Leaning Forward

INTRODUCTION:

Sorry it's been over two weeks since the last post.  I got into quite a rush of good stuff with work. And with my economic life.

First, I've been hired to consult for the Teton County School District. First 1.5 day project: How to upgrade our teaching of U.S. history. What a way for me to start!  (and I have so many more ideas)

Second, I want to report that I am the proud new owner of a 2013 Subaru Outback.  With a great price from the dealer and a killer interest rate from the manufacturer and a year's worth of savings dedicated to just this, I now have a vehicle (first new one in 10 years) that gets pretty good gas mileage considering it's All Wheel drive. And something I wanted for the Wyoming winters. And for hauling things around.

Third, I want to let you know that it's come time to go for a new IMac (desktop) as this one is now over 6 years old.  So, tomorrow at about 5AM, I will try to beat the crowd out of the Eastern time zone and zero in on one along with the last day of zero percent financing.

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MAIN POST:

OK, so what to make of the news?  Simple: the GOP is now a threat to U.S. national interest as they are absolutely out of control with their politics, their shenanigans and their almost total refusal to come to the table and get things done. Harry Reid may just be right. Hilary Clinton should be given some kind of medal before she gets really ill and has to retire. My sense is that she's been working 18-20 hours a day for way too long. And Jon Huntsman's got my vote for President 2016 (unless he picks a bozo for a VP candidate).  Everything I read by him seems to me exactly where I am.

What to make of Michael Ferguson's heroic set of interviews with CNN, NYTimes, NPR, Salon and others?  Well, it's sure helping my family understand things better.  NYT on November 28, 2012 page A16, I believe.  Thank goodness that we can FINALLY stop the madness of the religious fanatics who INSIST that orientation is a choice. And as for celibacy until a greater reward in heaven (like celestial marriage and kids?), well, didn't the Catholic church try that and wound up with their hands full of lawsuits for about the last 30 years?  Seriously. It's not good for man to be alone.  Women might be able to do it, as they might have the ability to enjoy deep and abiding friendships with other women. But, men? Yeah, right.

And finally, what might I say about what I think is on the horizon?  We need to get through December 21, 2012 just as we needed to get past December 31, 1999.  Then, we need to make SOME movement towards slowing down the deficit.  Then, we need to prepare for interesting developments in the Middle East, just as soon as the rainy season is over (March 20 anyone?). Then, we need to get ready for yet another meteorological or geological phenomenon that will test our patience yet again. And then, we need to prepare for what I think will be a significant economic boom that might be coming soon.  More on that in the next post.

All I know for sure is that Ben and I seem to be more and more of a team. And that our dreams for what it is we seek in this partnership are aligning better. And that, the things we want to work for appear to be more and more realistic.  And that, in the beginning, there was simply a lot of old-fashioned work to be done to build a momentum, to build a foundation for me to be here in WY.  The days are so short now - the things to accomplish seem more in number with each passing day. I think this is a very good sign.  Because I am truly enjoying the ride.  Knowing that I don't teach what I know - I teach who I am.  Feeling that I don't try to forge community as much as I now try to offer people a better way towards their own fulfillment with my insights, my perspectives and my deep care for the well-being of students, colleagues and the larger community.

Finding Voice. Gaining Vision. Sara Lightfoot was right 25 winters ago.  This is the primary work for anyone desiring to be heard as well as to see more clearly, to love more dearly and to follow more nearly.  Day by day.  The question is WHO?  And when? And what price absolute loyalty.

And then, one final thought: I am utterly convinced that one of the larger findings I have stumbled across these last few weeks has been that people are generally trying to figure out how to live best in the space between earth and heaven. For those who desire to fly closer to the sky, it is very much about the sweetness of spirituality in search of divinity. For those who desire to walk closer to the earth, it seems much more about the richness of mortality in search of the sciences and the humanities.  Figuring out exactly where to find the greatest happiness seems to me to be the best explanation of where any person winds up traversing.  And on and on we go trying to convince others that OURS is the best cruising altitude.  Icarus?  The snake?  Or a thousand slots in between?

And then, of course, after a healthy determination of one's present course, the next question: WHY?  How does such an altitude serve ourselves at this time? And what if we seek to change it up?  For years, I sought the higher altitude. Now?  Much lower.  Does that mean I'm about to crash? to land? to go out of my mind?  Or simply to enjoy the journey, no matter the altitude.  I guess I have been leaning forward. On the stick.  And my plane has gently and successfully found a new altitude.  I am much closer to earth now. And she looks grand.  And I am not afraid of my new readings.  More later. . .

Thanksgiving in Idaho - a book is conceived

It was a surprisingly good three days with Ben's family.  Not because my husband cooked the 22 pound turkey to absolute perfection. Not because we got to know his very cool 18 year old niece.  And not because I left behind any internet connection which gives me a chance to wind down. No, this trip was one of the turns that we sometimes take that define the struggles of yesterday: the hopes of today.

(I like that new touch of grammar for shrinking expression without going into text mode - and you?)

2012 has been a tough road through new terrain.  Not just the back country of Teton County.  But also the front of this next chapter of my life, with my very semi-private Wyoming. I have enjoyed the baby steps of a first full year together in the same place.  I have wondered about the baby steps of my full-blown attempt to find my "place" in this most unusual community.  And I have struggled with the small but needed steps of my half-blown attempt to connect with new people in this time of planting for a new season.

The best thing that I have to say on this final day of Thanksgiving weekend 2012 is that I am coming to find that life makes sense - both in the choices we make and the consequences we take - for much of my life.  I am also coming to find that life makes no sense if we are trapped into the delusion that it is only by our five senses that we can live.

I think that the major decision I began to make somewhere in my adolescence is that there are additional senses that I needed to locate, activate and understand.  One of them was my intuition (my hunches). Another was my ability to receive revelation (the still small voice).  And another was my constructing grand story (map-making for the lifespan).  I would like to describe each of these below as I round out my toolbox that I came to this life with, because I find that these are additional gifts for which I am grateful, and for which I have rarely written about - whether in my professional or in my personal life.

First, my intuition:  I tend to have major hunches on occasion. Some might call it a gift.  Some might call it silliness. But, I have found that these hunches have guided the shaping of my life. Case #1: I have found that when one has not one, not even two, but THREE doors that could be the right door for the future (e.g. job possibilities), then ONE of them tends to open.  If I go with two doors, then it is possible that neither will open. And if I go with only one door, then it is probable that I simply get "no".  And so, in this season, I have come to find yet again that I must have THREE possible doors for the work I seek to do beginning in the Fall of 2013.  Because I am in the middle of constructing three, I have felt the confidence that "I have done my share" and that the universe will do His/Hers.

Second, my ability to receive revelation: I'll probably never know the source of these direct communications - all I know is that they are located somewhere between my mind, my heart and my core gut.  I have found that there revelations have steered the journey of my life.

POST INCOMPLETE - but will publish anyway

Double convert

Just finished The Book of Mormon Girl by Joanna Brooks today. It was fitting that I had a prep period and sat in the Jackson Hole High School media center to rip through the last 70 pages.  I'm really glad I read it - not just because I so rarely get at literature, but because she, in essence, bounced pass the ball to me.

You see, I'm a double helix of sorts - the theological as well as the sexual. So, as I'm running away from the issue I do not want to go near, I'm racing forward into a church community, leaving behind all sorts of unanswered questions as well as all sorts of questions I don't even raise.

Mormonism is a funny thing when one is an adult convert.  It is almost always someone else's story.  And I have almost always felt grafted into the chapters that play out with such ferocious intensity.  I mean, after all, if one is 6th generation LDS, I don't really know what to make of it, being just 3rd generation American.  After all, I can only sort out my grandparents to some degree. Before that, it's simply a complete unknown.  The stories that were NOT told.  The irrelevance of what went on before landfall at Ellis Island.

So, attempting to live a straight life for 20 years was not just a lie. It was more of a Houdini feat - having to live tied up inside of someone else's box, all the while allowing myself to be dumped into the ocean of sociological darkness. No, it wasn't the green jello. Nor the funeral potatoes. Nor even the gosh, jeepers, Wally, it's so swell to be alive, don't cha think?!  It's the utter end of being able to ask a good question.  And the absolute beginning of what I call "slow-motion kidney rejection".

Attempting to remain openly gay and closely Mormon have been the wildest paradox I think I will take on in this lifetime.  Not so much of a waste, but more of a Chinese fortune cookie with not one but TWO fortunes coming out at the same pull.  I also know I have confused some in my 11 chapter story (and counting) so far.  It certainly appears that I was never meant to find my place and run a career of 40 years, have a nice retirement party, and go home to play golf and take my meds.

Coming out has been beautifully juxtaposed with going in.  Not the closet. Rather, the group.  The decision to enter through the doors of (no, not hell!) the temple and calibrate my spiritual tuning fork to the same frequency as everyone around me. Whether in that building, in that Utah County neighborhood, at that University (where only part of a universe of ideas are allowed), or watching the same early April/early October weekend cablefest.

Conversion is to run towards something; it is to run away from something; and once and a while, it's just a turning 180 degrees on a dime.  I think I've enjoyed each of the three.  Growing up on Long Island, just three generations from tenement housing life and still stuck on an island, I have sought to get to the world "out there".  Mormonism became my "theological country club" - where we could all sit around and agree on everything "out there" - I certainly knew of country clubs where I had been raised.  Marriage became my social "acceptance ticket" so that I could continue a career in education - especially since I knew that I was being watched as a high school teacher, and was certainly being targeted as a college professor in Utah.  Being gifted may have raised eyebrows. Being gay (even if I wasn't ready to see it) lowered the boom.

The good news is that I think I am finally ready to stop looking back. There really isn't much left to uncover.  Sometimes I wonder about why I majored in American history.  It definitely helped me understand the landscape of this country.  And sometimes I wonder about why I have felt so good about moving to such different places. They certainly helped me gain perspective for the stories that I wanted to knock at and tear open.  Even if it felt like cracking open yet another fortune cookie - and getting yet another answer that only led to another mystery in the making.

More and more I find myself looking forward. And feeling very alive in the now.  Thinking about my role, my place in this town called Jackson (funny, that is my kid's dog's name, the dog they inherited right after I left), a town that may just be the right size for me.  Thinking about my passion for communicating in different languages and how I might contribute to bilingual media.  And finally thinking about how I might lead a program centered on how young teachers might teach the social studies, rather than just teach them which is what I currently do.  Because I want to sell the idea that while math and science might land jobs, history and the social studies tends to grow citizens. And that we need both to build a reenergized next generation.  (More on that later.)

The interesting thing for me:  these are the three avenues I am pursuing for my next step in a career.  And any of the three will do just fine.

A three movie weekend

1. So, this weekend, Ben and I have decided to avoid the crowds for James Bond, and instead, concentrate on three very good "looking" movies, at least from the previews:  Argo, Cloud Atlas and Flight.  I can only say that going to one movie on a Friday, a 2nd on Saturday and a 3rd on Sunday is, for some, a most unusual triple play.  It was a habit I picked up in NYC when I would do just this for cheap entertainment, as all movies at my around-the-block theater (68th and Broadway) were $6 before Noon.  This time around, the trio is having a tremendous impact on me - so much so that I choose to write some here.

2. But before I forget, Argo was stunning in what it revealed about the rest-of-the-story about the Carter Administration that the history books never got.  Cloud Atlas was absolutely exquisite in inviting the viewer to follow a multi-layered story so gorgeous in cinematic layout and so explosive in meaning that traditional story-telling can never reach.  And Flight (which we are about to go see), well, I just really enjoy Denzel do his thing.

3. What is it when a movie empowers or inspires a viewer so thoroughly that his very own life is suddenly transformed (or at least significantly shifted enough) to take new directions in what he says or does?  Well, that is EXACTLY what happened to me today, a Sunday where I gained so much clarity about love that I did something I have never done before:  I went into to see my local ecclesiastical leader and told him exactly how I wanted to proceed with our apparent stalemate regarding my marriage to Ben.  (For non-Mormons, it's mainly a story about a lay ministry that is super-pressured to follow policy in order to hold onto their position that they generally enjoy very much - so much so that they administer rather than minister.)  In a most glorious few minutes of clarity before sunrise, I saw exactly what I wanted to say (with the movie still rattling around my head and attempting to penetrate my screamingly underdeveloped heart vis a vis Knowing) and then, just hours later, perfectly speaking the very sequence of sentences out of my mouth.

4. Absolutely stunning. I am now in control of my destiny.  Ready to rely on intuition if I am to believe it's from within me. Revelation if I am to believe that it comes from without. My own experience.  All the right brained stuff that academia drilled out of me in favor of what others (e.g. footnotes) have said before.  I have, almost without a blink, picked up my pen and started to write the next chapter of my life EXACTLY the way I want.  For some of you, this might seem strangely pedantic, even a no-brainer. For others, you understand what it is to have spent one's whole life trying NOT to make waves, so as to fit in.  After all, I'm now 8 cities, 3 faith based communities, and 7 academic institutions deep.  Trying to adapt to one's new environment with the best possible outcome is, with all due respect, one of the requisites for moving on. Whatever the income.  But, the price I paid, well. . .

5. I think that much of the coming out process centers around the search for, the acceptance of, and the celebration of one's ego.  Something that most people do in their teens and 20s.  I know - I watched a few thousand ex-students get to get this.  For certain reasons that I wish not to bore msyelf in rehashing, I didn't.

6. So what can I say about this three-movie weekend?  That I sought stories.  Other people's stories so that I could triangulate with theirs, Ben's and mine.  For me, the days of reading fiction books have come and gone - actually they disappeared the moment I went off to college.  Magazines, yes.  Non-fiction, yes.  Why I needed to step away from fiction is just starting to become apparent - I saw it as an absolute waste of time.  My life was fascinating enough to not want anyone else's fantasies.  But, I saw no use of  fantasy.  No use of entertainment. No use for wasting time.

7. In the end, storytelling is, to be sure, as old as the campfires of previous centuries and millennia.  Ben is showing me that life is not so much about achievement, about materialism, about chasing one's resume, about life making sense from post-industrial, urban, European-American way of living.  And that the tools for one's life do not have to begin with FEAR - that is, of not ever ever being good enough.

8. I suspect my own family fed me this porridge for starters - I do understand the fear deeply embedded in 1st generation Americans, (even though I am 3rd on one side, 4th on the other). And so did Princeton, with its "it's lonely at the top" warning somewhere during Freshman Week. And so did BYU as a newly-minted doctorate, with it's "make no mistakes and all will be well".

9. And then, so did this deeply enjoyable and deeply frustrating church I joined in 1988.  Mostly to find a really great community to soothe the pain of the rugged individualism that I had carried along all my days until then.  But, I think I also joined this church to affirm my deepest engine - the engine that drives me to escape my core belief - no, it's much much more than belief - it's almost wired in my consciousness - that I am almost always dangerously close to not measuring up.  And now, my story shifts.  For the measure is no longer relevant. Rather, it is the proximity to my mission that now stands front and center.

Introduction: what the election means to me

Vol. 1, No. 1
I'm long overdue to be out here.  For so long, I was simply afraid - not that I would be known, but that I would be blamed for being me.  You know, New York City intense, hiding my truth (that I was really a gay Jew trying to be a straight Mormon but came out a queer Saint), and still gun shy from being blind- sided at Utah Valley University. But, that's now over seven years ago. Statutes of limitations have expired. I am now free to proceed.

So, here I am.  Happily married to Ben, living in Jackson, WY.  Teaching young teachers who teach adolescents on-line but also teaching adolescents myself as I sub right here.  My kids are pretty much amazing.  My life is, as an ex-student living in Seattle told me, an amazing collection of the adventures of Mr. Kokol.  My mind is filled with creative bursts just as always.  My heart seems much more grounded now that I have come to realize that I simply don't need anyone else's rules - even if promised celestial something or other - and that I am grown up enough to write my own rules.  And live by them.
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What do I want to say today?  Simple. The Election of 2012 was more than amazing.  It was a game-changer.  Not the way 2008 was.  But in how we are lining up as we approach 2020.  Many have already written and spoken about this - especially Gene Robinson of the Washington Post - that we are becoming a multi-hued and multicultural nation.  I like that.

May I add that Europe is no longer the story that we must assume explains "us" - with everyone else simply a last minute additive.  Now, you may find that we are now done with understanding what just happened. That we are now 13% African-American and 10% Hispanic-American.  And that these groups along with Asian-Americans (and perhaps MiddleEast-Amercicans) voted overwhelmingly for the President to be re-elected.  Yes, that does cover the three OTHER continents (not including Australia) that have contributed to the USA besides Europe.  But, there is something even bigger that needs to happen - and I want to be a part of it.

I think about my own field - education.  And I think about how wonderful it is that even Jackson, WY (let alone Salt Lake City) now runs dual immersion programs for those elementary schoolchildren lucky enough to have the opportunity, whether via a lottery, smart parents, or some other good fortune.  But, it dawns on me this morning that as white privileged Americans (and yes, that was one of the major reasons why students at UVU were shocked - and I mean jaws dropping - when I tried to teach them this concept) wake up and realize that their Eurocentric assumed locus of power has truly run its course.

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We are not just talking about the White House.  Because we are not just talking about power here.  We are also talking about how we tell story.  About who we are becoming as a nation.  And who we are becoming as a particular school.  And what we are now charged with thinking about as we decide about how to teach history and literature - those two GREAT high school subjects that guide the assumptions of social place in society, leaving math, science and technology to guide the possibilities of economic stature in society.

What do I mean by this? Simple. If we teach US history through the assumption that it all began with Columbus in 1492, leaving out what we now know about China in 1421 - if we continue with a mention of Virginia 1607 but really begin with Plimoth Rock 1620, we are SAYING something to all of our multi-hued, multicultural students.  What we are saying is this:  the British story and all that emanates from that is more important.  Even though we could also co-begin with St. Augustine (FL) 1565.  Let alone Santa Fe (NM) 15?? (see even I don't know).

All I do know is that there has always been, under the veneer of teaching US history, a smugness on the part of those privileged White western-European stock straight men, a control over the storyline.  Yes, textbook publishing companies have done a nice job adding lots of boxes to our textbooks to include examples of OTHER.  But, truly, now that the books are coming in at 10 pounds, 4 ounces, and as today's adolescents (as I tend to notice them wherever I go) roll their eyes upwards and sideways even more every passing year, we are at another crossroads - but this time, it is our very story. And who owns it. And how shall we tell it.  And why we should even care more than ever.

There were riots between Protestants and Catholics over textbooks in Philadelphia in 1843.  Bishop John Hughes fought the New York City Board of Education so vociferously during the 1850s that they actually sold tickets to the "event" as he continued to lash out at the overtly Protestant coverage of history that were being taught in school.  Three generations later, New York City decided a mayoral race (1917) over the great debate as to whether schools should be more pencil and paper or more vocational in nature.  (Chicago/Gary IN went with the latter, NYC with the former.) In Los Angeles, all was NOT well during the 1940s (c.f. Zoot Suit) as Mexicans were almost universally tracked into non-academic tracks in their great high schools.  When I was teaching high school in Miami in the 1980s, the textbooks were almost indecipherable for the first as well as second generation Cubans whose story seemed to be left behind, whose lives couldn't go any farther north than the gates of Disneyworld, 200 miles to the north. Today in the 2010s, here in Wyoming, I find textbooks that are almost impossible to navigate without a healthy dose of hyper-literacy.

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What awaits us now is a clarion call to reformat the story we tell our children about the history of this country.  No, not to blame white people for everything that wasn't done according to 2012 standards (e.g. blaming Lincoln for being a racist is, for me, simply ridiculous).  But rather to begin finding a more balanced story about heartland America and coastal America - about Northwestern European stock and the story of America gone West vs. everyone-else stock and the story of the never-ending mix of big city America.  This is what awaits us - a long-overdue reworking of this nation's story.  And yes, privileged people, you can be afraid of me. Because I am no longer going to shove you to the top of the historical pecking order any more. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks are no longer enough, let alone putting them into boxes for special observance.

In the end, it surprises me that I would start here.  But, then, it's been over 10 years since I read "The Artist's Way" by Julia (?) Cameron.  And she simply said "WRITE".  It's been now exactly 25 years since Sara Lightfoot told all of us at Harvard's Graduate School of Education that we must all find Voice, and gain Vision.  Because if we do it, then by example, we invite our students to this process as well.  I'll be back on Monday, hoping to make this a Monday/Friday thing.  As I begin the process of revealing my public voice and elaborating upon my private muses.  Let me know how to shape this better for your intellectual wants, since I could stand for some feedback right up front.


Knowing that what I offer best, besides friendship, is perspective and insight.
What guides me the most is this:  "Seek ye wisdom, not riches, and all else will follow"

Wyoming Tiger