Snow, Snow, Snow, Snow, Snow

Think 'White Christmas' singing with this post's title, but maybe change the wording to 'ice'.  Or the Hallelujah chorus singing at top volume.  That's how the science teacher chose to express this on facebook....

Today, blissfully, gratefully, surprisingly, I got news that school had been cancelled. 

I went outside to my screened in porch this morning and stood there in my pajamas and drank hot coffee with real cream and sugar.  I heard the rain falling on the snow (weird) and smelled the fresh, cold air and heard the trucks all over town dropping salt and making things less scary for driving.  (The many hills in Stillwater are NOT to be reckoned with unless there is salt on the road.)  I just stood there and let it all soak in.  It was beautiful. 

What Helps in February

Sometimes this time of year can feel a little trenchy to me. I use this word in a cavalier way, and don't really have any idea what it means to compare my life to actual combat conditions from 100 years ago. But the word trench always comes back in winter right about now. You see the sky but you feel even closer that you are standing in the mud.   It's more about perspective than anything else.

I generally tend to think that beautiful and interesting things are right in front of you.  They go stale if you don't fight to get back the good. And I really felt that last week. My mind and body were not in sync at all (I can't type that word - ever - without thinking of the 90s boy band that spelled it wrong and made it such a cultural reference) and I was going through motions on the outside and living far away in a disorganized way. And that's about all I was doing.

Something Timeless in Northfield

This morning I woke up in my childhood home in Northfield.  It's so lovely to have a home, a place set apart from the great wide world, where many things are as they were.  Before.  Things in place, in an ever moving world.  Before I moved and ventured into something new on my own.  Before college.  Before high school.  Before 1995.  There are many ways to categorize time and its connection to home when you've stayed in one place for a while. 

When I wake up in the morning in Stillwater, I am instantly awake, and know that I am responsible for things like making myself a lunch, teaching kids things about the world, getting help with car trouble if need be (that was Tuesday), not getting lost when driving to my friend's house in Minneapolis....those small tasks that fill the day.  Creating my own space to breathe and rest.  I like the independence and the 'seize the day' mentality that this place in the world and time in history affords me.  I feel grateful.  And I feel mindful of doing wonderful things with this life I've been given. 

Generally, in the morning, when thoughts get to the abstract, I think about the interesting things that are going to happen and who I will see and whether or not I have a creative way to discuss history yet. 

Flow, Thought, Reason, Question, Know

There is a thing called flow in the world, and when people these days use it they generally mean to say that you are so wrapped up into something...a landscape in front of you, the dishes, your life work...that you don't have room for anything else and the time flies by and you are unaware of most everything. I think you know what I mean.

It's so good to be totally absorbed in things you love or that grow something in you. And sometimes in this busy modern time, I find that often, I forget. I have a distinct impression this morning that I don't want to forget the simplicity of feeling caught up in a singular task, even with a mountain of little moments that will be quick and inevitable this week. And these days, thinking about it is an important part of getting there. At least for me.

Plan B

The conversations I've been having lately with people who are my contemporaries are interesting and new.  I know some really  cool people.  And we are in a stage in life when things are coming together and at the same time, are so NOT coming together.  There is distinct reckoning happening in most every single person's life that I know.  But the late twenties definitely seem to typify something specific about this.  I've been thinking about the concept of Plan B.  Culturally we know this is something that you begin to live or discuss or notice when the things that you thought were going to be just...aren't. 

There is definite sadness or grievance in some of this, but instead, or in addition to that, I am beginning to see layers and years and more of something else entirely.  Plan B is very very good.  It is, at this time, salted with experiences that had to be lived through and seen.  The weight of candor and conversation and what is in front of people is etching its way into life.  I find that I am enjoying this time of the great wide open unknown in front of me.  WAY more than the great wide open (whatever that means in the first place) being available right out of college. 

Witnessing the Good

I am intensely proud of my 8th grade students this week.   

They have worked so hard this month and yesterday I witnessed success happening for them. It was so, so beautiful to me, and something I experienced alone but want to share with everyone. 

I have required that they learn and recite the presidents in order.  When I said it in December, they were definitely surprised.  I think I was surprised too, but we were doing this.  I thought about it, and realized that there's so much value in it, and it pushed them.  It pushed me too. 

It made me think of the reverence I was hoping for yesterday when reflecting on Anne Lamott's good advice about looking around. 

Reverence and Kindreds

I've been reading 'Bird by Bird' in pieces these days, picking it up whenever I feel inspired to listen to Anne Lamott talk.  Now she's someone I'd like to have dinner with.  She's alive and real and honest, and these are my favorite kinds of people.  This shows up in my life...often, my closest friends have not become cookie cutter reflections of me at all.  But if they face life honestly and see it right in front of them and try to do something with it...I love that person. 


When Anne Lamott wrote 'Bird by Bird', she was sought after as a writer, and had been plied with requests for cure all writing tips.  She stayed to the mark though, and didn't let herself get picked up and taken away to a transcendental sort of mindset about her work.  I like that about her too.  Sorry to say it, since I've never met the guy, but I did not get that impression of Ben Franklin when I read his autobiography in college, and it's been difficult to talk about him in a very animated way with students ever since.