A Confession

Forgive me, God/Goddess, for I have sinned.

I have stood before the altar of the Great God Pepsi, and I have typed in my email and password more than twenty times this month. I have heard the crackling pop sound effect that resonates from behind my keyboard and the luscious bubbling music of cold soda trickling into a glass. I have sinned in my mind about drinking it.

My sins run deeper yet. My kitchen table is full, truly full, of empty Pepsi bottles. More are recapped with the safety seal broken in crates on the floor. I have acquired them rather dishonestly; others have brought them here. Others have paid.

All in the name of education.

This month, our alternative school has been chosen to participate in a popularity contest with 2,999 other good causes to receive a grant for 50K from Pepsi Cola Corporation. That's $50,000. A sum that equals teachers, a reading program. "Everything would really be okay," I'm told by our lead teacher. It would.

But there's this little hitch about the voting. In this month of May, everyone gets one vote per day, two if they text one in. And you get more (surprise!) if you buy some Pepsi, remove the top and enter the code in the cap. You get ten more votes in fact, and each is a "Power vote" valued at 5, 10, 25, 50 or even 100 votes.

You now understand the state of my kitchen.

My kitchen is not the only one littered with liters. Kitchens across Eugene and the nation are full of Pepsi right now, full of hope, as this morning we were in slot #19 -- only 9 away from the top ten that will receive the "grant." (Read: Cash Prize! Thank you, Bob Barker.) This fact moved teachers and parents alike to fill our VW buses, bicycles and hatchbacks with Pepsi to drop off with friends and family to get in the vote!

Are you sick yet?

Some of the kids are for sure. Someone out there is in bed with Pepsi poisoning right now, mark my words. My kids believed me when I told them it was only for scientific experiments, drain cleaning, and laundry. They bought Mento candies and attempted explosive events in the back yard. But surely others drank it.

Okay, so I might get in trouble for admitting it, but Seda was one. She is very ill and regrets it, for the record.

It is sad, sad sad. I'm embarrassed to say that the worst consequence is upon us one day before the closing of the vote. I am sitting on this conundrum: I have convinced my boyfriend that it is his civic duty to vote with Pepsi since the state of Oregon as a whole doesn't seem to give a rip about our children's education. No P.E., music, or art and class sizes at 30+ for lower elementary next year.

Ben has been plunking away at the keyboard, activating power codes, and voting with the spinning golden cap for our school. And our rank has fallen...to 56. In hours. All of our potential gifts for the children of tomorrow dumped like so much Pepsi down the drain because 2,999 other noble causes in this country got bit by the hope bug -- perhaps it was a scorpion? -- and they are now messing with our chances.

Since when do we gamble for our children's future? And when did public education become a charity?

With all due respect and even admiration for those who have made a tremendous effort at this grant (ours are the sins of the innocent parents and teachers who wanted only a decent education for our children), I am praying for forgiveness. I am praying for answers. And above all, I pray that our children can forget that we once tried to buy them school with poison.

Today's Work

How can I stretch my mind, my heart, to find tenderness for all of our gifts and limitations?

"Do not apologize for the state of your garden," he chided gently, a man who had been a garden educator for years. "It's exactly how it's supposed to be."

To celebrate that, to hold it dear, I must extend a gentle heart to my work in its many forms as it contributes to both order and chaos: there was the time I chose to write rather than to mulch, the day I slept late to recover from a quarrel that lasted until three a.m. and I did not water, the day I spent at the coast instead of planting the onions.

Dandelions and curly dock I have made friends with. Nettle and bittercress sustain me as I wait for spring lettuce to unfurl before the sun. The crab grass still strikes dread in my heart and the morning glory, it's dark green leaves tender and small, are poking through the too-thin mulch as I turn away, unwilling to watch.

How may I set foot into the pathway of my garden welcoming the presence of every being, green and brown? How can I find it in my heart to offer amnesty to the myriad slugs and snails, flea beetles and aphids? (It is not actually mine to offer, I know. They allow me to grow here, too.)

My work is not the work of the lonely. Raccoons, a pestilence to my chickens, eat snails. The chickens will do serious seasonal damage to the crab grass if I give them half a chance.

I suppose it's about trust, knowing that the resources are here with me to find harmony, peace, and beauty in this bed I've made. When I turn my eyes to the earth and see only obstacles to my intentions, I may close them again and recall all the beings that I am connected to that together encompass a greater vision, and I am offered a view into that.

When I open them, voila! The morning glory blooms effortlessly into tiny flawless cups of sunshine, greenery raises its head in every spot I've not taken the time to cultivate, and my mother Earth reminds me that the world is always in movement, always unfolding whether I am capable of bearing witness or not.

The garden is possibility. It is a model of patience, waiting for me to find love.