*Some of the writing I’ve been doing lately is all stream of consciousness or Artist’s Way-Like in that I sit and try to get three solid pages out of me. Instead of sitting here with another blank page (Honestly, next month’s challenge to write every. single. day is scaring the bejesus out of me) I have posted what is below. Maybe it’s more honest than I’d like because it seems a great confession of failure on my part.

Hearing that old adage that women utter to themselves that made me stop and take notice of it. Not the first time I’ve heard it, of course, but that’s the one that made me question it. Made me grateful that I can hear a thing over and again and one time hear it and have the balls-out reply, “Well, what the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

If I do nothing else in life, then at least I raised children well.

It is not a mystical phrase. There aren’t mysteries surrounding it, but it’s far too common an utterance for it to be thrown about without some sort of defiance by those who hear it.

All I have ever done is raise children and try to do so ‘well’. My own career as a teacher took me to a job once because I wanted to be nearer my children, to have them at the same school as me and be able to join them for lunch or afternoon snack if I had a prep period that coincided with it. My youngest was at the day care part of the building, my middle child was in a classroom directly adjoined to my own, and my oldest was in my class at the time. Pardon the honesty here, but I couldn’t get away from the children. Not that I wanted to, but it occurs to me now that I never was. They were with me when I drove to work/school and they were there during the day with me as I was working at their school and they piled into the minivan after I was done with work/school and then we went home together to eat dinner and do homework and grade papers so we could all go to work/school again.

Then, I realized that I was very tired. My friend, Lisa, had stopped me one day outside my classroom as I was ushering in the students and commented that I looked as such, but that she certainly understood it because she always saw me as this fascinating, talented woman who had it all and could keep it together. Something in me decided to be just bare it all for her that early morning before she had her coffee and 10 mile run through the park only to move onto to decorating more of her house.

“The balls are in the air and I’m juggling as much as I can. You just don’t see all the ones I’ve dropped. Please. Don’t look down. You’ll count those balls and realize what a failure I am.”

What was I talking about? The inability to keep up with grading essays? Trying to determine which novel I would teach next? How could she have known to what I was referring if I myself didn’t even know? It was unfair of me to dump on her, but I kept looking at her life and it looked so fabulous and I wanted it. Fair or unfair, I wanted it. Something different than the work, work, WORK DAMNIT YOU HAVE TO MAKE MONEY AND SUPPORT THESE BABIES YOU KEEP HAVING than I was used to struggling with in my short 27 years on this earth.

At this time, I was also heavily involved in my church either teaching Sunday school or performing in children’s church or being in the sign language choir. When this mega-church started doing productions in the form of musical plays, I thought I had found my calling and could do this for the rest of my days.

But the weariness still was getting to me. Working for a private school was difficult in that many of the student’s’ families insisted on them being treated better than anyone else in life. They were privileged and saw this as an opportunity to show their children how one learns to become better than others.

A mixed bag if ever I saw one. This was the time I met my friend Allen and he challenged everything they stood for and I was grateful that he waltzed into my life wearing a QUESTION AUTHORITY bumper sticker over his whole being.

So my thoughts about being a mom began to change and I longed for what I could not have: a stay-at-home-mom’s-life. I wanted to be more like those women who hopped in their SUV’s with their travel mugs in their hand while wearing their yoga pants and flip flops so they could kiss their babies goodbye and lead this glamorous child-free afternoon. They would shop for just the right blend of coriander because their gourmet dish was incomplete without just the right one. They offered their time at the bookstore where they easily dropped a hundred dollars on some magazines and cookbooks and perhaps something of the spiritual sort. They would laze about (wouldn’t they?) and try to have a check ready for the cleaning lady who would be there just in time for the house to be picked up before they returned to the schools to collect their children. Their husbands would come home tired and cranky but upon seeing the lithe bodies of their wives and the happy chubby children and smelling that meal would allow it to melt away and even he could continue playing the role of Satisfied Husband, Good Man.

I realized I wanted this world even if it was entirely fantasy. They still portrayed themselves as having this and I foolishly convinced myself that this was only a part of the life o f a stay-at-home mom that I wanted. So I began to work on my husband and tell him that I needed these things and that staying home with only the youngest child (since the others were school age, so technically I really WOULD be a stay-at-home mom because at least one of the children would be AT HOME WITH ME) was the only option and that I wanted to quit my job.

He wasn’t hearing any of it. He just wasn’t having it. I sought the answer (the answer, by the way, was not just “yes” to staying home, but “Yes, you deserve to stay home and you’re already worked very hard and yes, your husband will having nothing but support for you to do that so he will get a better paying job so you can stay home because yes, this is the completely right decision”) from my friends and co-workers.

Mostly, they obliged. Until they got to part where they saw my husband as supporting this. Then, they scrunched up their faces as if to say sourly, “well, you know… I can’t really see this happening for you.”

One of the teachers who only stayed for one year in that position comforted me. She was older than me and her children were in high school and beyond and she had, admittedly, already “done her time” by staying home with her little babies.

You know, Kelly. No matter what you decide, you will still have the Scarlet Letter. Every mom has it. It’s invisible, but we all recognize it when we see it. It’s the letter G and it’s carved right onto her forehead.

A “G”? I realized I was, as the English teacher, to get this reference, but I was sure Hester Prynne wore an “A” pinned to her chest.

Yes, a “G”. For “guilt”. No matter what you’re doing, you will have guilt. If you’re working at a school and leaving others to care for your children, you will have guilt. If you’re staying home with your son and not using your college degree for something worthwhile and giving back to society, you will have guilt.

The flippant part of me wanted to retort, “So, basically, I am destined for a life of guilt? I’m sorry. I call Bullshit on that one.” But I didn’t that day. I was still so young and my children were, too, and I was unsure if my husband would truly get what I was asking for and instead bawled in her classroom until I was curled up in her lap trying desperately to hold on to her skirt for dear life. I thought that if I let go of her skirt at that moment, the earth would swallow me up whole for my motherly guilt and I would have no one but myself to blame for it.

Stupid of me, but I have never thought I deserved much more than that.

When I pulled up to my little coffee hut today I just asked, “Ok, Sweet Thang. What’s brewin’ that’s good?” and then a string of beautiful words came out of her mouth. My eyes glazed over after hearing “rhubarb” and “peach” and “ginger” when she described her iced tea. A luscious earthy flavored tea that rang all my bells this morning. It made me lose my powers of speech for a while.

Fall brings the inevitable leaf changes and sweater weather I love so much and hate all at the same time. Don’t get me wrong: pulling out warm, snuggly clothing is fantastic and all, but when you add the discomfort of actually being cold, then I tend to get a little pissy.

And I don’t want to be pissy.

So how about I give away some prizes then?

Since I have been a kick ass Beta Tester for Photrade (read: my lass ass hasn’t done nearly as much as I wanted to do) they have decided to offer me three invitations to use their photo hosting service.

Leave me a comment and I’ll randomly choose three people to try out this awesome new service where you can make money on your photos. Not to brag, but I have a whole 8 cents in my account. See above: lame ass admission.

If you haven’t been taking some Fall pics yet, I hope you start because I’m having a contest to give away several HP Photo Books. Fall doesn’t just remind me of sweaters and boots, but also of Football games and walks in the park and pumpkin carving and Halloween costumes. I also think of changes and how everything morphs into one seemingly complicated mess that can look beautiful when it gets taken apart. To wit: a standard photo of my son.

It was an easy shot to get because I sat in the football stadium stands during the Homecoming game and was not allowed to sit close enough to be within earshot. I was also not allowed to look at him and give away the fact that I was his mother. Better still, if Mason caught me turning my head to the left where he was sitting then I would be completely off his planet until he begins to collect Social Security and not a moment sooner.

What’s a mom to do?

She is to put on her 75-300 mm lens, wait until her son gets up and starts to dress appropriately for the halftime show (Hello, cute adorable little beret that goes with the matching red outfit! I love you!) and takes out his trumpet and then SNAP, get a good shot of her growing boy.

This will ever remind me of Fall now.

So, the contest is: find a great picture you’ve taken that reminds you of Fall and send it to me with a description of why it screams FALL or AUTUMN (because honestly, Autumn is really a much prettier word) and you can win one of these. If you have a blog I will link to you, but it’s not necessary. Contest closes next Monday.

If you feel like you just. can’t. wait. then you can find out about getting a discount on the HP Photo Books here.

Or just enter my contest.

It’ll help me not be so pissy. That’s such an ugly word.

Sweet, sweet Shash has sent me some coffee. I’ve tried many Boca Java blends before, but she insisted that I try the Bananas Foster Float and only because she got us a kick-ass hotel room in Chicago last summer did I agree. Plus, she had it shipped straight to me. I have to admit that I sang B-A-N-A-N-A-S from that annoying Gwen Stefani song the entire time it brewed. I was irritating myself with it. Still skeptical, I poured it into my travel mug and headed for work. Now, I was annoyed at Gwen and myself and wondered if this would be any good. Honestly? It really was. I’m surprised. I didn’t expect to like it, but I did. I’m no longer upset with Gwen. I like myself a little more, but I truly love Shash now.

A chronically truant student who has made it to school only two days thus far is giving me fits. He just doesn’t care. That burns me up that he is this apathetic at 14 years of age. Apparently, he just hangs out in the neighborhood and is told by a female police officer to get to school. I have also involved the truancy interventionist at my school so that she can make contact with the boy and his father. She’s visited twice and brought him physically into my office.

As of today, he has been absent 37 of the 39 days of school.

Yesterday, his father unexpectedly showed up because he’d gotten another call about his son’s absence. Before he’d arrived, I had written myself a note to call him, too, because I was getting the paperwork started for his son to do an alternative education program. He was kind and seemed to be open to scheduling a meeting with the school early next week to move forward with something for his son. While I was writing down the meeting in my day planner he explained that he had come in on Monday of this week to see me but that I had been out of the office.

That’s ok, though. We talked to one of the other deans. That senior one. Mr. Scott.

Oh, good. I’m glad you got to do that. Did your son get to see him, too?

Yeah! That’s just it! He really listened to him. Mr. Scott laid into him about being out of school and maybe he got through to him.

Well, not yet. I thought. He still missed the last 4 days of school. But I was glad this father thought it was helpful.

You know why I think that is? For some reason my son seems to respond well to Black people. He respects them. That cop he likes? She’s a Black woman.

Oh. Really? Then why doesn’t your son LISTEN TO ME?

Huh? Well. Why would he?

I fear that as October has crept up on me I have lost all visible signs that my skin ever saw the light of day. Perhaps I was really pale today. Was I sick? Am I green? Well, in that case, yes, I have lost some melanin.

Well, because I’m Black. You can’t see that?

You are? YOU ARE? Aww, man, I’m so embarrassed. No, I didn’t know that.

I smiled at him. This poor man had tried to open up to me about his son and that probably wasn’t easy being as it came out of his mouth kind of like a confession, but he was still looking sheepishly at me. Still, he made me laugh.

That’s ok. So, ummm, would you tell your kid to listen to me. You know. Because I’m Black and all. That would be great.

Lost: my tan.

Found: a little humor in my work day.