My Hero

There are a small handful of living people I would like to meet: Alice Walker, Arundhati Roy, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Timothy O'Brien. Friday night I had the amazing opportunity to meet Timothy O'Brien, author of one of my favorite books of all time: The Things They Carried, a book about the Vietnam War that I blogged about here. Incline Village read this book for their community read and invited O'Brien to speak at Sierra Nevada College for an evening.

Jason and I, giddy with excitement, arrived hours early. As soon as we arrived, we saw O'Brien from a distance in his trademark outfit of jeans, blazer and baseball cap. We were lucky enough to have him sign a copy of Going After Cacciato before the talk, which meant we got to have a short conversation with him about teaching his books.

The best part of the evening, however, was listening to O'Brien talk about his experiences. As I sit here and type this, I struggle because what I really want is to transport everyone I know back to that evening to hear O'Brien speak. I have written countless paragraphs that I subsequently deleted because I am unable to capture the essence of that evening.

So instead of trying, I will leave you with a quote that has echoed through my weekend: "Bullets and bombs can kill enemies. Yes, that is true. But bullets and bombs can can also manufacture enemies."

War

How do you explain war to an inquisitive six-year-old?

At the dinner table tonight, my husband and I struggled to answer our daughter's questions regarding war. What is war? Why is our country at war? Of the two wars we have now, which is "the good war"?

It saddened me to be explaining to this sweet child that people kill one another over serious issues, but also sometimes over money and greed.

Over the last few years, I have experienced a lot of sadness and guilt: I can get up every morning knowing with some relative certainty that my children will return home alive at the end of the day, but many mothers in Iraq don't have that luxury. Isn't that something that all mothers deserve?

I watched my daughter with pride and a little twinge of grief as her face got quiet after every answer we offered. She lost a bit of her innocence, her belief that the world is a completely safe and loving place. She seemed to understand the complexity of the situation, the gray areas of something as complicated as war.

This is what it's like to watch a little girl grow up. It's not entirely bad.

And then tonight I found this image:. It brought me to tears.

My one hope is that her generation can find away around killing human beings as a solution to problems. It's a far-off, light-headed dream, I know. But I'm willing to wait and see.

What I'm Reading Right Now

I have a number of books going. (Normally, I'm a one-book-at-a-time person.)

I am reading two Tim O'Brien books for my classes - The Things They Carried and If I Die in a Combat Zone. I thoroughly enjoy both of these books, one a fictional account and one a memoir of the Vietnam War. I LOVE the Things They Carried. The first story in the book entitled "The Things They Carried" is about the things the soldiers carried - literally and figuratively. He writes about how they carried pictures of their girlfriends and the ghosts of their fallen comrades. He writes about how they carried weapons and their guilt over being afraid. The carried beer and shame. It's truly a wonderful piece of fiction that my AP students enjoy.

If I Die is a little more straight-forward, but still a very interesting account of the war. My English IV students are really interested in the Vietnam War. They have a lot of questions and know very little about the war. They want to know why we went to war and who we were fighting and why the soldiers weren't treated well when they returned. I think they see themselves a lot in this book because they know that many of their classmates will be joining the military within months, or sometimes days, of graduating. They are completely quiet when we talk about the war. It's heaven for an English IV teacher. :)

I am also just starting Three Cups of Tea, which is for my book club. Don't know too much at this time.

I have been slowly reading Thubten Chodron's Guided Meditations on the Stages of the Path, which accompanies her guided meditation CD. It's very instructive and includes a style of meditation I haven't yet played with. I am enjoying it.