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. 

Right Now

Though it did not feel very glamorous, I did a very good thing for myself by going to bed last night at 9:30.  I hadn't done this for weeks, and I woke up this morning feeling completely refreshed.  I love morning best.  Every spring, when the weather is suddenly perfect again, the first thing I do is pull back the blinds and open all of the windows.  It makes everything feel spacious and open, even though technically the change was very small.  Sometimes I crawl back into bed and listen to the birds and the silence that accompanies them.  It's just the birds that sing at first.  The rest of the day wakes up after them.

In the early morning in town, only a few people are awake.  This morning when I went to the window I saw a bunch of middle aged men run by with flashing lights on their heads for safety.  It made me really happy to see them out for a jog with headlamps.

Connecticut

This week I took a trip in a solitary way to Connecticut.

It was good and reviving for me to do this thing...to get on an airplane by myself and go to a good place to meet friends (and their new baby). Alli and Seth were generous and easy going about having me there to visit, and were very willing to share their baby too. I had so much fun with them.

I had been a robot teacher for the past month, very solitary in my work and mentally worn out. Winter has felt very awkward to me this year, and I am longing for spring.

But when I cut loose from the moorings of my tired life in Stillwater, and went to Connecticut, I woke up again. I paid attention to new things and time felt different again. East Coast timing met Daylight Savings and a new baby's feeding schedule. I did not just stay with Seth and Alli. I actually encountered a lot of people on this trip. That's why I resonated so clearly with what Anne Morrow Lindbergh writes in 'A Gift from the Sea'.

Returning

I've been away from the blog for another little stint, and now I'm back to it again.  The last post I wrote was reveling in snow (see title) and now I'm reveling in spring in Minnesota like everyone else, even if it's early.  REALLY early.  I'm back to the job today after Spring Break, and I am happy to report that I am refreshed.  It wasn't the kind of week where I did a lot of errands and small jobs and got super productive.  I turned off my mind. 

I didn't think about kids, I met new people in another part of the country when visiting friends in Connecticut, and no one called me Miss Christians for a week.  I didn't think about technicalities, and I saw the ocean and good people.  I also got out of a mental funk that was actually really overwhelming at times....something that usually typifies February thoughts for many people I think.  The vacation was good.  Feeling anonymous for once was good.  Encountering different things and not seeing them through the lens of 'I'm a teacher' was good. 

I wrote this giant blog post about my trip to Connecticut, but I just haven't posted it yet.  It is coming, complete with pictures of cute babies and the ocean and the fun things we (Allison, Seth, Grace, and I) did while I was there.  But for now, I will write about a dream I had last night.