EARLY SUMMER

Iris

Irises belong to bygone summers.  On my walks to the playground, I passed rows of these tall spires. The blossoms glowed in deep purple, yellows and browns, blues, whites, shades of orange. I picked bouquets from the gardens of my childhood and gave them to Nana, Great-grandmother Belden, Aunt Maida and Uncle Bill.

Now I read about the many varieties of iris.  I'm most familiar with the bearded iris, Iris Germanica, found among the old New England homesteads.  The books say this is probably a species bred and created, not a native to this New World soil.

It's an ancient flower, revered by Egyptians, Greeks, kings and artists. You find its glory painted by Van Gogh and emblazoned as the fleur-de-lis, symbol of the might of the French monarchy.

Iris was the Greek goddess who bridged earth and heaven with her rainbows.  She was a message-bearer and the one who led the souls of dead women to the Elysian fields.  Her namesake flower honored women's graves.

The flowers are famous for perfumes and dyes, orris root, old remedies for illnesses as well as for keeping kegs of beer from going stale.

All this history and story is embodied in the stately flowers now blooming in my wild, hillside garden.  If I once dismissed irises as more suited to "old ladies' flowerbeds", I apologize.  I stand corrected.  I stand in awe of all I do not know about the power and mystery and lineage of this natural world --- its flora, its fauna, its geology, us.

So before they plant irises over my grave, I make a promise to myself and to the future. I pledge to love the pleasure and power of learning.  I will look for wonder and discovery in things big and small. I will write and share my stories, mindful of my voice and the truth of what I witness.

I promise to be forever curious, a seeker of what I do not know.

RAIN IN MAY

Suddenly It's Green

In this corner of New Hampshire, the biggest changes in the landscape happen between April and May.  In a matter of weeks, we go from stark, leafless browns and grays to the singular green of Spring.

I've been worried lately that we are finally living in Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.  It's been too quiet.  During the long, hot dry spell in April, we lost the vernal pools in our woods.  We didn't hear wood frogs or birdsong at the usual times.  We were harassed by brush fires and the threats of more damage from careless cigarettes, camping, or lightning.

Then, it rained.

Last night we listened to the peepers.  Two barred owls argued over territory and mates.  Their calls filled the woods by the house.

Earlier in the day we heard the robins and phoebes.  Small warblers flit from branch to branch.  And this morning the transformation grows -- indigo buntings, more warblers,  birdsong -- everywhere, birdsong.

Spring is silent no more.

SO TELL ME, HOW ARE YOUR ZOMBIES DIFFERENT?

...AND OTHER QUESTIONS WRITING TEACHERS ASK.

This would be a great title for a book on writing with middle school kids -- something I have just finished.  For three Friday afternoons in April, I joined Writing Project teachers, college students, classroom teachers and 140 sixth, seventh and eighth graders in a project called WriteOn! at a local school.

It was the third year of WriteOn! and as is often the case now, the funds were cut for the grant.  But at this school, the PTA decided a writing enrichment series for all the middle schoolers was important and it provided the money for the writers and materials.  Good for them!

Our group had eight students covering all the grades.  Some are avid writers and used the prompts to create pages and pages of new stories.  Some hate writing. Some are very shy about sharing their work.  Different teachers wrote with us each week -- and when teachers + students write together, the energy shifts.  The power of words and ideas supplants the power of teacher over student, and we become one writing community.

One girl discovered Viking runes and made a series of coded sentences to decipher.  One reluctant writer used a photograph from WRITE WHAT YOU SEE (Hank Kellner, Cottonwood Press).  He wrote two pieces, one about his grandmother's dog named Baxter and one about dogs and babies and why people are drawn to them.

The Native American ledger drawings from the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College inspired seventh and eighth grade girls to write serious, detailed stories about a life on the plains and first encounters with white settlers.  Some moved to poetry and personal essays on loneliness and belonging.

Two friends write war-adventure-espionage stories.  This is where the zombies come into the writing.  They support each other's work and listen intently when the other reads new parts.

In our "quick writes", the teachers also wrote about dogs and babies, loneliness and "lost love", bullies and heroes.  I love how writing can be a great equalizer, a common ground for adults and young people to share.

Yesterday, we all were a bit sad to finish the WriteOn! series.  We knew something good had happened.  We had laughed together, shared thoughts through our writing and talking, and learned something new about each person, adults and young people.  We had taken risks and explored new things.

This is why I love teaching and writing...

Why I believe in the future...

 and in the young people who are its promise

and its heirs.

EARLY APRIL

Echo Lake - Franconia, New Hampshire

I have been obsessed with the politics and bad news of the day to the point where I get depressed, sick, dispirited.  It's not the way to live a life.  I have to get outside into the natural world.  Beauty.  Mountains topped with snow.  Cold, clear lakes.  Blue, blue skies.  The crisp definition of trees just before they leaf out.  

This early April morning is testament enough -- birds returning to nest, buds about to burst, life bravely embracing the next step in its cycle and me, alive again and grateful to be connected to the terrifying beauty and mystery around me.

It's a comfort in a strange way.

HOPE

Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi has inspired me for years -- through her house arrest and imprisonment.  Through her stolen election.  Through the years of broken promises and indignities.  But try as they might, the military junta could not silence her.

Two years ago, I wrote:  "Never give up hope" when thinking of her.  Five years ago, it seemed as if hope was a very small flame about to die.

Today, Aung San Suu Kyi has won a seat in the parliment.  Everywhere she travels in Burma, she is met with joy and huge crowds who, like me, now overflow with Hope.

IT'S EARLY FOR NEW HAMPSHIRE

Spring

March 19.  Just before the Spring Equinox and we find ourselves with 70 degree weather.  From one day to the next, sprouts like these daffodils appear and then shoot up two inches or more in the uncanny sunshine.

We're a cautious folk in New Hampshire.  We know this kind of weather in March is a huge teaser.  "Wait until the big snow in April" we say and the audience shakes its collective head with the memories of apple blossoms drooping under heavy, wet snows.

But this is a new world where feeding the machine rules over common sense and caution, and where the collective memories no longer revere early Spring joys of tadpoles, vernal pools and the first peepers.  

In this new corporate world, I wonder about Resilience:  How to nurture resilience with dignity and truth.  How to spring back and not be crushed by what is happening to social justice, human rights, our environment, our souls.  

Mostly, I wonder how to keep celebrating what I know and love in a country gone mad.  I'm drawn into an ancient struggle and I hope to surprise myself with what I discover along the way.

TELL ME A STORY OF PIGS

Adventures with Pigs

Dear Aimee and Millie,

You asked me what pigs eat.  That's a good question.  When I was a little girl, my grandfather and Nana raised pigs on their farm in Pittsfield, New Hampshire.  In this photo, I'm about 3 years old.  I wanted to take this little pig for a walk, but he was more interested in eating leaves in the path.  I don't look very happy.

I remember I helped my grandfather feed the pigs.  We mixed grain, molasses and water into a sweet-smelling mash.  My grandfather poured the mash into a long wooden trough and the pigs stood side-by-side eating.  They made snuffling and snorting sounds when they ate.  They also had a fenced-in field in the summer where the pigs could run and eat green plants, leaves and other tasty bits.  They always had water -- both in the field and in the barn.

Some people think pigs are dirty animals, but I remember how clean they were, especially outside in the fields.  One of the big jobs on the farm was keeping the pens in the barn clean and full of straw.

My grandfather had a horse named Pancho, chickens, geese, and a cow.  My Nana milked the cow and made butter from the cream.  I loved visiting them on the farm.  When I was older, I stayed for a few weeks each summer.  Then, I helped in the garden.  I picked peas and cucumbers.  My Nana taught me how to make pickles and we entered a jar into the local fair.  Our pickles won a blue ribbon!

I'm glad you asked about pigs.  I had fun finding this old photograph from the summer of 1950.   I like sharing stories of when I was a little girl.  Ask me more questions!

Politics 2012 - and it's only January

January 10: The New Hampshire Primary.  It's a big deal here.  We're the first in the nation to vote on the presidential candidates.

I'm an Independent who votes the Democratic ballot based on its history, principles and traditions.  It's a vote that demands I keep my voice alive and "out there"... not falling into "silence is complicity"... not letting my responsibilities stop with the one act of voting.

This year, the Republicans had a roster of candidates that filled our hearts with dread -- Gingrich, Santorum, Paul, Romney, Huntsman, Bachman.  We face extreme politics that could strip away everything I value -- public education, women's rights, single payer health care, environmental safeguards, conservation, a social agenda that protects (in deed not only mouth) the civil rights of everyone in this country.

Voting in an old New England Town House makes me feel connected to my country, my town, my roots.  It's quintessential New England -- the wood stove, food, a bake sale, jeans and fleece.  The talk is civil, more or less.  It's where we live, after all, where we see our neighbors, police + firemen, town officials, teachers, young + old, face-to-face.

January 19:  Real Heroes.  This lady, a widow from northern New Hampshire, refuses to sell her farm to the Northern Pass Project.  Northern Pass is offering huge, inflated sums of money to create high-tower transmission lines from the Canadian border to Groveton. There are no existing Right-of-Ways to this point, so Northern Pass thinks it can buy out local landowners.  This private venture promises big money to landowners in a poor part of the state.

She lives on a farm that's been in her husband's family for generations. She doesn't want to sell it to Northern Pass for many reasons. Her grandson wants to farm it again.  She loves where she lives. She doesn't in believe this project -- or its tactics of threatening eminent domain and turning family members against one another.  

After she said, No, she had legal expenses. She became dragged into controversy.  But today, she's recognized for the heroine she is.  The Northern Pass Opposition held a fundraiser and turned over a check to help her with those legal fees and other expenses.

This is what freedom and choice and doing the right thing is all about. 

January 25.  New Hampshire State Senate Votes and strengthens the law protecting landowner rights.  The final tally was 23 in favor and 1 opposed.  But it was no easy victory.

HB 648 needed to pass.  Without it, Northern Pass would have an easier time taking the land it wants for its transmission lines.  Even with this new law, the lobbyists and influence-hucksters will simply turn their attention to other avenues -- federal regulators, their friends in the courts and on regulatory committees, their lawyers, who knows...

Can you spot the lobbyists?  The landowners?

Here in the gallery, we are carefully shielded from the Senators' eyes. The space is full:  the orange of opposition, the sleek black of power, lawyers on Smartphones (making luncheon dates with lobbyists), and older residents of the North Country who left homes and farms before dawn to be a presence here.  

  

Here's my message to the Senate:  "I'm not paid by anyone to buy or influence your vote.  I'm one of the people you represent.  Let's not forget that.  It's simple, back to basics.  Politics 101."

Winter

The New Year blows sweet, although a bit cold.  There are no questions for me now.  I am in the right place at this particular time of life.  On a chilly Thursday morning, Barry's birthday, we head north.  

Franconia Notch
Cannon Mountain 

Crossing the Pemigewasset River
near its source

We walk to the Basin over a thin layer of ice.  There's a woodpecker hole on this pine tree to the left.  The air is crisp and bites my nose.  I wear my new "retirement boots", lumberjack leather, thick sturdy soles -- and I don't fall.

We warm up at the Littleton Diner and feed our minds at the wonderful independent bookstore down the street.  We come away with books on mushrooms, writing, and log drives down the Connecticut River.  I buy myself a "Congratulations on your retirement" card.  It just seems the right thing to do.

Barry treats himself at the local antique-curio shop where he finds the sword of a long-deceased swordfish.  It just seems the right thing to do -- and it is.

Count the Birds

January 1, 2012:  It was warm for a January day in New Hampshire.  The sun slipped in and out of the clouds.  Brown leaves underfoot held a memory of October or early November.  I wore a fall jacket, no gloves, no boots.  It's unsettling for this old New Englander to be so free this time of year.

Then, another marker of change appeared -- this red-bellied woodpecker, a bird we knew from Maryland where we lived in 1971.  We had seen one last week in western Massachusetts where we celebrated Christmas on a warm, spring-like day.  No Currier and Ives this year!  No sleigh bells, no skiing, no snow, no ice -- just an unfamiliar bird in an untimely landscape...

Red bellied Woodpecker

January 2, 2012:  Today is the Audubon Christmas Bird Count, a time for birders to scour their areas and take count of the birds they see. Across the world, ornithologists and citizen scientists share their data and study the changes in the numbers and the species recorded year by year.  

• Changes -- like this red-bellied woodpecker, a bird of the southeastern forests, now at home hundreds of miles north of where his ancestors thrived.  
• Changes -- like waterfowl now swimming in open water on the big lakes of our region.  
• Changes -- robins staying all winter and feeding on different foods, like the true survivors they are, adapting to new conditions in their lives.

Where I find no change is on the human side of the equation. The New Hampshire Legislature is now considering a bill to limit how evolution is taught in schools.  The parade of presidential candidates fall all over themselves denying climate change and its consequences. 

We bulldoze wetlands, destroy mangroves and then bemoan the flood damage that follows.  Think of fracking, Northern Pass Transmission Lines, strip mining...

This red-bellied woodpecker has a lot to teach us about adaptation and survival, limited resources and conservation, destruction of habitat, and knowledge of where we live and what we need to survive.  

After all we're merely another species amongst the many, subject to natural laws and consequences.  

Let's teach that in our schools! 

Colors of the Season

Evergreen

This time of year celebrates light and birth and promise. We burn the fires and sing the songs to chase away darkness and welcome back light.  The old mysteries linger in blood-red berries, flames like the sun, and boughs that stay evergreen, even in the hard cold truth of a northern winter.

***

2011 was a pissant year in so many ways, but I am caught by the demands for freedom from people across the world.  Tunisia to Egypt to Libya to Syria. Wall Street and Oakland and Washington and Boston.  One generation passes, and we seek the next Vaclav Havel, the young Mandela, the leaders with heart and morals and the courage to do what is right for us all, not act just for the few, the rich, the lobbyists, the spoilers.

I'm disgusted by liars and false gods, guns and pepper spray, bullies and corrupted elections.  I want leaders -- real people -- who stand up and stop the violence that is done in the name of "national security", "public safety", "too-big-to-fail", and "family values".  

I want to hear truth.  Someone, say:
"There were no weapons of mass destruction. Those weapons were made here, at home, paid for by our taxes, and unleashed by our own sons and daughters.  Truth:  We cannot keep destroying peoples' jobs and then expect them to be the good consumers needed to fuel our economy.  Truth:  The emperor has no clothes, never has, never will, no matter how many tailors and handlers he/she employs."

From One Year to the Next

Thanksgiving Snow

After many years of traveling for Thanksgiving, we stay home now.  It feels just right to be here in celebration of the harvest, the woods, the land, and our New Hampshire lives.  The twist for 2011 was a snowstorm the day before Thanksgiving.  Six inches of heavy, wet snow weighed down trees and took the power out for ten hours or so. Our teacher friends were delighted.  Our cooking friends wondered when they could get back to the preparations.  We carried on doing house chores by kerosene lamp.

The next morning, Thanksgiving Day, I took this photograph out the south window.  Then I baked anadama bread and finished canning the rest of the applesauce (16 pints).  I thought about past holidays -- Gram Dorrington's apple pies, big and small family gatherings over 60-plus years, awkward times, unhappy times, old and new traditions, the many warm and loving memories.

I thought about change -- how our landscapes change year by year.  Snow.  Misty, brown woods.  Frost, rain, a pale November sun.

The people change, too.  So many are gone.  Some have left-- geographically and otherwise.  The elders have died and the next generation moves into the places left empty at the table, the kitchen, the heart.

My joy comes when I pack the warm loaves of bread and walk up the road with Barry.  We pass the small graveyard, the huge bull pines, horses, deer track, woods that stretch on either side of us.  The skies are darkening, but the lights shine from Ellen's windows.  We join old and new friends and neighbors at a long table by the open fireplace where we share a feast and fellowship in a brave new world.

Search for the Muse

The Writing Retreat

We are four intrepid writers on a weekend retreat at a local vacation spot near the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  This is our third retreat -- with more to come, we know.  We're encouraged by the freedom to write and the fearless stroke of pen on paper, fingers on keys.  There's a quiet, meditative quality in the room, broken by laughter, awe and appreciation when one of us reads what has appeared on the page.

Who knew the Muse sits among us, opening portals to heart and mind, singing us to write among our friends and colleagues!  No more solitary desk in the pristine setting -- we write amidst scraps of papers, books, words cut from magazines and pictures culled from everywhere.  We sit.  We write.  We share.  We have a respectful audience.   We have just what we need.

Bittersweet Realities of Being Retired

This morning I listened to National Public Radio, checked the local news and read BBC News on my computer.  In my initial days of retirement, I make time to savor a cup of coffee and consider the state of the world.

Here's what I learned today:

• A young man I knew as an elementary school student is now a felon
• The Wall Street protests are not covered by our big mainstream media -- even after an officer approached a group of young women cordoned off by other officers and sprayed his can of pepper spray over the unarmed, unprotected women.  No one came to their aid with water or cloth or any kind of protest.  
• In Mexico, decapitated heads were left outside a school
• Coffee may be helpful in "preventing depression".

My cup of coffee does not have that power.  Even if it did, I don't want to be numbed or complacent or "cured" in the face of such human misery and abuse.

Time for Reflection

I have passed the 185 pennies to another teacher friend to be used "when she is ready" to consider retiring from public education.  As I learned over this past school year, retiring is a process that starts long before the decision, the announcement and the farewell party.

We laughed when I told her "the pennies worked".  But they did work for me -- transferring one penny a day, each workday, kept me focused and honest about what I was doing.  I was leaving my life work, colleagues, kids, parents, and that oh-so-familiar environment of school.

Since that last official day in June, I've taught in the National Writing Project in New Hampshire Summer Institute.  That was a great way for me to transition from special education testing to working and writing with teachers.  The National Writing Project's model is "teachers-teaching-teachers", and this work inspires thought and deep reflection.

That's where I am today, reflecting on education, rather than thinking about the daily school details.  I have left a specific job description.  I have left a climate of testing-is-teaching and public rants on teachers and schools.  I've left restrictive rules that make no sense in the "real world" of the classroom.  I've left budget cuts, bad policies, and animosity among communities who could be working together to support their future, their children, our world.

But I'm not going away.  I'm exploring and traveling through my writing, politics, cultural change, voice, telling my stories and owning my truths.   I feel rich beyond belief -- rich with books, arts, friends, ideas, curiosity, freedoms.  And, unlike the new barbarians who make war upon our country's principles and peoples,  I'm not afraid.

The Field Office

When you call for me now, I'll be in the Field Office... in a room of my own... awash in memories of travels, dear friends, good books, and words, lots and lots of promising words.  I find myself studying pictures of older women, like the Inuit elders and a woman drinking coffee after finishing a solid morning's work.  No more collections of young hunter-women -- now, it's time for Recasting, Revisioning and Renewing the Vows to myself.

The stove is named Volcano -- really -- and it lives up to its name during the winter.

The window looks northwest to where the cold winds of winter blow.  I see sunsets, the garden, a pine and a cherry tree.  I hear birds, chipmunks, mice in the roof, and the contented beat of one human heart.

Gloria Steinem said: "The truth sets you free, but first it pisses you off." I agree...

Politics --The Personal, Cultural, Environmental, and Global

Fund the Arts, 

the National Writing Project, 

programs for social change and justice.

Single payer health system.

Choice for Women's Reproductive Health.

Planned Parenthood and global family planning.

Free, public education funded as if it mattered.

Money and respect for libraries, museums, and PBS.

The Liberal Arts as a way of building a tolerant world.

Diversity.  Ecology.  Wilderness.

Respect our place within the Web of Life.

Sustaining.  Conserving.  Preserving.  

Act responsibly for the sake of the future. 

 NO NORTHERN PASS

No Eminent Domain Extended to Private, for-Profit Companies -- None

No Corporations Allowed to Take Public Lands for Their Own Projects/Profits

No Corporations/ Anyone Allowed to Destroy or Interrupt Wildlife Habitat and Corridors

This is just a taste of what is at stake.  Get pissed off ----
and join us.

Moments in May

Early May in New England

It was a cold, rainy start to May.  The sky stayed that flat, steely gray and then it rained for days on end.  We savored every green sprout and bud.  My grandfather always said it was time to plant when the leaves were "as big as a mouse's ear".  That took some powerful waiting this year.

Now, at the end of the month, we're awash in green.  The temperatures these last few days have been summery -- in the 80's F.  The garden yields lettuce, chives, mustard greens, garlic tops, rhubarb, asparagus -- and the best parsnips we've ever grown.

Memorial Day 2011: There's My Dad!

Earth Day 2011

Smithsonian Museum.  Washington, D.C. 

The National Museum of the American Indian reads like a holocaust, a genocide, a sweep of colonial powers across a ravaged land.  Yet, there is the powerful message that the Earth endures even as its people fight and die and destroy what should be revered.  

Now, over two hundred years later, our ancestors still speak the truth. What we must do is listen.  Heed the words.  Act from those "better places" in our heart.

My Prayer for Earth Day

"I am alone in the woods.  

I find solace, safety and beauty there.  

I rest in the knowledge that our ancestors were born here.  

I am grateful to be Home."

Storm Clouds over Washington

April 1, 2011 -- The Theatre of the Absurd

I wish it were an April Fool's joke, but it's not.  The young, spiky-haired legislative aide with the parochial school background couldn't be bothered to listen or take notes or do his damn job while we presented our impressive data on eighth grade reading gains and fourth graders' writing and a first grade's campaign that kept a neighborhood library open + alive.

He told us his boss, the new Representative, only comes to Washington to vote.  I'm disgusted -- that's not why he was elected, to sit home in New Hampshire.  He was elected, after all, not appointed by God or the King. I can only hope he gets fogged in and misses the key votes.

I'm in Washington, D.C. for my third Spring Meeting of the National Writing Project.  However on March 2, NWP joined the ever-growing list of educational programs cut from the federal budget.  NWP is the only professional development program for teachers of writing on a national scale.  It has been a 30-year investment by the federal government.  There are over 200 sites across the country.  There are a million reasons why this program works, but we are not in the world of reason any longer.

In meeting after meeting, in auditoriums and small offices, we heard how crazy, how difficult, how impossible it is to do the right thing.  This budget is a war where you and I and all those kids lose everything we need for a future.  It's Partisan Politics and no one seems willing to stand up and stop this reckless destruction of our society.

We also spoke with three thoughtful and interested young people who are legislative aides.  I think of them, too, as I offer this challenge.

Study the photograph of these Kindergarten-Grade 1 students. Consider that in twenty years, the boy in red is your tax accountant. How well-educated would you like him to be?

The little girl in pink wants to be your heart surgeon. The girl on her knees will teach your first grandchild to read and love books.  Maybe one of them will be your hospice worker or an automobile mechanic in the age of solar-electric-robot-driven cars.

This is not a frivolous exercise.  These kids are the future -- your future and my future.  I want them to be well-educated, compassionate, creative, and smart.   I'm willing to pay so these children have a quality, public education.

What about you?  

Home from the Dominican Republic

A week ago, I was here on Playita, a small gem of a beach in the town of Las Galeras, in the northeast of the Dominican Republic.  The water was that warm, turquoise-blue of the Caribbean Ocean.  At one end of the beach, there were the European tourists, French and German. At the other end, a Dominican family celebrated 27 February, Independence Day.  And in the middle, under an almond tree, four American teachers marveled at their good fortune.  


We had walked a country road from the main street in Las Galeras.  We passed small farms and cows in the fields.  One family sold pan de coco and pina in a roadside stand.  We bought the warm bread and a pineapple, and the man gave us a tour of his farm.  We had admired his enormous pig the day before, and now we met the pig, the dog, the chickens.  He had a plot of land with bananas, pigeon peas, papaya, mango trees, and yucca.  Everywhere we looked, we saw small crops of fruits and vegetables for the family.  His daughter was doing homework on a table outside, and his wife cooked on an open air stove made of metal.  It was, after all, a Sunday afternoon.


We saw no Americans for the five days we stayed in Las Galeras.  We enjoyed the company of a Canadian family at the bed and breakfast, along with the Swiss proprietors and a French man and his wife.  We ate fried fish at the shack on the end of the beach and drank superbly cold Presidente beer with the local fisherman and taxi drivers.  Our traveling companion Jen speaks fluent Spanish and some Creole, so the language barrier was open for a rich and different kind of experience.


Las Galeras was pure vacation -- sunning, swimming, eating local foods, walking back roads, and generally enjoying the company of friends, old and new.  Karen and Jen found a frog in the shower and a big spider on the wall.  We were there long enough to recognize people as time passed.  We also saw the invisible division -- Dominicans on one end of the single main road, Europeans on the other.  The Dominicans always had more fun, and the music was distinctly better...


Now we are home and it's March in New Hampshire.  The skies have been gray for three days. Today, a Sunday, it's raining.  The snow is still several feet deep, but it rains and in the rain is the slight promise of Spring.  

On days such as these, I marvel at life.

The Countdown Continues

99 days and counting

Midwinter.  We just passed the 100th day of school, a time full of counting and sharing 100 "things".  We use pennies, blocks, cubes, paper clips, shoes, books, pencils and crayons.  We make patterns of 5's and 10's.  We count all together in those big outdoor voices.  We put a fat red 100 on the number line that snakes around the classroom wall.  We mark what we have learned and what we have learned to love. 

It's all in the joy of learning... and for me, the joy of leaving.  

Clink.   

Sparks Fly

New Year's Eve

There was just enough snow for a bonfire on New Year's Eve.  It was cold and clear and quiet until someone lit fireworks on the lower road. We stood in the garden and celebrated the end of a decade. We burned pine logs and branches. We threw on rotten rafters from the shed and hunks of plywood ceiling. The fire burned brightly and snapped in the cold.

This year's ritual holds more weight for me.  2011 is a change year, a big marker, a time to leave one stage of life and enter another.  In June, I'll retire from my profession as an education testing specialist, work that has engaged me fully for all my adult life.  Working in schools with kids, teachers, parents and administrators hasn't been a "job"; it's been Who I Am, a definition of me down to the bones.

So, I've been preparing for this big transition and in the process, I'm stirring up all kinds of thoughts, memories, regrets, disappointments, anger and proud moments -- all the stuff of life.

For the bonfire, I hauled three boxes of files out of locked storage and fed them one by one to the flames.  There was nothing easy or light-hearted about this.  We read the names aloud and watched bits of educational history curl and burn and fly skyward in flurries of sparks.

There were notes from parents who couldn't make meetings, old pink telephone messages, a few complaints, and one or two 'thank you' notes.   This hoard of yellowing paper -- WISC's and diagnostic reading tests, VMIs and first grade screenings -- has no meaning now.  Yet I saved old files and reports.  I told myself, I might use them. Research? 

Study?  A Reminder of the glory days?

Whatever the wish or deception, it fades.  The important work was done years ago, face-to-face, when we were young and in a very different world and time.

There's a homily that says, the student always leaves the teacher. Well, this teacher is leaving, too.  The sparks are flying -- and I have other things to do.

Happy New Year!

Today, January 1, 2011, I celebrate the special parts of my life.

TRAVEL

MY LIFE PARTNER AND INSPIRATION

MOOSE ON A MISTY AUGUST MORNING

ART AS POLITICAL ACTION

ANCIENT MYSTERIES:  STONES AT CALLINISH

ENCOUNTERS WITH WILDLIFE -- ON THEIR TERMS

BOOKS, ART, KNOWLEDGE, LEARNING

CATS!

HOME

FRIENDS and FAMILY WHO ENRICH OUR LIVES IN SO MANY DIFFERENT WAYS