Brantley

Youth had proven very traumatic for Brantley, as it does for most turtles. He had been born in steaming muck beneath a rotting log, hatching from a leathery egg synchronously with thirty-three of his siblings, all of them clambering over one another toward freedom like a riotous mob. He had a sense of direction, some instinctual behavioral tract that kept Brantley moving, scuttling against thirty-three other muddy little turtles. Emerging from beneath the log, Brantley had been greeted by two hungry raccoons scooping the baby turtles up like treasure. They were brutally efficient, missing hardly a turtle, picking the tiny squabbling pucks up in their inquisitive fingers, lifting them to their mouths, cracking open their still fragile shells in their molars, folding them open with both hands and slurping out the insides like oysters on the half shell. One had reached for Brantley, brushing its claws on the back of his shell before instead grabbing another young turtle as it came from behind and tried to scramble over him. Something drew him away, something kept his tiny legs scrabbling like a wind up toy and pulled him to the water as if a guideline had been tied around his neck.

Brantley escaped somehow, but remained forever traumatized by the experience. For years he had nightmares of raccoons cracking him open like a wiggling nut, slurping out his insides and throwing his empty shell to the deer flies. Brantley hardly slept for three years. Most turtles that live to be three years old don’t sleep at all. No time for sleep in the food chain.

Brantley spent the majority of his youth hiding beneath logs, the best place for a young turtle to be. Brantley was quite good at hiding. Exceptional, even for a turtle.

Florida Box Turtle (by “Jonathan Zander (Digon3)” on Wikimedia Commons)

Posted for the DP Weekly Writing Challenge: Flash Fiction

Family Reunion

Chauncy had slept with each of the three sisters and married two. He cheated on his first wife, the eldest, with her youngest sister, resulting in her impregnation. When his wife found out about their affair she filed for divorce, and ever since the two sisters never spoke. The middle sister, who had always been passed over for her two more attractive siblings, became enamored with Chauncy’s flirtatious advances, and they were wed before the ink on the divorce papers had even dried.

Between the three sisters Chauncy had fathered five children. He was their father and their uncle. They were cousins and half-siblings. These things get confusing, as is often the case with families, especially one so tangled up in itself.

Chauncy’s mother-in-law had died and the sisters would be together in the same room for the first time in years. The entire family had already gone into the church, but Chauncy loitered outside in the parking lot to smoke a cigarette and bolster his nerve. He wondered how it would pan out. Would all be forgotten and forgiven with kissing and hugging and what were we thinkings? Would his first wife make a scene like she always did, embarrassing everybody with her accusatory rants, calling the youngest sister a slut and a whore in front of the entire family? He envisioned the casket getting spilled into the aisle in the hair pulling scuffle, that the tragic reunion would be far more depressing than the actual funeral.

He stamped out his butt and made his way to the entrance, but discovered the door to the church locked tight. The sisters had decided that the best way to keep the peace during the service would be to exclude Chauncy altogether.

At least they could agree on something.

chicago- north center (by like, totally on Flickr)

The DP Daily Prompt: I can’t stay mad at you,

The DP Weekly Writing Challenge: Flash Fiction

 

Everything

Everything I say is untrue,

but I have never lied to you.

---

I created this image on photoshop for a digital media class at some point in my college history. Does photoshop count as photography? Lots and Lots of Letters.

 

Classroom Graffiti

It should be a recipe for disaster. The classroom left wide open during 7th grade lunch by a naive substitute. Seventh graders are notorious for shenanigans and poor decision making. Their favorite activities seem to be deliberately destroying things on accident and inventing new ways to bully each other. Low and behold a gaggle of 7th graders had snuck in to my classroom at some point and left graffiti splayed all across the whiteboard for me to find upon my return at the end of the day. It gave me strong feelings so I snapped a couple photos with my phone and then forgot all about it. I rediscovered the photos recently as I was going through and organizing older and older photos, trying to piece together the forgotten days of my past.

This was my white board on the day before the last day of school 4 years ago, which was coincidentally the last year I taught 7th grade science.

This is the type of thing that makes me really love being a teacher. If only every day could end like this.

Posted for the DP Weekly Photo Challenge: Letters

 

Letters to an Angry Beast

I took these photos at the Cal Academy of Sciences a few years back when they had a Climate Change exhibit. The above quote is from climate scientist Dr. Wallace S. Broecker. Here is a fuller quote:

“The climate system is an angry beast and we are poking it with sticks,” said Dr. Wallace S. Broecker of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, who was one of the first to raise the alarm about abrupt climate change. ”We don’t know whether it’s going to pay attention to the pokes. But if it does, it might rise up and do something we don’t like.” -via NY Times Archives

 In another part of the exhibit visitors were invited to write a small note, to share some idea that could possibly help slow down changes to our atmosphere and help to save the natural environment of our planet.

My personal favorite: Cut down on Homework. Homework kills trees. Probably written by one of my students. I also like Don’t waste paper by using these. 

I love the thought that some small idea from a fresh perspective can save us all. I always tell my students that they are our only hope. The nearsighted practices of the past have gotten us into this mess, and now it’s up to you. What will you do to help save the world?

Eat local-Stop Food Waste

Don’t waste paper by using these

I bet we could frack something else out

citizen science

DP Weekly Photo Challenge: Letters

Overcoming Expectations

Our daily expectations are those unconsidered expectations about daily life, like the fact that the sun will rise in the morning, that my morning coffee will be delicious and probably the highlight of my day, and the fact that I will sit in mind-numbing traffic for an hour as I attempt to drive 12 miles to work. These are the expectations that we take for granted, the things we expect due to the fact they have become such regular parts of our daily lives. Expectations like these make life boring, repetitive, and depressing.  It is simple brain reflex that causes the human mind to attempt to predict what is going to happen, whether you’re watching television, reading a book, or going to work for the ten thousandth day in a row. But how boring is it to know exactly what is going to happen all the time?

If everything always plays out exactly like you think it should, then you have in essence learned nothing new. It is through the serendipitous discovery of the unexpected that the human mind finds meaningful existence in this sad little hamster wheel known as life. My 6th grade science students are always required to make a hypothetical prediction before they start each lab experiment, and sometimes they get disappointed at the end if their hypothesis is not correct, like they have failed somehow. But I always tell them that if your hypothesis is correct you have learned nothing. It is only when the hypothesis doesn’t match expectations that we have actually discovered something new. I think that this is part of the reason most people find traveling to new places and cultures so invigorating. Everything is new and unexpected. Each today truly becomes a new day with endless possibility.

But then there are more profound expectations, the long term plans we have for ourselves and the people we care about. The path we follow toward those expectations may be unexpected. My Grandma wrote me this letter (and many others also) when I was a “hopeless” surf bum living in my van. I surfed every day and worked as a room service waiter and bartender in Santa Cruz. It was by far the happiest time of my life. I had almost zero stress, and hours of free time to write and read every single day. Even living in a costly environment like Santa Cruz I had a very low overhead. A post office box, a storage unit, and my 1975 Chevy molester van with my surfboard and coffee pot felt like all I needed. Every couple weeks I would drive up or down the coast to hang out on some empty beach or campground for a couple days. I was rich in time but poor in money. In many respects I was the most successful person I knew.

But eventually the pull of more profound expectations made me question my own happiness. I wanted more money and more prestige, like these things would make me happier. I wanted people to not think of me as a dirty vagrant living in his van. I wanted a regular job with a regular paycheck. And as I returned to school and became more and more professionally successful, a little bit more of my happiness withered away. I transformed into what other people expected me to become, but it was never really what I expected for myself. It almost felt like I had given up, succumbed to the debilitating pull of my family’s expectations for me.

Now I work more hours and make more money than ever before, but the measure of my happiness seems to be inversely related to these factors. I have saved and scratched to buy a home only to find myself now more in debt than any other point of my life. Those paltry maxed out credit cards from my days living in my van feel like the good old days of financial stability.

I’m not sure why I saved this letter from my Grandma. I reflect on it sometimes to remember where I was and where I want to be, and remind myself that the path we follow to live up to our expectations is not always the path we expect. The letter used to make me angry, but now it makes me laugh. It’s not that I necessarily enjoy having the last laugh, but I think I will in this case, even if it means I am laughing at myself.

---

Written for the DP Weekly Writing Challenge: Great Expectations

(This was an unpublished post that I rewrote. It didn’t end up like I expected. They rarely do, and that’s a good thing.)

Sandals, Camera and Great Expectations (by Elizabeth Thomsen on Flickr)

Questions

Why are there always so many questions?

What happened? What were you trying to accomplish? What were you thinking? What are you going to do now? Are you crazy? What’s wrong with you? Who do you think you are? What about the kids? What about Patches and Fluffy? Do you hate me? What did I do to you? How can you  live with yourself? Why are you such an asshole? Are you serious? Are you kidding? What are you, some kind of psychopath? Should I call the police? What do you mean you already did? What do you expect from me? Am I supposed to be a martyr for you? Would you do the same for me? Why are you crying? Do you even love me at all anymore? Where are you going?

Wait, where are you going?

Question mark (by the Italian voice)