Week in Seven Words #547

This covers the week of 7/12/20 - 7/18/20.

barbering

The barber works outdoors on a path by the lake. At his station: a chair, a radio, a case of supplies, and scraps of hair softening the ground.

dragonflies

The air above the water is glittering with dragonflies. They swoop around in taut ellipses. They also bring to mind a faint memory, one that remains unrealized: that the word "dragonfly" once stood as a code for something, when I was a kid.

humidity

Humidity settles in like a rude, sweaty man arriving late to a concert, filling the seat next to you with body heat and sticky elbows and the moistness of the breath he expels through his mouth. 

pose

People pose before the words Black Lives Matter, which have been painted in large yellow letters on the street. When they're done taking selfies and group photos, they walk past a bus stop where two black homeless men are curled up on the ground (#noeyecontact #nocomment #quicksteps).

preserved

A shuttered museum, the garden behind the gates still beautifully tended.

thinly

Small businesses are evaporating, though some restaurants stay afloat with outdoor seating. For pedestrians, there remains a narrow path between tables arranged on sidewalks. Near one cafe, a homeless man sleeps on a discarded sofa, about a dozen feet from diners who can finally say they're eating out.

zooming

The funniest joke I hear this week is the one about the cost of different streaming services. The most expensive one is Harvard, at roughly $50,000 a year.

Week in Seven Words #528

This covers the week of 3/1/20 - 3/7/20.

coughing

I'm starting to look at snifflers and coughers suspiciously. Like the young guy sitting at the other end of the room who keeps coughing wretchedly into his hand. To the person he's sharing a table with, he says he's fine. But he does admit later on, with a sigh, that he's tired.

dated

We use the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine to look at Apple's website from the 1990s. It had a blocky table-based layout. It looked so amazingly clunky and amateurish (by today's standards). 

horror

The students say they don't want to learn more about the Holocaust, because it's too horrible. At least they see the horror in what happened.

overlooked

"Does he ignore me because I'm not as smart as my brother? Is that why he barely talks to me?"

reminder
The dog flops onto my lap, face-up, to remind me that she hasn't gotten tired of belly rubs yet.

unpleasant

I cringe at the dynamics in that home, the disrespect that flows casually to the mom, the vulgar comments about women and girls.

viral

Two things people are talking about all the time: the virus and the presidential election. The presidential election and the virus.

Week in Seven Words #509

This covers the week of 10/20/19 - 10/26/19.

campus
Her campus is embedded into a hillside. She leads us up and down flights of stairs and shows us her favorite corners, like a nook in the library or a bench on a quiet lawn. In different corners, lemon, grapefruit, and olive trees grow.

citadel
A golden light has settled on the hill. On the remnants of a fortress, a chunky, plastic playground has sprung up.

colliding
I walk among peach-colored blossoms, and geese waggling their butts, and cats dozing in high grass. A booming noise, like the sound of car meeting concrete, ruptures the afternoon. It turns out not to be car-on-concrete, but one car glancing against the other, with thankfully no one hurt, though one adult is shouting and a baby is wailing.

illuminating
The sun presses like a warm hand on my arm and head. When the pressure gets to be too much, I find refuge in the scented shade of the garden. Later, we slip into the museum, which is laid out brilliantly, especially its archaeology wing. From room to room, with detours into adjacent civilizations, it's easy to follow the historical timeline.

purity
Parts of the day are marked by clean air, and clean, sharp flavors and scents. In the morning, we're in a forest with evergreens, and the purity of the air is stunning. Later in the day, I drink a rich, foamy, tart, sweet juice of pomegranate and red apple. Towards evening, we stop in a shaded yard. The air is cool, and the flowers spray from the shrubbery as from a fountain.

share
Dinner is served on many small plates, which we pass from one person to another while helping ourselves to dollops. The conversation gushes along, and into it we pack many missed conversations from over the years. Afterwards, we walk along broad, well-lit, empty streets.

whisking
The ceiling fan in the bedroom whisks air over me cool as milk.

Week in Seven Words #504

This covers the week of 9/15/19 - 9/21/19.

bears
She likes being read to while she's being fed. And she likes repeated readings. This time, it's the Berenstain Bears and a dinosaur bone that goes missing from a museum. After the nth such reading, I sit across from her and her dad with a book about a different bear: Corduroy. She switches chairs and settles in for another story that bears repetition.

compliment
She tells me that her favorite teacher, a humanities teacher, resembles me, which is why it's her favorite class.

delights
She repeats the name of her car's model, in bursts of delight.

fisherman
His interest in wrestling has diminished. Now he's into fishing and fishing videos.

peripherality
Not for the first time, I wonder if I were to get up, push my chair back in, and leave, would anyone present care.

perspective
It amuses me when a teenager tries to be shocking. Kid, you don't know how young you look to me.

sonorous
His voice is wrenching. At midnight, the lights flicker out, as if in response to the feelings he has evoked.

Week in Seven Words #480

betrayal
More schools handing out high grades based on low standards. They lull students into a complacency that's shattered by failed statewide exams.

dirt
The fierce wind blows dirt into our eyes. The dirt is loose because nothing has been planted yet. Only a few stringy weeds have claimed the soil.

do-si-do
We're stumbling through the steps for completing the square, as if we're in a clumsy mathematical square dance with no feel for the music. Just going through the motions.

duck
A duck puffing and rustling with deep blue in its wings, looking like an agitated decorative pillow.

glares
She urges me to admire the chandelier, to contemplate its intricate beauty, but it's blazing, and my eyes hurt.

together
People gather in the park to fish, share a blanket, feel fresh air, catch at a friendship that's slipping away.

turtle
A turtle on a rock, its head tilted up as if it's scenting the weather.

Week in Seven Words #463

aquatics
They've booked a room next to an indoor swimming pool. During each pause in the lecture, we hear splashing and giggles.

bizarro
He murders time with an online game in which something that looks like a decapitated bunny head rolls around in tunnels.

congeniality
Mandarin cinnamon tea, a small high table, a conversation that flows for an hour.

learning
It hits me again how much isn't taught at school. Even basic academic knowledge. So much gets picked up at home or in other places, like an after school activity or visits to a library, a museum, or a park.

receiving
I try without success to show a gratifying level of excitement about a gift I have no use for. I wish I could have prepared for the moment somehow.

sparkle
We walk through cold streets where glowing, cheerful lights are strung. I carry a sparkling blue bag full of chocolates.

stash
The dog tries to investigate the inside of my mouth. A couple of hours earlier I ate beef, and she's wondering if there's more to my mouth than the scent. Maybe I'm holding back on her, hoarding meat in my cheek pouches.

Week in Seven Words #456

culinary
The kitchen is dingy, and the cook keeps her phone and keys on the counter among spatters of sauce and grease. But the soup is pretty good, and so is the chicken sandwich.

hardware
Framed by the window, the cluster of buildings and lights resembles a computer motherboard.

lockup
As with other high schools, the architecture for this one evokes a prison. It's a slab of gray with the windows barred.

processed
He doesn't read the book, just looks for answers on Quizlet, which his indifferent teacher will accept with an automatic checkmark.

rove
His mind is roaming an elsewhere. He's shifting in his seat, and soon he'll hurry out the door to walk off his restlessness.

sluggish
Buses slide out like tired slugs from the tunnel.

truth
"The truth will set you free" is how the expression goes, but this freedom, whatever it happens to be, generally isn't quick or guaranteed. What the truth does is show you some of the ways in which you're chained. From there, you need to figure out how to unchain yourself, if you even want to, and if you even can.

Week in Seven Words #454

autumn
I love the green and gold of early autumn, the faint chill, the lingering summer.

benevolence
It's beautiful to give and receive uncomplicated goodwill.

inclined
Sometimes, I'll try to talk myself out of trying something new. Most of the time, setting aside my misgivings works out better than expected.

perambulate
A buoyant nighttime walk, among people out with their dogs.

planners
Browsing through planners and journals is pleasurable. I may not buy any of them, but it's fun to look at the elegant pages ready for notes, meetings, and goals.

supplies
They talk about their love of school supplies - fresh boxes of pens and pencils, pristine index cards, glue that will make its way to colorful posters.

Torah
I dance three times with the Torah. Even when I have it in an awkward hold and my arms ache, I love holding it. I want to keep that memory vivid, the sensation of the scrolls in my arms, the weight taken willingly and happily, and the unselfconscious celebration, surrounded as I was by women old and young, some full of energy, others going through a hard time in life, all of them present, singing, dancing, clapping, or looking on, a part of it all.

Week in Seven Words #424

clunking
The rhythm of our conversations is two people kicking a ball around aimlessly.

encompassing
Her shawl has rippling shades of blue, light and dark, as if a small ocean has settled around her shoulders.

purposeless
He stares in bemusement at his useless homework that his inebriated teacher won't bother to read.

replications
Along one avenue, each block seems to be copy and pasted, one to another. A succession of groceries, nail salons, pizzerias, and chain restaurants on repeat. (But there are some variations. A community bank, now and then. And sometimes the grocery store specializes in a certain cuisine.) Along another avenue, this one primarily residential, homes with their own small lawns give way to chains of homes with a flight of front steps and no lawn, followed by a block of project houses, then back to the homes with the front steps.

shedding
The park is all bare trees pawing at the sky, and leaves that have settled in rustling folds on the grass.

single-minded
The dog pants ferociously during the game of fetch. She darts, gasping and growling, down the hallway as if the tennis ball is an escaped criminal she alone can bring to justice.

sorcerous
Three cats emerge from a salt marsh. First a pair, then a lone one with a black mustache and thick white fur. None of them have collars.

Week in Seven Words #417

interjections
His comments continue to twang like out-of-tune piano keys.

orders
She comes across a stranger's dog tied to a bike rack by the convenience store, and she instructs it to sit. When it merely stares at her, she raises her voice, to no effect. This is how the owner finds her, chiding his dog for disobedience.

results
His teacher copies materials from Quizlet and a couple of other online sources for the class assignments. His students know where to look and what answers to supply. What he's taught them isn't history or English literature, but the basics of Googling.

revisit
Whenever we meet, we rehash the same two or three topics. There's a comfort in that, the way playing a familiar song might put you at ease for a short while.

stifling
Shrugging apathy away like a rank old sweater that's been clinging to my shoulders.

superficiality
It's unclear if her concern is genuine. Her face can flicker with lively expressions and just as soon go blank.

tentacular
The chandelier in the lobby looks like a gleaming, elegant squid monster, a high-end Cthulhu presiding over the obsequious concierge staff.

Week in Seven Words #365

courtly
He tips his hat and wishes me a good afternoon. It's sunny out, and he's serene. It really is a good afternoon.

dab
Fingerprints of sunlight on faded brick and joyful murals.

felinity
In the gap between brownstones, there's a fenced off dirt plot, studded with rocks. Two cats inhabit it. One sprawls on a bed of sunlight. The other watches me with menacing alertness.

horseplay
Kids seize each other in headlocks outside the department store in front of the mannequins and pink placards, as they wait for their mom to finish shopping.

neighborly
In their community, neighbors, friends, and coworkers will show up with trays of food in the days after childbirth.

neonate
She sleeps in a warm crescent against my stomach.

slumberous
With classes cancelled for the day, the campus is silent. A building with a crenellated tower casts a shadow over the grounds.

Paper Tigers (2015): How Did One School Change Its Approach to Delinquent Student Behavior?

Paper Tigers is a documentary set in a school known for high rates of delinquent student behavior and academic failure. It explores the background of some of the students and shows the changes undertaken by the school to help students deal with various problems, graduate, and even go to college.

Many of the students come from homes that are broken in some way. One of the critical parts of Paper Tigers is a discussion of ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) and research showing how a greater number of ACEs in childhood leads to an increased risk of all kinds of problems throughout life - such as abusive relationships, poor health, struggles with work and finances, and mental illness.

ACEs include emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse, and households with domestic violence, substance abuse, mental illness, or family members in prison. However, when children and teens have a healthy relationship with an adult, it serves as a protective factor that can help mitigate the effects of ACEs.

In the past, the school's approach to misbehaving students was purely punitive. The documentary shows how teachers began to also offer mentoring and guidance, not only punishments. The school also set up an on-site clinic that provided some basic health services and counseling. By the time the documentary wrapped up, there was a significant drop in the kinds of behaviors that lead to detention, suspension, or expulsion, and there were higher rates of graduation.

I like how the documentary shows the communal effort it took to make this new approach successful. Of course it depended on each teacher working with dedication and spending time with students who aren't used to positive attention from an adult. But the teachers were also able to give each other support. The school administration was fully committed to them and to the students. And the community at large supported the school. As inspiring as it is to read stories about a lone teacher bucking the system to reach out to students, a school-wide change works so much better when everyone is working together. It's more effective, and there's less burnout.

The documentary is also important for opening up a discussion about traumatic childhood experiences. These aren't one-time events - they're ongoing toxic problems that chip away at mental and physical health and stunt development. I also wondered about the teens who don't act out, but who keep things bottled up. The documentary doesn't really focus on the kids who struggle but don't express it through crime, violent outbursts, and other misbehavior. It was impressive, however, just to watch teachers who genuinely care about their students' academic performance, well-being, and life prospects.

Week in Seven Words #356

carping
Today, I'm an eyebrow that isn't properly tweezed. Tomorrow, I'll be a forehead pimple. By which blemish will I be assessed the day after?

drift
They express their political stance by posting a meme or buying a product featured in a feel-good commercial from a large corporation.

flatulence
He has made the mistake of giving broccoli to the dog.

pedagogy
They're stuck with an indifferent teacher who asks nothing and accepts almost anything. In response, they ask their teacher almost nothing and ignore almost everything.

poise
When only the orchestra is playing, the violinist stands calmly, surrounded by the storm of music.

punctual
I tell her that I need to talk to her mom for a couple of minutes, then I'll be ready to play. At the two-minute mark, she pops up from behind a cabinet, startling me and reminding me of my promise.

tickle
The wind feels like dozens of gentle pats to the face.

Week in Seven Words #309

battleship
They're all in flames except for the destroyers. He hunts for mine, and I for his, across the war-torn grids.

exactitude
He's assigned an essay on the Battle of Gettysburg, and chooses to write it the length of the Gettysburg Address, 272 words. It reads naturally, without too many adjectives thrown in for padding.

insinuated
The cold rain has crawled into my socks.

nonconfrontational
We play to 100 points. As soon as we're both close, he lies on the floor, hands flailing, so that if I win, he can say that he let me.

prickles
The harpsichord music is fury and frayed nerves. Forked lightning kept in a crystal vial.

rote
For the sake of inefficiency, they invite us to an in-person orientation. We spend fifteen minutes signing in, finding our seats, and picking up a thin packet of information we could have received via email. Following a ten-minute PowerPoint presentation chock-full of information already contained in the packets, the Q&A session begins. Crickets chirp. We leave.

tenderness
Cuddling on the couch, because it can't already be time to say good night.

Week in Seven Words #307

deportment
As children they're learning the art of wearing different masks: the politely engaged one with their teachers, the unruffled, easygoing, coolly knowing one for their classmates.

photoshopped
He appears with a handlebar mustache on a Time Magazine cover. "Impressed?" he asks.

proportional
He compares my defense skills to a professional player's, in a game of basketball involving a small plastic hoop lodged above a closet door.

raspy
At the end of the week, a cold grips my throat and wrestles me down.

sweepings
The words don't hurt so much as stick to me like random rubbish, a scrap of paper I've stepped on when it's raining out.

sweetly
She likes to make each occasion more special with a handmade card. The thought and care she puts into her work creates closeness.

triggering
One of those awkward conversations where you feel as if you're surrounded by tripwires. Even a safe topic, taken slightly off course, is liable to lead to an explosion.

Week in Seven Words #278

aseptically
First impression of the school corridors: bulletin boards, artwork, and the reek of disinfectants.

deliberate
I pace in the rectangle of light from the doorway.

duration
"I'll stick around for an hour" becomes "I'll stay all night."

ill-considered
They tried to console him in his grief by telling him that other people have suffered too. But when does that approach work? Did they think other people's pain would ease his own, or that it would be a good idea to somehow shame him out of his sorrow?

ken
A powerful mental rush where I feel focused and thirsty for knowledge.

self-consciousness
The kids have been coached to repeat lines, hop on cue and wiggle around dancing when the teacher tells them to. They're old enough to start feeling embarrassed by the silliness, especially because it's orchestrated by adults and not spontaneous.

subtext
She says, "I'm worried." What she doesn't say is, "I need to control you." But those other words are there, whether she realizes it or not. I'm not going to pretend they aren't.

Short Story Recs: Back to School Edition

Title: After Rosa Parks
Author: Janet Desaulniers
Where I Read It: Breaking Into Print
Since her divorce, Ellie has become more cautious about making mistakes. Throughout the story, there's the feel of her treading carefully around places where land mines are buried (but can her anxiousness and caution help her sidestep them?). Her young son, Cody, has just started school and tries avoiding it, with its strange rules and people; he gets sent home ill. Her brother, Frank, a veteran who has traveled aimlessly, has come to stay with her; perhaps he'll be a father figure to her son.

There's little sense of permanence or promise in this story. Frank could disappear at any time. Cody perhaps intuits that school is the start of an initiation into a life full of small aggressions and other senseless acts that chip away at you, making you a small burrowing creature who can only face the scary world with your nose to the ground and your eyes downcast. To what extent does laying low and doing what you're supposed to do help you live?

Title: The Composition
Author: Antonio Skármeta
Translators: Donald L. Schmidt and Federico Cordovez
Where I Read It: A Walk in My World
Pedro, a soccer-obsessed boy growing up in Pinochet's Chile, is vaguely aware that his parents are anti-fascist, but when he asks what an anti-fascist is, his mom tells him he's just a child, and children aren't anti-anything.

"Children are simply children. Children your age have to go to school, study a lot, play hard, and be kind to their parents."

His life is a fairly happy child's life, except for jolting events, like when his friend Daniel's father gets taken away by the police. Then one day at school, he can't avoid politics any more. An army officer shows up and tells the kids to write an entry for an essay contest. He asks them to describe exactly what their parents do and talk about in the evenings. Will Pedro mention that his parents secretly listen to the radio? Will he write about their conversations? Continuing to be an innocent child will require some political savvy.

Week in Seven Words #252

empty
I work with words, I depend on them, but I can't find the right ones sometimes, not when I need them badly.

glossing
They're good at pretending. They'll bump her along from one grade to the next, while ignoring her anxiety, her disintegrating home, the bullies that wait for her in school corridors. Just as long as she passes, she's ok.

ramus
The tree has gone wild, stabbing its branches into the shingles as if it wants to pry the roof off the house.

replaying
Many parents forget what it was like to be a child. Without knowing it, they use parenthood as a way of re-enacting their own childhood. They might look to their children for what their parents never gave them. They might imitate their own parents and relish the power they finally have.

sweetening
She'll try to buy her way into their affection, or at least their sense of obligation.

tenterhooks
Two parents, a bassinet between them, stare at the doctor. They want more than his words. They want to read what his face gives away.

unravel
A game of Clue that starts with poker-faced "mmm-hmms" and ends with shrieking.

Week in Seven Words #246

brevity
Head fogged with a light fever, I open the door and hope that, for once, she'll say nothing and leave quickly.

etiolated
His parting emails, echoing an earlier confusion about what he wants and how he means to act in a relationship.

gritty
Pencil shavings in a pink pencil case.

laugh track
They watch the episode again, this time to revisit all the parts they found funny the first time around and see if I'll laugh too.

neural
The fourth and fifth fingers burn with a muffled electricity, as if they're stuffed with poorly insulated wires.

precocity
The persona she adopts to protect herself is the bright girl who doesn't have patience for adult silliness. She knows everything and let's every taunt roll off her. That's what she wants you to believe, so that you don't look more closely at her.

spacey
She writes a sentence, stops, stares at the book spines, forgets how she meant to continue. She crosses out the sentence, begins again, stops, stares at the far wall, the pencil tip wobbling on the lined paper.

Week in Seven Words #210 & 211

210

absorbed
He drinks in picture books.

busywork
I doubt the teacher will care what she writes. The requirements are a neatly typed page. The contents, which amount to some painful regurgitations about the leather-making process, will pass muster.

charred
The lake water exists in different states. The ice is puckered; at the edges it's darkened, as if crisped. The remains of a tree rear up from the ashy ice and slush.

formed
Childhood has become remote to him. It's a phase portrayed in books. He was always an adult.

froze
A landscape of rocks, ice and petrified trees.

kinetics
I'd like to stretch my legs and stride.

uplift
Beneath a sheet of ice, the water sings.


211

deflection
He won't examine the things he fears. He pretends he has no fears and is contemptuous when other people are afraid.

graded
Does she feel like a Mr. Goodbar among the Godiva truffles?

herbaceous
When using henna, I feel like there's a greenhouse on my head. An earthy odor, moisture, bits of herbs clinging to my scalp.

intuitive
When they were younger, they liked what they liked without looking to other people to see what they should like.

primary
In Act I, the stage is draped in a decadent red. Act II is full of gold and champagne. That lasts until the third act with its blue and gray bars of shadow.

rebounding
It's a brilliant cold night, and the lights are bouncing off the black reflection pool.

respite
I watch her enjoying the music and think that this is what she could be, more often: contented, engaged, and full of delight.