As I type this, my fingers are stiff; I have just returned from a bike ride that stretched from the main street in Parker to an empty field 10 miles south, then back again. After a morning of reading and writing, I was eager to stretch out and move, to push myself to where people were scarce and the sky was wide open above me. There was no wind, and as I wound down to the Cherry Creek Trail the cottonwoods stood at silent attention, naked branches brittle against the sky.

The trail was mostly empty, and I found my rhythm in the stillness of late afternoon, beginning to trust my new road bike and lean into the curves, remembering to pull-push-scrape each pedal rotation so that my legs would maximize their effort. Rabbits moved in the underbrush, sometimes running parallel to the path, as if pacing me. Snow from Thursday's blizzard streaked the fields and melted into icy pools of water that ran slowly downhill, sometimes crossing the path, splashing my back and legs. As the trail rose and fell the air would grow suddenly colder as I emerged from under a bridge, or would warm as I entered a stand of trees. When I reached my turnaround point, the sun had disappeared, so I tucked my sunglasses into my jersey, took a drink and began my return trip north.

When I was nine, I saved quarters I would find on the sidewalk, my allowance and birthday money to buy a light blue beach cruiser. I had found it at the bike store near my house, like my friend’s that I had borrowed and instantly fallen in love with. When I had trouble falling asleep, I would picture myself riding around the neighborhood, exploring cul-de-sacs, finding clues and solving crimes like my hero, Nancy Drew. I would learn to ride with no hands, casually passing by the older kids on our block, pretending like I wasn’t trying to be as cool as them. They would stop me and want to see my bike, I knew it. Wishing: if only I was old enough to baby sit and save more quickly. It was hard not to be impatient, the money grew so slowly. I would take it out and count it, hoping that I had counted wrong the last time, and that there was more in my savings jar than last time. I got good at forgoing packs of gum and the other luxuries that my money used to buy me, but was pained by the slow crawl of time.

My beach cruiser was a happily-ever-after story, even though when I had saved enough money, my dad wouldn't take me to buy the bike. He was too busy, he said. What he didn't say was that he had bought it the day before, and it was hidden in the garage of Art and Donna, our neighbors. Christmas was three days away. I pouted until Christmas morning, when it appeared in the living room. I rode it that afternoon in the balmy Southern California winter, finally beginning to teach myself how to ride with no hands, not knowing then that I was learning to propel myself through autumn sunsets, into the cold of a Colorado night.

On my return trip tonight, my fingers grew so numb I could barely grip the brakes. My wicking sweatshirt invited evening to breathe onto my sweat-damp torso and I unsuccessfully willed myself not to shiver. Puddles near the narrow path were painted with deep pinks and oranges, reflecting the sky's quick movement toward night. As I pointed my bike off the trail, streetlights began to click on, and TV screens flickered in houses I passed by. Houses flew by me, but time again moved painfully slow. I wasn't watching the sky deepen into this late-October night; I was counting the blocks before I would be out of the cold.

Darkness lit up the sky...

When grading memoirs written by 7th graders who refer to themselves "back then when I was little," it is a discipline as their teacher to remember not to take credit for either the smooth turn of phrase, or the questionables, like how "Darkness lit up the sky."

And then there are nights like these, when I am so tired that I know I must sleep that moment. But I am too tired to brush my teeth and wash my face, so I stay up, and read another memory.

Best Words, Best Order

Today Jaime was spending lunch detention with me for being a stinker in class. After he honestly owned up to his nefarious malfeasances, we began to chat about life. I noticed a pink ink scrawling on his forearm that said Tia twice, both in bold block letters. I asked if that was his girlfriend, and he said no.

"But we do like each other a lot and we're going to a concert together on Friday and every time I get off the phone with her I tell her I love her."

I was puzzled. "And you're not going out? But you are going out Friday and you even say 'I love you.'"

We looked intently at each other, me wondering if he could see that they were doing what they said they weren't, and him wondering if I could really get it at all. I'm not sure who was more baffled at the other.

"Yeah, but her last boyfriend was really mean to her and it's going to take her a while to get over it. Maybe we'll go out sometime this year."

And then it was time for his electives to start and he hurried off to class after apologizing again, and I was left sitting on a wobbly desk to wonder at the gravity of 12 & 13-year-old relationships. Even though it is nearing 20 years ago, I remember how true my feelings were, & how deep my passions ran. In 7th grade I would watch Justin from across Language Arts, the nerves all over my body tingling when we made eye contact. I never even came close to telling him I loved him, but I did dance with him at the dances sometimes. We never went out either. I wonder what would have happened if I could have told him of my undying affection? Would the evolution of my understanding of the word love have been changed? I am grateful for my unintentioned silence. I still don't understand much about love, but am more careful about how I speak it.

Coleridge said that prose is words in their best order; poetry--the best words in their best order. How do I live beyond prose in the way that I love, both in the words that I speak and the silences and white spaces that hover behind & around my words? How do I order the words in my life? Are they surrounded by enough white space for those reading my life to be able to pause, to consider, to breathe?

Left with Questions

This morning I asked my students what it is like to come to school when the news headlines are filled with shootings around the country. Their answers were varied. One of my boys cocked his head sideways and asked me why adults are shooting children, and why children are shooting adults. He was dead serious. I told him that I did not know, and then rephrased my answer a couple of times, as if somehow, as I spoke, an answer would float to the back of my throat, and I could shape it, clothe it with my voice and let it comfort the worried group. Instead, I ended up sounding like a thesaurus.

Our district is now on a heightened security status and we were informed this morning that we will remain there indefinitely. External doors are permanently locked; we have discussed the disaster drill coming Friday; and we go on pretending, forgetting that evil is not confined to the inner city, or places far away from where we are. The question of evil is real. The back of my throat remains empty, and children live afraid.

I looked at my unusually-attentive morning class and told them that whatever the answer is, I am unalterably convinced that evil exists. They nodded and murmured agreement. Some asked questions. Many sat in watchful silence. I was thinking about how the Eskimos are known to have many words for snow. Will this generation attain linguistic renown for having as many ways to say fear?

My Words for Now

On my desk, an addressed, stamped envelope is wedged between a partly-burned candle and my dusty lamp. It has been moved around my desk since late spring, since I received it from a good friend who was going to Japan for the summer and was asking for financial and moral support. I intended to send it containing a note to welcome him back, to tell him how much I enjoyed his email updates, how I was looking forward to surfing together again. But it's still on my desk, and nearly two months has passed since I flew to California to attend his funeral. He drowned while swimming with friends in a place called Pilgrim's bay.

Today I tried to peel the stamp off, and use it for a letter I needed to send. It was stubborn enough for me to have to consider what I was doing. That's not my stamp--it's John's. The letter is eerie in its reminder of how John interrupted me--when I had the best of intentions--leaving before I could say all I wanted to say. I smoothed the curled edge and propped it next to other letters I have to send.

A friend wrote me last week and told me of a sudden death that has left him reeling. He asked how I was doing in my own grief. This was how I replied:

Words are exposed for their inadequacy when things like this slice our lives open. Our wordlessness exposes how little control we have, how little we understand, and how big the darkness really is. What have I learned as I have walked through the darkness of the past months? Live into your grief, into the confusion and sadness, into the anger and throbbing pain, into the darkness we are all so afraid of. In Exodus, as God is preparing to speak to Moses, it is recorded that "Moses went up into the darkness where God was." I have been confronted with the fact that this is not the God I wanted to know. So then, am I an idolator, creating God as I would like him to be, instead of as he really is? What choice will I make as I look to know God--pray to him, worship him, speak of him--and do not find him to be as I had thought?

Let yourself ask hard questions like these--indeed, live inside of them, and let yourself not only deal with the confusion that is outside of yourself, but inside. What kind of God allows these kinds of things to happen, anyway? Is it a God who truly knows our native tongue? How, then, is he speaking now--or what might he be saying in this vast silence that words are inadequate for? And how do I understand words, if Jesus is called Logos, and I am at a loss for words, what is there--in him--to be found and deepened in my understanding of what words are to be? I have found myself returning again and again to the life of Jesus, to the incarnate God who humbled himself to have his diaper changed, learn Aramaic, experience indigestion, hit his thumb with a hammer, have nails driven through his wrists. Have I ever understood any of this at all? Have I ever been willing to?

My questions, my silences, my words and the spaces they echo in--finding a place where they are necessary, where my stories and poems can shape worlds, as my world has been shaped.

I have deliberated for far too long about creating my own blog, waxing like Hamlet in an existential dilemma only I could create--to blog, or not to blog, that is the question. Well, with five minutes of (well-considered) spontaneity, I have answered it, and have joined the millions who use this forum to vent, process, be inane and create. This is an attempt to discipline my writing, to carpe candidus--seize the writing--so that the busy classroom doesn't steal what I know must be more a part of the rhythm of my days. This is part of me learning to be a writer who teaches, not a teacher who writes--who is determined to learn to find and call out the poetry in the ordinary spaces of my days. And it is part of me who holds back my written words too often, waiting until the letter can't be sent. These are my words for now.