Hatchings and children and leaving the nest

Frankly, I'm not burned out, but I haven't fully transported back from my new-novel world. 8 hrs. yesterday doing final revision; 7.5 hrs. the day before. Many weeks like that. Those who know the experience can better understand how dazed authors can become after returning to the real world and people and Nature. Here's today:

Birds use to nest under our patio cover in Denver, but each spring at least one hatchling would fall out and not survive. The birds learned and abandoned the site. Rather than urban renewaling, I built a cedar box nest and hung it in the trees by a small pond surrounded by berry bushes. Last year a male remodeled it to attract a mate, but she wasn't impressed by him or perhaps by the accommodations. A couple finally moved in this year.

They only produced two young, which I'm told is either from this being the parents first time or the catastrophic decimation perpetrated on their environment by us. Pesticides, pollution and Global Heating limit the size of broods.

This month I watched the hatchlings sticking their necks out for feedings, crying for food and attention, one alpha getting much more than the smaller one. This week, Alpha stuck half his body out and I guessed it would flee the nest the next morning. I went out that morning to watch the ritual, but, not early enough. Both chicks had gone.

I've observed this life cycle--parents raising chicks, teaching them to go silent at possible danger, urging them out, luring them with the promise of feedings, cutting off the food until they leave, calling them out from a distance, etc.--a couple of times.

For some reason, this time the cycle reminded me of my own two 30s-something offspring, maybe because there were only two hatchlings. Mine left home when they were in their 20s, however ready they were. Two alphas, though with their distinct personalities and strengths.

Later the same morning, I discovered one of the babies still hovered nearby, higher up on the tree. Crying as before, clinging to a branch, not ready to fly further. The last phase of the ritual had begun.

He(?) didn't think he was ready, maybe a guts problem, ganas problem, I couldn't guess. The mother called from a tree across the yard, telling him to take the plunge, spread the wings, and soar. But he wouldn't.

With our own, we never had this to deal with. Quite the opposite. However, in the case of human hatchlings, leaving the nest eventually gets to the stage of home ownership. Apartments serve their needs only up to a point. My hatchlings have just reached that point.

For an hour I watched the mother trying to make her kid take the leap. Maybe he insisted his wings weren't ready. I flashed to my kids, realizing that their wings aren't as strong as they should be.

Both are burdened by college debt, one significantly more than the other. My wife and I helped them out as we could, but not sufficient to strengthen the wing handicapped by that debt.

When we bought our home, it cost about double the starting salary of a teacher. For my goslings to buy a similar house today in Denver's bloated, gentry market requires five times that salary. The U.S. adult population allowed this onus to be put on their broods without much protest. Anger, frustration, but not protests and pickets sufficient to prevent the injustice by the richest nation in the world being done to its own young.

My two alphas are out on a limb similar to the hatchling I watched. In their case, were they to complain about their one wing's weakness, I'd understand and agree. But they don't, at least not in the context of refusing to leave the branch.

The mother bird flew to the branch and gave Alpha2 some food, hopped to nearby branches to show it was possible. He copied her until she flew off to a far tree, yelling at her that he still couldn't do it. Wing problems, still.

My children's other wing--the cost of a simple house--also prevents their completing the other stage of leaving the nest. Two bedroom, one bath, wood frame, WWII houses in my area are in the 175k range. For what? The bare minimum.

Our financial situation won't mean a paid mortgage under the Xmas tree any year for our two. We help as we can, but 20% down on a 30-year roughly means monthly payments close to a grand. The down payment equals 1/3 of the original price for our home! It's also 50% more than our original mortgage monthly. That doesn't sever their wing, but it certainly adds unwanted weight. Unwanted and inflated.

The mother bird came again, this time not offering food. Just demonstrating how simple it was to hop to another branch and then fly away. She called again from a tree not too far, but Alpha2 insisted he knew it was not possible.

In the birds' world, failure to take that final leap means death from starvation or immobility and vulnerability to hawks. In the humans' world, hatchlings can stay in the nest, though they become the butt of jokes and examples of injurious stereotypes.

From the economic sag in this country, living with parents has increased, not to add income to the family like in the 1900s or pursue college like in the 70s and 80s, but more because both wings are weaker than they should be.

By the afternoon, Alpha2 was gone. I searched the ground, in case, but he possibly made it to a tree further away, at least. Or he might still be protesting today. Hopefully, not.

I realize another economic crash may force our kids back home. They'd be welcome, without blame. They didn't cut their own wings, and we did a good job I think showing them how to use them. However, the economy is out of all our hands.

For those of you with hatchlings just stretching their wings, consider the potential difficulty of their final flight. Teach, encourage, urge, maybe even push a little, if you want. But don't think that all American rituals are everlasting.

The birds will continue their leaving-the-nest routine, however fewer hatchlings their future brings them. We on the other hand may have to alter our rituals. And if the birds are watching, perhaps they have ideas of how to correct where our country went wrong so wrong.

Es todo, hoy,

RudyG

Debra la tardita in her America, of late

un pensamiento por Rudy Ch. Garcia

I know of a little girl whom I call Debra here who struggled to get to school on time. Her record on tardiness steadily grew worse. From a minute or two to five and ten minutes and then half an hour; soon she didn't show up to school at all some days. But not because she was sick.

She inevitably came in with disheveled hair, sometimes displaying frustration and helplessness over her lateness. Her teacher had talked with her and her older sister about what was going on. From the little I'd heard, Debra seemed to be a very capable student who loved learning about the world around her, and threw herself into improving her academic skills. Despite whatever went on in her life that made her late, she maintained an optimistic smile and seemed a happy child.

Unfortunately, in the real world, Debra's mom worked two low-paying jobs, like a lot of Spanish-speaking and other parents, with or without papers. One job required the mom to leave the house at four a.m., with Debra's siblings responsible for somehow getting everything ready and everyone to school on time. It hadn't been working out well.

In that same world, Debra's dad hadn't been born in the U.S. He'd gone through hells to relocate here from another country, like so many on the planet these days. He didn't come to sell drugs or covet and steal others' possessions nor to underbid millions of Americans also desperate for meaningful work. He finally found some manual labor that he worked hard at, often as many hours or more than Debra's mom.

Debra's teacher, whom I've known for years, never considered the child an "at-risk" student. She became instead a bright spot in that teacher's day, a child who often giggled as she wrote small stories, who orally expressed herself quite remarkably for a six-year-old, and eagerly tackled math and more, especially her learning of English.

Her teacher told me that one morning she pulled attendance up on the computer and there stood an X by Debra's name, indicating she'd be missing school again. The sidebar explanation read, "Dad arrested."

Debra's teacher cried.

On the other hand, Obama's minions carved one more notch on their hundreds of thousands of deportees list, more even than his supposedly more evil predecessor Bush had extradited from their workplaces and homes and communities and families. The Republican-Democrat political machine added one more statistic to their tally of see-how-many-illegals-we-catch? And the millions of ignorant American citizens who blame Debra's dad instead of American politicians and corporations for their unemployment, college-loan bills and underwater mortgages, went to bed thinking that arresting Debra's dad would magically turn their own plunging lifestyles around.

Debra's life certainly got turned around; more like, upside down. Getting to school on time will not be the major problem in her life anymore; worrying about her dad replaced that. Wondering how well she is learning English may no longer be an immediate goal for her; that will depend on where she winds up attending school. Why butterflies can fly and how many colors there are in a rainbow might become relegated to the back of her small, growing brain. And I dread to think how long her giggles will be overshadowed by new burdens in her life.

I didn't know Debra well enough to cry. But I have taught children from her background for many years. Most good teachers in this country know that all the Debras and Daniels can and do learn and succeed, if given the educational opportunities. The biggest thing they are at risk of here is being tested to death.

Anyway, not that politicians will care much, anymore than they worry about the human repercussions of their money-driven acts, but I'm using this occasion to remove my name from the registered voter list. Our citizenry is committed to following self-destructive bills, amendments and political parties that are eviscerating our souls. Very little on this year's ballot, and nothing in the next presidential ballot is aimed to stop our dive into deeper mediocrity. However, I'll keep myself on the listservs that might announce when it's time to Occupy Our Country.

I don't hope Obama reads this. Nor will I send it as part of any letter/Email/twitter-sending campaign. Those who know better, are already informed. Those who don't, shouldn't be cause for wasting time. But despite my remarks above, I don't feel sorry for Debra. My empathy for her, and abstractly with millions of U.S. immigrant children in similar straits, also makes pity inappropriate.

So I can't end this on a sad note, however dismal Debra's future may sound. I've seen too much of children's regenerative powers, their instincte for finding new cause for giggling in situations where we adults might fall into depression. No, it doesn't always happen that way.

But every morning, children in the millions rise from their bed, sofa, mattress or blanket on the floor or ground, and using their powers of some magnificent magic, push aside the fact that the country they're growing up in lacks so much humanity that it prides itself on legally taking their parents from them. Although children sense at many levels if they're of the "wrong" color, speak a "lesser" native language and live more impoverished than the majority who can afford to text-and-twitter, their eagerness to chase a butterfly into the pages of a book or scan a rainbow for magic bigger than themselves doesn't cease beaming from their developing minds. And makes some teacher somewhere remember why all the searches for truth can't be stifled. Nor for some kind of justice.

Even if the child rises as collateral damage in a nation so far from where her father now struggles.

Que viva! our species' capacity to reconstruct ourselves, even if not as magically as all the Debras innately create new dreams to keep themselves giggling, and surviving. And even if they sometimes can't help being late for school.

es todo, hoy,
RudyG

Putting it all together drawing by S.D. Hillberry, of which I own a print.

Authentics & basals, Nobels & ignobles, Jobs & jobs

un pensamiento por Rudy Ch. Garcia

Before I started first grade, my mother taught me, her first-born, to read, something affordable today in fewer families. That was the era when public school teachers were allowed to produce avid readers, kids who loved math, and creative artists and thinkers--largely Anglo--who would grow up to help launch NASA rockets to the moon and beyond. Alongside its patrilineal prejudices, the U.S. produced marvelous thinkers, writers and Nobel winners. More importantly, it produced a workforce and intellectual body that outshone most in the world. The majority were educated in many fields and arts.

Events this past week prodded me to consider what's to come from the Reagan-Bush / Obama-Republican / banks-mortgage co. redesigned America. Now we produce the most expensive mercenaries and disgustingly excessively paid executives in the world. We've come a long way, bebé. Down.

I recently learned of a Denver-area elementary school teacher who was essentially ordered to not use authentic literature, which includes classic literature my generation was raised on, however non-culturally relevant it was for minorities--Jack & the Beanstalk, Alice in Wonderland and the like. Said educator was told to only use books slightly harder than what his first graders could read on their own.

So instead of reading aloud to his students the kinds of stories that captivate children's imaginations, make them want to read more and inspire a few to become authors--something that also aids in developing them as writers--the aforementioned teacher will read down to his students. But for good reason.

No child left behind. But not behind like decades ago when I'd climb on my mom's lap for her to share Robert Louis Stevenson with me. No matter I couldn't comprehend every word or nuance as I followed her finger, another side of my brain was inventing scenarios I'd carry with me until I got old enough to create them on paper. That's a major reason I'm an avid reader, and writer. Many of my generation learned that way in public schools. Yeah, we had basal readers too. But not to replace Alice.

Another Denver-area teacher recently informed me she had to conduct a writing class in English to Spanish-speaking third-graders. "They can barely write anything in English!" Despite that, she intended to persevere and try imparting to them her love of poetry. Then I received her latest message: "La escuela canceló la semana pasada el programa de escritura porque están en probatoria y tienen que concentrarse en cosas "más académicas." Will basal reading replace what she could have given those kids?

That coincided this week with the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature--yes, a heavily pro-West recognition, but of much literary merit. Part of one of his poems almost seems to describe how American children are being left behind in a thinking world, to deliberately NOT become future Tranströmers:

The Indoors is Endless

He lies awake, hears the woolly flutter
of night moths, his moonlight comrades.

His strength ebbs out, he pushes in vain
against the iron-bound tomorrow.

And the God of the depths cries out of the depths
‘Deliver me! Deliver yourself!’

All the surface action turns inwards.
He’s taken apart, put together.

The wind rises and the wild rose bushes
catch on the fleeing light.

The future opens, he looks into
the self-rotating kaleidoscope

sees indistinct fluttering faces
family faces not yet born.

By mistake his gaze strikes me
as I walk around here in Washington

among grandiose houses where only
every second column bears weight.

White buildings in crematorium style
where the dream of the poor turns to ash.

The gentle downward slope gets steeper
and imperceptibly becomes an abyss.

[The abyss no child gets left behind, from entering.]

The death of Steve Jobs also occurred this week. One of America's greatest creative minds. His Apple Inc. democratized us by giving us access to home computers. User friendly ones to create on. The best for that in the world. No small accomplishment. Apple's more famous creator even had a good name--Jobs--part of the American dream that's now an endangered species, especially of the full-time and meaningful variety. The ongoing Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Denver, etc. protests coincide with Jobs' last days. I'm not holding him up as the epitome of a great capitalist, but the 75,000 jobs Apple benefits from are some of what we need more of in this country.

No, and Apple computers are not cheap, anymore than a Lexus could be as cheap as a Toyota. They're just better and those who can afford them don't regret entering the world he and others began. I don't know if Jobs would have started his world if he'd been raised on basal readers. Luckily, his parents and teachers probably did read Alice in Wonderland to him. But it makes me wonder how many potential Steve Jobs are being derailed in America's schools today where avid reading is replaced by basal reading.

I'll leave it to readers to decide who are the Ignobles to include in the title of today's post. All Democrat and Republican politicos are acceptable. All the foundations steering corporate giving toward charter schools are good candidates. And don't forget the education companies that produce basal readers and profit from our society's blame-the-teachers and test-the-kids-mania.

And in the end, will America just read down to their kids, into "an abyss?"

Es todo, hoy

Mercy, me

I live in a farmhouse, and part of the design is that windows are set low. This morning, a sparrow hit the window and fell to the porch. It didn't fly away, and I wasn't sure if its wing or its leg was broken. This sparrow was not some brilliantly exotic thing, with lush, surreal dreamscape plumage --just a gray sparrow, as gray as the autumn skies above on this Shabbat morning, this typical morning after a storm in VT.

This moved me to tears, this sight, what it seemed to signify. I have spent most of my life being told that somehow I feel too much, that I see things that aren't there. What I think is that we are given a thousand ways in this culture to not feel, to not pay attention, to not see at all.

Small, round and ordinary, and somehow, someone needed to try to save it, needed to keep it safe. Wrapped in a placemat, it was carried to a van, placed inside and the window left cracked. It may fly away, it may die, but this morning it is kept from the cat watching it with hungry eyes.

The morning. The bird. The decision to do something. I think this is what daily mercy is like, some small gesture, a chance to heal for the small, round ordinary soul, like me. Maybe like you, too.

by Lisa Alvarado © 2011

Beginning-of-2011 things

La Bloga's contributors are a mixed bunch--some olive oil, a little artesian water, 20-year-old brandy, or pura vainilla. We have different histories, talents, tendencies and takes on things. Consequently, we sometimes complement or rile, intertwine with or influence each other.

Manuel Ramos's posts sometimes move me to introspection, as he did with yesterday's last-of-2010 piece. Simply put, it prodded me to consider my take on similar things. However, readers tempted to counterpose the two posts would be better off comparing the utility of a jug of water to thirsty migrants crossing the Sonora Desert, to the utility of a bottle of Pedro Domeq at a charla of reunited, childhood friends. Entonces, with apologies to Ramos for plagiarizing his originality, aquí está mío:

Things I sort of know

All of us should be students and teachers. The thing is, some of us don't always know when to play which role.

The two roles are equally important. The thing is, America prioritizes the military over its students and is too ignorant to nurture the best in its teachers.

I appreciate people teaching me when I'm right or wrong. The thing is, some people don't know which stance they're coming from when they do it.

If I want something done, I have many choices to ensure it will happen. Thing is, I should ask the busiest person I know, myself, to get it done.

People with time on their hands are either: the over forty, the homeless, too many of the aged, the incarcerated poor and minorities, or veterans forgotten by our gov't warlords. Thing is, many more of us will join those ranks.

Sweat is one elixir of life. Working up a good sweat sometimes cures what ails. Thing is, good ways to get that perspiration going--play, physical labor, and sex--are economically exploited or denigrated in this society.

There are many different emotions from listening to great musicians. Thing is, I can't enjoy them all.

My spouse is the love of my life, which is what people mean when they say I'm lucky. Thing is, I rarely get romantic about it because I needed to be found, by her.

The optimum learning: young children playing with anything non-electronic. Thing is, the value of play is underrated, by most politicians and administrators controlling education.

My road has been too straight, never level and undeservedly safe. Thing is, my body couldn't divide itself at the forks I encountered.

I would still choose Obama. Thing is, he didn't want the changes we were voting for, except skin.

My favorite ritual involves beer, Presidente brandy and platicando con los amigos, which is not close to a "religious" experience. Thing is, it's heavenly.

My father (bien muerto) thought he could fix anything, handle any crisis--even the family divorcing him--with bullying. He was set in his ways. Thing is, now that he casts no shadow, I'm forgetting he knew anything.

Watching my father on his deathbed, as he reminded me he beat us only to make us tough, made me regret booking the flight. Thing is, he succeeded in regrettable ways.

My mother (83 años viva!) still has her tireless personality. I accept her more as a person rather than a symbol, since she enjoys life and finds fault like an abuela. I love my mother, even if mi amá outlives me.

The nights of "one too many" are not over for me because I can still enjoy good booze. Thing is, how many more times I will are finite.

Fear is America. I walk, write, and pay my bills simply because I want to. Thing is, my countrymen's "terrorists" and "choice" neuroses erode my civil rights to continue doing so.

Recently, I learned to live unemployed & without benefits, retackled my 25th-year home-projects, returned to learning to write from reading others, and tried improving my Spanish. My lengua thing vale madre. Thing is, what I'd really like to learn is sorcery.

230 years of wars (minus WW II) made the U.S.'s gov't and ruling class the most hated/feared in the world, despite "we the people" who fight/fought against that legacy. Thing is, the legacy's terminal.

I know the answers to big questions like God and existence, and art versus politics, and whether the Earth is "ours" or should be taken from us. Thing is, I won't get basic cable to support my views.

I'm haven't learned to listen well and may never learn to curtail my verbosity. In my head, I've had charlas and shared a case of Negra Modelos with Zapata, Gaiman, Marquez and Hendrix, sat up and jumped in, despite my two limitations. Thing is, I can't wait to do it again.

I'm so square I believe in words like unfair, wondrous and revolución. Thing is, many think such words can't apply to America.

I'm so old school, I line up humanity's great literature to share with six-year-olds. Thing is, I'm forced to do it by sneaking it into the standardized curriculum.

I'm a Chicano aspiring to become a more published writer. Thing is, the gentry's children frown at me for looking like the first, and I can't look for a serendipitous agent/editor.

I love labels. The ones that don't peal off the Negra Modelos, the Presidente bottle, and the ones shunned by Reagan, Cheney and the Bushes. Thing is, history's the best glue.

To all La Bloga readers and contributors:
create a happy, prosperous and healthy 2011, for all of us.
y ¡Feliz Año Nuevo!

Es todo, hoy,
RudyG

La Bloga reviews – pensamientos

In the years that La Bloga has been in existence in one way or another we've reviewed thousands of books, not all of them by or about Chicanos. We've covered classics, new releases, children's books and even vampiro novels.

While the ranks of our reviewers have varied over those years, the core of Blogueros continues weekly with this labor of love. At the same time we have had delightful variation coming from guest Blogueros or those who have followed our path for a time. It's made for a huge body of work that we hope not only has entertained and informed but in some way has contributed to the literary body and history of Chicano lit.

Some questions come to mind that readers may be able to help us with:

Is there a type of posting that we've neglected to cover or that we need to expand?

What are the outer limits of Chicano lit and have we excluded books and stories that in fact should be covered?

What about Chica lit?--the pulpier version of cozy works being written for and read by Chicanas? Should we consider that a higher priority or just leave it to other websites already doing so?

Where's the reviews of Diana Gabaldon novels? Despite not calling herself anything ethnic and insisting that her name should not be pronounced as a Spanish word, Gabaldon is at least highly successful as a big-name writer to mainstream U.S. audiences.

Does La Bloga have the cómo-se-llama to do critical reviews of some of the most successful Chicana authors out there, or do we limit ourselves to publisher blurbs?

Do La Bloga reviews suffer from undercurrents of that old Chicano Movimiento envidia that limits us in doing frank reviews of books that should not be recommended?

Are all the books being published by Chicanos worth reading?

Should La Bloga's literary responsibilities be raised to higher standards?

Would there be a purpose in becoming "more professional" and less tolerant or would we end up cutting off our own noses?

Should we worry how the Anglo world of literary critics views our present perspective?

Are any Chicanos out there reading Sci-Fi, westerns and dragon-fantasy genres from Anglo writers and wish there were Chicano authors doing such works?

Don’t' get me wrong. La Bloga reviewers have done incredible and significant volunteer work through the years. In many instances they have pointed out the weaknesses to reviewed books, and I'll note that Michael Sedano is one of the most accurately critical in this. And the reviews and opinions will continue.

Also, I ask these questions not only in general, but also of myself. Things to ponder about how my own Chicano mind works. And it's also possible other La Bloga contributors, particularly those who've produced chingos more reviews que yo, might have additional questions.

In any event, I thought it might be a good time to put out these thoughts about how we've approached Chicano literature and welcome readers' comments on them, as well.

Dan Olivas asked me to cover his spot today for personal reasons, but will return next week. Although, after reading this, he may decide not to leave Monday open again.

Es todo, hoy
RudyG