A Good End

Tonight I sat on the patio deck at Sweeney's in St. Paul with Briana.  Splitting appetizers and drinking pear hard cider with her was the best way to end the summer.  Talk about relaxation.   We always have great conversations, and she gives good advice.  I am now ready to write a syllabus or two and discuss curriculum plans for many hours in this work week.  But tomorrow I will be walking into school armed with a fair amount of coffee. 

Charge.   

Ode to Leona

In the spirit of minimalism, I've been looking for ways to downsize. I want clean lines and the basics. It is therefore convenient that my little sister is moving into her first apartment next week. I have been systematically trying to give her things that she secretly likes in my apartment.

Here is Jenna before work one morning.

The future of nursing! I am proud.

Jenna lived with me this summer so when she'd comment on something I use, I would easily be able to say, 'You can have it'. Then we'd go back and forth about it, and I'd convince her that she needed it. Today some of her things (and some of my things) left my apartment, down three flights of stairs and out the door. Unfortunately, that meant the end of summer and Jenna leaving too.  I feel truly forlorn.

Jenna is a fun sister. She's hilarious and silly, reflective and intentional, and we are very good friends. I call her Leona.  This summer we spent lots of time together. We drank coffee on my porch each morning, hung out with lots of my friends, went on long walks around Stillwater, babysat twins, went to Nelson's, looked at stars, went to Duluth, floated for countless hours on a lake, ate kettle corn for dinner, talked about nursing, talked about education, played Wahoo.  The list goes on.

Pioneer Park

I went to Pioneer Park today in Stillwater and read some books there, and when reading, discovered two worthwhile and interesting poems.  It's clear to me that gathering thoughts around me for the coming school year has been important, and today was no exception for this current habit.  In addition to 'Keep Calm and Carry On', I MUST have 'Witness' available for the blustery days in February when I wonder what the heck I am doing every day teaching middle school. 

Witness

Sometimes the mountain

is hidden from me in veils

of cloud, sometimes

I am hidden from the mountain

in veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue,

when I forget or refuse to go

down to the shore or a few yards

up the road, on a clear day

to reconfirm

that witnessing presence.

- Denise Levertov

Somehow this reminds me to pay attention.  And it's the poetic version of remembering a calling.  The woman who wrote this poem was a civilian nurse in London during the bombings in WWII.  I got this from a book of poetry about teaching, submitted because remembering a sense of purpose clears away fatigue and distress, and sometimes it takes walking a few steps to a shore in front of you.

The Grandiose and the Clickety Clack

My favorite grandiose thing.

Lately I am in the mood for lots of space to breathe. That's why I suddenly changed this blog to its most minimal possible form.  What it was before the sparse white was suddenly too much.  So many books! So much shelving.  I am, today, a fan of less being more. Black and white, like the solid look of a big clunky typewriter.  That's how I imagine thoughts forming in front of me today.  I only want the clickety clack and the silence and the breathing room and the space. 

Motto for Change

 This is my motto for the new school year.  It's from 1939, when the British government issued these posters to be made to raise morale concerning the war. I'm putting it on my desk.  And I'm framing it.  Not because everything is so entirely dramatic in my life like war, but because somehow, when I look at it lately it reminds me to be myself and have a sense of humor nearby. 

It must be a wistful week in general.  I woke up this morning, early, early, and when I opened the door to my porch, a goose was flying overhead, making me think the things of fall, and the air was crisp and cool instead.  I looked at the sky, and things shifted around in my soul, preparing me for what comes with that weather.  Change!  Good, bad, and in between, we always feel it, and it is heavy and obvious around me this week. 

Summer and Autumn, Side by Side

As mentioned before, in earlier posts in August, this is a promising time for teachers.  New goals, new thoughts, new starts.  Reunions with old students and introductions to new ones are right around the corner. 

Yesterday I saw a student at school, and she told me how excited she is for the D.C. trip next year.  It stopped me in my tracks.  What??  There is another D.C. trip next year?  Of course there is.  I deliberately introduce this trip to 7th graders in a very dramatic way to build momentum.  But I certainly haven't registered that in my own mind.  That trip is intense.  But its cycle starts again. 

It's also, I remember now, a wistful time. Seasons change, and even when they're lovely, they take some getting used to.

I like one fell swoop kind of living, which is not always possible in this world, but it's what I am doing now.  I'm vacillating lately between being extremely silly and loopy in one moment and intensely focused in the next.  I'm starting to have crazy dreams again.  People close to me have noticed this because in general you're supposed to have better balance in the day.  When I see this very weird side of me come out around all of my favorite people, it has made me wonder more about my patterns and personality as an old lady.  My future tendencies seem very predictable lately. 

Letter Writing

This morning I read my favorite book again, and it woke me up.

It helped me understand why, all summer long, I have struggled to write letters.  I sit down at the table, and everything interesting comes up short.  I've felt boring and obvious and blase.  In letters, everything is interesting if it's 'parts to whole' thinking, as opposed to 'whole to parts'.  It was the grandiose thinking at every turn that was stopping me in my tracks.

It all came to me while reading because my favorite book is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.  The main character has gumption and imagination, and is good at writing letters.  Letters and telegrams structure the book,  and it's a myriad of people who connect back and forth across the English Channel in 1946, just after the war. Everyone is mending, and stories of the German Occupation are revealed through different people and letter styles.  I recommend this book to everyone.

Magic Returned

This morning I woke up and felt a new fresh perspective about August.  How could I have forgotten that it's one of my favorite months in the year?  I wrote a letter to my grandma in Iowa this morning, and this is when it hit me that I love August for more reasons than I first realized.


It is a very promising month for teachers. 


In the first few years of teaching, this was different.  I used to think of it as a ticking clock getting me ever closer to the things that I was inevitably marching into, ready or not.  Sure, quiet, and carefully restrained panic also kept company with any major thought I had about curriculum.   There is so much for teachers to learn about just keeping pace with their day, themselves, and the students.  It comes to you like a tidal wave and I think you just learn to go with it. 

An Anne Day

"I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens, but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string."   

— Lucy Maud Montgomery

Things I Did Today....

Bought a pencil sharpener for 20 cents, some classy looking pens, and a book cover (which is a good start to the year for many reasons)

Saw a parent at Office Max buying school supplies and heard about the life and times of the 13 year olds I knew (I have had a hiatus from this)

Saw more parents in the school supply area at Target (more conversation ensued)

A Hodge Podge of History

I've been thinking about history again, and all of the interesting things this world offers when we study the past. I'm taking this as a cue that I'm supposed to be slowly and systematically coming back to the intensity of the profession I live in.

Thankfully I'm not dreaming about school yet. 
That tells me I'm getting too consumed with the small things.  The great thing about August is that there is time to go about doing this at a fairly reasonable pace. 


It's now the part in the scheme of planning where I make a giant list of everything, absolutely every thought, however it comes to me.  I was completely rigid about how and when I'd think about teaching in years past when August rolled around.  No longer.  It's the only time of the year when pure lackadaisical thought is king.

Flappers Part II

The conference is done!  My mind is worn out.  I am glad that Amy from school convinced me to take the plunge and do this.  I'm glad I met interesting people, and that I actually had some clarifying and refining answers to questions I've had for a year about how to ask really good questions that take students somewhere.  It feels like life just got a lot more interesting. 

And I am also glad for some time to put all of that new knowledge somewhere and let it rest a little too.

My Symphony

I've been at Augsburg College all week in a conference that discusses Paideia seminar practices for the classroom. It's been good and also very tiring. I don't have much to say outside of it because we are mining through texts all day and discussing in a very systematic way as we learn this process over and over again for our own classrooms. But I have been using a binder I usually have at school, and, when I need to zone out for a few seconds, have been mulling over a poem I have on the front of it that was written by William Ellery Channing.  Sometime a very long time ago I think.

This poem offers a look at so many good verbs. I put it on the front of my binder because these are the words I want to see when I glance down at my desk to grab papers or take attendance as I'm teaching. It is also going to be the motto for my way of life again in the 2011-2012 school year.  It's called 'My Symphony'. 

Prepare to be inspired.