A surprise attack on US soil killing thousands of innocent people. Sound familiar? It should, but not necessarily because of recent events. The anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor was yesterday, and no one mentioned it.

No flags at half-mast...no memorials on the morning news...I went on about my grocery shopping like the other bazillion people in the store that morning.

After toting out my random assortment of goods, I drove over to take advantage of HEB's $1.60 gas where I noticed a tough old woman at the one adjacent to mine. She was wearing a ball cap over her short, grey hair, and a man's navy jacket that said "Pearl Harbor Survivor Association." Her car read the same on the license plate and on a bumper sticker proudly affixed. The jacket also specified "U.S.S. Utah." Well, for me this meant something. Most people recognize the U.S.S. Arizona for it's famous underwater memorial, a ship that has eerily entombed hundreds of people since December 7, 1941. The U.S.S. Arizona memorial remains a draw for tourists. However, the U.S.S.Utah capsized within minutes of the first bombing and still lies in the harbor on the opposite side of the island from the Arizona. The hull is mostly submerged. Like the Arizona, the Utah serves as the burial site for 60-or-so men and even one baby girl whose urn was aboard. Was this woman a survivor (unlikely, but she looked tough enough) or her husband? I didn't ask...wish I had.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was the beginning of the end of Hitler and his allies, an accomplishment by those Tom Brokaw called "The Greatest Generation." Women showed their muscle and drive to keep the country going, everyone sacrificed luxuries like sugar, nylon, and fuel. (Just think that yesterday I had a world of groceries at my fingertips.) The United States showed then the kind of hope and strength capable of such a nation. We, as a nation, were attacked on 12/7/1941. We, as a nation, persevered for freedom. Not just ours but the world's. Lest anyone forget Pearl Harbor Day...we should endeavor to imagine life without the U.S. involvement in WWII. And we should all remember daily the great sacrifice by the men and women of that generation, military and civilian alike, of things we take for granted: sugar, make-up, in-tact families, cars...life. So, just in case any of you overlooked Pearl Harbor Day as I did, went on with your business of grocery shopping as I did, it's not too late to spend a few minutes paying homage to servicemen and women of the past and saying "thank-you" to those of the present.

IPODS and Rivers

My IPOD was not cooperative this morning. It’s a new toy, a birthday present to myself I guess you could say. But I’m so multipolar with my music. When I’m working out, I want the Ramones but I get John Denver. When I’m driving in the car, I want Jackson 5 but I get Greenday. My litte IPOD isn’t fancy, no display, no play lists. It just shuffles around all of my music so, as a result, I spend half of my workout time just trying to find that perfect song to get me going.

But that’s not what started me off in the mood to write this morning. The alarm going off at 6am for my student-husband to remind him to get his butt of out bed to register really got my brain active ahead of schedule. When that happens, there’s just no stopping the thoughts. Usually, I have just enough time in the morning to get myself clothed and the kids clothed and fed before we rush out the door in a whiff homework papers, blankies, and bits of breakfast. Not today. Today I had time and while that’s not always a good thing, I think today is the perfect time for time.

After my workout, which, by the way, it took some self-motivation to attend, I started thinking again. The weather was my accomplice here…it’s been overcast and drizzly the last couple of days. Driving home through downtown, then the park, around to my neighborhood, I was remembering and considering things of all sorts. As I drove past the new football practice facility (the one that’s going to make BU #1, remember?), I wondered, first of all, who started this “everything-must-have-Grecian-columns” construction style so prevalent on the campus? We’re all holding our breath for the steeples to pop up on the top, sort of holy goal posts, I guess. Then I begin thinking about the facilities displaced by this one, which made me sore on behalf of the tennis, swim, and rowing teams. I soon stopped considering BU’s latest quick fix, not because I was sore, but because I saw the river. Rivers, really. We have two right out our back door (well, a mile from our back door, but that doesn’t sound as quaint).

There’s something about the Brazos and Bosque Rivers that feels connected to me. I don’t know if it’s the seven generations my family has spent near it, the peace it brings to me just to watch it, the thought of Huaco Indians living alongside, or just the nature of the river as life-giving and life-sustaining, but I love this river. As a kid growing up here, we rarely visited the park, never canoed down the Brazos or Bosque, but I spent many summers loving and playing in the Bosque at summer camp. I got caught with a boy down by that river once. Yes, I love the rivers. This morning, though, the water seemed especially therapeutic. Despite the swifter-than-normal current, downed trees, and floating trash, it’s soothing. Why? Because watching something always moving, something deep, mysterious, and complicated makes me feel simple, easy, and calm. Before I drove through the bottomland along the Brazos, I let a motorcycle cop speed past me so I wouldn’t have him on my mind, clouding my communion with nature on this grey day. Even though it’s late autumn, the trees are still green and leafy with some, like the elms, turning those beautiful fall colors. Gold, pumpkin, copper, red, all reflected in the water.

I thought about a birthday party I came to once down here. We climbed up and down Jacob’s Ladder (which, incidentally, are stairs, not rungs, leading up a very steep hill from the bottomland). We told ghost stories (because being scared is fun when you’re 10). These days, I’m hesitant to go up and down those stairs in broad daylight…with a dog. I thought about the fossils awaiting discovery in the limestone bluffs. I thought about a high school acquaintance, my age, who ended her life falling from those bluffs, and the invincible high school boys that still think they can conquer the chalky limestone. I thought, too, about the little red-eared slider we discovered one afternoon, sitting all tucked-in in the middle of the walking trail. (She’s in our kitchen now, and goes by the name of Turtlini or Betsy Ross, depending on which child you ask.) I remembered surveying the invasive species along the river for my environmental studies class. This thought immediately led, once again, to the ache that accompanies any thoughts of my graduate studies. Why an ache and not pride…or joy…or anything else positive? That’s there, too, but the ache is what I feel the most. I think back to my workout, looking up from fiddling with my IPOD and seeing two graduate students that I know (and whom I know remember me). I don’t say anything to them nor they to me…this is partly weight-room etiquette, I know. Part of it, though, is the source of the ache. I like these people. I would have liked to have known them better. If it weren’t for a prideful man, my big mouth, and my short tenure in that department, I might be enjoying evenings on my porch drinking beer with my grad school friends. As it is, I hardly know them. Moreover, I’m tentative around them because God only knows the kind of stuff they may have heard about me. Maybe nothing. But I’m not sure.

One of the songs my IPOD graced me with this particularly morning was a Dixie Chicks creation. Yes, those fine writers and composers of such epics as “Goodbye, Earl”, and “Long Time Gone. (This should not be a surprise as I’ve already mentioned my musical multipolarity.) Recall the Toby Keith/ Natalie Maines scandal? (Maines made a negative comment about Pres. Bush, Keith took offense, ongoing publicity ensued…) Well, Toby Keith is a far more complicated man than ol’ Natalie ever gave him credit for. His political views, for example, are not as black-and-white as everyone made them out to be. On the other hand, that Dixie Chick had every right to say what she said without being persecuted. I suppose that if my “fans” sent me hate mail and death threats, I might be so motivated as to write words similar to those in “I’m not ready to make nice.” It’s a perfect song for all of your bitter battles in life… “I’m mad as hell, can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should.” Well, that’s how I feel about my departure from that department. While I have love for most folks there, one of two of them continues to cause this ache. And I’m not ready to make nice, as simple and immature (and grammatically terrible) as that sounds. Yes, the IPOD got it right that time.

Driving home through the park, connecting to my river, I allow myself to think about these things. Once I’m home, it’s as if I’ve been to an hour-long session with a licensed therapist. All of those thoughts, good and bad, I tossed to the river and went on with my day. Tomorrow will be the same as any other Thursday, but today, Wednesday, I decided to write something.

It’s been a lot of Wednesdays since that has happened.

So, do you believe in God?

Yes, I had a student ask me this very pointed question during a blood vessel lab. My reply to him was that I do not discuss religion or politics with strangers or students. But the more I tried to defend my "no-comment" policy, the more he became convinced of my atheistic bent. I guess silence really is acquiescence for some people. The thing that amused me most, though, was that he had decided that a scientist who believes in God MUST be an Intelligent Design disciple. I think my face must have made an "you can't be serious" kind of expression because he laughed. (Sometimes my visceral reactions precede my conscious thought...I have no control.) After that, I felt that I had to explain that among my group of scientist friends and colleagues are some agnostics, some atheists, a couple of Mormons, Episcopalians, Lutherans, and "other". I don't know a single scientist who subscribes to the ideals of ID (although I could have referred him to a certain department at a certain local institution not to be mentioned by name here). At my visceral reaction to his over-confident assumption, and declaring that ID is bad religion and bad science, he said, "oh, so you ARE an atheist." Some people just don't listen.

...and we're still here

Four and a half years ago we left our home in Austin - the home in which my son was born - and moved to this pitstop of a town between Dallas and Austin. We thought it would be an idyllic setting to move into the house I grew up in, take over the front part, start our lives over with BU and Waco. My daughter left her Sunflower room with sunflowers, rainbows, clouds and other happy images painted on the wall. My son, still a baby at the time, left his blue room only to be squished into the same bedroom with his sister for the next five years. Now we have our own home, same bedroom setup, though, and although we didn't intend for this to happen, our children are growing up in Waco. It's sort of passed me by in a sense because all this time I'm thinking "it's only temporary...moving soon...it's almost over" while they've been growing, learning, experiencing, actually enjoying this town. It's wonderful for them: a 400-acre park, an ever-expanding zoo, the great museums, learning about Anatomy and Physiology when their mother drags them to class with her, and hanging around with college kids when Dad drags them along with him. What small children wouldn't be happy here with all this and grandparents five minutes away?

The best part about being here is that my children are happy and probably better for it. I, on the other hand, am a different chapter in this book, something carrying the possible title of "Are we there yet?" Enough character-building already. However, I have to admit that Waco has its advantages for me, too... lots of Mexican food, a kick-ass Thai restaurant, zero (yes, zero) traffic, completely empty public attractions if you go early enough, a pub full of hippies, a Target store that opens at 8am, and two institutions of higher education full of potential kindred spirits. Also, this region of Texas has great bio-diversity, two major river corridors, abundant bat acivity, and is, overall, a very pretty part of the state.

The downsides carry a little more weight, in my opinion...no job growth for me (I'm making as much money as I can and it's still not enough), embarrassingly bad schools, baggage from the first 17 years I spent here (count that about 50 times in your calculations), trash on almost every corner, and a pitiful socio-economic imbalance. There also happens to a dearth of midwives in the area.

BUT...at this very moment, as I prepare to educate a roomful of students, most of which exceed me in age and experiences, I am grateful to have something to do that seems important and makes a small difference to members of my community. "It's not where you are in life, it's what you do". Nice sentiment shared especially by people like who are not where they want to be. I try to live more in the present now than looking to the future. I should be more aware of my children's advancing childhoods and take my opportunities as a young mother to have fun (while they still like me). I truly think that when this is all over, I might (dare I say) actually miss being here.