I wrote this a few years ago, and parts of it are kind of out of date (the "when I'm a teacher" parts, because I'm not anymore) but I'm lazy, and I think it will suffice at least temporarily as a "bio" section -- of sorts. It continues onto three more pages with pictures, so just follow the links at the bottom. The Assignment: Write a table of contents for a list of items you would include in a portfolio of your life. Pick tangible objects that represent something about you or some time in your life that has shaped who you are today. Describe each of these objects in detail. Due Date: March 13, 1998 (Graduate School) 3/12/98 ~ There is no method to the madness of this portfolio. It represents the scattered chaos that is me. I’m incapable right now of seeing any order in my world. And so there is none to this. TABLE OF CONTENTS (ITEMS AND REASONS) Parents & Siblings -- Pictures Duh. They’re what matter most to me. So they’re first. I’m ready to leave them for a while, but I think I will be back, because while there are far, far better places to live, there are also far, far worse, and I want my children to know them. What else is life really about? (As I write this I’m getting DFF - that Disgusting Family Feeling - when you find yourself getting kind of grossed out by how much you love the weirdos with whom you are bonded by blood.) A Wrinkle in Time In whatever dump I’m destined to live on my future teacher's salary, Madeleine L’Engle’s books will always have a bookshelf all their own. Her characters and their adventures were a part of me as a kid and are a part of me now. Meg and Charles Wallace remind me of me and my little brother It still makes me cry to read the part when Meg saves Charles Wallace from the evil IT by loving him. Sometimes I still remember that when I’m really scared or really about to pummel one of my students. I hope to teach her books and keep them alive for the next generation of readers so they might teach them one day, too. Pat Conroy Books His books that I love, The Water is Wide, The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline, and The Prince of Tides (an innocent victim of Hollywood’s slaughter and butchery), are about what it means to grow up in the South and feel utterly displaced. They are beautiful & they make me cry & they make me think about humanity & wretched pain & anguish & friendship & mothers & fathers & sisters & brothers & teachers & students. They are melodramatic and at times sappy as hell, but I love that I can open any of these books on any random page and find myself within a story-within-a-story-within-a-story of something that could really be about me. And I love passages like this one: The nun showed Savannah and me the reading book we would use that year, introduced us to Dick and Jane as though they would be neighbors of ours, and placed us in a special corner to count out apples and oranges the class would have for lunch. My mother looked back at us from the door, then slipped away unseen. Sister Immaculata, with her soft white hands flowing through our hair and over our faces, began the process of creating a home away from home in her classroom. By the end of the day, Savannah had learned the alphabet by heart. I knew it up to the letter D. Savannah sang the ABC’s to the class and Sister Immaculata, touched with the wizardry of the fine, unpraised teacher, had given a poet the keys to the English language. In her first book, the poem “Immaculata” would speak of that frail, nervous woman trussed in the black drapery of her order, who made the classroom seem like part of paradise spared. Years later, when Sister Immaculata was dying at Mercy Hospital in Atlanta, Savannah flew down from New York and read the poem to her and held her hand on the last day of Immaculata’s life. My So-Called Life -- Videotapes I’ll never tape over the 19 hours of near-perfection that were cut short because of ABC’s brilliant scheduling tactics in putting this show on opposite Seinfeld. Why is it that life’s most lovely creations never last long enough? Through a mailing list I lurked on for a couple of years, I learned what a good thing the internet can be before I used it for anything other than sifting through those scores of emails from people on every inch of the planet who felt compelled to write about this show. From Kim, a particularly insightful listee: “You go somewhere. You may or may not want to be there, but there you are. No one there knows anything at all about MSCL. No one knows that when you say some particular word or phrase that you are thinking of MSCL, or that there’s this song in your head that goes like this…'I wanna be sedated!' You are picturing what Jordan looks like when he leans, Angela when she smiles. You can hear in your head Sharon saying, 'Duh squared.' You can see Rayanne walk off the stage after the Our Town rehearsal. You can see Rickie and Delia dance. You might even be singing to yourself, 'And dance by the light of the moon, and making that totally weird ABC Production sound.” While the fervent level of obsession has much waned since, I still smile remembering what it felt like to love a damn tv show about high school so much when I was an undergraduate in college. “BEAM ME BACK, MERLIN” -- Bumpersticker I grew up obsessed with the idea of time travel, first of all. And I also always loved the image of the wizard with the long white beard who could turn little children into creatures and help them find their destinies. I gave up believing in Santa Claus a lot more easily than I can give up believing in Merlin. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to totally give up the fantasy that Camelot was more than a legend or not get a little misty-eyed when I hear: “Ask every person if he’s heard the story, and tell it strong and clear if he has not, that once there was a fleeting wisp of glory, called Camelot. Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot.” I really want to teach The Once and Future King. It’s just such a damn cool story. Kermit the Frog -- Stuffed Animal Because of this song... Why are there so many songs about rainbows And what's on the other side? Rainbows are visions, but only illusions, And rainbows have nothing to hide. So we've been told and some choose to believe it I know they're wrong, wait and see. Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection, The lovers, the dreamers and me. Who said that every wish would be heard and answered when wished on the morning star? Somebody thought of that and someone believed it, and look what it's done so far. What's so amazing that keeps us stargazing? And what do we think we might see? Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreamers and me. All of us under its spell, we know that it's probably magic.... Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices? I've heard them calling my name. Is this the sweet sound that calls the young sailors? The voice might be one and the same. I've heard it too many times to ignore it. Is it something that I'm supposed to be? Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreamers and me. portfolio next © Copyright 2002 draw the girl