It's a Swamp Thing

No matter what else is going on, being around trees, puddles, roots, moss, vegetation always brings peace. And right now, we are fortunate to be renting an apartment behind which a good-sized expanse of forest sits.

Overt the past week, Tyler and I have enjoyed bushwhacking within the forest--exploring any path that seems to call us, and walking through the EYE POKERS (twigs or thorns approaching eye level), the FEET GOBBLERS (any puddle area deeper than our shoe laces), and along the BALANCE BEAMS (long trees that have fallen and so afforded us ample opportunity to balance our way across).

There is something about bushwhacking that feels right. Something about exploring a forest without a path. Something about zig-zagging our way through notable sights, noises, opportunities.

And when, over this past week, the forest turned into a legitimate swamp with all the rainfall, this excitement grew. Now, we could leap from moss-covered rock to moss-covered rock. We could stretch our legs across substantial FEET GOBBLERS and see if we'd reach safety on the other side.

The swamp smells. The swamp is dirty. The swamp makes bushwhacking all the more riveting. And Tyler's desire to go out and explore it grows exponentially and correlates with the water level.

Meanwhile--as my 7th grade students explore with great cordiality and energy Avi's Nothing But the Truth, and as Jen and I prepare for Christmas, and as Benjamin, our one year old, takes his first wobbling steps on his own--I find myself reading and re-reading accounts of Ferguson.

I re-read all of the plot-driven events, all of the analysis, the commentary, the calls to action, the calls to change, the calls to consider, the calls to contemplation.

And as a swamp-exploring Daddy, I wonder what I will tell my sons when they are old enough to understand. I wonder how I will explain the kinds of balance our world needs, the very present realities of the dangers that lurk everywhere, and prevent justice for some based on what Toni Morrison calls a social construct--invented hate to match swollen, fearful hearts.

It is far easier to tell Tyler what moss-covered rock towards which to leap; it is more difficult to chart a path through the tragedy and pain our world sees played and replayed.

When Tyler and I explore the forest, we take a new path each time. Now that our forest has become a swamp, the possibilities for paths actually increase. The water--rather than hiding avenues--reveals them. The mucky water shows us leaps we never would have seen before. The dirty build-up affords us opportunities to see chances to buck tired, traditional views of safety in pursuit of something more real, something more right.

So, maybe it is a swamp thing. Maybe the injustice we see playing out is the ultimate call to make new leaps. Maybe the inexplicable pain and horror we now watch is causing a rise in the water level, demanding that we get off the paths we've been walking and start to make leaps toward justice.

They will not be easy. And they will throw us off balance. But the status quo is no longer even an option.

I do not have words to explain to my sons the kind of world I wish we lived in; and I know that thinkers and activists far more esteemed and brave then I am even say that such a perfect world of justice and grace is impossible--people like critical race theorist Derrick Bell, who believed that racism will always be among us, though our challenge to fight it is no less necessary.

However, I do have the words to tell my sons to leap. I have the words to tell them to look for the gaps where the water has risen, to see a trajectory across, and to go for it. And as they grow, I can hope to tell them to keep leaping--in the swamps, yes--but also in their schools, in their relationships, in their words, in their lives, and towards justice.

And I can hope beyond hope to model this leaping, however humbly and imperfectly I can.

One True Thing from Penny Blubaugh: Staying Power

For today's One True Thing, I am thrilled to welcome author Penny Blubaugh. Penny is the author of the ingenious and powerful novel Serendipity Market, which received a starred review from Kirkus and about which Booklist raved: "This beautiful novel will be a delight to those who enjoy spin-offs of fairy tales and folktales. Readers will find themselves flipping back and forth to figure out how all the different stories hidden in the fold come together to form the greater whole of this charming book." 

Penny is also the author of Blood and Flowers. She is an inspired word-crafter who is represented by Erin Murphy at the Erin Murphy Literary Agency. Penny is a teen librarian in Chicago in addition to her work as a writer. For more about Penny, check out her website at www.pennyblubaugh.com. 

Staying Power

By Penny Blubaugh

One true thing I’ve learned about life is that there are things that I know that I might have lived very happily not knowing.  This is because most of what I know in the category of “important” deals with life lessons.  Life lessons can be hard to take.

Life lessons are usually learned because of a bad situation that climbed up the cliff.  The climb made the situation go from bad to worse.  And then the situation jumped. 

Once I recover from the fall, once the bruising and battering have gone, the lesson stays.  It might make me smart.  It might make me careful -- I don’t want that to ever happen again.  It might makes me reckless -- I survived and I can do anything.  Who knows?  It might even make me sexy.

Mostly, the lesson makes me realize that I’m a survivor, that I have staying power.  The next time something jumps, I’ll remember the last time.  Even though I’ll still feel like I’ve been gut-punched, I know that I’ll eventually get through this, whatever this happens to be.     

   

It’s the eventually that’s hard to take.  But if I let myself remember, I’ll know that I have resiliency.  

It

We cut our fingernails,
Peel back the sleep from our eyes.

We pull the stray hairs off,
Watch them fall.

Crooked eyes make for
The straightest disguise:

We wear the face of humanity--
Our imperfect noises, ideas, cries.

In the face of despair,
We turn our tired eyes towards

Light.

However dark our lives,
We rise.

Against all logic,
all fear,
all confusion,
all despair.

We rise like rain
That bounces off rock:

Too bold too stay,
Too strong to remain.

Made for more than this,
More than superficial bliss,
We rise.

And while we stand,
The crooked of our pain remains,
But the straight of the sun dances
Like it's new again.

Like it's piercing holes in
Despair.

Like the Nothing that we
Worshipped was a sham.


(I wrote this poem while listening to the following song on YouTube over and over, and over and over, and over and over. And again. Hold Us Together by Matt Maher

Why We Need Pain to Write

For the September issue of The Writer, I wrote a piece with the above title. It came out of much of what these past eleven months have taught us, and I thought I'd include the link to where the article appears on the magazine's webpage: "Why We Need Pain to Write."