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-Sarah Bailey

Time to Teach; Time to Learn

How to Share a Couch and Maintain a Happy Marriage

Refrain

Autumn

Planting Fruitful Seeds: Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible

The Survival of Language in Correlation With Religious Ideal Type

A Promise of Acceptance

Digital Marketing Solutions: Knowing A Little About A Lot

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Political Campaign Splash Page

Blog

Poetry

Poetry

Literary Research

Sociolinguistic Research

Short Story

Prezi web presentation

Political Campaign Splash Page

In 2001, No Child Left Behind mandated 4 national standardized tests. Now there are 18.

Testing companies expect ALL children to take the same annual test, whether advanced placement student, mentally impaired, or English language learner. Instead of practicing spelling and cursive, elementary school students

must write and answer multiple choice for hours at a time several times a month in order to pre-pare for the end of the year test. Schools have been trapped into depending on excellent scores for funding, creating a hostile environment for teachers.

However, these tests do not prepare your child for college, nor is there any negative consequence for opting out. The only entity profiting from standardized testing is the testing companies

themselves. Teachers are forced to forfeit wholesome, integrity building lessons that create well-rounded citizens for mediocre multiple choice. Students become withdrawn and rebellious; young, energetic teachers leave the profession.

The answer: OPT OUT. Together, we can change the system.

It starts with YOU.

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Time to Teach, 2014Digital Splash Page

That moment between the last breath of win-ter’s morning darkness and sunrise is when I woke up. It was during this moment that I for-got to wish my husband a happy birthday. It’s as if this moment when he wrapped himself in a towel just having emerged from a foggy bath-room like superman with a red, flowing cape tied at his neck, just didn’t count.

How to Share a Couch and Maintain a Happy Marriage

“Did she let you sleep on the couch after that?”

At the time, I considered unsolicited, indepen-dent musings, writing at my desk in the sun room, or walking in the cold with the dogs the one and only key to maintaining that magi-cal spark between two in marriage. I thought keeping one’s identity intact for personal well-being ensured my successful performance as a team player in marriage soon after this savored alone time. I hadn’t quite added to this formula the compound of letting go of one’s own desires and perceptions at times when it creates a stronger bond between two souls.

“She joined me on the couch.”

My husband and I had bought a dark brown couch and matching ottoman for our first home, a very thirtysomething thing to do. Large enough, we sat hip to hip between the two arms of what we named “The Cuddle Couch” in the middle of the store, our young eyes twinkling with love as did our smiles, yet small enough that I had to lift myself out of it first so he’d have room to secure his hand on its seat to boost himself up. We were determined to make this seating arrangement work at all times when feeling romantic or especially silly. We’d force our upright bodies into the its seat. At times, I swung my legs over his, but other than that, not much more creativity was allowed. As any cups of coffee or food presented on TV trays were cumbersome, one could only cuddle and watch TV. In time, however, our hips grew wider or the couch shrank. I’d like to think that it wasn’t the transition from homemade dinners to take-out Chinese that caused this transforma-tion. Nonetheless, with our hectic schedules as teachers, coaches, tutors, and parents of three

canines, we sat less – apart.

And together, we continue to stand through the test of times that typically occur after that thing called “The Honeymoon period,” and squirm while watching this thing called mar-riage unfold.

“I’m wide awake for some reason,” he magnifies.

And then I stumbled back to bed, rolled over, and just as easily went back to sleep.

“Good morning,” I said, and hugged him.

The couch theory was first introduced to me at a seminar for educators from a fiftysomething, math teacher who had been married for 25 years. During a lull, I asked him if he had any advice for a thirtysomething married barely two.

“Let him take naps on the couch.”

Over cold breadsticks and meatless spaghet-ti, a meal considered gourmet by the education district, he whispered this climactic secret of a happy marriage. After a tiresome day of juggling the endless tasks of refereeing argumentative students, and attempting to act unnerved by surprise scrutinizing visits from relentless administrators, his wife refused to let him lay on the couch wrapped in a blanket tightly like a burrito while drowsily listening to the news, and then drifting off to sleep for a short nap. She said the couch was for sitting; the bed, for sleeping.

“So, what’d you do about that?” I asked, think-ing this soft spoken man had risen to the occa-sion against his nagging wife like The Hulk.

“Nothing. She went to my mother.” His mother told her that he’d always did that. In fact, it was a family tradition. A common sight at their household was two, three, or four siblings piled onto the couch watching Howdy Doody under a cover after dinner.

...continued

Now “The Cuddle Couch” is more or less a stepping stool for our dogs to peer out the window anticipating our return during the work day. We clip coupons together while watch-ing Sunday football on the big-ger, leather couch, using the expensive, matching ottoman as a table to sort them by category – poultry, dairy, vegetables. On Saturday afternoons, we sit in our booth at the local pizza place shoulder to shoulder, munching on iceberg lettuce doused in ranch dressing and slices of barbeque chicken pizza while watching football. Often we sit in silence absorbing the conversations surrounding us. We’re watching characters in a story. We smile at each other when we can come back with a “That’s what she said.” We lie in bed watching back to back episodes of Archer on Netflix. And together, we sit upon this couch called marriage.

I call him. But wait! He’s in an early meeting. I hang up. He calls back immediately – Facetime. Facetime is the equivalent of subspace communication in our century. And there he is. That Superman smile. I can’t quite concentrate on it because my face is too big for the little square mirroring it at the top right. Then I remember.

“Happy Birthday!” I shout and pull the phone further from my nose.

He’s smiling super big now, “Thank you.” “You don’t look a day older than 29,” we’re both determined to defy thirtysomething. His mouth does that fish curve thing, but only on his left side, and a slight chew of his inside cheek. He’s laughing but trying to forget that he’s not 29. He’s forgiven my sluggishness this morning, my brain of mush, my refusal to admit that the world was revolving. In fact, he tells me, he didn’t feel rejected for a moment. He knows mornings are difficult for me.

These are the moments of marriage. My husband and I have learned over our two and a half years of marriage that no matter how small, addressing rather than ignoring reality seals the bond between the two. Forgiveness. Not taking things too personal. Providing each to express individuality at their own pace and method is key. It’s what makes your heart get big, ready to explode – heavy – then sigh as you remember love is there like a down coat buttoned over your chest on a bitterly cold day.

Our youngest, Chloe, wakes me roughly forty-five minutes later. Her routine is to wait at least another hour after Daddy leaves, but this morning, she was urgently yapping beside the bed.

She believed whole heartedly in this method of pawing at the bedroom door, its beat against the frame her fire alarm, and then hopping back beside the bed, to yelp, yap, and howl.Everything is a big deal to a hound. Our middle child, Fiona, moans like a bear and literally rolls backwards off the ottoman like a gymnast who contorts her body to land on her front paws.This is her thing. She’s ready then to herd Chloe outside to whom I’m pretty sure she thinks is her child, not mine. As I watch the two race to the single dogwood at the back of the yard that has withstood naws and marking of territory, I remember.

It was that moment between rehearsal and curtain call that I told myself and my husband that I did not exist quiet yet – even though it was his birthday. “Good morning?” Is that really all I said to him? The tradition that he has believed in so loyally for the past seven years is to wish me happy birthday as soon as the little hand tells him a new day has begun. Sarah’s day! “Woman that I love,” as he calls me when he’s utterly love stricken, or upset like the time I absentmindedly drove up the WRONG WAY on the expressway ramp and pulled a doughnut presently that Jason Statham would be proud of. And it is this morning that I feel like I’m on that ramp wishing I could start over and take the correct path this time.

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Artwork: Pop Art Family Tree, & Motto, 2015

Photography & Digital Art

( “A Thirtysomething’s Satirical View on Life: The Truth About Millennials” )

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Refrain

Vibrationstap against my temple,my ear memorizing every note.

My eyes open. A girl staring through mein the mirror – one foot in the seat,her elbow resting on her knee, her head againstthe corner of the piano – smilesto disguise the pain inside.

I divert my glareto his dark hands – nails hide bits of paint, calloused knuckles balance swiftly across the white and black keys,soothing each with his touch.Chords of the past delayin play;his torso leans forward,eyes mesmerized – sage greenencompassing a bronze burst - told me once,“I’ll never leave,” – now break their gaze. Lips pierce and relax with the tempo. He blinks up at the fluorescent light, searchingalong the top of the piano at its corner. I raise my head, lean forward, placing my foot onto the floor, and wait.

My finger-tips contouredyour brow, smoothing backyour bangs, curling, gently falling forward;My thumb traced along the soft edge of your ear, Combed through your thick dark hair,downward, cupped the back of your neck.Heavy, your eyesbegan to close as you followed my clavicle, its curve a knotted trail,leading your fingers – large-knuckled and calloused – into the ridge of my spine

just under my scalp. Tenderly, you pulled me, restedyour forehead to mine.My nose itched as it rubbed against the stubble of your chin; You pecked. (Indiana University Southeast Literary Review, 2006)

The sweet roughness of your lips, soothed me internally; my nostrils embraced your breathe, Euphorically.those hazel eyes – reassured – peered into mine, and closedas you leaned in to promise.

Scruff spots his chin, breath whirls in silence from his nostrils, his head shakes slowly, his shoulders rise, linger, fall -answered. Knuckles bending, fingerscaress the keys, admiring their slender bodies.The final notes playas rest my ear on the piano.

Echoes of his finger play,satirize my memory.I gaze into the eyes of the girl who used to smile.

It Broke - Then Became Something Beautiful2015

Photography

Half Moon, 2014 Botanical Gardens, Denver, ColoradoPhotography

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Autumn

You stood before meat the threshold of my door.Brisk autumn had returned,the leaves brought you as their companion.The night sky lurkedbehind your dark figureLike the fuzzy scenic backdropof an old movie.The silver moonglowrevealed few featuresof your face, dark shadowshid the lines.

I cautiously reached out my hand, eagerto discern the truth.I caressed your cheeks,and softly contoured your eyesinternalizing the pain of your past,worn by the demons of Illusion.A somber expression of frailty and abnegation hoveredover your brow.Such was thiswhen you returned to me.

Years before you had chosen the other,one who wounded your heart,one you said would give you joy,but I knew what she’d impart.It was I who stood at your door aloneafter your rejectionof me.

Now here you are, on this autumn night.She has led you to my door,draped in abandonment.

The subtle collide of dead leaves whispered the sincerity of your heart,familiar notes strung togetherof a melody we once lived.As I gently withdrew my hand from your face,I gathered your fingers, led you inside, “You haven’t changed much.”

(Indiana University Southeast Literary Review, 2004)

Love Locks of the English Garden,Munich, Germany2014, Photography

Relax. You Must., 2014Schliersee, Germany

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Ducks in Red Poppy Field, 2006Indiana University SE Literary Review

Planting Fruitful Seeds: Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible

Literary Research (abstract)

The living jungle speaks through an anony-mous voice in Barbara Kingsolver’s final chap-ter of The Poisonwood Bible. “Trees like mus-cular animals overgrown beyond all reason. Vines strangling their kin in the wrestle for sunlight. The glide of snake belly on branch. A choir of seedlings arching their necks out of rotted tree stumps, sucking life out of death. I am the forest’s conscience, but remember the forest eats itself and lives forever.” This is a voice of a biologist who perceives the trees as animals, an environmentalist who praises the new singing seedlings, an evolutionist who discerns the jungle’s rhythmic life incom-plete without death. It is Barbara Kingsolver, eco-centrist, author of The Poisonwood Bible.

This evolutionary biologist’s point of view is revealed through the characters. Kingsolver metaphorically emphasizes that harmony with the African jungle is equally as important as communion with the Congolese people them-selves. Contrasting characters, Rachel and Leah Price, Nathan Price and Brother Fowles manifest Kingsolver’s personal eco-centric view. By pairing these foils, those charac-ters that are eco-centric, exhibiting an equal amount of respect for both living and non-liv-ing forms of nature, create a sense of honor and admiration in the mind of the reader; whereas, homocentric characters, viewing humans as the center of nature, are antagonistic. Eco-centric characters respect the Kilanga culture, adopt their dress, ceremonies, government, survival

techniques, language, and may even marry the natives. Whereas, the homocentric characters fail to grasp an understanding for the villagers’ unique ways of life, impose bigoted belief systems, figuratively die within their own narrow minds by worshiping rationed cake mix and tattered Western clothes, and needless to say, gain little respect from the Congolese or their family in return.

Layered voices of admonition tell the story of each characters’ internal happiness and gain throughout the course of their lives beyond the jungle. Each chapter is a venue to teach the

reader the beauty of life when one’s mind is open to learn from unfamiliar cultures. By developing the nature loving characters in a fa-vorable light, Kingsolver’s readers tend to trust and favor them more than those characters who are self-centered and prejudice. After implanting seeds of admiration for the Congo-lese into the minds of the reader, he or she may only choose to flourish within.

(National Conference for Undergraduate Research, 2005Asheville, NC)

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Lepidoptera and Luna, 2006Printmaking - Intaglio8 1/2” x 6”

The Survival of Language in Correlation with Religious Ideal Type

Sociolinguistic Research (Excerpt)

The earliest Sociologist studied human behav-ior primarily through economic status. Yet sociolinguists today understand that in order to accurately research human behavior, one must consider all aspects. Sociolinguists now study not only the linguistic components of speech groups, but also the sociology - the behaviors of speech communities. Sociolinguists are com-pelled to explore the individual as well as the group, and to do so with any particular interest. As Meyerhoff sums it up, “even though socio-linguistics wear many caps, one thing linking all of the practitioners in the field is that they are all interested in how people use language and what they use it for” (2). It is well known by these sociolinguists that religion, gender, socio-economic status, or culture are a num-ber of components to explore the identity of an individual or collective group along with the spoken language of that group. Each of these elements can affect a language.

Through voluntary or involuntary action, lan-guage may maintain its strength, spoken for multiple and necessary purposes in a group, or a new language may fulfill a need within the community, or shift into a minority or majori-ty form of utilization. In order to analyze lan-guage maintenance or shift, one must consider the element of the socio as well, such as reli-gious belief. Religion can be a great influence upon the speaker. In fact, when language identity is maintained or shifted, there is a di-rect correlation with a religious conservation or transformation. Whether acient Mesoamerican

groups of the Aztecs and Mayans or more mod-ern Amish and Mennonite communities, when religion is the primary cause of this shift; lan-guage will be mirrored by the strength of the religion.

Religion is a multi-faceted component of identity and culture with countless groups and communities. In essence, it is the effort for the individual to find his or her place in this world. Unfortunately, there is no one unified defini-tion of the term. One reason for this has is due to its Latin origin meaning “to bind fast” or “to re-read,” which is disconnected from its defini

tion today, cultivated by Europeans (Pharo 29). However, having such influence on many systems, such as economic and judicial, Lars Kirkhusmo Pharo who explored religious in-fluence among Mesoamericans, Aztecs and Mayans, for example, concludes that religion “constitutes an analytical perspective in order to examine human experience and practices, ways of life, and views of the world” a defini-tion very suitable for the researcher (63). From the viewpoint of believer of any one or sever-al religions, depending on choice to define their identity, one might identify the term as simply as a way of life, one that constitutes one’s sal-vation, one’s security in retaining after life, or an explanation to evangelize. However to a re-searcher, Pharo explores the many definitions of the word religion and how the word itself re-flects the perception of each group’s religious belief in correlation with their way of life. For example, in Pharo’s “The Concept of ‘Religion’ in Mesoamerican Languages,” he explains that Spanish Catholic Missionaries translated ‘reli-gion’ to influence the perception of indigenous people and lead them into Catholicism. Italian Benito Rinaldini, a Jesuit Missionary, translated religion as “pious or god-fearing” (36)....

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A Promise of Acceptance

Short Story, 2014

Echoes of drums bounce off the brick exterior of the flower shop. The chilly night wind blows the notes of his song through my car window as I strain to hear a clear word or two, hoping it was one of thirty he had written that poetical-ly describe our memories of young love. Loud voices from two bikers distort the lyrics like ca-cophonic construction rising into a quiet inner city apartment. I wait until they pass before I turn the key, roll up the window, and fill the car with hot heat. Yet, the warmth does not com-fort my anxiety.

He said he’d call at ten, I reassure myself. He promised, he’d call back. I made him say it – twice.

I crane my neck as I unroll the window again, and hear silence.

A shadow stands under the porch light. The van with the ladder attached on the roof, rum-bles away. High pitched giggles after a goodbye and a car door shutting, give me the initiation to turn the key fully this time, and back out of the parking spot of the flower shop. I turn into the alley, my lights off, and hear his dogs bark-ing. Awkward thoughts of rejection and eu-phoria try to sing a harmonic song within my head, but all I hear is numbness. I stand un-der the open garage’s edge in the dark - hidden - waiting for him, and determined to feel con-tentment in this moment of unknown before any answers are uttered or sensed. I step from the garage to my car as I hear the dogs’ cries approaching.

Our Happy Home, 2003, Color pencil

He said he’d call.

“Who is here?” his voice interprets the dog’s barks in words both excited and un-expecting. “It’s me,” amazed by the false act of self-confi-dence I so easily turned on like a light. “Who?” almost demanding, but his brow soft-ens when he recognizes my dark silhouette. Though I know it’s unnecessary, I say my name. I await his reaction: my answer. His socked feet stop. One foot raises to step back, and then withdraws the thought. “Oh, man,” he emits from the same smiling mouth I kissed for the first time ten years ago. And then swallowing his excitement he sternly says in a deeper, adult voice, “What are you doing here?”

I step closer and slowly to the chain-linked back gate of his house. His Chows cry at me to him with their paws resting on the curled rim and become louder with my every step. Their necks wear fluffy, amber necklaces. Dauntlessly, I touch the one on the right as she lifts her head to sniff me with her tiny black nose.

“I wanted to hear what you had to say – face to face,” I gently and frankly remark, trying to de-cipher the answer from his green eyes shad-owed by the darkness.

“Babies, stop doing what you’re doing,” he tells his Chows who bark and whine, but now out of fun. He stands behind them. The fence and the two dogs are a fortress, and the only

At one point, age, time, and then marriage sep-arated us; now, two dogs and a three foot high, chain-linked fence. “They’re very protective,” denying how calm the second dog remains as I squat to greet him face to face through the wire squares. He curi-ously gurgles a short whistle from the back of his throat.

I stand up. I peer into his eyes again for a few seconds, searching for an answer to the ques-tions we promised to answer at ten when he’d call. “The only problem is, my girlfriend will find out that you’ve been here.” He says it so coolly. I am a student in the classroom; he is my teach-er, gently, yet firmly giving a command. Before he says the word “girlfriend,” he pauses as if he knows passively it will provide my answer, and for this he hesitates, but proceeds with deter-mined emphasis as if to convince himself. I search any movement behind the bright cur-tains in the house, but see nothing. I hadn’t

...continued

recognized any unfamiliar cars parked out front.

In my response to this foreign rejection from him, casually I return with, “Oh. I wouldn’t want that to happen.”

“I’ll have to call you,” he says insistently with sorry eyes, to patch things up.

“Yeah.” I look behind me at my diagonal-ly parked car, “I’m just driving around.” Aimlessly.

I think back. Three years ago he aimlessly knocked on my apartment door around 9:30pm one Saturday. He knew I had just broken up with my boyfriend at the time, but asked coy-ly, “Is your boyfriend here?” when I opened the door surprised to see his boyish face blushing on the other side.

I then, as if expecting him for tea, casually gave him a tour of my apartment. He described it as “full of character,” and wished it was his. He then sat on my couch, pretended to sip on a blackberry beer, its foam spitting like an ava-lanche over the glass bottle and onto the slight-ly used rug I had rescued on garbage day. He insisted that he sop it with a towel I brought from the kitchen. I studied him. He had not changed much. Kind, generous, considerate, and I - was I still his favorite?

Aimlessly he talked about his wife who unbe-knownst to him would betray him a year later. “She loves me,” the last word raised in tone like a question, and “I love her.” Then he’d look at me for the answer. Silence. I’d nod. Listening. Wondering, if he was without words trying to

tell me he still thought our love was unequivo-cal as I still felt. I sat upright in a blue recliner whose arm loosened from its hinge slightly af-ter I leaned on it with just the right amount of weight. I smiled, catching his gaze locked on my eyes, purposely avoiding the shear white, v-neck t-shirt that revealed a shadow of my dark lacy bra. And after an hour of internal-ly enumerating the past and present, he final-ly spoke, “Well, I’d better go before she suspects anything,” as if reaching crystallization.

A transparent cloud of autumn had envel-oped us as I walked with him to his car along a grassy path, smelling of dead autumn leaves, and flourishing moss. The silent dialogue of our hearts lingered as we hugged goodbye un-der a maple tree. I breathed in his citrusy, musky cologne to create a memory of this mo-ment. His large hand warm on my back, and his sigh and warm breath on my neck in its re-lease gave me a sense of pleasure I had not felt with anyone for seven years. It tempted me, but I kept my face away from his. In his ex-hale, I could sense his sadness, confusion, his asking of me to escape with him – again – as if we were young college kids running from our parents who promised us that a young engage-ment would only end in divorce. Ever since, we had met as on this night, never saying goodbye. We only ever kept saying hello, always accept-ing these visits as a process to our eminent re-joining of life’s path when Time told us we were ready. We had promised. As my head rested on his arm, I stared down at the amber colored leaves, harboring signs of both death and life beneath their veins.

A chilly wind rustles the dry leaves in his yard behind him like a plastic grocery bag as I turn

The Sad House, 2003, Color pencil

toward his face and the Chows once again.

“Don’t wreck,” he looks away from me and smiles as he pats the dog on the right.

“Why would I do that?” I sternly ask.

After a pause, more diverting of gazes, he re-peats, “I’ll call you.,” and turns his back to me and walks toward the house.

I sit in my car, and for the first time, realized I am shaking with unfamiliar rejection. My headlights illuminate that slightly gangly, famil-iar tall step. One hand occupies a trash bag and one hand mimics a phone to his ear. “I’ll call you,” he actually voices as I watch his Adam’s apple rise though he must know the engine is too loud to hear him. Voicing it makes it more believable. I lethargically raise my hand as if thanking a driver for letting me merge into busy traffic. I force my phone in the charger, head bent, hiding my dismay, and think about the crumbling marriage I’d be returning to in an hour. He turns around again when he is blanketed by the darkness to study my vehicle in secret as it disappears from the alley.

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“Digital Marketing Solutions: Knowing A Little About A Lot” Strengthen your social media structure through good content, Google analytics, and coding.

Artwork: Luna Meets Spider, 2014

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