The Rich Present Things

Is this how God inspired lace?  I think so.

It's a beautiful morning, and now suddenly here is life in the month of May.  I've been a little muddled by the entrance of such a good month....it's been a busy week.  On Tuesday morning, I woke up halfway thinking it was Saturday. (It wasn't!)  All week the kids were off kilter.  Everyone was.  None of the days seemed right.  There was a lot of good in them, but it was all mixed up.   It's as if the rudder of a giant ship has changed course and the rest of the boat is slowly moving with the intended change.   We are almost done with school. 

I woke up this morning from the strangest dream.  For all of the intensity of my life's work this week, the dream I had was nothing well connected to it.  I dreamt I was in my own classroom and someone came in and told me that I had to have a student teacher in the last month of school.  He barreled into class.  And when he came in he was just like someone I worked with a long time ago who openly mocked my style of teaching in front of students.  (How annoying, unprofessional, and traumatizing.)  In my waking hours, I have faced the feeling and figured it out.  And I do not let that style of passive-aggressive insecurity become a part of my conversations, especially in front of students. 

I would just not allow it. 

In Consideration of 1912

Lots of people that I know have talked about 'Downton Abbey' for a while now.  I finally got into it.  And now my head is full of thoughts about the 1910s.  This happens when I watch a historical period film.  I knew it would.  Everything links to every other thing I've ever learned about the time and place.  I just finished teaching the 1910s and WWI, and every year, I find it fascinating.  And 'Downton Abbey' incorporates everything I've talked about from a British perspective.    I am hoping to quell the thoughts in the mind by saying something about them.  

Every year in teaching when my classes transition out of Chapter 27 to a conversation about the 1920s, I breathe a sigh of life.  Internally, though I find this to be a fascinating time, it generally feels like I was wearing a corset the whole time we were there in the timeline of history.  Everything seems sort of tight and gray.  Sometimes when I think of the 1910s, it feels like there is fine soot all over everything and people are either working in factories or being carted around by a footman.  And listening to a waltz on the phonograph.  Installing telephones.  Changing their clothes 5 times a day if they are wealthy, and wearing giant hats just to go to dinner.  And, last of all, having older female relatives with pursed lips giving you advice. MY older female relatives don't have pursed lips or severe frowns.  (What a relief.)  As appealing as the beginning of the 20th century is to me, and as much as it links to so much that is NOW, I believe I would be a radical in that time.

On the Mend

This week I have been sick. And I have to say that I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired. (Lame play on words, but true.) It's boring to not feel that you are a part of your own life. For the past few days I've talked to very few people, and watched lots of movies and sat by myself and not said much. I haven't felt like it. But since certain things are in my nature...wanting to see conversation, people, ideas, stories, beautiful things, surprises, God's handwriting on the day, spontaneity...I have felt that my body has not been cooperating with the soul in me.  Sickness doesn't get rid of seeing life the way we do. It just seems to put it out of order. I have TRIED to go with the flow. But I am sick of it.

And the result is that I have vacillated between being completely relieved that I have time away to breathe better and rest, and then equally as caged and restless. 

Teachers tend to become martyrs about being sick....like no one can live without us and our lesson plans.  I've seen it, and I don't want to be that way.  A few years ago a colleague said to me, 'Don't think you have to be like that' and I believed him.  (I will say that sub plans, good ones, take FOREVER, and you quickly bargain with yourself in the middle of the night about what is really worth it.  Once you get over that, you're good to go.) 

What We Did on Tuesday

What you see here is a picture that was taken yesterday in a very candid moment. This is called 'We are in the last 20 minutes of our field trip for the day, and I technically don't know where many of the students really are.' Why would this be the caption? Becuase we had set them loose into these woods looking for fossils.  With hammers.  And while this looked good and approachable on paper, there was briefly a very real moment of yawning fear in seeing ourselves live out this plan.

At one point, one teacher very comfortably shared, "We must be insane to be doing this."  And that broke the tension of unvoiced fears.  And after that, at least for me, everything was ok.  Kids climb around in the woods all of the time at home, right?  (This is when I feel incredelous about the 'hows' of parenting.)

Heartbeat Stories and Middle Ground

The heartbeat of my life looks different lately.  I have been away from this blog because I have not wanted to ramble, and I knew I would if I started to type.  I have not come up with much in the hiatus, save for the idea that there are signs of age adding life experiences to who I have always been.  Life does this to everyone...this adding of experience to age and coming up with newness.   Sometimes it makes life more difficult and lots of other times, it makes everything very simple. 

Right now my life is more heart thought than head knowledge, even though much of my day spent sharing knowledge and articulating historical analysis.  While both angles need to be managed and used in my life, I see that there is more peace when I live first out of the heart.  It puts everything else together. 

At the Desk By the Window

On the mind on Monday...

"The well of Providence is deep. It's the buckets we bring to it that are small." - Mary Webb

"There are years that ask questions, and years that answer." - Zora Neale Hurston

"...your play needs no excuse. Never excuse." - Shakespeare

Why and How and Goodness

Last night I babysat for Evan and Heather.  It was more time for introversion, and I welcomed it.  Simple things like sitting on a porch, giving a baby a bottle and swaddling him up before bed, reading new books,  watching new movies, and breathing in and out....it helped to clear my mind. 

I left their place with a stack of movies that people have always been suggesting to me (which they own and are generous to lend) and a few books too.  One was Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell.  I have taken time to read it today.

Heather said that she firmly believes that certain things in the Christian life are learned by people at different times.  What would be revolutionary for someone might not hit another in the same way, and you are not better than another if you learn something sooner.  It was her very humble and admirable way of explaining why she was telling me to read the book...but also keep it.