Art, Artifacts, and Architecture

Posted May 26, 2022

Filed under Life

Today of all days we needed to get out of the classroom and out into the world of art, artifacts, and architecture, if for no other reason than to return the joyous smiles to our lucky busload of students. These kiddos have hung in through the shut-down of COVID, the masked return, the uncertainty of their future, civil liberties, freedoms, and especially their lives. Even with the wind blowing at a mighty clip, or perhaps in awe of it, we stood in front of Nancy Winship Milliken’s moving sculptures and allowed the conversation to soar. Nothing like a road-trip field-trip to generate well-needed good vibes to keep spirits moving to the positive.

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Blue Sky Action

Posted April 30, 2020

Filed under Life

I really love my job, and nothing could have proven it faster than taking it away from me. Driving up the lamp-post lined Copley Hill to the hundred year old brick building with a hummingbird mural and entering to walk the creaky wood floors to my classroom, the same one I have stood in surrounded by fabulous individuals for over two decades, was my day to day. I miss unlocking that door, greeting the quiet few who always arrive early. Now I get ready for class at our dining room table in the one large space that is kitchen, dining, and living room combined, with windows facing all four directions. Notebook to scribble thoughts for the day, laptop open to a dozen tabs, hot black tea at my elbow, I’m slowly working out how to engage for 45 minutes via a fuzzy and often interrupted google meet twice weekly with my students. Like everyone I know in the school system, I am nonstop problem-solving, whether with curriculum shifts, individual student conferences, talking to para-educators and special educators or with concerned parents. By 4:00 most days I’m intellectually challenged and emotionally drained. But by 4:00 what I’m mostly aware of is how much I miss my students. Miss that class room life. Not every second of it, but most every second with them and all their hope. All their blue sky action.

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hold on to hope

Posted June 21, 2018

Filed under Life

In this time marked by the disintegration of morality in our politically frayed America, where hateful politicians posing as caring humans justify their inhumane practices by treating children with the cold abuse of a Nazi, we must hold on to hope. That fragile and slender of emotions that alone fuels my soul, and no doubt yours, hope, elusive yet necessary. Thankfully for me, this past week, there is the reminder, where there is love one can find hope. Of course there is the always love of family, of sunshine and water, of a cool breeze after a hard day, but in this crazy here and now, I find the love of these friends. Friends who arrived from luck yet stayed dear through the years. Without a falter, these women are there. Yes, lucky me indeed. They provide me hope to endure.