Chaper 2 The edge of paradise MM and me

Where do I start?  A cascading myriad of mood swings that parallel on an infinite universe of road blocks.  One day he wanted all the things life had granted him.  Another day, he would lose the essence of those mental objects he possessed due to his own contrary nature - a legume of dark secrets known as his blockheaded mind.

She wasn't cultured for such a socially marginalized creature- restricted by the fact that he built this self enclosed barrier.  His drinking made it impossible for him to drive on weekends, a pre planned crutch that prevented the possibility of a real date.  As far as awareness, he was acutely aware of most things that created this moment, the moment where he chose to fully abandon the sweetness of life into a prolonged mourning of his second wife, Tamia.

His impression was deep, like a moon crater that assaulted her being, in fact, every inch of her body was awakened to his texts, phone calls and late night siestas.  She was bound to him purely in a physical sense, his background didn't matter or the signs.  His mind was a loose tunnel of curves and overtures, dancing to the moment of nocturnal arousal.

Every time she missed him, if she wrote it down, the loose papers would pile up to the ceilings of heaven and then perhaps float into an oblivion of amplified feelings. That is how she felt when she left him for one week in California but their communication intensified.  Texts became pictures, he was locked into visuals.  Visual pictures is what stimulated him not actual words.

The urge to resist him was stronger than the need to devour his flesh.  In a more somber moment, she once said, "I know who I am in Christ."  She quoted a Bible verse and said, "Do you know this one?"  In a moment's pause, he said "I really don't know the scriptures that well." He claimed to know God but God was a remote figure to him, ready to strike him down if he strayed off the path.

The meandering ground level of his house had ancient schrapnel traps of a family life suspended and a lifestyle set back to the 90s.  He had pictures of himself as a young child and a picture of his father in his 20s which he showed off frequently.  He belonged to a place nobody could reach, a place preserved in time before the hurt tore him apart like a refugee. He kept his family picture of Tamia in the closet.  The wave of blue carpet enriched her feet after sex which led her in darkness to the bathroom, adjacent to the kitchen.  He refused to turn on any lights.  She sometimes b-lined to the fridge where he had mini Orange gatorades.  Her thirst was often quenched after the ritual. Their shared bottle of mouthwash was on the upper shelf in the bathroom.  The orange gatorade combined with the sting of mouthwash rekindled her.  He had sucked the orifice out of her being each night, his tongue protruding each inner part.  His lips were red and ripe, she loved his lips and every willing thing he was anxious to do.  She equally pleased him in a way that would make him quiver and draw up his fists out of pleasure.  Their communion was like a humming engine in the night coupled with the dark seed of winter and high snowbanks. 
It was fulfillment at its best.
In bed he was the Green Lantern, but outside of it he was a man full of doubts, fragile thoughts and somewhat regressive.

Beaten Path: The Braveness of Patrick Henry 11/27 by Ernest Radio Network | Blog Talk Radio

Beaten Path: The Braveness of Patrick Henry 11/27 by Ernest Radio Network | Blog Talk Radio

Listen to my new episode of Patrick Henry's speech to the Virgina Conventions interwoven with the persepctive of Thomas Merton on life, death and purpose from Seven Storey Mountain.  Find your voice and your passon through these two men.  ALL NEW RADIO SHOW: VIRGIN EPISODE OF 'BEATEN PATH.'

My Introductory Bio/Purpose for Joining Americorps

I got here through word of mouth and being passed over for a job as Youth Pastor of a local Duluth Church.  A contact from the church, Holly, who works as an AmeriCorps Supervisor at Ordean Middle School, told me about the AmeriCorps opportunity as we walked along the shore of Lake Superior on June 12, 2012.  It was a week before the monumentous flood that would overtake the city in biblical proportions.  It was a serene day and I felt privileged to have the chance to ponder working in a unique educational setting and have a job drift into my life so easily after surviving 13 years in the 2nd largest city in America.  I had already served 5 years in Los Angeles Unified School District as an English and Math Tutor and a student teacher.  I knew the ins and outs of LAUSD and the increased pressure on teachers to get satisfactory results for students.  My indoctrination into the school system started out gently as a bystander type tutor but it intensified as I signed up for a Math Summer Institute and I helped 1st generation Latinos into higher level Math and striving for achievement.  I worked with Project Grad, who gave $4,000 scholarships to would-be college bound, granted they passed all the class requirements for the program.   Although I endured the 90 to 100 degree heat of the Math Summer Institute and year round experience at L.A. high schools, once feeling a 6.5 earthquake in summer school on the second floor of the English building with a teacher from France, I longed for the pristine Minnesota lakes, fresh air and the nativity of my home state pilgrimage.  L.A. was a wayside rest, not a permanent destination.  I spent 2009-11 getting my teachier credential because I had a great housing deal, but once the housing gig was up I knew I had to leave no matter which state my credential came from.  Holly's subtle referral back to Cold Country was my ticket out of L.A.  It seemed like a blessing and spiritual intevention that a federal opportunity would arise in the midst of a middle age search for belonginess.
     I serve in the AmeriCorps because it seemed like the perfect transitional job from grad school to the full time world of education, coupled with America's dying vision that needs to be restored.  The media keeps hammering how the youth are lost, how the politicians are lost, how the world is slipping deeper into meaningless, ineffective wars.  This was a direct opportunity to shape the youth into a brighter day.  It seemed like a job where I could inspire, not just master test results or turn students into robots of high acheivement.  Many people from my generation come from the baby boomer post Vietnam revivalist era where our dreams didn't die, America just co-opted into a corporate, corpulent culture that left spiritual purpose behind and status quo intercepted "We are the World" mantra.  I became a Christian at age 4 and started reciting Bible verses in Sunday school and wanted to follow Jesus.  Jesus advocates we lay down our life for our brother.  My desire not to become a slave to capitalism and material wealth drove me into jobs and vocations that helped the poor, needy and gave a better path for the "people" of America.  I have served as public housing manager in Virgina, a social service agency in Illinois, with disabled adults in groups homes, child care for primary age kids and AmeriCorps was just another stepping stone of do-goodness I embraced throughout my life.  The idea of coming to Duluth East, a brand new school, on the top of educational food chain, and to give my 9th grade son an opportunity to go to high school in a state that was in the top 5 rated in America was a dream.  It was a double bonus.  I knew my job would consist of enabling students to a brighter, educational path and I was eager to serve and utilize my one year of teacher training.  I also did have a distinct connection to Duluth, my father and his 8 brothers and sisters grew up here and I would come up every summer until age 16.  My Aunt Fanny would fry us big hamburgers in her two story house and my Uncle Sylvio had telescopic lens where I could watch the boats coming in and out of the harbor on the high second floor bedroom that already stood on a hill.  It was a nostalgic rebirth into my past.  Duluth, a city of its own unique quality of granite rock, hills and the largest freshwater lake in America, was a geological paradise for anyone like me who was interested in landforms and the history of the earth's crust.  I feel home here despite Old Man Cold that will penetrate my Los Angeles sublime tan-lined skin in about November. 
At first, my co-worker, Alex Breilein and I thought our room would become an art museum with no human bodies to populate the room.  We spent three weeks turning our room into a pop cultural icon of pictures like Aretha Franklin, Leonard Cohen and Martin Luther King where the visual stimulation is more crazy than Kandinsky or Andy Warhol on a weekend binge.  But finally....about six days after we opened the room, UMD tutors started appearing on a regular basis.  A few teacher's dipped their noses in to see if we had what it took to run a tutor room.  Eventually, the teachers we got to know started sending their students, not just before and after school but DURING class time.  We were eager to help in any way.  Our job is to coordinate UMD tutor time with one on one tutoring and also make sure the time slots match up.  We also have National Honor Society Students who come in who attend East High School and they are equipped to help students in any subject.  I feel my purpose has evolved because beyond the logistics of matching tutors in subject to students in need, I also pitch in with tutoring.  I helped a struggling 12th grader yesterday who could not spell too well.  Its imporant to me as a teacher to not only assess a studen't educational process and possibility for improvement, I want to create strategies, worksheets and reinforcements to help this student.  This small capsule of one student and the plans I have to intercede and develop their academic goals is a microism of a bigger picture in which I will be focusing on 30 students and track their educational progress.   I have been working three days in a row in an English teacher's room, Ms. Hannula, and the interaction with over 40 students is a way to get my feet wet and see how the students respond to liason staff.  I feel I have a large capacity with my background to impact student academic growth because I am knowledgable in Algebra, Geometry, English, U.S. and World History, Geography and cuture.  I want to work with the theater advisor and write a pop culture play the students can produce with me.  I want to bring a hint of Los Angeles flavor to Duluth but more importantly I have seen that their kindness, generosity and proper upbringing has already tremendously impacted me and I hope to gain respect for the way Northern Minensota education is implemented.  I wrote an article for the Duluth News Tribune that will be published next week on the poster culture of Duluth East because I was so impressed with the student welcome committee who made posters for indivdidual athletes, student events and words of encouragement.  I hope to be the refelction of the inspriation I see around me where I don't have to ask students to be polite; here in Minnesota they respect adults, they treasure their educational and personal growth and they come willingly into our tutor room to improve themsleves.  If I can be instrumental in who they are and where they want to go, I will jump on the band wagon and offer them a whole slate of the knowledge I have gained over the years and what I can share to make them create their vision.  I have back up assignments in every subject - critical thinking writing exercises, finding the main idea, historical pieces to be examined, math reinforcements - if they walk in the door of our tutor room, they won'd regret it.