Fly Away Home (for Joe)

news4jax.com reported it very early this morning. The body of a black male was found discarded in a creek behind subsidized housing. The body had been there for at least a day. The creek was on the "upscale" Southside part of town which is about as far from the Northside and the hood and the Ribault Trojan nation as you can get. Grief counselors were called in to the school. The RIP was posted on Facebook. Homicide detectives are investigating.

This wasn't your typical Monday morning! This weekend I worked at a Jesus thing, a church renewal weekend called Faith Alive in West Palm Beach. It was wonderful and it was over Saturday night at 9:30. Of course, it was 5 hours NORTH to go home or it was 1 hour SOUTH to hear "Welcome home!" from Mr. Man. Did I even have a choice? While we baked in the sun all day Sunday, I couldn't help but be mesmerized and completely captured by the antics of a band of seagulls as they disrupted our view of the horizon. Actually, they WERE the view and they have probably been to the horizon and back a few times. Or as Buzz promised, "To Infinity and Beyond!" I snapped this picture with my phone to remind me to spend time being carefree and to embrace nature 24/7. I also remembered Bach's fable, Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I thought about it a lot actually. Well, Jonathan's spirit, at least for today, is embodied in a scruffy bearded, BIG, beautiful eyed, Reuben Studdard voiced, thug, who always addressed you by name and always wore a smile...His name was Joe and he was in my 2nd period class. He had become more disciplined in his Senior year. He had been attending class regularly. I helped him Thursday search and apply for some landscaping jobs online. He loved to rap and had just given a report on a book entitled The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah. The irony is that according to amazon.com the story is a CAUTIONARY TALE protesting the use of drugs and violence by African-Americans in the inner city. I can't really dwell on Joe any more tonight and a life snuffed out too soon, but here's some excerpts from JLS that seem appropriate... (Keep reading until the end for the real eye-opener!)

So this is heaven, he thought, and he had to smile at himself. It was hardly respectful to analyze heaven in the very moment that one flies up to enter it. The memory of his life on Earth was falling away. Earth had been a place where he had learned much, of course, but the details were blurred - something about fighting for food, and being Outcast. "Why is it," Jonathan puzzled, "that the hardest thing in the world is to convince a bird that he is free, and that he can prove it forhimself if he'd just spend a little time practicing? Why should that be sohard?" "To begin with " he said heavily, "you've got to understand that a seagull is an unlimited idea of freedom, an image of the Great Gull, and your whole body, from wingtip to wingtip, is nothing more than your thought itself."

Today was progress report day. Yesterday, I went through my folder of unread essays, and guess whose essay was on top. Yep.. Joe's! Here it is. The 3rd paragraph is prophetic, in a very sad way!

Name Something that Made a Change in Your Life Something that changed my life was when I witnessed my first homicide with my own two eyes. It numbed me up in a lot of ways. It enabled me to feel all kinds of feelings that I never had like constant paranoia, the lack of sleeping, and of being alone. I started sleeping during the day because I was scared to sleep at night as a result of being traumatized from what I had seen. When I say it numbed me out, it shut a lot of emotions down or into shock. It felt like my nervous system was literally witnessing technical difficulties. I felt like I was just taking up space like I was just there, with no expression on my face, just blank nothing, just pure displacement. It detached me from living a normal life. The constant paranoia did not stop. It was a constant symptom of seeing a heinous crime. It reoccurred hundreds of thousands of times. I seen it so much that I could see myself as becoming the next victim to be killed, gunned down in the streets like an outcast or some estranged bum. Over time, I guess wounds heal but I’m still mentally, physically, and emotionally scarred from the incident. It took away any innocence that I had. It was gone. I was now a victim of things I could not change, the changes being good or bad. I just keep moving on. I don’t beat myself up about it.

50 isn't old if you're a tree!

No that's not Mae West in the picture...It's me showing my stomach (which is refreshing, considering I'm usually showing my A*&!...This past Saturday was St. Augustine day with my former Albanian student (who is in her last year of RN school), Anila...What fun thing about 21 year olds is that they'll go anywhere and do anything...So we happened upon a vintage clothing store run by a woman who probably owned all the 50's pieces! Well, this one caught my eye and the label is Gunne Sax...Isn't that cute? This is a size 9 in old-timey sizes...and I can't show you the back because I COULDN'T ZIP IT ALL THE WAY! Still, what a great dress!!! I am on a search to find the perfect dress for Mr. Man's annual Christmas party...This will be my 3rd time going, and the first as his SO since his promotion as the manager...(Here's your homework! look up the BILTMORE HOTEL in miami...that's where it is every year and it's a truly gay affair!!!) I'm fast approaching the 1/2 century mile-marker. One of my buds (my +1 for all things cultural or food related around Jax) took me out to eat last night and we commenced to doing some thinking about 12-2 and where to have everyone meet up! That is a Thursday, but since I want to wake up with Mr. Man that weekend, probably I should have something for everybody else and I really have to celebrate on the day of the big event!!! So, it's time to start being daring and throwing caution to the wind and embodying the red/purple-AARP carrying-spitting on sidewalk mentality of a Mae West type...I mean she said things like "A man's kiss is his signature" and "An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises" and "I speak two languages - Body and English..." I mean, why can't I channel her inner attitude for my year of celebration??? It will actually begin at Disney World on November 18th at an English teacher's conference...I'm staying at a ridiculously expensive hotel on property, but that's ok..right? So ladies, I'll do my best to keep the blog up (along with my boobs LOL) for my entire year of celebrations.....because I want the both of you along for every adventure...Who knows, maybe the road will take me to yankeetown..... PS....It's also time to cut the apron strings - well actually the apron strings are cutting me! Charlotte, my daughter (the traitor) is moving to Seattle around October 5th for an undisclosed amount of time...My brother lives there! They have never met, but they have become facebook friends (another commercial) so I'm very excited for that reunion as well!!! The great news is that on October 3rd, there's a Jacksonville Jaguars/COLTS game and I bought a bunch of tickets from my college job...For $40, you get the ticket, a shirt, a tail gate, and free parking and a shuttle from the college which is less than 2 miles away...So Tim brings 2 friends, Char brings 2 friends, and I suppose I get to bring 1....sounds like a great TTFN (Tigger, Ta Ta For Now) party!!!!

where there's smoke there's fire - literally

So, officially, WORST DAY EVER! I am really loving Facebook (and Adrienne, just consider the possibility of signing in!!!) It is like a daily (or bi-daily or poly-daily) journal-fest! Today there were two big-time markers that just captured the day, as it were. Before I share with you the big events, here's one of my FB (Facebook) comments for the first one! "Take a chill pill Sis. Relax and listen to the surf. Nothing is more important than your health." This is from my brother in the state of Washington. We grew up with different mothers in different regions of the USA and have only met ONCE in Spokane over 16 years ago. However, we have maintained sporadic contact and when our father died, he went to the Harlingen, Texas funeral and I went to the San Antonio one...So we didn't even get to hang out then! However, FB has really fueled some great communication like this one! We are fortunate at our school to have a full time clinic. This is the exception and not the rule in Duval County! Physically, I've been feeling - well, just pull something out of the air, and it's probably appropriate - so I went and had my blood pressure read....150/94! This is quite high and I can blame it on a State Visit happening in our school on September 14th and 15th. I have quite a lot to do, the equivalent of taking a can of Pledge (a big-ass can!) and polishing up the place, or at least the DATA and making sure ALL our level 1's through 3's have tested in our baseline data...NO EASY TASK, but thankfully, I had to pull my Wonder Woman underoos out of the closet and I've been wearing them...and there are phone booths nearby for the quick changes! LOL But I digress...So, you probably noticed my lovely photo for this post. I know what you're thinking...Wow! Grubbs has never looked better! HA! What does FB have to say? Lots of "Glad you and the furry friends are safe!" and then my brother's all cap rebuke, "NEVER PUT WATER ON A GREASE FIRE!" Yup! I did it! I was really craving french fries, so I turned on the burner and left the room for a very, very brief moment....Next thing you know, FIRE!!!!! Here in the South, it's 2am and I can't sleep. I spent a few hours pacing in total disbelief, spent an hour at a friend's house with some take out and FOUR wheat beers, I need to spend more time in the shower because my complexion and hands are resembling Mr. Man's more than mine, and I am STILL thinking about which kids to test at which periods tomorrow!!!!!!! The good news is today I have a heart doctor appointment! He's probably going to think I went back to smoking... ha ha..So, in an earlier post, you met Josh, my tattooed surrogate son who was in the great picture of my daughter's birthday in June (when I was absolutely rocking the cranberry color!). He wrote, "If I learned anything from my 2nd mom, it's to laugh at life." I think I'm going to frame this and make it my life verse...Matthew 21:16 reminds us that "Out of the mouths of babes....." and even though Josh is pushing 27, he remains one of MY babes with a lesson for me to learn....One of my besties at work (who I was warned NOT to befriend by the poisonous snakes at my school because I wouldn't like her) reminded me, "Work within your means and let the worrying out the door." This is VERY easy, because 1/2 of the doors are WIDE OPEN right now....So ladies, remember your buddy down here, your GRITS (Girl Raised In The South) who is taking some hits but just like the Rockem-Sockem robots, (and our cats) eventually, I always land on my feet!