The Road to Tucson, 1984 (A Reverie)

It was my 28th birthday. Like most other days in August, it was a dog day, and I was roasting, in spite of traveling along at 70 miles an hour on Interstate 10 on my motorcycle. It was still early, but with a helmet, leather jacket, boots, and blue jeans, it was toasty.

The long stretches between mountain ranges in southern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona seemed to drag on endlessly.

I was returning to Tucson to go to school, to follow a woman, and to live, after a few years teaching in South America and Mexico. Everything I owned was packed on the bike, and it lumbered up the long grades in New Mexico along the Rio Bravo and the passes in Arizona.

Clouds hung around the peaks of the higher ranges like the Black Range in New Mexico and the Chiricahuas in Arizona. They grew as the morning wore on into towering, anvil-headed giants. Likely by the time I got to Tucson, they would move down off the peaks and spread rain across the thirsty valleys.

All for the good I say. This is my idea of a good time, after all, the way I want to spend my birthday, and the place I want to spend it. It would be nice to catch a draft of cool air though.

I travel pulled forward by a dream -- an ill-conceived dream -- to write. I want to write because I felt, and still feel, so strongly and I want to express, to squeeze,those big emotional questions into some kind of shape. I learned somewhere to discover what I thought by writing into the feelings, the questions. I leaned into the disturbance and stirring of the heart and mind and spirit. I don't know what genre and have little understanding of fiction, poetry, or prose as crafts. I just want to put down in words that which bothers me, moves me, runs me. I found someone in words that I didn't yet know very well.

In other words, I traveled filled with the half-baked notions of a young, white, privileged male who didn't what the hell to do with his life. I believed that the world will actually deliver some of what I wanted, even though I didn't quite know what that was. I was bent on trying to find out.

In that moment, I thrived on the metered hum of the machine as it climbed and descended. The pitch of the motor rose and fell with RPMs I can still hear. The sound mirrors the land as it rises and falls from rocky heights to alluvial slopes. I don't know what I am looking at, but it answers some image of seeking. I associate the open spaces with freedom, adventure, risk, departure. There is a place in the mind where the West resides, and it is the zone of and myth of seeking, of testing one's mettle.

By early afternoon I see the shark-tooth ridge-line of the Tucson Mountains. My socks are soaked through with sweat that has run down the length of my body. The soaking clothes offer no relief that I can detect from the 100+ degree heat.

No matter. I'll stop soon and get a cold birthday beer. I don't know where, exactly. In El Paso, I just went downtown and found a flea-bag hotel. Might as well stay with the pattern.

I exit at Congress, the main street in downtown Tucson. I park and check in at the Congress Hotel. It's an extravagance, but I slept on the ground the last couple of nights.

As I throw my pack on the bed and look out at the mountains baking to the north, I see the red bricks of buildings at the University of Arizona, where I'll start classes in few days. I am enrolled in a master's program in bilingual education, even though I am unsure whether or not I really want to be a teacher. I need to find a job, a place to live, and to call an old friend.

The woman is not here yet. She is coming on her own time, pursuing her own dreams. We will meet and give life together a chance.

Years stretch ahead of me as far as I can see. I have no idea how I will pay the toll they ask.

Heathco

I wait for the bus after I pass through the sally port of the Main Gate at the prison. The day is a prickly one -- heat pressing down and squeezing sweat out my arms, face, and back. A stream of it runs down my back under my shirt.

But these days are lovely in a way. Curtains of rain obscure the Santa Rita mountains to the south, and the hope of rain, of cool, fresh rain hums in the heat. I hear thunder, see ragged sticks of lightning in the distance.

I don't mind standing out in the sun when the vista is like this.

Even the concrete beneath my feet glistens with humidity. Patient wildflowers have defied the scraped discipline of the prison and sprung up in the lower washes. The puddles left over from last night's storm hold blue sky and reddish sediment.

A bus passes, but is not the one that will take me to Santa Rita. I wave at the driver and he nods. I would have taken his bus, but that unit is locked down. Another staff assault coupled with a staffing shortage keeps those inmates in their cells today. We won't get a chance to talk about their entries for the Pen Prison Writing Contest. The deadline for that is only a few weeks away.

Nothing to do about it. I can't go in and they can't come out.

My bus pulls into the roundabout and I wait for the officers to disembark. It's shift change time and the bus is packed with uniformed, badge and weapon wielding men and women who smile and joke as they step down, glad that their Saturday shift is over.

I see evidence of flood when we pass over the culverts on the way to Santa Rita. Water ran last night, under the bridges; it smoothed out the sand, sculpted it into meandering beds. The sand tells the story of being carried through the darkness, left in a new place, waiting for the next flood to travel again.

Once I have my radio and am through the electric gates of the Santa Rita yard, I pass men waiting in line for "meds" or some other appointment. A few look sick, in pain. I feel their eyes on me, appraising, sizing me up, trying to place me. One asks how he can get into the workshop. I stop and explain the process of submitting a "kite," as a guard signals for me to follow him to the education wing where he unlocks a door to an air conditioned room.

He leaves me to set up.

I wait. The thunder continues. I hear laughter from the visitation area on the other side of the wall. No one comes.

After forty five minutes I knock on the thick window of the control room. I ask that they turn the men out for the workshops. The guard looks annoyed or embarrassed and makes the calls.

When the men show up, we have only half an hour left.

I ask if anyone wants to read.

Heathco, one of the regulars of the workshop, speaks up and says he wants to read first.

"My father died three weeks ago," he says. "In the last year, we kinda ... reconnected. We been writing back and forth and he even sent me a story about how he found who he was, how nature helped that, one time when he shot a bird, an Indian hen, when he was only about ten years old. That got me to write more to him about what my life has been....I want to read a poem I wrote to him before he died, one I know he received and read the day he passed."

He reads three pieces: the poem, the story his father wrote to him, about a time he shot and killed a sacred bird, and a reflection on the two other pieces.

He is moved. The other men are quiet. Rain falls. We can hear thunder, close now.

"I never was much what I would call spiritual, but I have to say that I have seen someone out the corner of my eye lately, and that person looks like my father. When I turn to see him straight on, he's not there."

We talk some more, but run out of time. A guard comes into the room and assumes a wide stance. The men get quiet as I give them an assignment for the next workshop.

They leave and I pack up my tub. I make my way out past the window, turn in my radio, and pass though the gates.

I wait again for the bus, now in the rain. I don't mind. I am not worried about lightning.

On the bus, one of the guards asks me, in a sardonic, knowing tone, "Any masterpieces today?"

"You might be surprised," I tell him.

I look out the window and think I hear answers rising from the patterns in the sand, the sand left stripped by the rapture and memory of rain, the water that runs at night.

Back Into the Fire (Another Education Rant)

It's 107 degrees here in August, as classes begin in Tucson. The weather, however, is not the only heat as we teachers step into the fire that is education in the early 21st century.

Between an overemphasis and misapplication of testing, higher class sizes, lower job security, and less appreciation from the culture at large, teaching has lost ground as a profession. Students don't want to become teachers and education programs go begging for applicants. The shortage is showing up in school districts around the country.

I can't say I blame the students. I doubt I would go into teaching if I were a twenty-something looking for a career that would both be meaningful and allow me to make a living.

Simply put, teaching now is a job that generates high stress while producing little satisfaction.

Class sizes have become ridiculous. Many classes K - 12 have over 30 students in them. Think about trying to control 30 - 35 distracted young people and then multiply that by five if you are a high school teacher.

Then there is the testing and the testing is a big part of your evaluation. Only recently have gains been part of that equation. The testing is full of problems, but the most egregious abuse of test results is penalizing schools and teachers for test results that are out their control.

Then there are the stagnant wages and the loss of social respect. States don't want to pay teachers a fair wage and teachers are blamed for poor student performance and job skills. Never mind that teachers are expected to be cops, surrogate parents, coaches, role models, motivators, counselors, surveillance cameras, and indefatigable organizers.

I have left public school teaching and am glad I did. Life at the university is not a picnic, but it is not the grind that most teachers have to endure. Here too I see the decline of teaching as worth investment and priority. Students, mostly, want a credential to get a job. Administrators want grants for research to fill the hole left by declines in state funding. Teaching gets lip service rather than real, tangible support.

In fifteen years, the number of staff doing my job at the UA has been cut by 65%. We do the same work -- with more students -- but with far fewer colleagues. The gap has been partially filled with underpaid and under-supported adjunct faculty. The work has increased, but the people doing the work has decreased and been covered by teachers with no job security, sometimes little experience, and less of a voice. 

Just once, I would like to see political and business leaders take a year to teach in a tough, urban, poor school. Just once, I would like to see story-tellers take the side of teachers, to make the work they do more visible.

These thoughts are my pipe dreams as I make my way down the sidewalk to my appointment with a new semester. The concrete radiates heat.

Yes, it is hot here. My feet are burning.

Can someone please let in some air, shine come light?

Another Summer in the Sticks

Given my expertise in construction, it is a miracle that I didn't topple the New Mexico project this summer. Contrary to the odds bookies were making on disaster, the place actually progressed, thanks to the help of many -- George Dobbs, Tom Brightman, Bob Shaeffer, Frank Blackmoon, and many others.

We went from rough sheetrock to a pretty nice set of painted, textured walls, and drop-dead freakin'gorgeous ceilings and concrete counter-top.

The first thing we had to do was get the stuff stored in the house out of the house. We had to put it somewhere special. That meant a big, green shed. That shed now goes by the name Big Green. Pretty clever, huh? We leveled a pad for it, added gravel, and then put it up on piers. That may not sound like much, but it required ordering organization and coordinating that had to happen pretty sequentially. Order; schedule delivery from Tucson; meet guy with backhoe on site after 325 mile drive; get blocks from trading post in Candy Kitchen; haul blocks; set in place; meet delivery driver; set shed in place; drink beer; look at ways to optimize space; move stuff into shed (bikes especially).

Once the stuff was out of the house, we could get down to real mudding and texturing. I also painted the casita -- twice.

Once the painting was done, it was time for a trip to Tucson to see Sean and Kyle off on their respective next chapters -- Sean to Panama and the Peace Corps, Kyle Mexico City en route to Spain where he will teach English. Those stories will be elaborated elsewhere.

Then it was ceiling time. With advice from George in mind, we ordered some tongue and groove fir from Bubany Lumber in Gallup -- 400 boards of the stuff. Scary and lovely. With my new compressor and nail gun, Megan and I hauled, sealed, and installed the entire ceiling in about 4 days.

Once the ceiling was done, Tom Brightman joined us to help put in a concrete counter top, frame out a closet, eat strawberries and put in some cabinets.

He is a genius, a comic, a beast on the bike, and crazy as a one-eyed jack. He hung out of a second story window to vent a fart fan.

Luckily I had the OSHA-approved safety protocols down. I had to save him from himself.

Then it was time for a 4000 mile road trip to see family and to do a bike ride from Seattle to Portland. In spite of very little training I survived.

After the Northwest and a long road trip, it was back to the New Mexico house and work with George to put in a door, clean up, and pack for the trip back to Tucson.

Overall, it was a pretty productive summer, but now it's time to get down to some real work. I have not been on the bike much and am really out of cycling shape. And there are students signing up for classes, fellow teachers planning curriculum. I am on my way this morning to my university office for what will likely be my last year teaching. The events of summer swirl around me as I close the door on June and July and look ahead to fall.

I want to say thank you for the time. I hope I have used it well, that I am worthy of the gifts so many have bestowed on me.

Of course, there was more -- much, much more -- to the summer. There was the beauty of the place and the sky, the times with friends and family, the moments of truth and pain. The story is never complete; it's only a sketch, a work in progress.

The Knowledge of Cities

When I am away from the city and close to nature the noise in my head quiets a bit and I can see things I normally don't more clearly. It's been like that working on the house in New Mexico this summer.

When it is quiet and if I attend to the core of my desires, I find pretty basic values. I want to live in compassion and to do my work.

Now you can branch off from there into all kinds of complication. I mean, what does "living in compassion" look like? What does that mean? And what the hell is my "work?"

When life gets complicated, like it is about to in a few days, applying these core values to messy situations, like work in academia, gets confusing.

The conflicts between who I am inside and what I have to do to make a living gets pretty brutal in early August.

This transition is like tearing off my skin.

Big groups of people that are run by fear, greed, idolatry of the self, and all the other values of corporate America have little sense of compassion or wisdom.  Money rules.

And, yes, it is time to go back into the fray. I want some of the goodies that playing the game of work provides. But I also want to remember what it was like to be free, at peace, and hopeful.

Shifting

One could say that I have been stuck too long in the same job, same place, same ways of thinking. Routine has been helpful in keeping the chaos of parenting and house-holding somewhat manageable. It has been a necessary part of my surviving the strain of constant bills, low wages, and mountains of details.

But I feel like I am heading for a cliff if I don't change direction. With so much momentum, though, I find it hard to try on anything new.

Then we took a road trip up to Seattle where I rode the StP, the Seattle-to-Portland bike ride. Bikes have always been a way to cope for me. Years ago, I used to take summer trips to places like Moab, Utah, where I and my fellow lunatic cyclists would lose all track of decorum. We would camp in the desert and laugh at the moon.

This trip rekindled some of that. Seattle's exotic setting of ships, bridges, rivers, and mossy trees threw this desert dweller into a kind of culture shock or very stimulating disequilibrium. I had fun. Yikes! That was scary.

I wanted to run back to Tucson and get back into my mind-numbing routine as quick as I could.

But it was not to be. After StP, we went to Sisters, OR, for a family reunion. There I was shaken further still by sun, trees, glaciers, rivers, a vision of a life beyond teaching that shook me to my marrow. I think I had the best day of my life riding a bike over McKenzie Pass.

Sun. Wind. Mountains.

One afternoon, some young people and I went to a place called Steelhead Falls. They showed how to fly off into space over cold, fast moving water and then thrill to the frigid river. I had to join them.

I have tasted the dream. On one hand, I can die now in peace. On the other hand, I want more. More creativity, more risk, more nature, more friends, more beer, more nights out under the stars.

But, of course, it hard to change anything, and I have a contract. I am not wealthy. I have commitments.

But I can do more of what makes me thrill and sip the nectar of purpose and meaning. I have to find the courage to shift.

Eight hundred miles later, with these thoughts running through my head, my faithful Subaru lost its capacity to change gears. The hydraulic clutch died and I was stranded. But where did it leave me? Downtown Moab, next to the Visitor's Center. No shifts it said. You need to look at your need to change gears it said. You are stuck and you need to do something about it it said.

Very well, I replied. I took my bike off the car and rode blindly around town. I came to a street that looked nice and rode over to a park. I was grateful and looked to the sign for the street's name. All it said was "Mi Vida."

There was a smell of flowing water in the air. The scent whispered that it is time to change gears, but I will have make changes to do that.

Thank you Suby. Thank you road.

For now, I am stranded. With any luck though, tomorrow my fine friend will be ready to run, shifting like a demon.

I hope I will find the strength to do the same.

Building a House So My Soul Has a Place to Stay When It Comes Home

Many friends ask why I spend summers working on a house in the boonies of northern New Mexico. The pat answer, one that satisfies because it is something that most can understand, is that it will be a "retirement home."

But that does not really get at the heart of why I am doing such a thing. There are psychological dynamics at work that are hard to convey in polite small talk. Those reasons run deep.

Before I go there though, I have to say that I don't know what or why, exactly, I am doing this. I just am because it is there and I can. The reasons are revealing themselves as the project progresses. What emerges later may give more insight than I have at present.

So, a long time ago, I was asked to put my playful little kid on the shelf. Because my father went off to fight wars and I was the oldest boy, I was the "man of the house." Of course, I wasn't really, but I was in that role anyway. I needed to find out how to do things like fix leaky sinks and change flappers in toilet tanks. I also served as a kind of confidant for my mother.

My role felt more "adult" than kid.

All of this is subtle, but I forgot how to just play and be creative, imaginative. I pushed a now angry little kid into the shadows of the psyche.

Fast forward about fifty years, and I am now crippled by depression and anger and need to get off the work treadmill.

The house represents a place where I can begin to woo that crazy aspect of myself back home. It will take some time and some quiet and patience. I may have to sit on the deck and sing sad songs to the changing light on the rocks in the back yard.

But I think he might hear me. And, if he comes back, we might have some things to talk about, some peace after all these years.