Tribute

This is unimaginable to me, that as I write my mother is locking up her classroom and leaving for the last time. On the phone last night she said that she had been busy taking loads of all of the things she’s acquired over the years for teaching home so that this afternoon after the last bell rings she can walk away. Also unimaginable. My father called earlier this week to make sure I was aware, in my physical distance from their lives, that today was her last day, and — our lives spinning fast here, tonight’s recital the 8th performance with at least one of my children in four weeks — the reminder was not ill-conceived. But he asked if I knew what it meant. And I suggested that every book that goes in a box to come home, ever mathematics...

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Posted by Mara Collins on May 28, 2010 | Comments Off

Still Needing External Validation

Having turned off comments did (briefly) help with blogging, strangely. I think it had to do with having the sort of convoluted head that wants to manage other people’s impressions of me, that wants to give others what they want from me so much that I can start to lose myself around other people, and that it seems a little crazy, but it’s just one of those basic things about being me that I have to come to terms with — when comments are off, I am writing this for myself, but then I am free to share it, which — yeah crazy. And so also, I am careful with the stats that are available to me, that are mostly a generic where are the hits coming from, what are people looking for. And it’s this that kills me: at one point the unreliable...

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Posted by Mara Collins on May 28, 2010 | Comments Off