Wandering, trailblazing and switchback trails
I spent a great part of the late 90s and early 2000s under the influence of a serious case of wanderlust. I suppose what started it all were the six Phish shows I saw in the summer of 1997. My boyfriend, future roommate and I traveled from Kansas City, to St. Louis and then on to Tinley Park, Alpine Valley and finally two at Deer Creek. While my love for Phish, the boyfriend and the roommate quickly faded, I had been bitten by the travel bug.
Fast forward to the fall of 1997, Ames, Iowa Stephens Auditorium, I saw Widespread Panic for the first time. From then forward the years of my life would be smattered with concerts and tour runs to follow the same band. I would study in Valladolid, Spain during the summer of 1999 before graduating with my B.A. in Spanish from the University of Iowa in December 1999. With no long term plans or job perspectives, I moved to Wheeling, Illinois to live with the boy I had met the New Year's eve the year prior on another one of those crazy music adventures. Needless to say, the folks were impressed.
See, some dear friends of mine dragged me to Chicago for New Year's eve in 1998. Our other friends were going to Madison Square Garden to see Phish. We didn't have tickets. Instead, we were going to see Leftover Salmon, a small bluegrass band, play at the Aragon with Blues Traveler and then the following night we saw the band Morphine play at the Riviera. I wasn't a huge fan of the big city but we had a free place to stay. In general, I found things in the city to be a bit too crowded and confusing, a bit too fast pace for my taste. In particular, I hated how much everything cost. I was a baby guppy in the Great Lakes, literally, I was 21.
We had an amazing time that New Year's eve run! It would be the trip that would eventually convince me to return to Chicago in 2003. On New Year's eve the saxophonist from Morphine played two saxes at the same time as we rang in the New Year. As the clock struck midnight, I kissed the man that would become my captain, my pilot, my biggest fan. That night when we left the show, we road the train back to the north "burbs." When we woke the next morning, six feet of snow had fallen. He jokingly says I got the Stockholm Syndrome, ya know, like Patty Hearst? I fell in love with my captor. What I know is that he would believe in my when I failed to believe in myself. He would wander with me, a bigger live music lover than I, and by the end of June 2000 we found ourselves in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
We settled in Albuquerque for three years. While there, Rich and I traveled, California, Utah, innumerable trips to everyplace in Colorado. I even traveled to Cuernavaca, Mexico to study for a part of one summer. Following our hearts, and our love of live music, I would work a number of crazy jobs including dispatcher at a locksmithing and safe company, a coffee shop and an academic historical journal published in Spanish by the University of New Mexico. All the time, studying to obtain a Master's degree in Hispanic Literature.
It was at my job with the Colonial Latin American Historical Review (C.L.A.H.R.) I first met J. She was the first person I had ever met that was profoundly disabled. Technically she was a quadriplegic, a total transfer. Her limbs were child sized while her head and torso were fully developed, adult size. Her body's frame and limbs were not strong enough to support their weight. J was crazy, scary smart. At 23 she held a double Master's and was working on her Ph.D. in linguistics. She spoke at least 3 languages that I knew of. J and I became friends because we worked together at C.L.A.H.R. and took classes together in the department of Spanish and Portuguese.
What really made us friends was our love of cigarettes. Yes, at the time I was a multiple pack a day smoker. J, was a guest smoker that would take a cig if someone were available to light, and hold the cigarette for her, her arms didn't have the range of motion. So the last year and a half I was in Albuquerque, while working at C.L.A.H.R., we would take our daily smoke break together. Each day we would walk down the hallway to the elevator, out the building's only accessible entrance, to smoke.
One day, I was heading to my classes in Ortega Hall. Upon arriving, I began to complain loudly about the elevator taking too long, that I would have to "take the stairs up the three flights to the graduate level," my backpack stuffed to the seams with books. With the cool, calm of a cobra about to strike, J stated, "oh poor you, your legs will be tired from using them. Why don't you go cry to someone that gives a shit? At least you have legs that work." She laid a direct hit, her venom soaking into my bloodstream.
Oh those words have stayed with me for years. Seventeen years after the fact, yet I still get goosebumps as I type them, their weight and gravity not lost on me. J gave me a gift that day. She taught me a lesson that I have taken with me on my journey along my life path. Little did I know that it was in Albuquerque that the mother of necessity was born. Sometime between when when we saved Kitty and Lilly, the day after 9/11. They put me on the path of motherhood, providing so many important life and parenting lessons before ever actually becoming a parent while J had given me the power of perspective.
Rich, Lilly, Kitty and I left Albuquerque the day after graduating. We packed all our belongs wandering back to the midwest and the roots of our upbringings, never leaving the path from which we were placed upon. We returned to the Chicago suburbs for the summer of 2003. Before long, I was enrolled in university studies again, this time to obtain my teaching degree. My wanderlust hopes and dreams having been crushed after being denied acceptance into every Ph.D. program for which I applied.
In May 2006 I was hired to begin my work as an educational trailblazer. I was blessed in that I found a job within 4 miles of my home. It also happened to be a district run by some of the nation's educational leaders. I settled in to my role as ELL specialist and Spanish instructor. It was so my jam. I was on every committee helping to build capacity, advocating for those that couldn't speak English proficiently.
The flame and passion for educational advocacy burned brightly within me. In 2010 I made the decision to return to graduate studies for a forth time. This was to be my final academic pursuit, an administrative degree. With an administrative degree, my language skills and my desire I felt certain I would be quickly promoted within my trailblazing district.
The funny thing about trailblazing, is that when you're out in front it is hard to tell exactly what is happening. Trailblazing is a rushed pace, the pace of the city, and the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Trailblazing must happen around the clock. Upon becoming a teacher, I lost my wanderlust. I became rooted, a stone on a couch typing like mad on a computer. Furiously planning for lessons, typing assessments, creating testing schedules and becoming less of the free spirit I had once been.
Don't get me wrong, I got married, bought a house, earned at least three advanced degrees and have seen more live music shows than I can count. I am an educational trailblazer, an innovator with educational solutions! I would still be blazing a trail in Buffalo Grove if the "ground zero" event hadn't happened, if Charlie hadn't gotten sick, Sandy then Richard dying, and mom having her series of strokes and septicemia from her knee replacement.
These days, in Iowa, I do a different sort of trailblazing. I see my life now more like a switchback trail. As the cacophony of noise from the aftershocks have quieted, since I have more life experience, I am now able to see that "the path" I walk is not linear. As I journey down the path, filled with therapies, along with the highs and lows of Mom and Charlie learning to walk, I realize that is okay to take the long route, a winding path. You can trail blaze while taking the switchback trails, planning your journey, your stops along the way. That's okay because life is about the journey and I've got the best people with whom to travel.
Fast forward to the fall of 1997, Ames, Iowa Stephens Auditorium, I saw Widespread Panic for the first time. From then forward the years of my life would be smattered with concerts and tour runs to follow the same band. I would study in Valladolid, Spain during the summer of 1999 before graduating with my B.A. in Spanish from the University of Iowa in December 1999. With no long term plans or job perspectives, I moved to Wheeling, Illinois to live with the boy I had met the New Year's eve the year prior on another one of those crazy music adventures. Needless to say, the folks were impressed.
See, some dear friends of mine dragged me to Chicago for New Year's eve in 1998. Our other friends were going to Madison Square Garden to see Phish. We didn't have tickets. Instead, we were going to see Leftover Salmon, a small bluegrass band, play at the Aragon with Blues Traveler and then the following night we saw the band Morphine play at the Riviera. I wasn't a huge fan of the big city but we had a free place to stay. In general, I found things in the city to be a bit too crowded and confusing, a bit too fast pace for my taste. In particular, I hated how much everything cost. I was a baby guppy in the Great Lakes, literally, I was 21.
We had an amazing time that New Year's eve run! It would be the trip that would eventually convince me to return to Chicago in 2003. On New Year's eve the saxophonist from Morphine played two saxes at the same time as we rang in the New Year. As the clock struck midnight, I kissed the man that would become my captain, my pilot, my biggest fan. That night when we left the show, we road the train back to the north "burbs." When we woke the next morning, six feet of snow had fallen. He jokingly says I got the Stockholm Syndrome, ya know, like Patty Hearst? I fell in love with my captor. What I know is that he would believe in my when I failed to believe in myself. He would wander with me, a bigger live music lover than I, and by the end of June 2000 we found ourselves in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
We settled in Albuquerque for three years. While there, Rich and I traveled, California, Utah, innumerable trips to everyplace in Colorado. I even traveled to Cuernavaca, Mexico to study for a part of one summer. Following our hearts, and our love of live music, I would work a number of crazy jobs including dispatcher at a locksmithing and safe company, a coffee shop and an academic historical journal published in Spanish by the University of New Mexico. All the time, studying to obtain a Master's degree in Hispanic Literature.
It was at my job with the Colonial Latin American Historical Review (C.L.A.H.R.) I first met J. She was the first person I had ever met that was profoundly disabled. Technically she was a quadriplegic, a total transfer. Her limbs were child sized while her head and torso were fully developed, adult size. Her body's frame and limbs were not strong enough to support their weight. J was crazy, scary smart. At 23 she held a double Master's and was working on her Ph.D. in linguistics. She spoke at least 3 languages that I knew of. J and I became friends because we worked together at C.L.A.H.R. and took classes together in the department of Spanish and Portuguese.
What really made us friends was our love of cigarettes. Yes, at the time I was a multiple pack a day smoker. J, was a guest smoker that would take a cig if someone were available to light, and hold the cigarette for her, her arms didn't have the range of motion. So the last year and a half I was in Albuquerque, while working at C.L.A.H.R., we would take our daily smoke break together. Each day we would walk down the hallway to the elevator, out the building's only accessible entrance, to smoke.
One day, I was heading to my classes in Ortega Hall. Upon arriving, I began to complain loudly about the elevator taking too long, that I would have to "take the stairs up the three flights to the graduate level," my backpack stuffed to the seams with books. With the cool, calm of a cobra about to strike, J stated, "oh poor you, your legs will be tired from using them. Why don't you go cry to someone that gives a shit? At least you have legs that work." She laid a direct hit, her venom soaking into my bloodstream.Oh those words have stayed with me for years. Seventeen years after the fact, yet I still get goosebumps as I type them, their weight and gravity not lost on me. J gave me a gift that day. She taught me a lesson that I have taken with me on my journey along my life path. Little did I know that it was in Albuquerque that the mother of necessity was born. Sometime between when when we saved Kitty and Lilly, the day after 9/11. They put me on the path of motherhood, providing so many important life and parenting lessons before ever actually becoming a parent while J had given me the power of perspective.
In May 2006 I was hired to begin my work as an educational trailblazer. I was blessed in that I found a job within 4 miles of my home. It also happened to be a district run by some of the nation's educational leaders. I settled in to my role as ELL specialist and Spanish instructor. It was so my jam. I was on every committee helping to build capacity, advocating for those that couldn't speak English proficiently.
The flame and passion for educational advocacy burned brightly within me. In 2010 I made the decision to return to graduate studies for a forth time. This was to be my final academic pursuit, an administrative degree. With an administrative degree, my language skills and my desire I felt certain I would be quickly promoted within my trailblazing district.
The funny thing about trailblazing, is that when you're out in front it is hard to tell exactly what is happening. Trailblazing is a rushed pace, the pace of the city, and the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Trailblazing must happen around the clock. Upon becoming a teacher, I lost my wanderlust. I became rooted, a stone on a couch typing like mad on a computer. Furiously planning for lessons, typing assessments, creating testing schedules and becoming less of the free spirit I had once been.
Don't get me wrong, I got married, bought a house, earned at least three advanced degrees and have seen more live music shows than I can count. I am an educational trailblazer, an innovator with educational solutions! I would still be blazing a trail in Buffalo Grove if the "ground zero" event hadn't happened, if Charlie hadn't gotten sick, Sandy then Richard dying, and mom having her series of strokes and septicemia from her knee replacement.
These days, in Iowa, I do a different sort of trailblazing. I see my life now more like a switchback trail. As the cacophony of noise from the aftershocks have quieted, since I have more life experience, I am now able to see that "the path" I walk is not linear. As I journey down the path, filled with therapies, along with the highs and lows of Mom and Charlie learning to walk, I realize that is okay to take the long route, a winding path. You can trail blaze while taking the switchback trails, planning your journey, your stops along the way. That's okay because life is about the journey and I've got the best people with whom to travel.
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