia,

He is truly risen, Alleluia!

 … so much to say. Time for quick takes:

• Good Friday: A drawing by my son.    

And a mountain climb: On Good Friday, it is traditional in Guam to walk up part of Mt. Lamlam (the highest mountain in the world if you count the miles underwater to its source at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.) and pray the stations of the cross. A group led by our chaplain (really followed by our chaplain – the kids were a little quicker than he) met at 8 to pray our way up. By this time, most of the crowds were heading down.  The biggest group goes up before dawn. They carry up a new wooden cross to erect at the Mt. Jumalang crest.  Some penitents go up on their knees we’ve been told. We also were warned that we might see some people practicing physical mortifications, but we didn’t.  The kids were fascinated, though, by the blood left by some penitents on the small white crosses that mark the way.

 

• Holy Saturday: Spent the day making Too Much Food.  At the last minute we decided to go to the Vigil Mass. Yet again I was in a twit at my husband, because he spent the day running around shopping for a new camera, but didn’t buy one. Short-tempered from lack of food, I was peeved he wasn’t around to help with cleaning. Not the best attitude for the highest Mass of the year. But as the candles were lit, illuminating the expectant faces of the congregation, that dark cloud in my heart was banished away.

• Easter Sunday: Alleluia! Joy! Candy! Mimosas! And one spot of woe: In my rush of cleaning the day before, I mopped the back porch, where the rabbit and chick live and roam uncaged, with Lysol. But I didn’t take the time to move the animals to their outside cage.  When I went to feed them in the morning, the poor little chick, which was tame enough to come and sit on my lap on the porch swing, was quite stiff with rigor mortis.  And I felt quite guilty for causing its demise.  So we had to have a brief burial, a prayer of thanksgiving for the gift of pets, and some tears.  

• Then we were able to spend the morning celebrating the Resurrection with eggs and cinnamon rolls, before we welcomed a crowd to celebrate with us the rest of the afternoon.  I’m still not quite sure how many people showed up. What started as a get together with a couple of families grew and grew. And the food just kept coming. Everyone must have felt like showing their Easter Joy by cooking, because no one showed up empty handed. We ate well, then the teenagers hid some 500 plastic eggs for the thirty or so little kids. God smiled on us with beautiful weather.  Note for future parties: invite teenage girls who like to play with little kids. They got a kickball game started and kept the youngers entertained. Since the kids were happy, many of our guests stayed long enough to eat again.  And they all left with balutin.  But we’re still eating ham.

Palm frond Easter baskets

The dessert table

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• The rest of the week has been devoted to eating candy and learning to scuba dive.  It’s relatively cheap to learn to dive and to rent equipment here: $169 for the class –including a free boat dive!  We’ve been talking about doing it for months and when our trip to Japan fell through, we enrolled.

Scuba diving was not my idea. I love swimming. I love snorkeling. But I don’t love being underwater. I do not like being dunked, which probably dates back to the summer days of childhood spent at the YMCA, when my older brother thought dunking without getting caught by the lifeguard was a fun game.  That pool was always packed with screaming kids – I’m surprised there weren’t more drownings or asphyxiations by chlorine and suntan lotion.

My husband and older three sons really wanted to learn, and my husband, who turns 39 today, wanted me along for the fun.  I could handle the classroom work – aced my quizzes – but I was not much fun on the first dive.  First I couldn’t get my ears equalized, and then I couldn’t figure out how to clear my mask. You have to take your mask off, put it back on, and then breathe – or snort – out the bottom to clear the water. I snorted up the water, instead of clearing it. Then I started to panic. My sons stared on in amusement as their mother tried to ascend while the instructor pulled me back down.  I finally partially cleared the mask, and then the instructor swam with me back to shore to practice filling and clearing the mask about 100 times.

I went home exhausted and had terrible nightmares that night. They weren’t even about drowning – they were about having bowel accidents and trying to hide them. Odd.  I woke up about 4 in the morning and lay in fear for the next 2 hours before I finally got out of bed. I wasn’t really in fear of drowning, just in fear.  My stomach was in knots. I couldn’t get comfortable. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I kept trying to come up with good excuses to get out of the class. I hoped I would throw up.  I can’t remember being this scared, not since the night when I was about 13 and I heard noises in the middle of the night. I thought we were being robbed. Turns out it was my grandparents arriving to babysit while my parents took my sister to the ER for an appendectomy. I wasn’t even really scared after our recent robbery.

But I had to confront my unfounded fears. I tried to come up with a mantra for when I grew nervous – I was thinking of the Divine Mercy chaplet. “For the sake…”: breathe in; “Have mercy …”: breathe out.  My husband suggested the yoga class closure: “Shanti, shanti, namaste” (We’ve been going to yoga once a week on the base – a fun, elasticizing date night while the kids are at soccer practice). But what kept going through my mind was “I am a fish, I am a frog, I am a waterlogged dog.”

So Thursday, I had to get back into the water and do the same skills we had practiced the day before and some new ones, like breathing out of my buddy’s extra regulator after having my air cut off.  And doing an emergency ascent exhaling for 30 feet.

And I did it. Fears defeated! My legs were like jelly when it was all over, and I was shivering like mad.  Gotta get my $169 worth.  For our last class this morning, I was able to get a good night of sleep and wake up undeterred. We had one last skills review, before we were able to go on an exploratory dive, and I was able to clear my mask on the first try.

Now I am a certified diver. But I’m not planning to dive again soon. I’m happy to snorkel with turtles rather than dive with sharks.  My kids are sharks though. My oldest didn’t lift his head out of the water after the last dive until his knees were bumping into the rocks of the shore.

Day One in the water

Ok, Buddies

Day three - much happier in a wet suit

• Front page headlines today: Fire Code Violations at a government facility. Island life. 

Holy Week at last

The Triduum has arrived. The forty days of Lent have sped by regrettably quickly.  I was really looking forward to Lent as a time to focus on spiritual growth, but it ended too quickly. I was too distracted. 

I gave up the usual things: sweets and alcohol.   It wasn’t until today, as we were filling plastic eggs for a neighborhood egg hunt on Sunday that I was seriously tempted by chocolate. A few little m&m’s wouldn’t matter would they? Just one marshmellow bunny to make sure they aren’t stale?  But they don’t look quite as delicious as usual.  My friend and neighbor has dampened my pleasure in pastel wrapped chocolates by reminding us about child labor and the importance of buying fair trade chocolates. I think these last three days will be the longest part of the sacrifice, as well they should.

Harder was declining beer and wine.  Several nights, especially after the recent break-in, I really craved a glass of wine after the kids went to bed. Their loud voices left my head ringing in a way that begged to be cured with a little tipple.  Watching Downton Abbey these last couple of weeks was been a great distraction from that temptation. Peeking into the foibles of the servants and aristocracy has caused me to prefer to drink tea, especially the calming, naturally sweet “Relaxing Tea” blend my sister-in-law sent me from the tea mixer at the Lancaster, PA, farmer’s market.

Actually, I think I’m suffering more from Downton Abbey withdrawal than from alcohol abstinence. Well done, PBS! Can’t wait for Season 3.

Sacrificing sweets and drinks may have been easier than usual because we took Sundays off.  I used to be more hardcore about Sundays, but I like the idea of Sunday being a “Little Easter” and want to reinforce that with my kids, especially the one preparing for First Communion.

On the other hand, I completely failed at fasting on Fridays. I didn’t commit strongly enough in the first place, so by midmorning when I was hungry for a snack, I barely hesitated after I had succumbed the first couple of weeks to hunger in the late afternoon. A lack of commitment is a failing I’ve struggled with before.  I talk and talk about what I think I’m going to do, until the deadline passes, or until I am distracted by another obligation.

Same thing with the Stations of the Cross. We started strong – went to the first four evenings of stations followed by a soup supper.  The group of attendees was small.  We didn’t sing the Stabat Mater.  Impromptu readers stumbled through the reflections.  But it was peaceful, if not deeply moving.  Then the last few weeks, things came up – like a spouses’ club party and a track meet – that seemed to take higher priority.  But the whole time I was at the party, I was sorry I wasn’t at Stations. 

I didn’t stick with my spiritual reading either.  I was doing well reading a little of  Kathleen Norris’ Amazing Grace and evening prayer and a little part of a Bible study book in the evenings, and  reflections from Benedictus in the mornings for the two weeks my husband was away. But he came home, and that quiet time seemed to disappear, although only by my own lack of commitment, not because of him.

Needless to say, acts of charity were few and far between. In fact I’m struggling to remember what it was I was going to do… we did host the daughter of a friend of a friend and her father for a couple days over the weekend.  We had to rearrange our schedule, but the sacrifice was minimal because they were such pleasant company.

So tonight I entered church unprepared for Holy Thursday. All my thoughts today were focused on cleaning house for the big party this weekend. An article I had read in the Thomas Aquinas College newsletter not too long ago came to mind as I sat down, about how good church architecture should inspire you to pray.  This is not one of those churches. From the outside it looks like a Hershey Kiss.  The inside is unremarkable, other than a large stone tree of life relief behind the altar, which actually I kind of like. Since the chapel is shared with the Protestants, it lacks icons or statuary. The stations of the cross are Roman numerals. So when I sat down behind a neighbor I forgot about praying as we whispered about the party until the processional began.

Happily, the Mass began to work on me.  The readings reminded me that I wasn’t sure if my 5 year old knows the reason for the liturgy, so I pointed out to her what was being said and listened anew to these old words myself. For the washing of the feet, families came up to the three different areas to wash each other’s feet. The kids giggled, but they will remember being involved. Various parishioners carried out the plants and linens as the altar was stripped.

But what really moved me was when the choir began to sing the litany of saints as the altar was stripped. The music at this church tends toward contemporary style.  The arrangement of this litany was new to me, but it was beautiful. The four singers harmonized perfectly.  And as I sat listening to the names of the saints called upon in song, I thought about my family members far away who share those names. I remembered the beautiful liturgies we have attended in other places with other friends.

It struck me that maybe this Lent wasn’t about struggling to fast from goodies and drinks or to read books by other people. Maybe God made it easy for me to resist sweets because He knew the sacrifice of time with our dear cousins and grandparents has been harder.  Being so far away from the people and places I have loved is my penitence.  Life in this tropical paradise has had a little part of desert. As I listened to their names, and prayed in song for their patron saints’ intercessions, I was filled with both sorrow and gratitude. I felt exiled but also in communion with that greater body of Christ.