This marked my first outing with a new outdoorsy meetup group. I wanted to exercise my permanently injured ankle in a novel way; so I could strengthen it.

I gave the park’s fitness area the evil eye as we walked past. I’ll run on a treadmill and lift free weights, but I want nothing to do with other exercise equipment.

Our fearless leader lead the way although he’d never hiked this trail.

The first path we followed ended on a street. I love how a house peeked just beyond the trees rather than an animal.

Following a different trail, we came across another human activity “dropping.”

I surrendered my camera to pose with this interesting tree. 

This was the first of several water crossings we traversed.

This miniature waterfall added some variety to the otherwise lazy, shallow river we loosely followed.

This was the most sensible crossing we encountered. On the next one, I helped an older woman across since she was not confident in her footing on the rocks. I made a mental note to purchase a walking stick at Goodwill next time I plan to go hiking. 

We still ended up walking on a neighborhood sidewalk as part of our journey and circling back to the house we’d seen in the first ten minutes of our hike.

Toward the end of my junior year of college, Mom had the brilliant idea that I transfer to a less expensive school since The University of NC at Chapel Hill, AKA “Carolina,” cost more than sending both of my sisters to ECU. There was no way in hell I was going to transfer to another school; so I started selling Bibles. The plan was to train in Nashville, then relocate somewhere I’d never been before to sell Bibles and educational books door to door during the summer.

Ever the control freak, Mom enticed me with the offer of free room and board if I sold books in Fayetteville, NC. Since this was the time our relationship was at its most contentious, I acted as if I had to remain with the two young women whom I’d agreed to be roommates. They shared a downstairs room in my parents’ house while I rested comfortably upstairs in my childhood bedroom.

Mom didn’t really want to be a temporary landlady and was quite upset she couldn’t have guests all summer, but I’d wanted to leave home and thought it was fitting that she suffered for insisting I stay.

By the end of summer, I’d saved over two thousand dollars, mostly because I enjoyed free housing and food. At least my parents didn’t have to pay for my last year at Carolina. And as an extra bonus, I’d bought myself a Bible.

Although my parents raised me Baptist, ensured I had dutifully attended church nearly every Sunday, I believed in God but not religion. This was long before I knew anything about feminism or the patriarchy. All the conflicting beliefs and interpretations of The Bible, along with other religious books, didn’t clear up any confusion, especially when those so called religious beliefs touted that I was less than who I was because of my gender and race.

After graduation, I wired 12-inch miter saws on a non-moving assembly line. My coworkers teased me for being a Carolina graduate and ending up employed with them. I just smiled and took the ribbing in stride. Not because I had an even temper. I wanted to see how low their jaws would drop when they discovered I was paying off a small student loan and buying some things for my impending adventure to Tanzania as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

I sat on that tidbit of information for 5 weeks. Afterwards, I had the cheek to give a week’s notice. The only reason anyone gives notice for a shitty job like that is to rub it in the faces of their coworkers.

I can’t remember whether I’d packed my Bible for that trip or not. As a matter of fact, my next recollection of that Bible was when I’d moved to Denver several years later. I’d scheduled a bona fide reading time in my daily itinerary. From the stack of material on my nightstand, I’d start off reading a passage, then a chapter from whichever books I had at the time.

In 2000 when Al Gore won the popular vote, but not the presidential election, I put most of my things in storage and packed up the rest for a two-year teaching job in Alexandria, Egypt. I brought that Bible as a handy reference for life in the Biblical lands.

More significantly, however, I’d made a promise to God. My only surviving grandparent, Mama Bea, was in failing health. I’d vowed on New Year’s Day 2001 to read The Bible daily for a year and in its entirety if God spared her while I labored through this task.

My diligence paid off. Mama Bea remained alive for all of 2001, passing in January 2002. A few days after learning of her departure, I dreamt about her. She feared I would be late for work. Instead of simply telling me to get up, Mama Bea placed both of her hands on my torso and shook me as if rolling out dough. In my sleep, I argued with her to stop shaking me. I half woke up, looked at my alarm clock and complained about her waking me up a minute before it sounded.

Fully wake, I still shook. Or more accurately, the bed itself shook. I’d woken to an earthquake. Not as strong as the one that crumbled the famed Alexandria Lighthouse. Just strong enough to leave me with the eerie feeling that Mama Bea had come to me in form of an earthquake before reaching her final destination.

After teaching in Egypt, I moved to Mexico. Slowly, my Bible deteriorated from the outside in, starting with the binding. It’s tempting to say that the rough travels of being shipped from one country to the next shortened its life, but I blame the Egyptian customs agents. After all, when I’d optimistically packed up a class set of compasses to teach four different levels of math at a private school in Alexandria, I received my boxes only to find every compass metal point had been broken off. That should’ve been my forewarning.

My Bible suffered a torturous round with Egyptian customs. At least I still received it, unlike the two journals I’d written in nearly every day while living there. The only tangible memories I have of my time in Egypt are two photo albums and the long, descriptive letters I emailed to friends and family.

Over the years, my Bible’s leather binding shed completely, followed by pages from both ends. I recycled everything. When I noticed the decline increasing, I thought, “My Bible is dying.”

Absurd to personify a book, right? I chastised myself for being so attached to it, given my secular disposition. Yet, the thought of tossing the entire book into the recycling bin was unconscionable. I agonized every evening when I read a passage and more pages slipped away.

I went to a Christian bookstore to buy a replacement. The Bible selection was incredible: from colorfully illustrated children’s Bibles to the myriad of adult Bibles with their constellation of acronyms both familiar and exotic to me: KJV, NKJV, CEB, ESV, HSCB, NAS, NIV, NLT.

This didn’t even include the different publishers who had their own versions of these acronyms. With very little research, I selected the “latest” study Bible. It boasted of having over 8,000 study notes, along with QR codes and web links. I thumbed through it and read some of the passages, which were written in contemporary English.

Toting both Bibles, I placed the new one on the counter and asked the sales woman if they recycled Bibles as she rang me up. She cheerfully told me that they didn’t exactly recycle Bibles, but if I wanted to donate my old Bible…I held up my old Bible.

She stopped mid sentence. I told her the abridged story of how it came to be in that condition. Her eyes widened at the mention of “Egypt.” I told her I could recycle pages, but not the book itself. My eyes began to water. She smiled, handed me the new study Bible, which cost two weeks’ worth of groceries, reached for my old Bible and said they would recycle it.

I nearly jumped outta my skin when a friend told me how lucky I was to have teaching as my “fall back career.” I wished I could’ve traveled through the cell phone to cuss her out in person. She’d caught me off guard, sliding that insult disguised as a compliment into our otherwise friendly, yearly Thanksgiving Day phone call.

I realize George Bernard Shaw wrote, “Those who can’t do, teach,” but I’m beginning to think he was merely jealous of the lifelong passion one derives from doing what one truly loves. Yes, there are people who trudge through jobs they hate, day in and day out just to make ends meet. They are sellouts. Some of them are teachers, but really they could be soullessly doing anything for money. Even writing plays.

Yet, once I resigned from teaching at an Austin public school, I’d finally combined both my passions for teaching and writing as a freelance editor and writer of online educational materials. I wrote Biology lessons, imagining how engaged students would be with the interactive exercises I created. I actually missed being with students, but not asshole administrators.

As fate would have it, I ended my last freelance educational writing contract the first week of December 2014 and didn’t get another until the last week of December 2015. In between time, I taught an evening adult basic education class, which allowed me to do yoga, paint and write in the mornings and interact with students in the evenings.

I loved it. One of the best lessons I learned, I’d actually heard myself telling a student, who thought it was incredulous that I enjoyed teaching math. I told her, “Because I know how to teach math, I will always have a job.”

I must explain that’s not the only reason I enjoy teaching math, but as any adult education instructor will tell you, adult students are mostly motivated to return to school because they are tired of dead-end, minimum-wage jobs with questionable job security and most likely, an openly inhumane supervisor. So, highlighting a clear economic link between understanding math, a subject majority of my students struggle with, and job security, is a good thing.

Later, it hit me: as long as I can teach math, I will always have a job. Eureka! Never had I picked out a specific skill, besides being fabulous at strategic thinking and organization, both of which I attribute to mathematical reasoning, from the myriad of teaching skills, and saw the marketable commodity I’ve honed for 20 years and counting.

Once I became a licensed teacher with a Masters in Education, I thought my career path was set. Long ago, people remained with the same company and/or career throughout their entire professional life. That world began to disappear about 40 years ago and the rise of the Internet and its technological cousins accelerated this transformation.

My career journey traveled a little off the beaten path since I began both teaching and writing as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I’ve leapt from one international, exotic location to the next, teaching math and science. Never once had I felt I’d fallen backwards. As a matter of fact, I credit my international teaching career for helping out my fall back writing career!

Just to show that the universe continues to conspire with me, I recently had the inspiration to start training parkour, thanks to watching one of my nephews train. That’s a perfect analogy for how I now visualize my career trajectory: leaping, swinging, climbing and flipping from one challenge to the next, using whichever skills I need at the time to meet my personal and professional goals.

Before I learned sex positions were named for what’s done to a woman, I knew women weren’t created to be passive recipients.

Before I learned oral sex was sex, I knew it should be reciprocated.

Before I learned most of a man’s fascination with his own penis was the fact he could see it, I knew women had genitalia worthy of attention.

Before I learned some men couldn’t climax while wearing a condom, I still knew I had the right to be protected.

Before I learned some guys thought inserting “just the tip” was an acceptable work around to wearing a condom, I knew the tip was where rogue sperm and STIs hung out.

Here’s some anatomical irony: men boast and compliment one another by stating how big their testicles are; or urge another man to be courageous by suggesting he “grow a pair”; and will even express admiration for an assertive woman by saying she’s really “ballsy”. Yet, testicles are as fragile as an overhyped male ego. On the other hand, vaginas are designed to withstand a pounding. So, shouldn’t it be more complimentary to tell a man he’s a big pussy?

Once upon a time

On an overcrowded bus

From Mombasa to Dar es Salaam

Zoned out

Dead weight

Bouncing around

Exotic African images blurring past

Crudely serenaded by

Blasting Zairian music

Heavy bass

Pulsating hearts

When slowly

Through mental fog

A primal response

To inanimate vibrations

Orgasmic vaginal contractions

Forget horseback riding

Ride a chicken bus instead

Heaven and Hell

Are self-inflicted