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My mind doesn’t function like most people’s. It’s likely that certain undiagnosed learning disabilities trip me up. One thing’s for sure–at times, they’ve  laid me out flat in my academic life.

Despite being a “good student,” I was always handicapped when it came to writing papers. At St. Aloysius Grammar School, I truly adored the intricacies of diagramming sentences. Alas, those skills didn’t instill any confidence in myself as a writer. At Newark Academy, where I spent three glorious high school years, I can recall the faculty tooling me in the art of the precis, topic and supporting sentences. Regrettably, none of that helped me build writing muscle and stamina.

At one point, Dr. Penner, the chairman of Newark Academy’s English department, ordered me to just tackle the stack of papers I owed him and to not come back until I did. I remember sitting in the driver’s seat of my sister’s eggshell blue VW Bug in the school parking lot during a study period, trying to figure out how to start. I couldn’t even put a sentence together with any sort of ease.

Similar scenes haunted me at Mount Holyoke. Dargan Jones, my freshman English professor, sat me in the kitchen of her College Street apartment with a cup of black coffee and a stack of books and told me to get started. I had never drank coffee in my life. Downing the cup of bitter hot liquid was heaven compared to cranking out ideas on E.M.Forster’s A Room With a View.

By the time I was a senior in college I had a mission: Learn how to write. I enrolled in Anne Boutelle’s Introduction to Writing class. All I can remember about those autumn lessons was Boutelle’s thick Scottish brogue, her pronunciation of the work “book,” and her careening pregnant belly. For some reason I made progress in my battle with the written word that fall.

I had also taken refuge under the wing of another kindly soul in the Mount Holyoke English department. Elaine Smith was around my parents’ age. She never judged me for my inability to put pen to paper in any meaningful manner. (I doubt any of my other teachers ever judged me either, but with Elaine I was able to appear utterly naked in my lack of skill.)

I hope Elaine had some idea of the profound gift she gave me– a fledgling confidence in the ability to string words together and express the jumbled thoughts in my brain.

I think of Elaine and all the writing teachers (and editors) I’ve had since, all of whom have helped me and have published my work. Over time, they’ve almost made it seem as if I was just like anybody else– able to do it.

Today I’m working on a paper for grad. school. I still feel that hiccup of doubt when I sit down. The ancient, almost primordial lack of confidence causes me to approach the task in an almost ritualistic manner.

I pull out the exemplars. I copy the formatting of the title page, inserting the headers and page numbers in the Word document.

Weeks later, I assemble the photos that will constitute the appendix of my paper, and I start inserting them in the document. I’m building the paper like I would a sandwich, from the outside in: title page and appendix. It’s almost humiliating to admit, but I study the structure of the exemplars: Introduction, sections one, two and three. Conclusion.

While not painless, I realize that the process of writing the paper will not kill me. It’s taken forty years, but I’m beginning to get the hang of it.

Do things which you assume others regard as easy trip you up? What are those things?

One of the downsides to wearing hats and scarves in winter is the likelihood of inadvertently pulling off an earring, which is precisely what I did in front of the Activeboard this morning. Scanning the carpet, my eye landed on a discarded fingernail, which was enough to dissuade me from further recovery efforts.

“Oh, have you never tried biting off a pencil eraser and using it as an earring back?” my colleague quickly suggested.

Um. No.

Then I thought about it for a second.

How absolutely brilliant. I wish I had known this before dragging my husband through the warren of stores beneath the railway station last year, searching to replenish another batch of missing earring backs.

There was just one catch. I wasn’t about to bite a pencil eraser off. I’m game for most things, but sticking a third grade classroom pencil  in my mouth and gnawing off the eraser head isn’t one of them.

Anticipating my hesitation, my friend suggested, “You can use a brand new one.”

“No, I think I’ll use a scissor and cut one off this pencil,” I said, selecting a slightly used one from my pencil holder.

Harvesting the earring back was surprisingly easy. I pierced the white, rounded nib into the earring post behind my lobe and it held. All day.

Chelsea Mural: 25th St., Manhattan

Last September we stumbled upon some wonderful street art in Torino, Italy. I love interacting with visual art and sculpture. Today I asked my nieces to pose with this mural on West 25th St. in Manhattan. Now that I’m home, I can see dozens more possibilities for my models. That wallet on the right, for example, is begging to be picked; the broadsheet, ready to be plucked.

How would you place your subjects here?

Have a favorite piece of street art? What’s its location?

When I was a kid and we weren’t at the Jersey shore on a hot summer day like today, my mom and I both would sink into a pit of despair– one of those pits born of idleness and oppressive heat and the absence of other people, all of whom were surely off somewhere having fun, because they sure as heck were nowhere in sight.

I’m having a bout of that listless melancholy at the moment. After a 5-week push as a middle-aged graduate student, I wasn’t exactly primed to be sitting alone in a NYC apartment (albeit a beautiful one) feeling like all the world was elsewhere and here I was, stuck, stuck, stuck–this time, studying for an exam.

Here I am, though, brushing up on the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era. My test is tomorrow afternoon, and if I pass it, which surely I should, I’ll have 3 of 27 needed additional credits towards my elementary teaching license. And that will have been worth the exile.

So, armed with data about the Enlightenment and Absolutism, I wave to those of you close to a beach, or a bar, or a boat. Grimacing from my person pity pot, I send you a token of Western Civilization: 1648-Present trivia:

The guillotine was invented by a:

• French butcher
• Expert swordsman
• A physician
• A Bastille official

Please, please, leave your answer in the comment section. And stick your toe in the water for me. Will ya?

Today  a guest post by my friend, Vicky Wilson, a woman whose good cheer has impacted countless people in  the many places she’s lived around the world.  The letter was written in 2005 and recounts a 1972 Paris hotel fire. (Laur is Vicky’s sister. Jim is her then-boyfriend and future husband. Steve is a brother.)

Dear Dad,

When Laur first mentioned this project to me, I was thinking, “What I can write?” and almost immediately the Paris fire popped into my head. We have shared a lot of things, but I think that will always be the most intense. I know our versions are slightly different, since they are each told from our own perspective. I figured I will write down mine, and maybe you can write yours, so we can compare.

Remember, that whole trip had so many parts to it. First, you came to St. Andrews to meet Jim and see the town. You helped Jim pack his books in boxes, and the next day you were very stiff from crouching down. Then we went to London and saw the play Habeas Corpus with Alec Guinness. You and Jim walked forever to get to the British Museum, only to find it closing when you arrived. Then we flew to Switzerland to see Steve, and after a drive in the Alps in that tiny car, your neck started acting up and you could barely move the next day. Fortunately, you were able to travel a day later, and we flew to Paris and on the bus ride in from the airport you were pick-pocketed $100. Then we had some lovely days in Paris–sightseeing, eating good food–and the weather was great. And then came the fateful night.

You went out for a walk, and I stayed in the room to pack up some of our stuff. At some point, I noticed a shadow come under the door, and I immediately went to open it (I know now, that is the last thing you are supposed to do) and saw flames at the end of the hall. I slammed the door and went to the window and started shouting for help. It wasn’t long before the smoke came in the room and billowed out the window.

Some people from the other side of the courtyard were watching me, and I remember one started making motions to put something over my mouth and breathe through that. I grabbed my blazer and did. Our windows had a bar across it, and by this time I was crouched on the ledge hanging on to the bar. Thank the dear Lord it held. I am not sure how long I was there. I know the firemen were below, and I was shouting but with so much smoke coming out the window, I am not sure if they knew I was there. I really didn’t know what was going to happen. And it was only when I heard your voice shouting, “Vick are you up there?” that I knew I was going to be saved. Immediately, I relaxed, knowing you were going to take care of things.

A minute or so later, I figured I better take care of things in the room. That’s when I started throwing out our suitcases, shoes, razor, and anything else I could feel in the dark. I put my purse around my neck, and fortunately that had our tickets and passports in it. At this point, I know you first tried to go in the elevator and that had stopped working, a few minutes earlier it was, and you could have been stuck in it. And then I know you went and practically manhandled a French fireman, pointing and telling him I was up there, and that’s when they started to rescue me. First they only had one ladder that went up to the 5th floor or so, and then they had to get a connecting one, and finally two firemen climbed through the window. One put a sling around me, and in the process could feel I didn’t have a bra on and said in a very typical French way, “Ooh la la.” Hearing that made me think maybe this fire wasn’t so dangerous, but it sure seemed it.

I had to climb out the window, go down the ladder and connect with the second one, and since I had the harness on, there was little chance of falling. As I got down to the roof of the first floor I could see some of our belongings had landed there, so I scurried around and threw the stuff down into the courtyard. Then I was reunited with you, and we were put in an ambulance to go to the hospital.

Remember, we got there and they didn’t even try to clean the soot off me? They took blood and I looked down and saw some drops on the floor and was appalled. Then they said I was to stay 10 days to look for signs of smoke inhalation. You looked at me, and said, “Vick, how are you feeling?” I said “fine,” and you took control. You told them we weren’t staying and gave your business card saying they could send any bills there, and we were out of there.

It was now around 11 PM and we weren’t sure where we were and how far from the hotel. And I was shoeless. We walked down a dark, deserted street and there in a doorway was a old pair of men’s wing tips, and you said in a very heartfelt way, “It’s a miracle,” and told me to put them on. I wasn’t keen but realized you were right.

We made our way back to the hotel and at first they didn’t want to let us in, but then realizing who we were, they let us go into the courtyard and pick up our bags and scattered belongings. Then we had to find another hotel to spend the night. I think that the closest one was filled, and the next hotel had a room with a double bed, and we took it. And were so thankful to have it. I remember you and I were so keyed up it took forever to fall asleep.

The next day we were on the plane and so thankful to be going home. I reeked of smoke, and ashes were still coming out of my pores.

Dad, I am so thankful you were there for me that day and saved me. Maybe it would have worked out okay, but I had total faith in you, and you came through. We have had lots of wonderful times together, and I am so glad you are my father. You certainly are an example of absolute endless optimism, cheerfulness, kindness, and love. You have lived life with the motto of the glass always being half full, and it is an example that I try to follow.

I love you,

Vick

My mother never met a tomato sandwich she didn’t like. Every summer, wherever she was (which was always as close to a beach as possible,) she would find a local tomato purveyor– usually an old lady or man selling homegrown produce at a roadside stand. She’d seek out giant juicy orbs, the more misshapen, the better. From June until October, when the last of the local crop disappeared, Mom plowed through pounds of them.

During the season, a tomato sandwich-making station took over a corner of  whatever kitchen she inhabited. At our home in Caldwell,  there was often an opened loaf of bread standing in front of the toaster oven, whose pull- down door stood ajar, awaiting the next load. A jar of Hellman’s mayonnaise, with the lid cast aside and a tablespoon buried in whatever was left in the jar, stood ready for duty.

My mom was very opinionated on a number of topics, and Hellman’s mayonnaise was one of them. To serve anything else was scandalous. She was right about this and most things, of course. To this day, I gag whenever I taste any other commercially prepared brand.

In the throes of her tomato sandwich preparation,  mom often bypassed the cutting board completely, simply slicing the fruit right on the white kitchen counter, where she left the remainder of the tomato lying in a pool of its own juice. Tiny tomato seeds floated down the counter in a trail toward the place where the toasted bread awaited its load.

Clink went the spoon against the swollen sides of the  jar as mom wrangled the mayonnaise on top of her creation. A large mayonnaise-stained wooden pepper mill towered over the other ingredients, ready to arm the sandwich for entry into mom’s mouth.

Oh, how she loved them, consuming them, morning, noon, and night. She never stopped waxing about the glories of the Jersey tomato.

Mom is gone now, but when I find myself at the farmers’ markets–there are no roadside stands with little old ladies anymore–I am drawn to the tomatoes like a coin to a magnet. When I served them in the dorm the other day, I could have set up a stand and earned my airfare home to Poland. Yes, they were that good.

Naked compared to hers, my version is simple: Toast and a thick slab of just- picked tomato with a generous layer of freshly ground pepper. 

How do you like yours?

I’ll keep this brief, because I really should be reading four chapters about literacy in the elementary school classroom right now, not distracting myself with a blog post. However, I feel rather passionate about today’s topic.

I’ve never been particularly successful at completing homework–a fact that I’m looking square in the eye as a 52 year old graduate student.

With age, if we are lucky, we get to understand ourselves better. Sometimes someone in our lives helps move the process along. My non-practicing physician husband’s training sometimes rears its head. Early in our recent marriage he pointed out something that now seems terribly obvious. I suffer from heretofore undiagnosed ADHD. I simply cannot remain on task for very long. I get bored. I get anxious. I need to move.

Hmm. That probably explains the homework problem.

Given that I’m a middle-aged adult, I have the skills to proceed, despite my deficits. Slowly--and I mean, glacially–I am learning to adapt. I feel blessed with the insight that homework completely overwhelms me. Won’t that make me a more empathic elementary school teacher?

Here are some of the adaptations that have helped me (and if this sounds nerdy or ridiculous, then so be it. Perhaps my experience will help someone else.) In my second summer of graduate school, I find myself approaching course requirements with an artillery of new habits.

• I highlight and bold text in the electronic form of the syllabus.

• I create a spreadsheet of the reading assignments and class projects and the day they are due.

• I highlight them on the spreadsheet once I’ve completed them, or–more likely–made my best attempt.

That I’m even going public about this is a source of humiliation, but I figure that if it provides new insight to a teacher or a parent or a student, then it’s worth the price.

Are you by nature a good student or is it a skill you’ve had to hone?

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please post a comment. Dziekuje!

I’ve been spending time at the George Mason University Aquatic Center doing fifteen minutes of water running when I can. My current rendition of that is 15 minutes of treading water (no arms) with a quick flutter kick. That is a lot of time to look around the Olympic size pool.

Two days ago I watched two divers warm up. One, with a coach, spent most of the time jumping on a trampoline. Yesterday I studied the names of the swim team record holders. Phelps ’02, holds one for the 50 meter and the 500 meter. What really captured my attention last night, though, was a group of people occupying four lanes in the corner. They wore flippers, masks, cut off snorkels and ear protection. The whole time I was in the water, they swam toward each other and then most  dove to the bottom and remained there for awhile. A couple stayed on the surface and then dove. Then they’d  return to their respective sides, rest for a period and repeat the process. Later they joined me in the hot tub, where I studied them so more. They were in their twenties, very fit and mostly men. What were they, do you suppose?

Later, in the locker room, I asked one of the two women.Her answer surprised me.

Any ideas? Here’s a hint. The guys wore Speedos that said UWH on the rear. Send your guess to the comment section.