My dad died a year ago, June 6th 2013.

In many ways, his death was a great accomplishment. While dad's life had been filled with unwise decisions, bad luck, even worse health, many missed opportunities and lots of regrets, his death, when it finally came, was a time when I truly saw my father in the best light. His sense of humor and dignity were present at the end until he quietly slipped away from us that morning, surrounded by the smell of coffee and blue, early morning light. For all of our fears about what the end would be like for him, he left at a beautiful and totally mundane moment. I really think he would be proud of that.

I dreamt of him last night, one of those fleeting, fuzzy, inconsequential dreams. An amorphous shape in a bland conversation. It was an hour or so after waking before I realized that shape was my dad. This dream felt like a copy of a copy, a poor imitation or faded reminder that yes, today is a day that I will think of my father. This day has meaning.

It was different from the dream I had last September, three months after dad had been gone. Instead of a fuzzy photograph, that dream-dad was in full surround-sound and HD (just the way he'd like it), and the power of it has stuck with me since. In the dream we were surrounded by many people and noise, a party of some kind. His face, much younger than I knew him except in photographs, was clear and mischievous, full of excitement as he was on the verge of some great adventure. He was being pulled away by unseen opportunists, but kept escaping to come back, look at me and say, through a huge smile and goofy giggles, "I have to go!, I have to go!".  

I knew I wouldn't see him again. There would be no lingering for my dad; he has mysteries of the universe to solve and much to see and do with his new found freedom.

On July 17th, 2013 I got a phone call from my dad. Over a month after his death, and two weeks after his memorial service, my mom had left a voice message, not hanging up all the way. I heard her fumbling with the phone for a bit and  I don't know what made me listen to the long moments of silence at the end of the call. But there, right before the end, in a clear, sing-song, totally silly yet unmistakable voice was my dad saying my name. "Eeeellliiiiii" Yes it was in the drawn out and dreamy tone of those creepy, ghost-children from the horror films, but that was my dad! He always said my name like that, because well, we loved those creepy, ghost-children from horror films! 

What makes that last message, so carefully saved in voicemail, even more amazing is that just a few weeks before, I needed to replace my old cell phone, not fully realizing that by doing so, I'd be losing all the voicemails that I had saved from my dad: the birthday songs, the silly jokes he would leave, the "Elrod's" and "This is your father"s. His voice was gone forever and I had been devastated - until July 17th, when he left me his last voice recording on my new phone. (Thanks, Dad!)

Looking back on the year without my dad, and the pain of the first few months without him, I realize how naive I was then. I thought that after his death, and the memorial, the pain would subside. When he died, I mourned the loss of the physical him, the "him" that was no more. At the memorial, looking at the old pictures and talking with people who knew him, I mourned the collective nostalgia of "him". But those pictures and stories were already in the past, freeze-dried, stuck in time.

The real pain begins when you begin to create new memories without that person in your life. The present moments without My Dad "him" are the hardest. 

• A birthday without his phone call and his signature missing from the birthday card.
  
• The "Walking with Dinosaurs" event I can't invite him to. 
  
• The new Godzilla movie. Another one!
  
• And oh, how we need to discuss the new Star Wars fiming!
  
• By the way, I got tenure, too, Dad. One of us got to be a professor - cool, huh?

I often wonder where my dad's  soul has gone and what he is up to. I imagine him with an Indiana Jones type hat, exploring every nook and cranny of the universe, discovering the meaning to many great things, and never looking back. I know he is doing it very, very well. And I'm really proud of him.

                                              (By the way, Dad, Godzilla was B-Movie fabulous!)

In a moment of boredom, homesickness, frustration and exhaustion, I googled "I want to quit teaching". The phrase isn't important. I probably google at least 20 big and small ideas a day for no better reason that to see what comes up. What is really interesting is how many other people had googled the same phrase.

Who are these people? High School teachers? College instructors? Are they in North America? Are they potential or new teachers or those ready to retire? Are they the disillusioned, the tired, the burnt out? And really, why had I typed it?

It leads me to question what is wrong with the job because clearly, something is. I don't buy the line that teachers are spoiled and if they only worked a week in corporate, they would realize how easy they had it. That's BS. I've worked corporate, and even when we were working 24 hour shifts, there was always a day off in sight and usually a cash bonus as well.

I remember business lunches, happy hours and real, REAL, 3-day weekends, bbqs with friends, naps, reading novels, getaways, and having energy left on Sunday afternoon for some last minute merry-making before the work week. I remember having energy to have passions -- and hobbies. I remember leaving my work at my desk and walking away, every day, to go home, to a real life.

The myth with teaching is that your job is the real life, that you are supposed to be energetic and passionate about lesson planning, pedagogy, lines of student conferences and stacks of in-class essays. There is no life outside of "work" because you love what you do and do what you love.

And yet we burn out, marriages fail, we lose our lives completely until there is nothing left but the wold of the teaching institution. If we are lucky, we make it to retirement, a dry, shriveled husk, sapped of our inspirations. We then work part time (for lack of anything else to do -- after all teaching is all we know) until we die in our beds surrounded by ungraded blue books. 

And of course by "we", I mean English instructors.

Don't get me wrong. I have days where a kind word from a previous student makes my day. Or when I see the light bulb go off in a student's eyes and I know they "get it" - they see the connection and their own potential. Those are good days. But I'm not sure they are enough to sustain a lifetime of living only two months out of the year. I'm not satisfied with those little dried tubors of existence. 

For some instructors it is blasphemous to say that teaching is just a job. 

But it is my job. It is not my life. 

Why did we take pictures in front of cars?
The old Chevy sedan,
1957 pick-up truck.
Dates to the drive-in and malt shop,
Blue Jeans, and full skirts 
Ready to be twirled at the next dance.
Lives were simple, black and white.
A future of Kodachrome and Techno-vision,
Yet to be lived.
We sped along this road,
In these cars,
To unforeseen destinations.

Elli. Elli Kay. Inspired by Elli Mae. Not short for Elizabeth, Eleanor  or Eliza. Just Elli.

I'm always the Enthusiastic Elephant in that first-letter game, and no one at the doctor's office gets my name right: they pronounce it "Eli". Don't even ask how they spell it.

My sister called me Smelly. It was after a night of eating sardines when I was 6.  I'd been introduced to those canned fishes by a kindergarten teacher and much to my sister's disgust, I thought those perfectly preserved treats were quite good (especially since most others found them incredibly gross). On this particular night, as my sister babysat me, she refused to give me a bath. I sat in the bathtub, the water growing cold, alone. Apparently I smelled of a hundred of those little fishes.

This smelly idea stuck even as the name changed: I soon became known as Smell-Rod (a deviation from my other nick name of Elrod). It's still a favorite of mine, probably due to the ease in which it rolls off the tongue and lips. It's a strong, slithery name which feels powerful and silly all at the same time.

"Rotten" also became my name, a deviation from Smell-rod, but one lingers to this day. Perhaps I like it most because it's the opposite of "sweet" - everything my mom had wanted me to be. When I had told her  I wanted to grow up to become a belly dancer, she assumed I meant ballet dancer. But I adamantly refused to wear pink. In fact, even then, black was my dress-up color of choice. It was also my favorite color crayon as well. There was something soft and velvety and smooth about that crayon which glided across the coloring book pages in a way the other crayons didn't. I took to coloring in all my color-book characters in supposed night scenes, just so I could use that black crayon. My mother must have been just a bit concerned about those blackened pages of Snow White and Cinderella.

In many cultures "sun ray" or "shining light" is the meaning given to the name Elli, but just as many also define the name in almost opposing terms: "other" or "foreigner". In a way, this dichotomy fits. I'm part Enthusiastic, and part Rotten. A shining light in the land of the other. Or vice versa. 

Or, just Elli.

I've been thinking - a lot.

As my father's life is nearing it's end, I find myself outside, observing the ways in which we deal with aging and death. For most of western culture (or at least in my minimal experience), death is full of isolation, confusion, regret, impotence, and long looks in the mirror. We slowly exclude the old and frail from society and community. We hide the dying and dead, not only physically (in rest homes and beautified ceremonies), but also in thoughts and words, and in our belief in some kind of afterlife. There is no death, only a "transformation" and a "life beyond". 

I don't deny that these strategies provide comfort when we need it most. And yet, they also keep us a safe distance from fully appreciating our own mortality. As we deny a final death in others, we try to look for evidence of  our own permanence, an attempt to disguise the underlying fear of our own lives coming to an end.

Now, I've always been a bit of a morbid kid. Well maybe not morbid, but....existential. I thought about life, and death, a lot. The meaning of life has been a continuous theme since I can remember, and one that had a huge impact on a 9-year old tree-climbing tom-boy. It was easy then. I had a direct, child-like, clear vision of my soul (for lack of a better word) and purpose in life, and while the borders of that vision ebbed and flowed slightly with youthful experience and curiosity, the outlines stayed mostly true to their original form. It's easy to live a life without regrets when you are confident in your own vision (and a young adult's naive view of immortality!).

I have to admit that for much of my life, I've been proud that through constant reflection and not-so-constant meditation, I retained that direct pathway and clear vision to this "soul". I felt untainted by outside expectations, and being a rebel at heart, it was easy to shrug off naysayers. And yet, within the past 10-15 years, the vision has muddied, self-doubt has crept in more often than I like to admit, and I find myself working to please others more than giving in to self-centered whims. I've sold out.

Now I've realized where the recent creeping anxiety and guilt stem from - I've been lying, lying to my deepest, darkest parts, the parts that keep whispering "Remember me? Remember me? Come back home....".

Yet some of the parts that make me ME are still intact.  I know them to be 100% true. I will never eat meat again. There is no doubt, guilt, or shame or expectation in that, just as there would be none if I told you I would never eat Comet. It is simply a clear truth.

How amazing it would be to feel this confident in all other aspects of my truest self! Is that even possible to live a life free from doubt? Is it possible that every action you take could be an expression of exactly what you feel and know to be true to you? And if not, what would be the downfall if you tried?

So as of today, I'm starting an experiment. I'm going to make a conscious decision to throw off the existential guilt of the past decade, clean the windows to my soul, and reconnect to what I know to be true. I have no illusions that this will be easy, or even possible. It's scary to think that once I remember my truth, there may be many areas of my life that are incongruent - will I have the courage to reexamine and realign those areas and make changes? We'll see.

Perhaps it will be worth it when, at the end of my life, I can say that I had the courage to live a life true to myself, to have few regrets, and leave this world with a sense of fulfillment and awe.

I’ve always had an environmental bent: my best emotions and all my spiritual inclinations have occurred in the great outdoors. Perhaps Howard Gardner would consider me a good candidate for one of the newer multiple intelligences: Naturalistic.  It also explains why all my career surveys suggested I be a forest ranger (the closest I came was being a Knott’s Berry Farm Ride Operator in Kamp Snoopy – remember the outfit?)

I grew up in a small town in Arizona with lots of space, lots of fruit and nut trees , and lots of animals. My cousins and I never came home for lunch; we just grazed on the pomegranate, pecan, mulberry, and date trees up and down the street. I envied the spirituality of the large community of Native Americans in our town, so at age 7 I took a vow to become “blood sisters” with the tree in my front yard. When perched high amongst its branches, I imagined I was invisible from the outside world.

Cycling and hiking later became my hobbies, and meditative walks and sweat lodges substituted for my religion. I married my husband under an oak and we had our first dance under the stars.

Almost five years ago, I lost a dear familiar – a cat named Scooter. He had been with me through a transcendent period in my life and we had one of those special connections that “animal people” talk about. But at the age of only 10, he developed a form of feline lymphoma and despite what seemed to be positive results from kitty chemo, his heart wasn’t strong enough.  Three months after my father’s debilitating stroke, and one month before my wedding day, Scooter passed.

At the time, I was teaching a summer college course at night and under quite a bit of stress. During one class in particular, being stoic wasn’t in the cards and a sweet student brought a small, white and violet orchid to class, which became part of our “Scooter Memorial” at home. I made a vow that I would nurture that orchid so that it would never die and always be there to remind us of our furry buddy. Sounds dramatic? I know. It’s a cat. But remember, that’s how I’m wired.

Flash forward 6 months. A cancer diagnosis. Surgery. As I suppose most people do when hearing their doctor say the “C” word, I looked for signs of hope. I found it in the Scooter Orchid. It seemed to me at the time, that Scooter had taught me something about cancer, but so had my vow to keep that orchid alive in his name. Exactly on cue, and after 6 months of dormancy, that little white orchid bloomed again, just in time for my birthday, and The Surgery 5 day later.

 I was lucky. I healed and life went on. The orchid bloomed about once a year or twice a year and we still remembered Scooter.  We have a new, young, black cat and a new dog that Scooter never met. We live in a different house (Scooter would have loved all the windows!).

The last 8 months have been busy. I have new work responsibilities and am involved with many projects and it’s been difficult balancing all the segments of my life. Various orchids have shown up as gifts or “rescues” and at one point I had over 25. I’ve paired down, but I still have several. And like many parts of my life (mostly the environmentally bent ones) some of them withered. Some didn’t make it. Others have various ailments. The Scooter Orchid, after years of special treatment, is also succumbing to some dastardly vermin.

I’ve looked at it with guilt and shame and a knot in my stomach. I haven’t protected it well, like I promised I would: I want to, but I don’t know how. The process feels almost too familiar. Sadly, the vow I made to this orchid feels like a burden, which of course makes me feel guiltier. I’ve considered giving up, discarding it, and focusing on the healthy orchids, but oh, what betrayal!

Another part of me is considering that life is about flexibility, change, inevitability. Maybe this is the lesson that nature teaches us: everything is impermanent and fleeting, and that is not a negative, but a reason for gratitude. It is the process by which we learn life’s true value.

I hope that I can save the Scooter Orchid. But mostly, I am so thankful for the insights it’s given me.

Today, I read an article from Harvard Business Review about three small ways to quiet the mind for more productive work. Makes sense. I've been playing with this idea for awhile, but it hadn't really stuck. When I get focused on work/projects, I keep working - forget breaks, meals, even potty breaks. After I wake from an 8 hour time suck, I realize that I've completely neglected all physical (and apparently, mental,) needs.

As part of my rebellion against "the tribe" (even if the tribe is me), I'm keeping this article close by and just downloaded a small free app called Be Healthy which I've set preferences for short breaks (every 20 minutes, I get a 1 minute break) and long breaks (5 minutes after 90 minutes of "work"). The breaks interrupted my screen to say "Hey you! Get the blood moving - now!" -- in a Brooklyn accent of course. Well, not really, but I'm sticking to my imagination on this one. 

I've tried some of these apps before, and they work great. I've used ones that play birds chirping, or show a meditative quote, but they weren't free and I never purchased them after the free trial was up. Be Healthy isn't sexy, but it's free and it works and I'm committing to use these breaks as a reminder to watch my posture, get up and move, or to just zone out, breathe, and look out the window for a few minutes. 

In other news, my sleep headphones arrived yesterday! 

I love falling asleep listening to meditative music, but despite using different sizes and brands of earbuds, my ears always hurt and it's impossible to sleep on my side. Whaa! These sleep headphones should solve everything! Can't wait to plug them in and give them a try.

I'll check back in a week and let you know how each of these are working. I'm feeling more productive already!

I had a conversation with a friend the other day about the four stages of conscious growth. I'm not sure where these stages come from (psychology? mysticism? religion?), but we enjoyed talking about them. The four stage are: 

1. Revolution
Of course, I love this word. I find myself rebelling against something constantly, but revolution is a different thing all together. Revolution is a serious rebellion against the "tribe". It's the decision for a planned overthrow, not just wishful thinking.

2. Involution
This is the stage where one journeys inward in order to gain strength and momentum. It's the planning, the building up - it's where you screw your courage to the sticking post.

3. Narcissism
Probably not what you think. This is the hard work of self improvement where you actually make the changes you want to see. This is working out 5 days a week, eating the egg flower soup instead of the egg roll, making your own coffee instead of stopping at Starbucks. We focus on ourselves -- because we have to if we want to make change.

4. Evolution
The change manifest. You've made it. You no longer walk on 4 legs or have a uni-brow. You have evolved.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be many different things: an astronaut, a paleontologist, a belly dancer. I also wanted to be a nun.

Now, I had no idea what a nun was - I was not Catholic and in fact, had never seen a nun. Well, I did see the Flying Nun on tv, and she was pretty cool, but that wasn't the type of nun I was thinking about. The type of nun in my 7 year old imagination was more like a cross between the image of the tarot figure The Hermit (which I'd seen on my sister's Led Zepplin album cover) and something out of the movie The Sound of Music. 

There were three lifestyle characteristics that I thought a nun would have:

1. Quiet, meditative solitude. Then, it meant I had more time interacting with my imaginary friends: Casper the Friendly Ghost and Buck Rogers (both were conveniently pocket-sized so I could carry them with me). 

2. Communion with nature. I grew up in a pretty rural area, rich in Native American lore, and my spiritual leanings always had something to do with this bucolic setting. I talked to trees and plants, became "blood brothers" with them, and of course, thought my animal friends bestowed on me a special power. It was all a bit pagan before I knew what pagan was. But that's a different story....

3. Long black dresses. I loved black. Or more specifically, crayon black. It just colored - better. However, I remember getting in trouble one day when, in one of my coloring books, I colored the sky black. (Apparently the scenes in coloring books only happen in the daylight. Regardless, black was fabulous and I loved dressing up in it. My mom would take me to second hand stores and back in those days, there were some great finds. Black shoes, black hats, black gloves and purses: I begged my mom for them. I loved the weight and swishing sound of those old heavy clothes and wearing black made me feel like I had on some kind of protective cape of power. Today, those dress up clothes actually fit me, and I can't escape the idea that I've finally grown into the person, at least physically, that I hoped I would when I was a girl. In any event, I imagined the garb of a traditional nun would feel equally powerful and significant. 

Eventually, as I got older, I realized that most nuns had "modernized" - they no longer lived in forested nunneries secluded from the real world (the first time I saw a nun in the grocery store was the abrupt end to the last bit of my fantasy). Anyway, my own tendency to buck authority, would have made me a really bad nun.

Yet, I realized today, that my childhood version of this ideal, yet unrealistic, state is still very real to me. I still crave meditation, solitude, and nature. Every year when I take my MIS (multiple intelligence survey) with my students, I score high as a "Naturalist". This does explain my years as a 6th grade camp counselor, the Kamp Snoopy employment at Knott's Berry Farm, and the brief consideration to become a Forest Ranger in college...

Perhaps we are born with our purpose already encoded  in our bodies and imaginations, and our journey in life is only a round-about distraction until we decide to finally go back home. Or in my case, a return to the nunnery.