The heart is a bloom, it shoots up from the stony ground...--U2                                                                                     Ah, well...as my husband fondly says, it's time to "get the finger out", a lovely Irish idiom meaning, "get to work you lazy sod!' It has been elusive, that place where I want to write.  I do envy those of you who are draught horses and carry the heavy loads of the endeavor, I am such a flighty wisp in the place, but am drawn again and again to the finely crafted words of many here.  I want to be as brash as Beth Mann...she's so fucking hilarious!  I want to write poetry like Greg Corell, and I want to be as prolific as KOB...how the HELL does he do that...and I love Arthur James, who may never know how instrumental he was in getting me with his Wendell Berry post  (http://open.salon.com/blog/bebop-o  ) to a place...where I can write again.  There are so many more of you, so thanks...even to the cranks and contrarians whom I can't help reading just to get riled up!

This is the gist and the marrow of it.  We found ourselves, last summer, some of the early casualties of job cuts.  My husband is a solid materials physicist.  A highly specialized job title and calling.  I don't deign to understand it fully...lots of graphs of waves; nano this and that, and even some work on improving the qualities of materials used in human joint replacement.  (That one included lots of slicing up lamb knees and elbows...do lambs have elbows?...anyway...)  Suffice to say that jobs for this type of specialty do not grow on trees.

An interview at Idaho National Labs turned up nothing but a response that indicated that IF they had funds, they'd love to have him.  He subsequently went from there to upstate New York...no offer.  Virginia...too chancey....it involved drumming up government dollars as well as the science itself.   Finally, a possibility in Littleton, just next door to our home, but that dried up when one of the 2 proposed projects fell through, and they rescinded the job offer after 3 interviews.  

 Finally, he went to Peoria in June.  The big Orange Larvae itself...Caterpillar.  They of the ginormous, school-bus hued, earth movers.  He took a step down from "good science" as he puts it, and took a job as an engineer.  We were moving so fast the shock didn't hit till later.

 We set about putting things in order, as if that is possible in the face of chaos.  We took the time to go on a final glorious tour of our transcendent "house" of earth and sky.  The place where my spine grew stiff yet learned to sway.

We went on the 2008 Ride the Rockies bike tour.  Our 4th time out doing this week-long tour of nearly 500 miles.  I'm just the pack mule, folks...and a good old pack mule I am.  I know how to pack and pitch our tent in dark, rain and freezing cold.  I know which food to pack in our little coolers.  Nuts, grapes, strawberries, raspberries, yogurt and some elk or deer jerky...sometimes other little treats.  I know how to be close enough to the porta jon to make it in the early morning quickly...but not to suffer the odiferous miasma accompanying said facilities. I can avoid the drunken young college riders, most of the time, and pick a perfect spot for our 15 hour home. I know how to take care of a tired cyclist at the end of a long (100 miles at times!) day in the saddle.  And WE know how to party at the end of these long days. 

Its also a lot of solo adventure for me and the canine companion, a sojourn driving over Colorado's most elevated spaces, to meet the man at the end of the day and see this...traveling gypsy caravan.  The towns, from Telluride and Durango and Salida  to Steamboat and Crested Butte...roll out the welcome mat and there is always ample beer (it's sponsored by New Belgium brewery of Ft. Collins), wine and lots of music in the often tiny town squares of these mountain communities.  

Anyway...that was my sojourn and farewell to my homeplace.

We arrived in Peoria after a truly long and tedious drive through Nebraska and Iowa on our house search...and I re-learned the meaning of humidity.  You must understand, we do not encounter this moist monstrosity in my high dry mountain mien.  Cranky and late we stumbled into town and hit the hotel.  As I wandered outside to get ice...I felt like I was moving through a wall...that there were even hands of moisture pushing at me.  It is a truly claustrophobic feeling when you aren't used to it.  

I began to cry and I asked my mister why we had to be here in this "foetid swamp"!?  I gotta be eloquent even when complaining, I guess...and that had us laughing again.  We didn't have much luck with our search for rental property...since our assigned "real estate" guide kept pushing us to buy, buy, buy.  We firmly shot that down, since we were selling our townhome in Colorado.   We looked at dumpy college rentals, duplexes with questionable neighbors (McCain/Palin  stickers...er...maybe!); overpriced mini McMansions with vaulted ceilings and granite kitchens,  and finally after 2 and a half days...she came up with a workable house.  It felt like an embrace.  It felt like a pat on the back of my slumping shoulders.  It felt like it could be a "home" of sorts.  It had real character!

So, we rented it...and it is now what passes for home.  But that's jumping ahead a bit...let's back up to July in Colorado...

I have a job I love.  I am a teetcherlaydee.  It is more than a job, of course, it is an identity and a vocation.  A calling that came to me late after many years spent denying its voice.  And I had to leave my position after 8 years and after 14 solid years of teaching, try to figure out how to make my way in Illinois.  I have a lovely union rep and department chair, who said...if you don't want to leave, DON'T...and pointed me in the direction of a "leave of absence", which I didn't even know I was entitled to.  I am so lucky to have been granted such a leave, for 2 whole years...but I can't seem to feel like I am here  because of it...a part of my soul, and grit and handiwork reside in Colorado.  The safety net of a guarenteed position also means I am not to take a full time position with a school district during my leave.  So...I am in a quandary.  Do I "give up"...resign my Colorado job and push, full time to get back to teaching here...or bide my time, in hopes that hubby and I can make it back to Colorado by fall of 2010, when my leave will end?  I'm NOT a good gambler, but I wanna go home still, even though nearly a year has passed.

I got a substitute teaching license and went to the local small school district in our town of 6000 north of Peoria.  (Any Illinoisan's guess where we live?)  After a few subbing days...I got a call to fill in, long term...as  the part-time ESL (English as a Second Language)instructor.  Mind you, I am a high school Social Studies teacher, and my best qualification was working with a very diverse population of students in metro-Denver.  It was a challenge.  I had  four 3rd graders; a 4th grader; a 6th grader and an 8th grader...all Spanish speakers....lucky for me, since I do speak the language a bit and could "cheat" with some Spanish at times.  

But really, ESL is not the same thing as Bilingual education, and though everyone seems to think that you must speak the language of your pupils, that is not the case.  My experience as an ESL teacher was challenging, but really fun and fulfilling.  I loved the kids...really loved them. 

Alas...I was pink-slipped at year's end, since I am not ESL certified, and the district is held by law (NCLB particularly) to make every attempt to hire certified personnel. I told them I would work to get certified, looked into some courses, and hoped for the best.  

Two weeks ago, I got a call saying they hadn't found anyone more qualified, and they wanted to invite me back...only the formality of a School Board Meeting on the 28th would be necessary!  I was really happy...and allowed myself to breathe. 

But fate has kicked my hopeful ass again, and I got a tersely worded e-mail from the administrator who hires, saying that just after we had spoken...a certified instructor applied, and my job was again on hold.  

At this point, I really don't have a chance in hell.  I will take my Illinois state licensure tests in September for my high school Social Studies certification...but it looks like I will be subbing this year, with no sure income, and no outlet for my "teacherly" creativity.  

All of this has just been such a roller coaster ride.  I feel so utterly rootless, and since my husband is from Ireland...his roots are there.  A heavy rain could wash away our core.  A sort of ennui has set in for me, and I dunno who I am here.  

Mind you...this geographical uprooting had other accompanying crises.  My parents passed some time ago, and my siblings have all...to varying degree been hit very hard by the recession...the worst being a sister whose entire business went under and whose family is underwater right now compared to my hubby and I.  I have a brother in prison, a sister who is  a single mother, and another brother just laid off last month.   We'll prevail.

But this is why I haven't written.  I've met some good folks here in Illinois, though I still feel like an alien...much more than I did in Ireland or even Germany or Japan...perhaps because when I "visit" a place...I am moving always forward, whereas here...I don't know where forward is.

This big river to the east of me is a spectacular anchor of inertia to me....where my mountains helped me soar.  Strangely...as we left Colorado in August of last year...we were sent off in a rare torrential rainfall, which reappeared in September in Illinois to bring some very heavy flooding.

I am trying to find the beauty of Illinois....can you help me?

The road ahead...

And a little Illinoise courtesy of Sufjan Steven: