A week of Fridays~

I keep thinking it's Friday. It started yesterday--Tuesday. It's most likely wishful thinking, or a sign that I'm trying to do too much all at once. Or . . . I'm not even going to go there. I need a vacation, is all.

The school year is winding down. Of the five days left, one is a Science Fair and another is a field day. The last day is the annual year-end volleyball tournament.

For the most part the kids' required work is done. They know this. I tell them that everything they do from now on will be graded for effort and conduct. This keeps them in check while I'm working through stacks of papers to be corrected and recording grades for year end report cards that must be done before the end of school.

I had my homeroom class last period yesterday, Tuesday. They are a fantastic bunch of 11 year-olds, all twenty-eight of them. Smart, funny, and for the most part, most of the time, well behaved. They're also enthusiastic, energetic, and quite social. AKA "chatty."

Last period they worked with partners on their Science Fair projects. They love this, and are working hard to prove their hypotheses. But they are enthusiastic, energetic, and quite . . . chatty."

So even though they are working "independently," they still need me to answer questions, nod with approval, make suggestions. They need me to say:

"Yes, you can get a book from the library."
"Why don't you look on the computer and see what you can find?"
"P-h-o-t-o-s-y-n-t-h-e-s-i-s."
"Joe, I'm not seeing any effort from you right now."
"Of course you can add more than five vocabulary words to your list."
"Yes, spelling counts!"
"Girls, that conversation sounds off-topic to me."
"Great! I can tell you're working hard."
"I'll listen to your story about your cat later. Right now you need to get back to work."

And so it goes. It's the nature of the job. I start grading, and stop for an interruption, start and stop, start and stop. I get frazzled.

On this particular Tuesday, I said, "Okay, my friends, I want you to use the last five minutes of class to do a Friday pick-up. I want you to make the room sparkle. Make it look like no class has even worked here today. We don't want to come in Monday and have to face this mess."

They stood still, unreadable expressions on their faces.

"Come on, get going. Four minutes to clean up! Move it."

"Mrs. D. It's Tuesday, not Friday," someone said.

My turn to stand still with an unreadable expression. Shit, I thought, only Tuesday?

"Yikes!" I said hitting my forehead with my palm. "I guess I'm off by a few days."

We all laughed. They cleaned up and left for the buses, and I slumped at my desk to finish the stack of papers. It felt just like a Friday! So did today.

For Alice~ She's home!!!!!!!

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson Sometimes it's all about knowing that loved ones and friends stand behind you, knowing that support is there on the down days, the worry days, the days when you feel off-center, out of sync, bedraggled emotionally, and in pain, but knowing all the while that you're not alone. You're not alone... Alice is an online friend--she lives in Hawaii-- who belongs to the writer's workshop that I do. We've only "met" online, but those who have online friendships know that they can be just as strong as those in-person relationships. Alice was hit by a car while walking, and is in the rehab phase of things. She's working to regain mobility after a broken pelvis, a broken arm, and a broken nose. It's scary to realize how, in the blink of an eye, life can lurch and our plans for a time are displaced by survival and healing. We...

This retirement thing~

This retirement thing . . . it seems like it should be so easy, so effortless, so thrilling, to stop the daily grind. It is thrilling; at least I think it will be come September when I'm not following the school buses to work. But it's not easy. I had a plan book on my desk for 35 years, one I filled in weekly, scheduling new lessons at 45-minute intervals, meetings, parent conferences, and field trips. I knew what needed to be done and when. I got up at the same time everyday (5:45 a.m.), ate lunch at the same time (12:06 p.m.) and watched the kids pack their bags for home everyday at 2:15 p.m. I'm not sorry to give up that regimentation. But three weeks into the summer, I find myself making lists of things I need to do, and there is so much to do that I can't imagine how I managed while I was working eight hours on top of it all. There are the household chores, gardening, exercise (aren't retirees supposed to get fitter?), freelance writing, book reviewing, readin...

Lesson from a Weed~

If dandelions could talk, here’s what I think they might say: " Bloom where you’re planted, sink your roots deep. Smile in the sun, soak up the rain, and let the wind take you to new places." Dandelions are an early spring food for bees. They are often the first flower a young child picks for his mother and they provide a sweet moment for a mother to teach her child to make a wish and blow away the seeds. They speckle landscapes with lemon-colored glory. Common, and often disliked by those in favor of perfect lawns, we trample over them with hardly a thought. All this crossed my mind as I stood in this field of dandelions, most having gone to seed. I had an hour to myself at a retreat at a beautiful family farm on this day of unexpected sunshine and warmth. I was looking for a moment of stillness. I’d watched two swans, visited the alpacas, chatted with the chickens, tried to coax a kit...

~Upstream and Down~

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A week of Fridays~

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