from the Mind of Lotta Torres

"I never said it would be easy. I only said it would be worth it." One of those ubiquitous sayings, the likes of which I can't like.

One young man stood up in church recently and credited Jesus with that very statement.

I squirmed, but I did not say, "Oh, really. Can you give me chapter and verse on that? Was that before or after he said 'Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light'? or 'And he that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me'? or any of a number of things actually attributed to Christ in the scriptures?"

No, I did not say it. But I thought someone should warn the young man--actually, he's a full-time missionary--that he needs to be aware that he may encounter some people who know Jesus did not say that thing. It's not part of his gospel, not doctrine. It's just one of this day's "feel good" bunches of words that probably came from some motivational speaker trying to sell his books and DVDs.

And so on and so forth.

This week's Weight Watcher's meeting brought the saying to me again. "You know what we always say," said our meeting leader, "I never said it would be easy. I only said it would be worth it." This time I didn't squirm, but I did sigh. More tolerable in such a setting, and at least she didn't attribute it to Jesus. I suppose I can apply the saying to "dieting" and say, "Well, okay."

But, truthfully, I still hate it in any setting. I find its succinct trivialization of everything in our lives intolerable. Yes, I do.

Chapter and verse for my citations: Matthew 11:29-30; 10:38.

Grossed Out

Occasionally, a person is tempted to say, Well, now I've seen everything. But, of course, you can't say it because it's just not true. There's no way to anticipate . . .

So I can't say it of this thing I'm about to put down here. But I can say that its blatant vulgarity and grossness stunned me for a moment--although I guess it shouldn't--and it most certainly creeped me out.

It's a commercial for New Bath or Rebath or Luxury Bath, or whatever company, and its format is a phone call between an old guy--mid to late 70s--and a woman of similar age.

He says, "How about I come over tonight (or some such thing) and we have a nice hot bath together?"

I'm thinking, it's a phone call, which has significance. It means they aren't married, for one thing, but obviously, they have a history. You didn't need me to spell that out for you probably.

The 70ish woman does not say, "You creep." Which I thought she might have and should have said because, look, I'm pushing 70, and there is nothing about this scruffy-looking dirty old guy that appeals to me in any way under the sun. He looks like a creep to me. And an old one.

But no. She says, "I'd love that." Which about floored me. Is she kidding? Has she seen this guy? Is all her taste in her mouth? And has she no sense of fundamental morality either? I know the answers.

She continues, "But I'm having such a hard time stepping over the . . . " whatever, getting in and out of the tub is what she means.

So then--I think this is what happens--someone else, a youngish woman, cuts in on the phone call (and what are the implications of that?) and tells this stupid old woman not to worry. Rebath can make her tub easily accessible and, I guess, they can do it in minutes.

So there's a click and the older woman says something of that sort to the creepy old guy, and he says, "Okay. I'll be right over and wash your back." Sickening grin to go with this utterance.

I don't know how to spell the word I'm thinking, but it's far beyond yuck.

Should I ask what this world is come to? Am I the only person who thinks this offensive and foul and, besides that, an ineffective ad? Do old people really want this kind of stuff? Should I go on?

No.

Another Life

It's a wonderful little family over there in that split-level house. Dad, Mom, and the three boys. Life is busy, bound to get busier, and so far so good. It's a day-to-day kind of life, moment to moment even, and I think that makes it hard to remember past life. But there was one.

So here's a small reminder of days gone by, from the Berkeley years, for my daughter.

Ann, the SAT Tutor, Speaks About Her Student

“Mom,” she said, “I think this student of mine might be a cow.”

I pictured a fat girl.

“I don’t mean he’s fat. I mean he responds to me the way I think a cow might.”

Oh, it’s a boy. I pictured a boy with a round face and big eyes. Who chews.

“No matter what I say to him, he just looks at me. Doesn’t say anything, just looks.”

“Does he chew?” I asked.

“Well, yes, he does.”

My daughter tutors high school seniors preparing to take the SAT. She drives to their homes, spends an hour and a half with each one, then goes home. She has several students, so she does this four or five days a week. After the first few sessions with a student, she usually likes the kid—boy or girl—and likes the teaching, too. But this one, the one she thinks might be a cow, she doesn’t know if she can like him.

“For instance,” she said. “The other day we were working on grammar. I asked him to look at his book and read the first two sentences aloud. He just looked at me. Didn’t move or turn his head for a long time. Finally, he did turn his head and he did look at the book but he didn’t read, and I had to say again ‘out loud, please.’ That’s like a cow, isn’t it? I mean if I said to a cow, ‘Go over there; go on,’ it might. But it might not.”

By now I was laughing hard. So was she, but she said, “You know, Mom, he frustrates me because it’s very hard to know if I’m getting anywhere. Besides, every week I have to ask him about his homework, and I do. But he just looks at me. So I'm worried that when he takes the exam and doesn’t do very well his parents will think they didn’t get their money’s worth.”

“Well," I said, "you may have to tell them."

"Yeah," she said. "It’s because their son is a cow.”

Another One of Those Nights

It's 3:50 a.m. and I have yet to sleep. I have these nights from time to time.
Prednisone to blame this time, I suppose, but only two more days of tapering down, then I'm off of that powerful drug. Perhaps then I'll get some sleep.

Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, Shakespeare's line having become my mantra these last several nights.

I have wondered if I ever really needed the drug, since we know that I did not have what the doctor thought I had when he prescribed it. And such a huge dose. The pharmacist said, and I am quoting, "Whoa, huge dose." Not exactly a comfort. But so be it. I have taken it, the first time in my life, having heard all my life of its benefits and more of its dangers.

I've done laundry, paid a bill, mixed up some yogurt, sung "Tuppence a Bag" a thousand times and added in a few hymns. I've gathered up the trash throughout the house and rolled the can out to the curb. I've gotten back in bed at least ten times, tried this posture and that, put on another blanket, covered the heat registers, given up and gotten up. I have read two articles in the Ensign, and several news pieces online. Now I'm just putting the night into these words of small consequence.

Yes, I have also tried just lying there in bed, willing sleep to come. Not my favorite kind of night.

My eyes feel sleepy, but apparently they are not in charge.

What Is It With Is Is?

Probably you've heard it, the double is. Maybe you use it. I hear it a lot and have a good friend who uses it consistently, in public speech and private conversation. So I became curious and some time ago began a brief, informal investigation into it.

If you look up is in the dictionary, after you get through its history and its forms in other languages, you will find that it is just what you think it is: the third person singular, present indicative of the verb BE.

I don't remember any questioning of the meaning of is by anyone before Bill Clinton's now famous hedging comment when he was sweating out the inquiries about Monica Lewinsky before a grand jury, "It depends on what the meaning of is is." (That, by the way, is one of three Clinton statements to make it into a new edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.)

I also don't remember if Clinton ever made clear the somewhat vague distinction implicit in his statement or in any way defined is. People don't usually define is. Really. But for the sake of this little investigation, I'll give it a try. "Is is usually preceded by a noun or by a third person pronoun (he, she, or it) and is like I am, only about somebody else." There. Not bad. I'll stick with it.

As an English teacher, I knew to encourage my students to use active verbs, more active than those BE verbs, to get movement and energy and immediacy into their writing. Of course, we can't avoid is, since it is a perfectly good and respectable word in our language and so useful, especially when referring to someone's or some one thing's state of existence. So, while I might suggest the use of other verbs, I never read through a student paper and circled all the ises, or is that is's? Is-es? Maybe is words.

But when I hear, "The thing is is . . . " I get a little weird. I want to shake the speaker--gently--and say, "Listen to what you just said. Why do you need to repeat the is? Does it double the existence of something?" But the thing is that the speaker spoke without listening, probably, without being aware of the double is

Just this week I heard what seemed to be an educated person do the double is twice (on National Public Radio), once using "the thing is is" and once "what it is is."

I can almost understand the what it is is. Those first three words have become joined in our minds, I guess, and almost act as a single word, requiring the second verb. I guess. In fact, I have heard "What it is" many times alone, and I accept that as cool talk, some kind of vernacular in fashion now.

Still, the whole phenomenon is a puzzle. Is it simply a movement of street language into the realm of the acceptable-for-everyone-in-every-situation language? Is is is acceptable everywhere? I decided to ask some folks. I wanted to be random, but I started at home with my husband--obviously living at the time. The survey was, yes, several years ago.

I wrote out five questions.

1. Have you heard the double is? (Provide example.)
   
2. What do you make of it? Or why do you think people use it?
   
3. Do you use it?
4. Is it acceptable English?
5. Do you think it should be accepted?

Survey results:

My husband answered no to the first question. So that was that, or is, that.

Maybe I'm alone here, the only one who notices this double is thing. I tried my daughter and son-in-law. They have both heard it. Neither has any idea why people use it or where it comes from. Jeff never uses it (he is emphatic), but Lola thinks she probably has used it. Neither finds it acceptable. Lola says, "No. Why should you use is twice?" That is the question, is it not?

Next, my son Andrew and his wife Michelle (so much for randomness, but it was a Sunday night). Both hear the double is among acquaintances and here or there. Michelle has no idea why people use it. Andrew says just about what I wrote above: We've joined the first three words.

He will use is is, depending on audience--those who would neither know nor care will likely get a double is from him. Michelle says it is not acceptable English because when she hears it she knows it is wrong. Andrew says it is acceptable because of wide use. He thinks it is poor English, however. Neither thinks it ought to be accepted as standard, especially in writing.

Paul and Tasha. She has heard the double is, has no idea where it comes from, does not use it, thinks it is and should be acceptable because she sees it in writing. Paul says, "The thing is is that people don't know any better, or they use is is for emphasis--people like me." He says it is acceptable, though it probably shouldn't be. Paul is funny. He is.

Now my husband, who said he had no idea what I was talking about at first and has heard me calling our children and now has a sense of their awareness of something he said he was not aware of--or may just feel left out--has come downstairs and says, "You know, Carol, in Spanish people say, "Lo que es es . . . They do it all the time. That is the same thing, isn't it." Yes, it is, I say, and thank you.

My sister, Lucile (long distance) says she thinks people use the double is because they are gathering their thoughts. She does not use it, nor does she think it should be standard. Eric, her husband, does not use the double is and when he hears it thinks the speaker is likely uneducated. He says it should not be accepted, although he has "no educated reason why not."

Remember, these interviews were about nine years ago. Perhaps these folks have changed their views. I don't know.

An English teacher friend of mine shocks me, mildly, by saying she uses the double is. I didn't ask if it's unconscious use because she teaches high school and hears it all the time or if she chooses to use it. She says it is purely a speech thing, that is, a verbal phenomenon, is acceptable, but not in writing.

Rick, former professor of English and director of Boise State University's Writing Center, says the first three words (what it is, the thing is) are simply noise with no real meaning. They're space fillers, silence fillers.

In an effort to bring this investigation to the present day, I might ask my friend who is a consistent practitioner of this verbal phenomenon, but I am convinced he does not know he uses the double is, and I don't want to make him feel uncomfortable.

There. This is the kind of thing that interests me. Does it mean I should get a life?

For Ben and Alyce

Not Without Harm

She was going

shrinking back, way back

into a small black ball

behind her face

far from waking or smiling

too far to answer what

or open her eyes

to see

too far to ever come back

I could see it

the tiny hard ball

feel the cold rush of terror

as I called her name

shouted her name Alyce Alyce

can you open your eyes?

can you wake up Alyce?

They stood leaning on the wall

down in the nurse's snack room

drawing coffee from a machine

chatting laughing quietly unaware

that Alyce who did not want coffee

or soda or water or mother

was going to sleep

It's nighttime, he said, the male

nurse who knew everything,

the normal time for sleeping

but six hours after coming up

she cannot hear me I said can't

wake up respond see me

it took work but

I made them come and look

Alyce, they said

no answer

Alyce they yelled no answer

still it's night he said

Jerry

his voice calm for me

but I saw him

I saw everything

he shot a look at the other nurse

the woman

six hours after Alyce

became his charge he turned

the dial on the Imed

Gemini PC-1 to flow

then hooked up the oxygen

and her face began to pink.

* * *

To Ben and Alyce,

This is part of Alyce's story. Public here, but for you to remember, Alyce, and for you to know, Ben, because she has a history and a knowledge of some suffering. This was from when she was in the back seat of John Weatherby's car, riding home from school. He ran a stop sign and they were hit. That accident is why she has a plate in her arm and a slight limp and the first marks of cuts on her beautiful face.

I remember her friend Lisa coming to the hospital to see Alyce. A short visit. Lisa came out weeping. I remember questions and fears from other friends and from her family.

I say Alyce has been through some hard stuff, but she is someone you can't keep down. She goes on. And she is a happy person. I have begun to think you and she were supposed to find each other--with a little help from Karen. I am glad for you both and want you always to be good to each other. Always look out for each other. Happy Valentine's Day.

Another Death

I note that J D Salinger died about a week ago. I read his most famous book when I was 15 or 16. Published in 1951, it was, so I learned decades later, a post-war novel. Salinger served in the military during WWII. So his novel was categorized thus.

My English teacher, Mr Smith, said I should read the book. He thought I would like it and "could handle it." So he spoke to the high school librarian about it. The book was not on the general book shelves but was "hidden" in the back. She got it for me, and I read it. This was 1955 or 1956.

Large effect it had on me. Post-war or whatever, I loved it. I guess I read it surreptitiously, wondering if I should allow other students to see it, but I don't remember. I know the book shocked me because of what was in it--nothing much by today's standards and no vampires or wizards. But I had never read a book like that. It was about a kid and one I knew, sort of. I could understand him. After that book, there were many of its type, not many of its caliber.

In the 60 years since its publication it has been required reading for many high school students, and I have heard a complaint or several about it and about the messed up kid who occupies its pages. That's Holden Caulfield. I really don't understand these complaints and suspect they fall in with the standard complaint of many high school students: they hate to read anything.

I had one of my BSU writing classes read it after learning that most of them had never heard of it. General consensus: good book and plenty in there to talk about and to write a paper about.

I have read most of the other stories that Salinger wrote. I like them okay, but for me they cannot match The Catcher in the Rye.

Read It and Weep

My students always did.

Ten Steps to a Decent Essay

1. Write

2. Read

3. Rewrite

4. Reread

5. Put away

6. Reread

7. Rewrite

8. Edit and proofread

9. Reread

10. Rewrite

These steps are not original with me. I don't know exactly where they came from, but I know they're true.

Last Night

I had people over, 15 of them, for a late supper. It was nice. It was fun. And it quite wore me out getting ready for it. One friend asked, as he stood eating, what I had done with my day. Strange question, I thought, as I looked around at my sparkling kitchen and all the food therein. However, I did not say, "You're eating it."

But the bottom line is that the night has left me with gratitude for those people--I love them--and for my home. I think every person said something about "your lovely home." How nice of them to say it. But it's true. My home is lovely, and I'm ever grateful and glad to have it.

They told me the food was good, too. It was.

Today's WikiHow

How to Make Chewing Gum from Scratch

How does that sound to you? Want to make your own gum?

Haven't read the article yet, but apparently there's a kit available. Don't know if scratch is part of it.

Not Quite So Random

That house over on Linden, the one I have thought was a drug house, has changed hands, so to speak. No more cars parked helter-skelter on the lawn and wherever. No more trash in front, people hanging out on the front porch or standing in the front doorway at random times. It's not a pretty house anyway, but for those couple of years it looked really bad.

It always made me think of my students--no I'm not still teaching. I had some drug people in my classes, of course, and I wrote about them once.

Addicted

Someday I may ask my students how many of them have been addicted to drugs. Or how many have tried drugs. I’m not sure I really want to know.

Just now I have three former addicts. Two Kevins and a Michael. They write their histories, filled with grisly detail of personal degradation, of doing things they would never have expected of themselves, of living in filth, of nights with no sleep, days without food, none of it causing them much concern, except in those moments when the drugs were out of their systems. Little Kevin--he's come here from Iowa--describes it as waking from one of his comas, clear-headed, able to see and think and wish with all his heart to stay that way and away from the drugs. But then someone in the house would come in and urge him to “get to work” and he would start the day’s infusion of cocaine—snorting, smoking, and shooting.

Paranoia. It comes with drug addiction, say these boys. They stay indoors weeks at a time. Paint the inside of their windows black. Hide from whatever they think may be lurking out there to do them harm. Their stories are similar, their experiences horrifying, only details of place and time and length of addiction separate them.

They have much in common, these three boys, though they do not know one another. There is, of course, their helplessness, the inertia that characterized their every day. They were all truly captured by the drugs and held tight, and when that was their life, I am sure they all looked the same: filthy, ugly, unwell.

But when they are truly off drugs, as the three I’m thinking of now, they are clean. Their faces, hair, clothing—all clean, as if they scrub themselves raw each morning. And they look like innocent children. For all they have done and seen and thought to do, they look pure, baptized and made new. As if now that they have passed their childhood in filth and crime, they take on the look they should have had through all those early years.

I feel proud of them, hopeful, and, yes, always apprehensive. How long is the cure? When are they safe? I don’t know.

Because now little Kevin has stopped coming to class. I worry about him and feel responsible. He had been writing about his drug life, and I’m afraid he wasn’t strong enough yet to do it. Should I have kept him from it? Could I have? I wasn’t wise enough to know. I’m afraid he’s gone back to the darkness he had only 13 months before stepped out of. Who were his friends? Have they sucked him back into some black-windowed house?

* * *

I think of that boy often and always thought of him when I drove by that house on Linden. I suppose I'll always wonder about him. Hope for him. And never know.

About the house on Linden, the look of it has changed. Only one car parks there. It's a van, a family car, and it's in the driveway. The lawn is trying to come back. Two plastic chairs sit out on the front porch, and I have seen a child's toy there, too, the kind with wheels, and the toddler sits on it and pushes to scoot along. It's quite encouraging, I think.