The Last Frontier

Dear Ira Glass,

By this time you’ve probably figured out that writing letters to you is not my day job. I’m a teacher. Really? What grade? A special education teacher. Oh. You must be really patient. An early childhood special education teacher. Huh? Specifically, I teach infants and toddlers, and their families. What do you teach toddlers? Like, how to walk?

Maybe, in these days when autism is in the mainstream media every other day, you’ve heard of early intervention. Teaching very young children (like, infancy to age five) with special needs the skills that will help them succeed at home, school, and in community environments. Help close the gap between them and their typically developing peers.

It sounds so great, doesn’t it? And it is so great. It’s so great that, if the economy didn’t happen to tank at this exact time, public and private agencies around the nation and probably most of the Western world would be pouring copious amounts of funding into implementing early intervention. Because it makes sense on so many societal levels. Research and popular thought agree that it makes sense from an educational perspective (kids catch up early, and need less help later), an economic perspective (close the achievement gap and more kids can become contributing workforce members), and a familial perspective (kids can learn from an early age how to better access and maintain a variety of relationships). Also, did I mention that it makes sense from an economic perspective? If children with disabilities catch up to their peers when they are young, society doesn’t have to spend extra time and money educating them during school and providing support for them throughout adulthood.

So it makes sense, and it sounds great. And it works. All around the country there are stories of children who have experienced early intervention and gradually gone on to succeed in school and society without extra support, alongside their peers.

And now it’s time for that word. The inevitable word.

Normal.

Normal. In a normal way. Within normal limits. Typically developing. Meaning you can make it in the world independently, or with moderate supports and resources you know how to get for yourself. You can figure it out, with the way things work now, the way things are.

So what about the other stories? The stories where children experience early intervention and they learn, but they don’t totally catch up? The stories where children grow into men and women who need support well into adulthood? The stories of the parents who are trying to figure out who will take care of their son or daughter after they’re gone?

Other.

Does early intervention still make sense in these stories?

That isn’t rhetorical. I’m asking you, for real, does it make sense? To you? To people you know? This open-ended question, this does it, and if so why, and if not why, and above all how? Because I’ll be the first to tell you: as someone on the inside, as an early childhood special education teacher, I know my answer to the first two. But the third- the how- that’s a lifelong question. I’ll be figuring that one out for the rest of my days.

Keith Jones, disability rights activist, arrested my attention regarding this issue when I first saw him featured in the film Including Samuel. He argues that the campaign for a fair shot in society for people with disabilities is the last frontier, the “last great struggle” of the civil rights movement. Keith Jones makes sense to me. Keith Jones and I are ultimately working toward the same goals for people- with and without disabilities, children and adults. We have completely different experiences, different backgrounds, different careers, yet to both of us actualizing equal rights and opportunities for people with disabilities in society is long, long overdue.

So, yes, sometimes I am teaching toddlers to walk. I’m working to make sure they learn the skills that will allow them to access the general education curriculum as they get older. If they are behind their peers in development, I’m constantly reinventing my teaching style to help them catch up. But it goes so, so far beyond that. With all of my students, special needs or not, I’m teaching acceptance. Respect. Open-mindedness, open-heartedness. Perseverance in a community through the rough times. The days that are a total mess because we don’t get each other. We are so different, and we are so great. There is total great chaos in my classroom. One child is grinning brilliantly because he’s so nervous to be in a room full of thirteen other two-year-olds, one is leaping over the block area as he rushes to assert ownership of a child-size grocery cart, another is weeping into her mother’s arm as the latter prepares to leave against all maternal instinct, another is tugging my sleeve and earnestly telling me  ”Iwa boo gulla no-no” over and over again as if I will somehow understand the twenty-fourth time. All are wholly and gloriously themselves, feeling everything immediately, seeking their own shapes, their own names in this shared space. And so I have to ask the question that so many teachers and parents have asked before me: as I prepare my students to someday enter society and succeed to the best of their ability, is society getting ready for them? Are people ready now? Will the world be ready in approximately sixteen-to-nineteen years when my students graduate high school? Special education teacher or not, I can’t wait. I am not patient for this. Not all my students have a place in society as it is now. The standards to make it, to succeed independently enough, are pretty narrow right now. Being other among people in the mainstream is a pretty tight squeeze right now. It’s hard to breathe there. Not a lot of people like to hang out there. It isn’t very glamorous.

So let me ask you this: what would you be without that space? How would you be if there were no chaos? Even if you don’t spend everyday in the mess, can’t you sense it on the outsides of your consciousness, blurring your shape into an aurora, into something collaborative, into the other? Imagine your life without it. What a serious loss.

When I was a little girl I was obsessed with pioneers. I thought I was born in the wrong century. I dreamed of climbing into a covered wagon and heading for lands unknown with my family, with a community of other people in other wagons, tumultuous gathering. Cobbled together with rocks and wood and rope, searching every dawn and setting sun for a new strain, a new streak of color in the path of the wandering wagon train. Closing the gap between what is and what could be. Not necessarily between defeat and success, slow progress and visible achievement, the steps forward and back. More between narrow, squinting, tethered expectations and heart-hunting, root-tangling release. Crossing the frontier. It flashes before you every time the wheels jump underneath the reins.

Come on. Climb on the wagon train. You know you want to.

Sincerely,

Courtney

Mother

Dear Ira Glass,

Have you ever had the experience where you think I really get this, and then your understanding is turned completely upside down? You believe a film, a song, a book, or even a person is about one thing, when truly they are about the opposite. The weirdest part about this experience is that your false understanding may have lasted a long time, maybe years, until suddenly, through no effort of your own, realization stuns.

I recently had this experience with a song. I thought it was about death. Always when I listened to it I felt pensive and dark blue, like a grounded bird looking out from the brush. This went on for about five years. Then I looked up the lyrics and discovered the song is actually about birth. Not kidding. Here are the words:

Through love’s labor,
Her labor
Sons and daughters were blessed and given favor

She smiled and we were safe
She cried the cords gave way
We grew into life
We left our homes too soon
Too soon… too soon.. too soon..

My mother’s face
Her state of grace
I hope I have your strength and all your gentle ways

She smiled and we were safe
She cried the cords gave way
We grew into life
We left our homes too soon… too soon…
Too soon.. too soon

As the years, they come and go
She will find her soul
In quiet life, she will hear
Those voices sound so sweet and clear
So sweet and clear, so sweet and clear
So sweet and clear, so sweet and clear

It’s too soon

Imagine my relief in finding out my own interpretive blunder, because I’ve always listened to this song with uncharted spasms clutching clear through my heart at the fear, a full and manic sorrow kind of fear, of losing my own mother. And I could never separate her from the song. Now I finally understand why. Umbilical cord, of course. Labor of childbirth. Raising kids who then leave home. What was I thinking?

I have a brother and two sisters. We are 24, 22, 18, and 17. We are in the process of leaving our home. As of last autumn we are all gone except the one who is 17. And I can’t say that it is too soon, mostly because we return often. By often I don’t mean every holiday. I mean about once a week. I would say that at least one day per week is celebrated as though it were a holiday. Tuesday, Saturday, whatever. We love celebration. We love it for any day. And my mother is the maker of celebration. In my whole memory of her there is not one still picture. She is always in motion, ever since we were born, since before that in the stories she’s told us about what gymnastics was like when she was a little girl. Her home in movement. She is always dancing, stretching, singing, working, her fingers and feet flaring with sheer spirit and her features kindling with an idea just under the surface, just glowing, almost ready for her to make. My mother makes everything feel glamorous. Dinner, choosing an outfit, exercising. It is all part of her daily fame. It’s always a great time to practice being famous.

My mother never shrinks away from anything. Not even her own feelings. This is the bravest thing. Sometimes it could be confusing as children. We didn’t always get her. In the flash flood of emotions in a family of six we couldn’t understand how a grown-up could feel things as big and raw and immediate as us. Things so central. In days glittering orange with expectancy and quiet triumph she didn’t hide anything. In days overwhelming and solid with life’s cyclical sadness she didn’t hide anything. So beautiful. We didn’t totally perceive it then. The full expression. Running into the sea change, riding it into the next day, the next project, the next storm. And this is how she taught us to keep on, to engage the hour, to feel it all with grace and veracity. To emerge with voices sweet and clear. My mother is always showing us things like this. Things we might not understand, might in fact misunderstand completely at first. She doesn’t give up. She keeps loving and teaching and celebrating, all in every minute. All in motion. All in.

Happy birthday Mom. I love you. I get you, for now. I’m a big fan of yours. I’ll see you in yoga class tomorrow. I’ll be in the front row.

Sincerely,

Courtney

Karaoke

Dear Ira Glass,

There are many dive bars in the city of Castro Valley, California. I would know- I have frequented several of them at all hours of the night while visiting my cousins who live in the East Bay. They are unmistakable and unique, with their sticky, grooved wooden counters, thumb-printed glasses, murky mixed drinks, Springer-esque clientele, and, curiously, always an assortment of picnic tables bannered by beer-brand tents out the back. These outdoor tables are where the real business happens, where Castro Valley inhabitants and visitors exhibit their finest flirtations, double-fisters, fisticuffs, and conversations. Yes, a visit to a Castro Valley dive bar is time well spent.

A rare find, though, is a Castro Valley dive bar with karaoke. Probably on a week night. Probably where most of the participants are over fifty (forget the early bird special). Probably where, if you go more than twice, everybody knows your name. I had the privilege of attending such an establishment once a few years ago. It was a family affair- my uncle, aunt, two cousins, and brother were also there. It was a week night and the place was packed. The room was oblong, with the stage at one end and the bar extending out from the other. The middle, under the stage, was littered with circular tables where karaoke hopefuls could pore over the four-thousand-pound spiral notebooks stocked with lists upon lists of possible one-hit wonders. We made ourselves comfortable here and began researching.

My cousin Jordan didn’t need to bother with such formalities. He had been a weekly regular here for a year already. When I first heard the tales of his nonchalant performances of famous Journey, Whitesnake, and Led Zeppelin ballads from his sister I was speechless. In my mind I conjured a picture, as per her description, of my cousin with his long curly locks and leather jacket taking the stage and shifting his gaze to nowhere in particular during the intro. Then, right on cue, he would snap his neck forward, grab the mic, and belt at the top of his lungs in a somehow powerful, menacing falsetto. Loud. Glorious. Right on key. Worthy of any 80s rock band leader. During the instrumental interlude he would take a sip of his red wine (the only glasses served in the bar all night were to him) and then coolly, almost languidly set it back down in its proper spot next to him on stage just in time to return to the crazy cheering multitudes. They were wild about him and he was totally serene about it. When the lights go down in the city…

And so that fateful night in Castro Valley I got to experience my cousin’s act firsthand. And it was exactly, perfectly as I had pictured. I was fascinated by his confidence, his audience, and his incredible vocal skill I had never before witnessed in our twenty-one years as cousins. True to form I stayed in my seat and merely browsed the endless song titles. I was too shy and too much of a perfectionist to consider overcoming my massive nerves to take the stage. Until the DJ called my name.

I looked at my cousin. “What is this?”

He smirked. “I dare you to say no to karaoke.”

And I couldn’t. Whatever it is, maybe some kind of code, maybe some kind of karaoke honor system, if someone writes your name down you cannot say no. Conversely, the stakes for writing a name that is not your own are pretty high. It rarely happens. You must be certain that you are doing the right thing for all involved. It’s irreversible. And for whatever reason, my cousin was sure that it was my time. I was not far from a panic attack but no one could tell in the dimly lit, low-ceilinged room. I tried to take some deep breaths on my way to the stage. And the first strains of my song played, and the words actually showed up on the screen so I could read them! Deep breaths. And there I was liberated. It’s like rain on your wedding day, it’s a free ride when you’ve already paid,
It’s the good advice that you just didn’t take,
Who would’ve thought … it figures.

When I was five I had a dream that Jordan and I were standing on top of the Space Needle, arms outstretched to billions of screaming people, belting out Born to be Wild in unison. Singing to the world. That night in Castro Valley, my dream was unexpectedly fulfilled. And I was never going back. Karaoke was one of my things now. I could say “oh yeah, I karaoke” without batting a lash. I could ask others, “do you karaoke?” and fully enjoy their answer without worrying what would happen when they turned the question back on me.

I’ve karaoke’d many times since. One of my closest friends Beth is a karaoke expert, and whenever we go out together a duet of “Time After Time” in the style of Cyndi Lauper has become a tradition. We even have dance moves. We’ve also sung, on various occasions, pop hits such as “Tearin’ Up My Heart” by N’Sync and “Love Story” by Taylor Swift. Stellar performances all. I can’t choose my favorite memory. A couple of weeks ago, at the end of 2009, Jordan came to visit Seattle and the three of us went to karaoke at the Little Red Hen in Greenlake with a large group of friends (and cousins). As we anticipated our first time on stage (Time After Time for Beth and me, classic Journey for Jordan) Beth and I talked over our plans for 2010. As special education teachers, we had each been asked to speak in two separate graduate courses to students who would soon join us out in the field. We compared nerves regarding our pending experiences.

“You know what the thing is about karaoke, Beth?”

She raised her eyebrows. I went on staunchly.

“With karaoke, you just have to go up there and do it. You have to be brave. You can’t think about it too much, and that’s why it’s good for us. This is helping us prepare to go speak to graduate students and inspire them about curriculum modifications and behavior plans. We are achieving our goals by singing karaoke.”

And I’m pretty sure she agreed, because our rendition of “Time After Time” was the best and most dramatic to date. And it was so good that we tried to get out of our next Taylor Swift song so we could sing some Bon Jovi, but the karaoke DJ wouldn’t let us change it because he said someone else was already signed up to sing Bon Jovi. He lied. He was not following the karaoke code. We were trapped. We had to just get up there and sing, and we kind of flopped, except that the screaming audience was collectively in love with Taylor Swift, and they wouldn’t stop dancing and singing along even when we didn’t know the tune. At one point a blonde girl got up on stage and started singing with us. We went with it. With all that support how could we not?

Karaoke is genuine. It’s a risk. A rush. A community. Inclusive, constructive, imperfect. You can always laugh. People who do karaoke are saying to the world, “I am here to participate!” and participation is underrated these days. We need activities like karaoke in our lives. As I said earlier, a dive bar in Castro Valley with karaoke is what’s really hard to find. And once you find it, hold on to it. Don’t go back.

Sincerely,

Courtney

Boots

Dear Ira Glass,

Hugh Laurie once said “a woman in boots knows her own mind, and that’s appealing.” I am a woman in boots, and I am in love with Hugh Laurie. My roommates staged an intervention last winter when the DVR on our home television filled up completely with House reruns, bumping off 1000 Places to See, Deadliest Catch, and The Real World/Road Rules Challenge. These were all small potatoes compared to the intense drama of Dr. House and the goings-on at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital  in my eyes (PPTH is a completely fictitious location, by the way). Every night when I got home from work they began serious conversations with me about the grave consequences of being in love with a 40+ year old more than 15 years my senior who had grey hair and a bad attitude (who I had never met). Also he was probably married. I preferred to dream of an elusive silver-haired bachelor who was young at heart and currently unattached. I also had secret aspirations to guest-star on House which would then turn into a recurring lead role as an innocent but insanely smart red-haired resident doctor on staff at PPTH. I would become friends with Omar Epps and the rest of them and be sighted having lunch in Hollywood with Quentin Tarantino, at which point rumors would escape about my action-film transition to the big screen. My roommates would have none of it. They cancelled my series recording of the show and deleted the thirteen already-recorded episodes. I was devastated. They did not feel sorry for me. They suggested younger men I should pursue such as Spencer Pratt or David Archuleta, or even someone I actually knew. I refused to give in. Younger men didn’t have the appeal of Dr. House with his fake American accent, cane for his strangely attractive limp, frigid wit, and appreciation for women in boots.

Boots. At the age of five my mother bought me a pair of suede boots to wear with dresses and now, almost twenty years later, I am re-obsessed. I covet all boots I see women wearing on the street. I can’t stop pursuing boots. I search out boots with no realistic means to buy them, no resources, no collateral, just boot-love. It all started on my twenty-fourth birthday when I was supposed to go to a trendy music club downtown with my parents. My mother came to pick me up at my house and after much frustrating deliberation I put on a pair of high-heeled fake brown suede boots from Target. She said “those are the best fashion-wise. I mean, they look really good. I mean-”

Long pause. Sigh.

“Mom. What do you mean?”

“I mean, can you wear those? Can you walk on the streets of downtown in those without being in serious pain?”

“Mom. Yes. It’s fine. I’ll wear them tonight and then we’ll see if I’ll never wear them again. What I’m asking is do they look good?”

“Yes. These are the best-looking boots that you own.” Much was implied in that you, but I had to let it go. We were late.  In the car on the way out from my neighborhood, I decided to broach the subject again. “Do you want to stop at Value Village and do a quick boot-check?”

“A quick boot-check- yes! I was just thinking the same thing! But it will have to be very quick because we are late!”

We are always late.

Five minutes later we swung into the VV parking lot with big dreams and light cash. We were in luck. Sweeping past the floral pajamas, jewelry, and holiday sock assortment we reached the boots. A black leather heeled pair caught our eyes. Go, go, go! Grab the boots from the plastic hanger. Try them on, quick! They fit me. We are in Heaven. This is the best birthday present ever. My mother splurges on me and buys the boots for $6.99. By the time we get to our next stop, the grocery store, I am limping in the Target-brand brown fake suede stilettos. I am literally prancing along the parking lot like a flamingo, my thighs at right angles with my shins. I am in serious pain. I say, “Mom, I will never wear these boots ever again.” She thanks God for the black boots sent straight from Heaven, which I immediately change into to go to the trendy music club, and try to pawn the brown ones off on my younger sister. She thinks they are quite fashionable. She has no idea.

Boots are the endless pursuit. I have inherited my mother’s treasure-hunting boot disease. It is inevitable. I don’t fight the boot-love. I embrace it. I embrace lots of boots. I love them for almost every outfit. Sometimes I don’t feel brave enough to wear my boots, but then I throw on a flouncy lace mini-skirt with an artfully-loose long-sleeved t-shirt and leggings. The boots are amazing with this outfit. The boots bring out the glamour, the Hollywood in me. I can picture myself starring in House, in a Quentin Tarantino film in my boots. I am a star in boots. I have boot appeal.

I live the life of a boot-lover. It is a legacy. It is a fabulous quest. I am a woman in boots.

Sincerely,

Courtney

The Olympics

Dear Ira Glass,

I am obsessed with the Olympics. I’ve been totally devoted since the 1988 Seoul games when I was three years old. Greg Louganis was my first crush. I called him “The Spin Man”. As I Google him now and sift through the images that pop up, however, I don’t see anything familiar. The signature Speedo and the thick wavy hair had nothing to do with my affections then. I simply couldn’t get enough of the twirling freefalls. I didn’t love Greg for Greg- I loved him for his spins. I loved the movement of Greg, the meticulously planned, tightly executed, fluent cleanness of Greg. The power that pulsated unknown at the precipice of the board and then burst forth without warning, fireworks against the flourescent background, the dive the only thing in the room without an ambient echo. Over so quickly you’d miss it if you looked away for just a second. And that was what I searched for, what I recognized in The Spin Man: pure, undistilled, glorious motion.

“The Spin Man, the Spin Man!” I couldn’t elaborate further at that age, but I made absolutely certain to declare my undying obsession. It became an Olympic addiction. I would zero in on the spins trying to parse out the movements, untangle the mid-flight blur to make some kind of sense out of the whirling limbs. I wanted the Spin Man to be diving all the time so I could watch him all the time.

The obsession evolved throughout future Olympic cycles. In 1994 I wanted to desert my career as a third grader and become Oksana Baiul. I was convinced that nothing stood in my way except the ability to figure skate. Or skate at all. My parents did not support my mission, so I had to give up my dream. I spent hours reading books on figure skating technique and finally decided that, if someone were to give me a pair of skates and place me in the middle of a rink, I would immediately understand the ice on a visceral level and master the art of triple spins after just a few days of practice. This never happened, so I did a book report about figure skating instead.

In 1996, I spent the summer with my cousin and two girls our age from the East Coast who were visiting our grandparents. The entire time we hand-sewed clothing for our dolls, ate potato chips and M&Ms, and watched the Olympics or the Home Shopping Network. In the tumult of our separate lives (my cousin had moved to California by that time so my siblings and I were the only ones left in Seattle) the Olympics provided a common anchor. We talked about everything- boys, toys, and braces- but Jackie Joyner-Kersee and her red toenails really brought us together.

The next decade is mostly a blur, but then came Turin. At this point I was in college and living with my grandparents. I would wake up at 5am and immediately click the television on to the Canadian channel. I could keep track of previews of the day’s upcoming events while simultaneously running the straightening iron through my hair and Googling gold-medal tallies or Sasha Cohen’s Facebook page. Sometimes I left it on while I went to school so the Olympics would be patiently waiting for me when I got home, ready to greet me with 24/7 coverage and analysis as I half-addressed my homework. For someone typically so driven by the A+ that I would set up meetings with teachers to argue over less-than-perfect marks, even grades took a backseat during Olympic season.

And then, most recently, Beijing. Swimming, gymnastics, sprints, and volleyball- the jackpot of riveting sporting events for someone who, on a regular basis, doesn’t really like to watch sports at all. Every day at my job working in a kindergarten classroom I would bid co-workers farewell and share with them that I had to go home to watch Misty May-Treanor, Nastia Liukin, or Michael Phelps (though no one could really compare to the Spin Man). I even named my circle-time puppet after Shawn Johnson. My roommates supported my obsession by leaving the Olympic channel on all day long so we could pause and rewind it using the DVR remote. After work the four of us would gather in front of the expansive screen to marvel, criticize, cheer, and debate:

“Is that a man or a woman?”

“I can’t tell, they’re wearing a swim cap. It must be a woman.”

“Whoever they are, that swimsuit is not flattering.”

“Well, it’s pretty aerodynamic. They’re winning.”

Every even-numbered year, the Olympic spirit seeps into the rest of my regular life. Every ordinary task becomes a feat to accomplish, a strenuous event to train for, a moment to keep bated breath held up till the very end, bitter or celebratory. The Olympic commentators, past and present, various and enthusiastic,  join me (in my mind) and begin following my daily medal-worthy efforts:

Commentator 1: “If you know where she’s coming from right now you can actually sense that she’s gearing up for the performance of her life, which is interesting because she doesn’t have as much experience with parallel parking as most of the other people in this competition. She’s a little audacious right now, she’s going out on a limb. And frankly, I’m not sure if it’s going to pay off.”

Commentator 2: “Mmm hmm, but if you’ll notice her outfit is really perfect for this moment, because her jeans and heeled shoes allow just enough movement to apply a really meticulous technique to the gas and brake pedals, like you see just there! Such slight pressure but with big returns because now she’s just in the position she wants to be, she can now ease the vehicle in past the front car and just shy of the bumper of the one behind her. I think she’s going to nail it.”

C1: “And she’s turning the wheel hard now, she’s trying to squeeze in but I don’t think she’s going to pull it off- this is the same trouble she had in qualifying rounds just an hour ago, she’s spinning the wheel too late- and I DON’T BELIEVE IT! She’s in. This is really amazing what we’ve just witnessed here. She is in, and she knows it. She’s smiling and she should be, that was quite a tight fit and she will medal.”

C2: “It’s really special when you can see someone come from behind and then shine in competition like this. The scores are coming up now and yes, yes, I think she should be happy with these scores. If the camera could just cut to her face- yes, you can see she’s smiling, she is indeed happy with the scores she is now hearing announced.”

C1: “Especially for someone so new to not only Olympic parallel parking but parallel parking in general, we have seen something amazing here tonight. Here in the streets of Seattle, Washington, we have seen history just rewrite itself. This will be a night to remember for many.”

The commentators make everything I do seem television-ready. I’m competing with records I’ve set, continually trying to achieve a personal best. Trying to achieve fluency & grace amidst awkward & sometimes scary obstacles, predictable or unexpected. Searching, persisting to create in my own life what the Spin Man arrested my three-year-old attention with so long ago: pure, undistilled, glorious motion.

Sincerely,

Courtney

100

Dear Ira Glass,

My great-grandmother is 100 years old. She lives in a house up a few streets from me in a little town called Wedgwood, north of Seattle. She has lived in this house since before I can remember, and this is the house where my great-grandfather died. This is the house where the women of my mother’s side of the family gather every Thursday for lunch, as they have for more than four decades.

When I was in community college, still living at home, I went to visit Grandma Ilene with my mother. She was still in her early 90s then. She greeted us with a grand sweep of her tiny arm toward the outdated kitchen, the florally decorated living room, the small television set ensconced in the wall, and the artwork she had painted hanging throughout the house. “I don’t really have anything to offer you,” she spoke, still grandly, in her grandmother voice that is somehow at once crackly and smooth, comforting and stirring. She addressed my mother. “Are you still vegan?”

And she was, and we had come prepared. We brought salad ingredients and busied ourselves chopping and tossing, bringing our vegan ways into a house that knew mostly boiled potatoes, porkrinds, grilled cheese sandwiches, and diet Coke. We surreptitiously pried into Grandma Ilene’s life with sly questions; we weren’t sure whether she would deftly deflect them with faux shyness or launch into one of her dramatically storied answers. On this day she was deliciously talktative. The elaborate six-inch-tall light silver wig atop her four-foot frame swayed slightly with the rest of her as she folded the years, one into the other, trilling about the early days living in Seattle, working a blue-collar shop job… how she shamelessly flirted with her future husband… the knitting store she owned in the sixties after her children were almost grown. We caught our breath with laughter and incredulity by turns and the hour changed before I was ready, before my mother was ready to return to our obligations outside the small floral temporarily vegan-ized house.

After we left I pulled my journal out of my backpack and scribbled frantically in the passenger seat while my mother stood in line at the bank. I wrote down everything she said that I could remember, word for word, as the details slipped rapidly away from me. I knew I would lose it all if I didn’t write it down.

We planned to return. We joked that if we brought champagne and convinced Grandma Ilene to drink a glass she would spill all, tell us endless lovely stories, keep us in awe and giggles for hours. We wanted it so badly, but we never made it back. And when my backpack was stolen later that spring the most searing, irreparable loss was the journal. As I was driving home from school trying to recover from the theft of my schoolbooks, homework, and $12 Jansport I remembered that it contained the journal. With Ilene’s stories. And without it everything fell through the sieve, gone, totally unrecoverable. And we still never made it back.

She turned 100 in June. She is 100 and a half. And in the summer, after I had already been living less than a mile away from her for more than a year, I returned to the tiny floral house that still breathes the energy of the family hub though its appearance is mostly unchanged. I came searching for a new tradition, a way to be part of the Thursday lunches even though I work during the day. Every Wednesday night I pack my lunch for the next day, put on my sweats, and drive four minutes to visit my great-grandmother, grandmother, great-uncle, and my two-year-old cousin Avery. And they greet me with laughter, and vegetables specifically purchased for me, and bad television shows (still ensconced into the wall), and kisses on the cheek, and stories, and play. And I listen and I watch, and sometimes I join. And this place, these people, this funny weekly gathering, is a homebase. Somewhere to touch down. A small expectation. Healing.

“Grandma Hilene, let’s pretend to sleep on the floor here.” Avery thinks the contraction of “Hi Ilene” is her real name.

“Oh honey I don’t know about that, I’m so tired-”

“No, here honey, I’ll help you up, here- we- go-” she grasps Grandma Hilene by the bosoms and slowly lifts her upright out of her chair. Once she is finally standing she gets down on the floor next to Avery and pretends to be asleep in the middle of the living room, with the television blaring, with her wig sideways on a red secondhand airplane pillow, until we all say it’s time to wake up. And she will not be able to stand up without help, and they are both having the times of their lives. They are 98 years apart.

And lately, I am asking about her stories again. And I am using a voice recorder instead of a journal.

Sincerely,

Courtney

The Idea

Dear Ira Glass,

When I was a teenager I was head over heels for this twenty-something musician who was obsessed with artists like Kathleen Edwards, The White Stripes, Wilco, Ryan Adams, and the not-so-famous but ever-so-talented and totally genius Cory Branan. And Cory Branan wrote a song called “Tall Green Grass” that is probably one of the most lyrically perfect songs ever. When I would spend time with this musician he would play me songs like Tall Green Grass and thrill me with his knowledge and analysis of such wonderful musical frontiers as I had never before experienced (or so I felt certain of at the time).  I remember that he drove a green Mazda that was freakishly clean because he vacuumed it every week, and he would take my friends and I all around town and whenever I got to ride in the front seat with him and talk about music I felt like a princess. I felt like the girl in the song, you know?

One night we were driving around just the two of us and I got brave enough to actually share my own timid, carefully-thought-out, agreeably lukewarm opinions about this music. Tall Green Grass was playing and I said “I really love it. I’ve never heard anything like it before. Except your music. Your music reminds me of this. And I just, I just really…love it.”

Oh dear, shy, sixteen-year-old self, wherever did you come up with such a delightful lollipop of a compliment?

All that sugar coming out of my mouth could only mean one thing. I was about to be schooled.

“You know what, that’s really…nice and I really appreciate you saying that, I really do, but you know what, I just listen to songs like this and I just get so depressed-”

“Why?” I jumped at the chance to interrogate him about his complexly attractive emotional inner workings.

“Because I will never, ever, in all my life write a song like this. I could strive all my life to come up with an idea for a song like this, and write it, and think I worked so hard to come up with this brilliant song with brilliant lyrics and brilliant, everything, and then I hear this guy doing it and it’s the best, the most genius expression of this idea that could ever happen. And he already did it. And so it doesn’t even matter what I do or how hard I work because at best I’ll just be a brilliant imitation. And it’s not mine.”

I fell silent for awhile. In those days, my lollipop days, I was either brightly encouraging everyone in the world to follow their dreams to rainbow heights or I was typing more…indigo, than rainbow, poetry or stories or whatever about the sadness in my own soul on an outdated computer in the basement of my parents’ split-level. I hadn’t yet reached the realization of life as imitation, the future as a track that’s already been played. I was only riffing off the moment, off the ideas I believed were mine.

Which brings me to the present. I have long since lost touch with that particular dreamy musician, but I’ve often thought back to our conversation that night. To the sense of unrest that settled in me as a result. To the feeling that no matter what, I wouldn’t be able to figure it out then. To resolve. Resolution as a mainstay of my spirit, my survival, was already dying. Already on its way out.

So the elusive idea becomes a mainstay, becomes an anchor and a pursuit. I act out the brilliant imitation often, as we all do, but it isn’t enough for me. The imitation must become a conversation, a dialogue of strands, copies, tracks, words. The idea a fluid prism, furiously making, breaking down, remaking. The brilliance is in the air, in the shared space as we breathe & create. The teenage girls that believe no one has ever felt this or thought this until I did just now! and the jaded musicians who think sometimes I don’t know why I’m keeping on trying and the people working day jobs they hate to get to the place they want to be, the place where they want to make something, whether it’s that evening or in five years, who say to themselves just one more day and just one more and one more.

And so I had this idea. Today while I was cleaning my room. This idea to join the millions and start a blog called Dear Ira Glass. And I ran to my computer and I logged on and I created an account and I typed in my username and yes! no one has ever had this idea for a blog before! It’s mine!

But that isn’t why I’m here, in blogworld, writing to you. I’m here to render a space, to join the conversation, to live in the land of those who furiously make. And it is all of us, isn’t it?

Sincerely,

Courtney