Doing the Math

Today just felt like doing the math, and math is not my gift. When I was a re-entry college student, math felt like the one thing between me and the degrees I desperately wanted. So the fear factor just made the obstacle bigger. I think I would have a better understanding in a math class today than I did back then. I never understood the zero on the multiplication table because if I had one apple times zero, it seemed to me that I still had one apple.

Mr. Fun used to get so frustrated at me and so did my math professor Mike because I made it so impossible. Then one summer vacation, Mr. Fun and I took our tandem bicycle to the Gulf Islands of British Columbia, Canada. We were so excited to cycle those islands, and then we got there and realized that they were so forested that we couldn't see the shoreline from the two lane highway and there was no shoulder on the road and every thing just seemed to be a zero.

So we found ourselves sitting in a little pub on Galiano Island drinking a soda and discussing what to do. I told him that I wanted to buy a plane ticket and go home. He could stay and bicycle (he also had his single bike). He said he didn't want to stay without me because it wouldn't be any fun.

That was when the concept of multiplying by zero made sense to me. I realized that two people times no fun was still no fun. That was my "ah ha" moment. I know all of you mathematicians are shaking your head with disbelief.

Another time I wrote a poem about math. Along with not doing much math, writing poetry is something that I do only occasionally. I titled the poem "Math the Hard Way" and wrote it for our daughter on her second wedding anniversary:

The long church aisle was the launching pad she walked two years ago today.
Spectators came to line the way.
Multiplication was viewed in reverse as two mothers and two fathers
watched the marriage of their son and their daughter.

Down the aisle on a ribbon of white,
this girl relinquished her solitary life.
At the end of the aisle the groom stood to wait;
He was the bulls-eye in her target of late.
Dressed in satin, lace and silk,
she was a shadow, shroud in a veil;
His body dripped wet
beneath the starched white
and flannel-wool gray.

Two years today; now the white lace has faded to beige.
A redheaded baby wants them to play.
At their wedding she hid quiet under all her mom's array.
Today she won't be ignored; she won't go away.
Four reduced to two, then ultimately one.
This type of math produced Ashly Nicole Dunn.


So today I've taken one more stab at finishing the preparation for having our income tax forms prepared by the CPA this Friday. So the calculator has been my friend today. I've just been doing the math.

Southern California is summer warm this evening. Our windows are still open because the cool evening breeze is delightful. Good night all.

Rosie, aka Carol