Jumping into the Sky

(From 12/4/08)

"Mommy?" she calls to me from around corner.

I am upside down on the yoga ball, ignoring Lou Dobbs Tonight.

She finds me, then asked, "Is today one year since Tata...?"

I wait a beat to see if she's really asking what I think she's asking. When she only blinks at me, I take a deep breathe, give her another second still, then offer up, "....jumped into the sky????"

She nods, then tilts her head. "Let go of the grass!"

"Let go of the grass?" I understand it immediately.

When someone dies, gravity reverses.

The body that held them here and kept them from being part of the universe suddenly stops, and they let go of the grass and fall back into God.

Wonderful.

"Oh Zoe! I wish I'd thought of that! If I say that you said that, can I write it?"

She nods, I get my pen.

 Instead of just letting me jot down that line, she follows me and continues her story.

"One night Tata came to me and we were laying on our backs under a Palm Tree, looking at stars. She put her arm around me and pointed up, and said, 'Zoeita, see the stars? Those stars are angels, and when we die, we become one.' And after that, she hugged me."

I nod, not looking at her, still trying to write "let go of the grass" in my journal in a meaningful way, so that no one looking through my pages would think I was writing a to-do list.

Across I line I scribble, jumping into heaven, let go of grass, Zoe, 12/1, upside down on yoga ball.

"And THEN she let go of the grass?" I ask Zoe, ready to listen more carefully to her story.

"No, Mom, she hugged me that night and she's never let me go."

"Tata never jumped off the grass?"

Zoe shakes her head, "No, she never jumped off the grass! She's with me!"

"Abuela is with YOU? So she didn't jump into the sky? She didn't let go of the grass?"

Zoe shook her head. "Nope, neither."

"Fine. You're saying I was wrong about the jumping into the sky?"

She nods, solemnly, patting me on the arm.

I turn back to my journal and start to cross out what I'd written, then stop.

I get my Mac, turn it on, and with Zoe tucked under my left arm, type this story one-handed, grateful for the fantastic mystery of it all.

Reverend Carman

I don't want to write, I want to go back to my research because I just found my ancestors who lived in Harlem New York in 1662, when it was New Amsterdam. This is a win in some family history Bingo game I am playing which has no rules and will probably never end.

This isn't enough, of course, I need to find out more -- where they came from, who their neighbors were and whether they quickly left Harlem.  I would rather have too much to do than ever be bored, so I am grateful for this shiny happy productive distraction.

One of the biggest outcomes of my research is seeing the relentless forces pushing people around from generation to generation.  Sometimes I can give the event a name (look dad! 17 of your relatives left during the French Revolution!) and sometimes I just can't (why did both of these parents die in 1698? who raised my orphan ancestor?).  I can also see family size crash from 10 and 12 babies to 2 or 3 babies across the centuries, but that's for another discussion.

I have continued to compulsively line up rows and rows of ancestors making sure everyone has parents and grandparents and have found more than one set of cousin marriages in Colonial New England, 19th century Creole New Orleans and on the Kentucky frontier.

Each time I thought I was tired, that my brain was numb and the all the names started blurring together.

Each time I zoomed back and checked names and shook my head at the connection.

Notice one set of grandparents for the couple Jacob LaRue and Phoebe Hodges

Today's treasure is that I can officially announce that I found two ordained Reverends.  This is a big deal because  I always have believed our family has been Roman Catholic since the church was founded.   Seeing ancestors in Colonial New England shook my certainty, and now seeing actual Baptist preachers in my family seals the deal. 

My favorite ancestor discovery today has been Reverend Joshua Carman who was preaching in Kentucky in the late 1790s and early 1800 and decided to kick all the slaveowners out of the church. 

 This got  him in a little trouble and it made him new friends, I'm sure.  Abolition didn't become a HUGE movement until the 1830s, so this man was (in my humble fan-girl opinion) waaaaay ahead of his time. 

He continued to stand firm for the immediate abolition of slavery and apparently moved to Ohio and or Pennsylvania where his fervent anti-slavery, immediate emancipation  preaching is more welcomed.  

One document claims that Joshua Carman preached to Abraham Lincoln, but I'm not to sure about that.  I think my connections to the Mayflower and William Penn (which you are patiently waiting for, thank you) are more solid and possible and also interesting.   Today's research showed me that one of my relatives definitely said he saw Daniel Boone's brother once.  That was a moment.  Yay for him.

My research keeps going back to someone I'm not related to by blood, but whose story calls to me and whose name I refuse to tell you so you won't get ahead of me as the story unfolds.

 Let's call him him Louis Gastinel.

 In 1860 he was in a workhouse in New Orleans, listed as a mulatto; by 1865 he was in Law School in St Louis (how? who sent him? the church?) and in 1880 he listed in the New Orleans  city directory is a lawyer not listed as a mulatto.

 In 1890 he marries my Cuban-born, New Orleans raised 3rd great grandmother, Rosalie Elizida Santo Domingo who was widowed in 1870 and lost both of her French-born Creole parents by 1880.

Rosalie and Louis were only married for two years before he dies, but I'd like to think this marriage was a huge deal for both of them because they liked and respected each other very much and the  time together was some of the happiest two years of their lives. 

But I digress. 

My research has also took me off of ancestry and in one of my adventures I found listings of impoverish orphans brought to the church or to the city and where they were sent (St. Mary's, St. Vincents, etc).   

I felt pulled read the column listing who brought the orphan/widow, and one name kept coming up, Rosalie Santo Domingo's second husband. 

This is an example of what I found, but this screenshot doesn't show L. Gastinel bringing kids.  You get the point, right?

I am guessing he did this as part of his work as a lawyer and counselor, and because he was a professional this is a life path he chose.  

I am guessing he chose to be a man of service, a helpful good man who connected people who needed help with people who were called to help.  

There is a moment in 1870 that my father's ancestor Achille Soldani (spelled Achall Soldom Soldoni in 1870 archive) is listed as being at St. Mary's while Louis was a fixture,  coming and going from several orphanages, giving hugs and asking kids if they're saying their prayers and brushing their teeth (because what else could he ask them? whether they want to live in an orphanage??).

Rosalie Santo Domingo Michot Gastinel never met her great-grandson -- my grandfather -- Gerald Michot Soldani, but she really might have met the orphan Achille Soldani, and in my heart, they  laughed together when they met.  

Duck and Cover and Always Kiss Your Brother*

(Originally published in 2012)

Zoe slips happily into my car minutes after the bell rings on Friday.

She seems in a good mood, so I exhale a little bit. She turns off the radio (she always does this to me), tells me she's hungry (again, the usual) and then says, "Ask me about my day. Ask me."

I'm trying to merge with three lanes of parents also escaping school parking lot madness; a girl holding a balloon walks in front of me just as I was about to quickly pull out. Yikes.

This afterschool dash of kids and cars is craziness and trying to navigate my way in is taking up a solid part of my brain making me unable to really wholeheartedly listen to my daughter, but I'm concentrating too hard to explain myself.

I miss my cue, then, to ask about her day, but do find my timing to pull out.

She repeats herself. "Ask me about my day."

I do.

She launches into it.

I won't even try to capture her exact words but it went like this.

At school they had a Code Red Drill, meaning there was an armed intruder.

The teacher locked the classroom door, turned off the lights and told the kids to get under their desks.

Two taller boys hid in corners; I think Zoe ended up under her teacher's desk.

Then they heard a bang and jiggle at the door like someone was trying to break in.

A girl in the class screamed and cried.

Zoe finished her story and admitted she'd been freaked out and maybe sobbed a little. Her teacher was a hero and overall they learned what to do.

I sit there dumbstruck.

 Zoe thinks I'm concentrating on traffic but I'm not.

I'm processing this horrific scenario of my daughter scared crying worrying about being shot by a faceless angry intruder instead of acing her test.

I don't know what to say. I don't. I wish I'd been warned, I wish I could have prepared her, but I let that go.

I tell her all about Burt the Turtle, and how children in the 1950s were terrorized by impending violence that never arrived.

After we pick up Zack from his school and he is settled into the backseat, Zoe launches on him.

Ask me what happened at school, ask me. 

He blinks his eyes, he looks sweaty and happy and he seems to remember something and starts digging in his backpack.

" Zack! Ask me about my DAY!" she commands and then he does so she repeats herself and then tells him the entire story she told me.
She finishes her story with how the teacher hugged her and everything was OK and then "Zack! Why are you crying?!"

I hear a sniff and another sniff from the backseat. Zoe turns all the way around to hold his hand. "What's wrong?"

"WAHHHHH. I didn't kiss you goodbye this morning!" he wails.

Zoe laughs.

"Aw that's nice. Write about that mom," she commands and then Zack stops crying and sniffs and says "Yes Mom, write about this so everyone else remembers."

How I like my late Lattes

(From 2013. I'm nicer now. Ish.)

They try to come into the lecture hall unnoticed, but that's out of the question.

I stop talking, acknowledge them, drawing the class's attention as well.

"You're late. Late! Never be late to my lectures again. Understand? Sit!" I point up an aisle, and off he scampered.

I get back to my lecture, then the door opens again. "Hello late person. You know you're late, right? Don't be late. Alright, don't just stand there, sit.... there!" I point at the front row, and she slips right in.


Not even a minute later, a guy stands frozen in the doorway. "You are late. Promise me and yourself this is the latest you'll ever be, understand? Now sit!" I point at the front row, and down he sits, plunk.

Then, just as lecture starts to roll again, another guy walks in and stands by the door. "You are LATE.... oh, but don't worry, you haven't missed anything. Class, please hold up the money I paid you come to class on time."

Sixty happy people wave $20 in the air.

The latest late sits, laughing without me even having to tell him to.

"Is this your worst first day of class nightmare?" I ask, and he shakes his head.

"Not even close," he replies.

"Never ever be late to my class again, I'm being clear, right?"

He laughs again, which is fine with me.

I return to covering the entire scope of the course in a twenty minute run-through of maps, images, and key quotes.

Then, just as I'm in the middle of the Industrial Revolution, something happens which strikes me speechless.

I don't know if the class noticed, but I did.

In she walked, late, tiptoing in sandals, quietly sneaking into my class, holding up a crisp new cup of coffee that looked so fresh I could practically see the dollop of foam on the top of her latte.

Coming late to my class?

With a nice hot fresh cup of coffee??

Never, never do that again.

Next time, $2o -- AND the late latte is mine.

Make it a latte with whole milk, and three splendas, hold the syrup and flavoring.

Got it?

Am I now clear?

Let the semester begin...

Blessed are the Pacemakers

(from 2008)

The call came while I was trying to find a yoga pose that would knock out the headache that had been growing all day and was spreading down my jaw and into my neck.

The first call I ignored, expecting her to leave a message or text me.

She did neither.

She called back minutes later, but I didn’t answer it because I was pulling my head down in a long stretch, imagining myself diffusing a huge red throbbing knot that was hunkered down like thorny weed right where my neck and shoulder meet.

Again, I didn’t answer.

This time, she left a message, which I played immediately.

“Please call me back, your Abuelo needs a peacemaker.”

Oh no, I thought.

The man gets tired, he’s cranky, and he can be misunderstood.

He needs me to fix something, to help someone understand him.

Of course I will help.

I sit still for a minute, incredibly thankful to be seen as a resource for peace.

“Blessed are the peacemakers,” I reminded myself, then fell back into an anti-headache pose, mentally preparing to help whoever needed my help to find common ground, come together, and find stable harmony.

At 8:10, I give up on yoga and pop two Tylenol, figuring I’ll call my mom back when they start to work.

By 9pm the pills haven’t worked; neither has a heating pad or ice, leading me to imagine this headache is retribution from a weed I hacked apart with a machete, or karmic payback from a roach I once poisoned with a can of hairspray.

I call my mom back, speaking softly so the headache won’t wake up and seize me again.

She sounds bright and cheerful, and falls right into a story.

“I took your Abuelo to a new doctor today, and they did an EKG immediately and wanted to schedule surgery, but he won’t do it because he has obligations for Holy Week.”

I mumble my understanding, and then she continues.

“So the surgery will be Monday, unless he gets weak or dizzy before then; if so, he needs to go right in.”

“Wow. Wow,” is all I can say.

Just earlier that day Barb told me her son Sean was having heart surgery in Gainesville on Monday; I say a silent prayer for cardiologists, begging them to not compromise these delicate hearts with shaky hands, hungover from overstuffing themselves on chocolate bunnies or jellybeans.

“Should I come down?” I ask, then wish I hadn’t, wondering to myself why a grown woman would need permission to see her own grandfather.

She doesn’t respond directly, only keeps on with her cheerful tone. “I’m clearing my schedule for Monday; Tuesday he will still be in the hospital – hopefully discharged on Wednesday…”

“Ok, well I’ll be on hold,” I say, and then mentally walk through my schedule.

It would be hell to cancel my Diplomatic History classes next week; I’m just getting to Vietnam, to the Nixon Doctrine. We aren’t even near Ping-Pong Diplomacy, much less the Iranian Hostage Crisis, or end of the Cold War.

Two cancelled classes and I might never make it to 9/11/01, I think, not realizing that I am no longer listening to my mother discuss my Abuelo’s condition.

But he needs me, I think.

He needs me to be a peacemaker, and I should get down there. I exhale, noticing the knot loosening, leaving more of my attention free.

I start to tell my Mom about baby Sean’s surgery, and then think to ask, “What are they going to do to Abuelo’s heart? What is this surgery?”

My mom’s voice stays bright. “A pacemaker. Your Abuelo needs a pacemaker.”

“A pacemaker? I thought he needed me…” I say, voice trailing.

And then Zack screamed for me, and American Idol was ending, so we got off the phone.

“Blessed are the pacemakers,” I thought as my head hit the pillow, my headache ebbing just enough that I could smile again.

Everywhere, now.

(From December 2007)

"Ay, Marta...." Abuelo mutters under his breath, sitting on his recliner surrounded by bottles of pills. He's just finished setting up his medicines for the next few weeks. Heart pills, stomach pills, I don't know what else, and I don't ask.

Usually his hands are in constant motion, writing letters, sorts stacks of paper, doing things always. Everything is done, for now. He is stuck unoccupied, and unwelcome thoughts slip into his mind.

"Ay, Marta..." he says again, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.

I shut my book, finger holding my page in the thick book by an author who's last big novel came out in 1998, the year Abuelo had a heart attack on my birthday.

He changes the channel, puts on Lawrence Welk.

It is white people with big hair and stiff smiles singing about the old South. One African-American tap dances, alone, off stage. The audience looks stiff and uncomfortable.

Abuelo moves the pills to a shoebox and carries them to the counter where he sets them down. He gets his milk and cake, then settles back into his chair.

"Ay, Marta...." again he mutters, and this time, despite my harsh warnings otherwise, fat hot tears spill down my face.

She is here.

She is not here.

She is gone.

She is everywhere, now.

July 4, 1994

(Originally published July 4, 2006)

The next 4th of July that stands out in my mind was in the early 1990s, before I got married.

I was home from gradschool in Tallahassee, but it wasn't a real vacation because was completely paralyzed with with heartbreak.

It had gone on for about six weeks, and my parents had no reason to believe this holiday would get me out of bed, dressed, eating, happy.

Somehow my mom got me to go to the store with her.

Getting out of the house was a big deal because I was completely and ridiculously obsessed with being fat, with looking fat, with how I looked and how certain I was that I was not fit for human eyes. I didn't want to leave the house only to be viewed, discarded, seen and scorned.

I was probably over-the hill, turn-the-corner-to-crazyland delirious from starving myself for months. Eating disorders are only funny if you don’t have to live with one. I was paralyzed and suffocating. Not writing at all.

My mom and I bought some sparklers so that we could entertain my grandparents that evening. At least that was her story then – now I see that her real game was to get me moving, back on my feet, functioning again.

As we were pulling out of the parking lot, a truck in front of us took off a bit too quickly, and a big brown box slid out of its flat bed.

Mom said “get it!” and a surge of curiosity and Scarface-like intrigue gave me sudden burst of courage to jump out of the car, grab the box & toss it in the trunk.

Roman Candles. A big box of them. More fireworks than I’d seen in my life.

We aren’t poor, but fireworks – especially the ostentatious kind – are sorta a waste of money,

That night we had a wonderful time – my parents, grandparents, me – running with Roman Candles in our own personal Olympic relay around the poor. Dancing with them (everyone was sober, so it was ok), laughing with them.

Abuelo got out an American flag and BB gun, and he and I marched around the pool on patrol.
My dad took a bunch of pictures of the whole event.

Have you seen them? I’m wearing a peach shirt with a navy collar.

I still think look great in those pictures, not too skinny, too serious, to lonely or too sad, like people kept telling me.

Goodnight Abuelo

(from November 2008)

I turn off the reading light, folding my thick book against my chest.Again, as the night before and the night before that, the two of us end our evening sitting in reclining chairs facing the TV.

Last night we watched a game show, then musicals.

Tonight we're watching M*A*S*H.

Soon enough, having finished his milk and cake, he falls asleep in the chair, dark blue slippers dangling from his black socked feet.

I turn the TV down, smooth the hair off his forehead and kiss him above his eyes.

He stirs, smiles, and calls me "Me vida," (my life), and I believe him.

Without turning back, I walk down the narrow hall to Abuela's room, book in hand, then sit in the silent darkness, thankful.

Arabism, Canadian, Christian

Pretest Question #3: Name 5 Religions that are not "Christian" and do not believe in Jesus as their savior.  Color me surprised, y’all ---  many of the answers were amazing. One student apologized for writing Taoism AND Buddhism, noting that Taoists are Buddhist, so I made sure to put a few red hearts by her name on my roster.

Here are some the rest of the responses:

·      Arabic
·      Arabism
·      Canadian
·      Cannibalism
·      Cannibism
·      Catholasisum
·      Catholics
·      Catism
·      Chinism
·      Christian
·      Cratism
·      Dogism
·      Dumbism
·      Egyptians
·      Hoodo
·      Inolikejesusism
·      Jedi
·      Jewidism
·      Julism
·      Kallism
·      Kawasaki
·      Masonary Shriners
·      Nepitism
·      Nonjesusism
·      Presbatarianism
·      Queerism
·      Ratism
·      Sincerity
·      South America
·      The Asian Religions
·      Tiaism
·      Wedonnotbelieveinjesusism
·      Whattheheckareweteachingism
·      Ying Ling

AMH 2010 Study Guide for Exam #5

Exam #5 is 12:30 on Friday 5/5 in our classroom.

Format: lecture part Total of 120 points.

10 @ 10 points (identify, discuss significance and place in context) and 1 @ 20 points.

Textbook part: 80 points Online OR 8 focus questions from the chapters 14, 15, 16

Homestead Act 1862

Boomer Sooners

Barbed Wire

“A mining town needs brothels”

Victoria Woodhull

Susan B. Anthony - Case & Ruling

 “How the Other Half Lives”

Gospel of Wealth by Carnegie

Horatio Alger Stories

Reconcentrado Camps

“You furnish the pictures…..”

REMEMBER THE MAINE

Teller Amendment

Evangelina Cisneros Story

Platt Amendment

Open Door Note

Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine

Panama’s Revolution

Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty

  Explain and connect: Principles of Domestic Science, Cult of True Womanhood, Victorian Homes & Sentimental Motherhood, Anti-Saloon League* 20 points