A Jaunt Down the Valley

Justin and I and another 1st year ling grad, H, drove down to Bakersfield yesterday. You know, just to celebrate the heat in truly California style by spending the day in a car in the central valley. No, really we went to a fundraiser for the Kawaiisu Language and Cultural Center.

The valley is always flatter than I remember, and wider, and longer. We drove past many crops and one large (and very smelly and depressing-looking) cattle operation (if you've driven down I-5 you know the one). We passed cotton gins and food processing plants and occasional and isolated farmhouses. I really wish the farmers of California would sign their crops along the highways. It would be great advertising for California produce, raise people's awareness of varieties and also remind people of where food comes from. I could identify a few things, but only on a really broad level: fruit or nut trees over here, some kind of grapes there, looks like wheat here. Could wheat already be golden and looking ready for harvest? I was also surprised because it seemed kind of short: more knee-high than waist high. The plant looked like wheat as we whizzed past at 70 mph, but I'd have loved to see a sign telling me about it.

The edge of Bakersfield where we got off the freeway was as unlovely as its reputation. We stopped in a corner store for directions and one of the customers was wearing a true sombrero, the kind you see on mariachi musicians, but this guy was just a guy in jeans and a t-shirt buying beer. His friend, in a cowboy hat and apparently already fairly well into a beer-hydration project (hence the red, not-so-white, and blue eyes), gave me really excellent and detailed directions, repeated several times and including hand gestures (while Sombrero Man in the background was saying, "Okay, she gets it!")

A few minutes later we saw on the road in front of us in the camper of a small pickup truck two nubian goats (the ones with the floppy ears). That made me really happy. We wondered if they were on their way to become BBQ or if they were just moving house/pasture. Maybe they were being taken down to the community pool for a swim. Who knows?

Arriving at the ranch, we found it a bigger event than we had expected. There were tents and tables and port-a-pots (bañitos), a bounce-house for the kids, and an amplified band playing classic country music. One of the three musicians was a Kawaiisu elder, and one of the last language speakers.

People had come from pretty far away: L.A., Palm Springs, even Texas. Many people were related to each other, maybe most, but not all. Some of those who had come from far away were from different tribes.

It was hot, even for the locals, and everyone mostly sat around and sweated. It seemed to me a great place to be to appreciate the full valley summer experience. I was really happy to simply sit and watch people interacting, but also enjoying talking to some people. There was a big feed: potato salad, green salad, chili beans, rolls, a big pile of meat with bbq sauce. Sheet cake for dessert. Lots of bottled water (no alcohol).

Some guys got up and did traditional music, drums and songs in language. A couple of elders danced a slow and solemn dance. They were a brother and sister and they held hands and moved in a stately way across the space in front of the musicians, back and forth, many times. It was quite moving.

People were acknowledged to the group, including one elder in her 90s. There were lots of reminders to buy raffle tickets and fill out language surveys and feel free to go back for seconds, there's lots of food back there.

There was a raffle with many, many prizes. I had just told H about my lucky streak in Australia where I won movie tickets several times in raffles, although I'd never won anything at home, when suddenly they were calling one of our numbers! In the end, four of our ten tickets were winners! The nicest prize we got was a medicine bag. When we were leaving, one of the musicians came up and told us that it was made by his friend Sarita, a member of an Iowa tribe.

After the raffle, the three old men played again and enticed a couple of women (one was a sister) to come up and sing with them. It was all very sweet and warm and community-feeling.

A little girl named Raina, about 2 or 3, befriended me. She was talking to me during the raffle (which was amplified), so I couldn't always hear her, but she had a few phrases which were easily discernible: "I'll be right back." "I'm just checking on you. Are you okay?" She would go off and do something and then come back to me with these phrases. Very cute. She knew my name and I think when we were leaving she called me her cousin, which makes sense since probably most people there were her cousins!

Street Shrine #1

This is the memorial at the end of my street where a young woman was killed last summer. She was a passenger in a car and was shot by someone in another car. I don't know much more than that. She didn't live on the street. She was about 21, I think.

On holidays (her birthday, valentine's day, etc.) this lightpost is decorated in her memory. Most recently it was decorated on mother's day, and I took this photo a few days later. The big mylar balloon has deflated, but you can see the handwritten notes, stuffed animals, photos and candles. There are stains on the sidewalk around the pole from the candles that were left there before and eventually melted.

The Secret Language of Academia

Use as many of these words and phrases as possible:

It's not entirely clear that...
There's a sense in which...
...a way in which...
It becomes problematic...
...to essentialize...
...which effectively...
The lens through which...
problematize
dichotomy
contextualize
calque
mediated
notion
qua
meta- (metacognition, meta-analysis, meta-data)
-ness (on words that don't usually have it, eg., thirdness, back-and-forthness)

Question to investigate: Is this language particular to the humanities and social sciences, or are these phrases and words familiar to those of you in other areas?

Please write in with additions and comments.

Visitor and Visiting

We had a brief but lovely visit with Steven last weekend. If anyone's looking for an excuse to go to Sweden, Steven and Ronald will be opening a B&B later this year and it's sure to be great! It's in the southwestern corner of Sweden, in a small village in the countryside, and not far from the beaches. (Yeah, we don't really think of going to Sweden for the beaches, but apparently the Norwegians do.)



Today I went on a Mother's Day walk along the Coastal Trail in San Francisco with F, C, and my parents. In the beginning it was a little cold and foggy, but was really beautiful and warm by the time we were walking back. We walked from above Sutro Baths to Eagle's Point (not far from China Beach in the Seacliff neighborhood), about 3.5 miles round trip, according to a site I just looked at. It's a really beautiful and easy walk, and I highly recommend it.

On their way out of town, I took my parents to check out the Albany Bulb, for a different type of walking along the bay. We just visited the main northern gallery, but also came across a small skate park that has been constructed on the Bulb which I hadn't seen before. It was just a simple bowl with a small hillock in the middle (I'm sure skateboarders have different names for these things), all concrete. We watched two skaters take turns. Both were in their twenties, one long-haired and loose-limbed with a graceful but kind of goofy style. The other was short-haired, with a more assertive style. Each would take the space to try a move, and then stop and let the other have the space. I love the politeness of turn taking among skaters, and how it's just unspoken. Obviously you'd want to keep going, but you don't because you understand that you have to share. I am always mesmerized by watching skaters, but soon we moved on to the sculptures.

I know I've posted a picture of this sculpture before, but this one has my cute parents in it, so I have to include it here.

We walked out, they drove me to El Cerrito BART, and we each headed in our opposite directions. Both the places we went today are so easy to get to, and so spectacular, it's really ridiculous that I don't go more often. It was nice to have Mother's Day as an impetus for a couple of nice outings!

Things That Should Be Available On Google Maps

1. Google Bike Maps/directions
When google-mapping a location, we should be able to click a tab and illuminate the bike routes, bike paths, and bike boulevards (each designation would be in a different color).

1.b It would be extra cool if there was a wiki element to the bike maps, so that people could comment on the bikability of a stretch of road: whether it had a lot of potholes, was particularly narrow with a lot of parked cars, etc. It could be set up so that when you roll your cursor over the map, comments pop up (comments contributed by anyone). (This is similar to the feature on Google Earth where people can add their own photos.)

2. Google Walking Distance Maps
You'd be able to google-map a location and then click on the pedometer tab which would change your cursor. You'd click on a corner, then click on the next corner, etc. till you had traced your walking/running route. It might be very short and simple (around the block), or a more convoluted path including sometimes retracing one's footsteps. The distance of your route would then be calculated for you, to the tenth of a mile (just like we get for driving distances). I think lots of people who are trying to drive less and exercise more would love knowing how much extra walking they're doing by, for example, parking down the street from work, or walking to the video store.

Please circulate these ideas until they reach the right ears!

Blood

I'm participating in a medical study, and today I made my second visit. The first visit consisted of a questionnaire, some body measurements, and a whole lot of paperwork wherein I agreed that I understood to whom the information would be released and the purposes for which it would be used. Really, really a lot of paperwork.

Today's visit started last night with a 12-hour fast, so that when they drew my blood, it would not be full of sugar and caffeine, I guess. The fellow who drew my blood was also the fellow who had weighed and measured me before. This time I found out that he was a medic in the army and was in Iraq from 2002-4. He said that taking blood in the army was quite different because everyone was muscular and had veins that pretty much stood out. Although he'd been drawing blood for over 5 years, he said he'd learned a lot since working at the university medical center because here he got to work with so many different kinds of people and because he often gets to see the same people more than once. He was very good and took a lot of my blood pretty much painlessly. He also managed to talk about his 'first casualty' without it seeming gruesome, maudlin, callous, or any number of other ways it might come out.

The next step involved going to another building and waiting in a--yes--waiting room while many other people came and went. While there, I overheard a young man talking about his time in the military, how, just after boot camp, he'd found himself drawing blood from a bunch of new recruits, even though he had no training. He was assigned to clean the clinic, but the clinic was short of medics and knew they had a huge group of new recruits coming in. So they asked this young man if he could draw blood. He said he could and they asked him to demonstrate--on himself! Apparently he did fine, as he then went on to draw blood from the new recruits. In response to a question I couldn't hear, he explained that he had just completed boot camp and was in the mindset of proving himself and besides he'd watched a lot of medical shows on the Discovery Channel.

In our Peace Corps training we had to prick our own fingers and make a microscope slide of our blood, something we might have to do if we suspected we had malaria and were too sick to travel (the idea being that you could send your malaria slide to the nearest clinic where someone could look for malaria parasites in your blood). It is a difficult thing to intentionally prick your own finger deeply enough to squeeze a few drops of blood out, especially if you are imagining having to do it at some future date when you are alone, shivery with fever, and weakened with diarrhea. It was clearly much more challenging for some than others. I wonder how we would have fared if we'd been asked to draw a vial of our own blood?

Best T-shirt I've seen all week:

"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Worn by a young man, kind of emo-looking, coming out of Dwinelle Hall, a strange sprawling building that houses all the language departments and linguistics, among others.

The Lost Doll

In an email exchange with a friend about an image in the poem I posted a few days ago (and I still feel weird about calling something a 'poem' that I don't consider complete, but there's no word for poem-to-be), I recalled a beloved poem from my childhood. A quick internet search offered up the title, author, and in fact the whole poem itself. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the illustration I remember so clearly. The poem is "The Lost Doll" by Charles Kingsley (bits of his biography on Wikipedia are amusing/appalling; check it out if you have a spare minute, but read the poem first).

The poem is kind of maudlin and sappy and not really anything special compared to much of the rest of the large quantity of poetry my parents read to me as a child, but for some reason I really liked it. I think the picture was important. It was sort of the reverse of the typical before-and-after shots: initially the doll is perfect, with a flouncy dress and a perky little matching blue bow in her perfect blond curls. In the larger "after" picture, she is dirty and bedraggled; not only is her hair ribbon missing, her arms are missing, her dress is muddied and ripped, etc. The message is that the doll is just as lovely to the little girl who lost and then found her in her ragged state as she was before. Maybe it provided a good counterpoint to all the beautiful princesses in the fairytales. Maybe I just related to the raggedy doll because I was a bit of a dirty outdoorsy girl myself. Maybe, at some level, I understood it as a message about the redemptive power of love.

Anyone else remember this poem from their own childhood? Any other favorite poems from childhood?

Toddler quilt

I just finished this quilt for my nephew's 2nd birthday this morning (the party is this afternoon). I've been working on it for awhile. I had a lot of fun picking out the fabrics (African animal themed) and figuring out how I wanted to put them together.

I had trouble with the binding on the other quilt I made (a few months ago), but thought that it was just a matter of experience and that maybe this one would be easier. In fact it was more difficult and turned out more amateurish than the first. Anyway, you can sure tell it's handmade! I want a quilting mentor! Nevertheless, it was fun and I like the overall effect. I sure get a lot of satisfaction from making things. I should probably do it more often.

You meet some great people on Amtrak

She's 67 and she's got 15 grandkids and five greats. The oldest grand is 35. She had seven kids but 14 pregnancies. It used to be that you could look at her and she'd get pregnant. The last one, though, he's got a different father and that man wasn't supposed to be able to have kids. He had mumps and the doctors said he was infertile. We coulda sued them doctors. All those kids were preemies and every one of 'em is over 6 feet tall now, and look at me--they call me shrimp. The oldest is 51, then 48, then 47... The oldest great grandkid is 15, so you figure if she has a baby in the next ten years, I'll be a great great grandmother. My youngest is 23, but she didn't come out of my belly. She's my sister's kid, but I raised her. She's my youngest. The youngest that came from me is my son. He's 35. He was reading at 2 years old. He was always advanced. When he was eleven, they wanted me to send him back east to a school for gifted kids, but I wouldn't do it. That's too far. Virginia, it was in Virginia. He went to college, but just before he was gonna be finished, he messed up and left there and came home. I told him, you go get your masters, your bachelors and any other degrees they're offering. Finally, he went back. He got his bachelors and his masters. He wants to be a sports commentator. One of my grands is in a group home in Sacramento. She's the only one I'm legally responsible for. I raised several of 'em because I didn't like the way my daughters was raising them. They said, "if you don't like they way we're doing it, why don't you do it," so I did. I believe in prevention, but not abortion.

Another First Draft Poem

Alter Image

The idea of me

that you keep in an alcove

of your mind

bothers me.

I want to take her away

and carry her around,

whacking her carelessly

into tables, leaving her

for a time head down

in the toy chest; later,

buried feet to armpits

in the sandbox

in a rainstorm.

Then I think of that alcove

empty, two votives burning

(or, worse, not burning),

and I want to put me back—

the new me: chipped, ripped,

bruised, wet. Is there a place

for a creature like that

in your mind?

Would the revised me

be relegated to a dark

storage closet with other

damaged icons?

I imagine the idea of me,

no longer able to stand,

propped against an idea

of your mother,

once cherished, now tarnished

and gathering dust.

Who else is on those shelves?

Maybe it's better if I leave

your idea of me

alone,

glowing softly in the candlelight

unaware of her own

impossibility, of her distance

from me.

After all, she isn't mine,

she's yours.

A little old, a little new, something home-made, something blue

Someone asked me recently about my workspace, so here's a picture of it. My laptop is on an old desk that belonged to some family member in the past, while my keyboard sits on a rolling pine table that I made to fit under the desk. I intended to stain it so that it wouldn't stand out so much against the darker desk, but I haven't got around to it yet, as I want a non-toxic and non-smelly stain.

In other news:

I went to Sacramento this weekend and had a good visit with friends and family. Got to meet one new person and got to introduce several people to each other. Lots of laughter, which is always a good thing. Incidentally, my mom recently went to a laughing yoga class (which sounds funny, yes, and that's a good thing). They said something like a minute of deep belly-laughing is like 10 minutes of exercise!

Many opportunities for laughter were available on Sunday when my friend R and I went to Grass Valley to see a matinee performance of The Philadelphia Story at the Center for the Arts. Before you think we were laughing at poor Tom Hanks dying of AIDS, please remember that that film was simply called "Philadelphia." The play we saw (originally seen on Broadway in 1939 and the following year made into a movie with Katherine Hepburn reprising her role from the stage) is a romantic comedy. It was funny and the a fine local performance, all the more fun because my friend, T.E. Wolfe, was one of the male leads (in the role for which Jimmy Stewart won his only Oscar). So, if you're looking for an excuse to go up to the hills, this is a good one. It plays for another couple of weekends.

Playing Dress-Ups!

While helping my mom go through a closet, I came across this antique dress. We believe it belonged to my great-great grandmother, Dulcibel Brown who was born in 1856. My mom remembers being told by her mother (who passed it on to her) that it was an everyday work dress. I hope that Dulcy was quite a bit smaller around the ribs than I am, as I can't imagine doing any work in it! An interesting feature is that the buttons down the front (waist to neck) are like cuff-links. That is, both sides of the placket have buttonholes, and they are held closed by two buttons adjoined by sturdy thread. If anybody knows about the history of clothes and knows why this would be done (rather than the usual way of attaching a button to one side and having a button hole in the other), please tell me.

Cultural Icon

I went and saw Nikki Giovanni last night at the Oakland Museum. Showed up later than I had originally planned, which is not such a common thing for me. In fact, I almost didn't go at all when I realized I was going to be later than the door-opening time, but fortunately I did go. They didn't open the doors at 6:45, but there was already quite a long line when I arrived at 7 as expected. Anyway, just as I got up to the theater doors, they started turning people away toward the auditorium and the live feed video screen. Rather than being a good sheep, I stood around, determined that there would be a space for me in the theater. Sure enough, my patience paid off and I ended up in the 2nd row!

Ms. Giovanni was amazing--truth-telling, joke-cracking, story-telling, gossiping, haranguing, scolding, praising, even a little play-acting, and smiling her dazzling smile. She has a no-nonsense straight-ahead style that matched her menswear look of necktie and suit, but also a really mischievous side. She seemed to be really enjoying herself quite thoroughly.

I think it was a special treat to see her in Oakland, as she seems to have a fond spot in her heart for us. Before she was introduced, the host of the event told the audience that we were going to have to be really efficient to do get autographs signed because we had to be out of the parking garage by 9:30. One of the first things Ms. Giovanni said was that she understood having to be out of the building but she wasn't going to turn anybody away. "We can go out on the street. I don't care. I'm not afraid of Oakland."

She talked about meeting Rosa Parks in an airport, and about her mother and sister dying of cancer, and she took Barack Obama to task for not defending Rev. Wright enough and took the Black community to task for bagging on Tavis for complaining about Obama dissing him, and she talked about gun control (for it), and about people being anti-abortion and then not wanting to provide any services for those born children. She criticized Juno as the dumbest movie of the year and criticized "Hils" for running a racist campaign. She talked about the books she's written, and she even read several poems, but mostly she talked. It wasn't, however, rambling and disconnected as I've made it seem through my stream-of-consciousness listing, but a coherent and cogent performance.

If you ever get the chance... go see her!

Happy Earth Day

I'd like you to parse that [Happy Earth] Day. It's easy to make fun of National [whatever] Day or Week or Month because it can imply that the rest of the time [whatever] can be ignored. (Think of Black History Month, Women's History Month, etc.)

While I understand those objections, I'd like to be less cynical than that and think of today as a day to bring our attention into sharper focus on issues that we are concerned with every day. Today is also a day to celebrate what we are doing right for the earth and to renew our commitments to do more (or at least not to slacken our resolve or give up in despair).

We don't have to do anything different today, just be aware, pay attention and be conscious of how we live. On the other hand, today might be a good day to start a new habit.

If you haven't discovered Grist yet, go check it out. It's an environmental news and commentary magazine, but so much funnier and hipper than that sounds!

For a local organization working on a lot of good causes, check out the Ella Baker Center, whose tagline is "Working for justice in the system, opportunity in our cities, and peace on our streets." Keep your eye on the founder, Van Jones, who is likely (I think) to be a key national figure soon. Look for him in President Obama's cabinet! Jones works on environmental issues and urban poverty issues, besides being a great and motivational speaker, with charisma to spare.

Have a beautiful day!

Next Year's Sitch

Several people have asked for more info about the school I'll be at next year. You can find the school website here, and a school blog written by students and staff here.

I will be teaching English Language Learners and struggling readers, as well as having an advisory group.

I will get to the school from here by (first) walking to Ashby BART, (then) riding BART to Richmond, and (finally) walking to the school. If I get impatient with the walking parts, I might replace them with bike riding, as I can put my bike on the train.

I have signed the contract and am excited to start in the fall. I may do a little planning work with the principal in June before I go to Australia.

Is this a satisfactory amount of info? What else d'you want to know?

House of Plastic Flowers

Here is the House of Plastic Flowers of which I wrote in the nearly-eponymously titled post. Isn't it great? Don't you want to walk up those steps? Doesn't it feel like a party or a celebration is about to begin?

A Long Bike Ride

I signed up to do some trash pick up at a park in Richmond this morning, a little gesture for Earth Day. So, I had a long bike ride this morning from my house to the Bay Trail in Berkeley to Richmond. I wish I could post a map with the bike route I took on it , but I can't figure out a way.

Anyhow, I rode over into Emeryville, then up to Berkeley Aquatic Park, over the freeway on the bike bridge to the Berkeley Marina, then north along the Bay Trail to Golden Gate Racetrack in Albany. The trail ends there, but one can ride back behind the racetrack (it's a little hill) and down to the Albany Bulb. From there I picked up the Bay Trail again and rode up past Point Isabel (which features a huge dog park next to the trail).

My intended destination was Vincent Park, Richmond. I was expecting a filthy shoreline where we'd be picking up broken bottles and dirty needles and old tires.

After the Meeker Slough, I found myself riding along a very well-kept trail with landscaping on both sides and quite populated byjoggers and bike riders and walkers who presumably lived in the gated community to my right. I kept going and came to a bay full of sailboats and kept going until the trail ended at a chainlink fence and an oak tree. Heading into the parking lot there, I found a map which told me that I was at Lucretia Edwards Park and had gone right past Vincent Park.

I rode back to Vincent Park (my jaunt to Lucretia having added an extra 4.4 miles to my trip--there's a detailed map of Richmond Marina with mileage here), where the group was getting off to a late start and in fact was heading further back down the trail to another park I had passed, Shimada Peace Park. I locked up there, and then we walked down the trail back to the slough area, and just beyond that we picked up trash. It wasn't that trashy looking until we got down in it.

A great proportion of the trash was from convenience foods: plastic straws, plastic drink caps, styrofoam bits from containers, plastic to-go coffee lids, foil chip bags, etc. I was thinking how good it would be to do a lesson with kids that included nutrition and environmental issues and included a little shore cleanup.

[Let me note that I did not come across any plastic flowers!]

It took me about an hour to get home, riding easy and slow. The best I could figure out, it's probably between 8-10 miles from my house up to Vincent Park, so my total today was at least 20 miles, maybe as much as 25--anyway, a lot more than usual!

I'm sorry I didn't bring my camera and have no photos to post.

Plastic Flowers

How do I feel about plastic flowers? Scorn. Disdain. Like any imitation, they are obviously inferior to the Real Thing, right? They belong with polyester, flavors instead of extracts, shake-on parmesan cheese, fake wood paneling. No, don't try to talk to me about silk flowers, either.

But how do I explain this without acknowledging classism and snobbery, things I don't want to admit to? I'm a lot more careful about flinging around the word 'tacky' than I used to be as a young person. Declaring something 'tacky' is just another way of saying, "I have better taste than that; whoever would like/choose/do that is inferior to me." I'm not comfortable making that judgment, or maybe I am, but I'm not happy about it, it's not something I want to encourage in myself.

Back to plastic flowers. When I lived in the Solomon Islands, I witnessed a couple of weddings in our village. They both involved some of the more prominent, better-off families in the community. By this I mean they had a little more access to money than other families in this subsistence-agriculture based village, and also a certain amount of prestige (whether that stemmed from the outside-money access or whether the prestige had allowed for the opportunities to gain material advantages was not clear). Anyway, both weddings featured plastic flowers--plastic bouquets held by the brides. This is the tropics. There were gorgeous flowers growing all over the place, and many of these were in fact used to decorate the church. The flowers of honor, however, were the plastic ones.

Of course I cannot scorn this use of plastic flowers. My desire to see things through others' eyes allows me several reasonable explanations of why someone would choose plastic over natural. They might be a way of displaying wealth, as plastic flowers are obviously bought, while real flowers are free. (Displays of wealth seem an important part of weddings around the world and across very diverse cultures, but that's another topic.) The flowers' permanence might also be attractive, not wilting in the tropical heat, and they could be kept on display in the home forever as a reminder of the day. The plastic flowers also came in colors and shapes not available in the local naturally-occurring flora.

Here in Oakland, I have a neighbor who, during the winter, fills her flowerbeds with plastic flowers. You might expect that a person who did that was not a gardener, the plastic flowers being the best she could do. In fact, she is a terrific gardener and the flower beds have real flowers in the summer. She also has a large vegetable garden which looks very productive. She is one of few neighbors who regularly hangs her laundry on an outdoor line. I like her without knowing her. She helps undermine my prejudice against plastic flowers, or at least against the people who have them.

This morning I came across another plastic-flower displaying house. I'm going to go back and take a picture because I was utterly charmed and delighted by the house. Not in a condescending "Oh, aren't those (foreign/different) people interesting?" kind of way. At least I hope not. I think my feeling was genuine pleasure at what someone had done with plastic flowers. It would have been possible with real flowers, but it would have lasted only a few hours, and I wouldn't have had the pleasure of seeing it on an early morning walk. Who knew I would ever come so far from my scorn and disdain?

continuing with the posting of new poems in the rough

The Pedestal

It got where she was used

to the pedestal.

She couldn't even remember

when or how she was put there.

But then she decided

she didn't like it. She wanted

off.

So she took a deep breath

and leapt, kicking the plinth

as she went.

She heard it fall, and

shatter. That was when

she realized that she herself

had not fallen,

that she couldn't breathe,

that she was hanging

from the silk cord

she had always thought was

a scarf.