Monthly Archives: March 2014

Gratitude – elusive emotion, especially in a high school classroom

30 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by in Free Thinking, Gratitudes, Retirement

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84a534d852bc8fc544609bfd6961cd18(Written last week in a high school English class)

Sitting in the midst of teenagers reluctantly taking a poetry test, I watch them for the wrong turn of the head, a suspicious glance of an eye. Sitting ever vigilant, moving my own eyes across the room, hearing an errant complaint mumbled into the atmosphere, I guard the integrity of Room N103.

What am I doing here? I’m retired. I no longer help the not knowing to know any knowledge. I don’t quiet the talkative, hush the whisperer, correct the cheater, coerce the unwilling. I don’t calm classrooms, study students, or examine the examinees. Not now – not in this, the second year of my retirement. I don’t take a test on keeping the classroom quiet while students take a test on poetry.

I am wrong! I am substituting for a friend, a former colleague who had surgery, and I realize that old habits die hard.

These teenagers will take the test and take it honestly. Sitting in the back of the classroom (the better perch from which to observe), I still notice the tilt of a pony tail, any movement not in sync with test-taking. I’ve only known these students a few days, and yet I’ve known them for decades it seems, the practiced stretch, the distracting cough, the exaggerated head rolls. I have not forgotten the language of their bodies. I can still translate.

Ah! Poor babies! They think the word “substitute” on my name tag means “clueless”; they would never imagine it means “veteran.” They’ve been warned. They took no heed.

Suddenly, in spite of my frustration and fatigue, in spite of my wanting to be somewhere – almost anywhere – else, I feel a shocking rush of gratitude. From nowhere. Gratitude for this day has taken over this moment, gratitude for the opportunity to keep my skills honed, gratitude for the chance to help out a colleague, gratitude for the fact that I’m healthy and able to be here, even gratitude for the few students who appreciate what I’m doing when setting boundaries. I feel gratitude galore for the friendly faces of my friends on the faculty, my family from my teaching years whom I love to this day.

Suddenly, in spite of the nervous twitching around me, the efforts to slip something by me, the energy it takes me to stay vigilant……suddenly I’m reminded from a power so much greater than I that life is good. All really is, at this moment, right with the world.

That doesn’t mean I wasn’t grateful when the day was over!

Grandchild, on the way home from the beach

27 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by in Family

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imageShe sleeps –

A blonde head, streaked with various shades of light brown, lies in my lap.
The pale lashes fringe the closed lids, hiding her thoughtful blue eyes.
She sleeps, covered by a large beach towel I put on our seat for just such a purpose……armor against the air conditioner in our rented van that carries my daughters, their children, and me.
Her mind, normally so active on many levels, finally rests. I wonder, looking down, if she dreams as she clutches her new stuffed dolphin close.
Is she dreaming of the beach? Building sand castles and digging for sea shells? Floating in the waves beyond the surf?
Buckled in by her seat belt, she is protected more by my body that cushions her now and would cushion her then.
I am the grandmother seat belt, full body protection. Finally I am thankful for my “extra” cushioning.

Constellations?

22 Saturday Mar 2014

Posted by in Family, Free Thinking

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dab0eae8c51934d3c59f394d179b3320Constellations, collections of stars, shine down on us each night. They remind me of our grandchildren. Scattered across the night sky, sprinkled near and far, the stars radiate a rare and beautiful light. So much like our grandchildren. They are scattered, our grandchildren, some closer to us geographically than others, but they all surely do radiate their own rare and beautiful light.

Mark and I have a blended family; we each had two daughters. Now we both have four. We are a blended family because of the children. Not many can say that. The two older daughters set us up. I think we have an Oprah-worthy story, but Oprah doesn’t have that show any more, and I wouldn’t want to be on it if she did.

Our four girls have happily presented us with 15 grandchildren. Not all at once, thank goodness. They did space them out, but there are years when we have more than one grandchild born into an age group. I think the prize goes to the fall of 2004 into the spring of 2005 when we had three grandbabies, Addison in September, Claire in January, and Jack in March. Our two oldest, both grandsons, were born the same year, one day apart. I guess it was fated then that we’d have other grandchildren with birthdays close together.

Bragging rights for being the oldest goes to Dylan; the next in the line by a day is Blake (cousins). Drew followed them two years later (Blake’s little brother), and then Allie (their little sister) joined our stars a year and a half after Drew. She was followed by Abigail (Dylan’s little sister) nine months later. Six months later came Josh (Allie’s little brother). Six grandchildren in five years! Olivia was here a year later (Abigail’s baby sis and the baby of their family). For three years we had no babies, something we weren’t accustomed to, and then Addison (a new family started) was born in September of 2004, followed by Claire (another new family started) in January 2005, followed by Jack (Josh’s brother, and the baby of that family) in March of the same year. Three years later Catherine was born (little sister to Claire) in January and Hadley in March (little sister to Addison). Three years later Claire and Catherine were given a little brother Sam (the baby of that family). He was followed by Maggie (little sister to Addison and Hadley), and she was followed 13 months later by Knox! He’s the baby of his family! Our grandchildren range in age from 19 to one. That, my friends, is a constellation. Fifteen stars in twelve years! That’s some twinkle, don’t ya think?

Each time I look up at a night sky (not as often as I’d like), I think of our own little constellation. Each of those children are stars. Now half of them wouldn’t like to know I am calling them children, but they are still sweet babies to us. May they always shine on and on and on. May they always radiate love and warmth. May they always be bright with happiness. Most of all, may they always know how important they are to us. They are the diamonds in the sky of our family.

Caution

13 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by in Poetry

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Words can be heavy, with weight to each sound
Words can be smooth or be rough
Words can be sour, can grimace our mouths
Words can be tender or tough

Words become mellow as years go by
Words with some age speak wise
Words grow softer as wrinkles appear
Words can be said without lies

Words sometimes best said in the dark
Without any light from above
Secret, quiet words meant for the one
Into whose ear we speak love

Words can make such cuddlesome sounds
Words can then sting and correct
Words can beckon or send us away
Words left unsaid can neglect.

Words are powerful tools when used
To reveal what our hearts wish to say
Words carefully heal, casually hurt
And once said they don’t go away………

Malaysian Flight 370

10 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by in Free Thinking, News

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The mysterious musings of what has happened to Malaysian Flight 370 has now consumed international aviation communities and governmental agencies. Together the people involved in all those combined have pooled their knowledge and experience to help find the missing aircraft. So far nothing concrete has surfaced anywhere, neither in ideas nor any signs of the plane.

Since Daughter #2 and her family live in Kuala Lumpur, this news story has kept my attention. They fly in and out of the same airport without a thought of something untoward happening. I’ve flown there and back home through the same airport twice myself. Thinking the planes they’ve traveled on would disappear as if in a dark magic act, or thinking anything beyond a routine flight seems almost unimaginable. It’s the same way any of us would think of any flight originating here in the USA.

On behalf of the passengers and their families, I hope there will soon be closure, that the agencies involved will come to an agreed upon conclusion, one that (although the bitterest of pills to swallow) will allow those waiting to have a chance to get past that moment of learning what we all most dread to hear, to take the next step – one before the other – and begin the long process back to normalcy, if it is ever to be reached.

These tragic moments know no point of origin, nor how many nationalities were represented on board, nor if they were all good, all bad, or somewhere in between. These results do not depend on what was eaten for breakfast or dinner, who was angry at whom, who was flying toward love or away from hate. We are all susceptible to being passengers on a plane such as Malaysian Flight 370. Therein lies the fear, the mystery. We want the answer to be inexplicable, something that could never happen to us.

We love our comfort, our fantasies. These are the very things that keep us going, make it possible to get up tomorrow, and – one day – board the next plane. Thoughts and prayers to all those touched in a personal way by that flight. God Bless.

Fearless

06 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by in Free Thinking

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Today I was at school, substituting where I once taught. It was a math class, and I’m an English teacher, so there wasn’t much I could do but hand out the practice test. I watched them work. I watched the concentration on most of their faces, and the defeat on some of the others. I even saw disregard some of the time, but with my teaching background I knew that the disregard was a false bravado for fear of failure.

As I thought about that fear of failure, I began thinking about things that we fear at one time or another, and I thought about what would happen if we let fear stop us too many times. There would be fewer marriages and fewer children. There’d be fewer promises made and, of course, fewer kept. There would be fewer risks taken, so people might drive less, surely fly less, and what would we miss because of it? I know if I’d let my fear of traveling alone to half a world away rule me, I would never have seen where Daughter #2 and her family had made their (temporary) home in Malaysia. If I’d let the fear of homesickness stop me, I never would have moved halfway across our country long ago as a newlywed only married a month. Daughter #1 would be a Louisiana baby instead of a California girl, although to her it doesn’t matter. We moved home when she was still in diapers.

I’m sure we all have our own list of fears and triumphs over them. What opportunities are missed by fear of the unknown? It’s a question to be pondered. After all, fear isn’t going anywhere. There are fears coming that I will face. The future guarantees me I will be afraid some of the time. Fear comes in all forms and shapes, whether fear about our health or fear for our children. We all deal with fear. The question isn’t whether there will ever be something to make us fearful. The question is how will we face those fears.

I want to think that as I’ve aged, I’ve become more accepting of taking calculated risks, more accepting of trusting life, trusting myself. trusting God. I can only hope the next time something fearful comes my way, I can deal with it as a true veteran and put it in its place.

For the students with a fear of failure, stop letting the fear keep you from trying. Stop letting the fear win.

The Gift of a New Book Study

05 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by in Gratitudes, The Book Study

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Soon we begin a new book study at my church. I am leading the study along with a few friends who studied the same book with me last fall. Our friendship and fellowship during that first study ignited a desire to give other women the opportunity to benefit from the book as well.

The book is about giving thanks to God in all things, in the easy times and in the hard times, also. It speaks about the idea that thanksgiving always precedes the miracle and reminds us that even at the last supper, the night before his cruxifiction, Christ gave thanks before breaking the bread and drinking the wine. I know from many personal experiences that it isn’t always easy to give thanks. I know that when the going gets tough, I don’t always get going. Sadly, I don’t always offer praise and thanksgiving to God during tough times. During good times it’s easier to be thankful, but sometimes instead we draw away, subconsciously thinking we don’t have as great a need.

When we dare to take a real look at our lives, we discover that we are surrounded by blessings, real gifts from God. They are everywhere. Those of us old enough to have made it to the other side of hard times (which come in many different categories) know that we gain something from them. We may not know exactly what it is that we’ve gained until much later. Time and distance is sometimes necessary. Still, the hard times can bring gratitude, too.

The book study will have us make lists of the everyday gifts that God bestows upon us starting with each new sunrise. Throughout the day we’ll take better notice of the unnoticed, pay attention where before there was inattention, and learn to be more thankful along the way.

Right now I’m grateful for many things, but my heart is especially full of thanks to God for the group of women who have been pulled, been lead to do the study with us. I pray that these women will find their way to us easily with no obstacles in their paths. I pray for them to feel the gentle pull of their Lord, theirs and mine, to the book study. There we will make a practice of not only worshipping Him, and loving Him, but thanking Him, too. Regularly. There we will become list makers, noticing and paying attention to our gifts and showing gratitude for them as we may never have before. We’ll be counting our blessings.

Dear God, maker of all things, Holy of Holies, our Lord and Our Redeemer, thank you for the group of women who will start the new study together Sunday night. Bless each one. Clear her path to you so that nothing can block her way. Amen.

Procrastination (a little something from 2008 when I was still teaching)

04 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by in Free Thinking

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imageProcrastination

Years ago when I first started teaching, I read or heard somewhere that gifted people/children are great procrastinators, and that the smarter a person is, the more he/she procrastinates. Since then I’ve joked about it from time to time, but I wonder tonight as I sit here with deadlines to meet and deadlines that have come and gone un met, if that just might be true? It would be wonderful if I could think my procrastination was due to some supreme giftedness, some intelligence that I haven’t realized in myself, rather than inherent laziness. Lazy is such an ugly word, isn’t it? “Lazy” summons images of the unwashed, unzipped, unbrushed, and plain undone. “Procrastination”, on the other hand, brings a thought of laziness but with a purpose, a putting off while doing other things instead, a busyness that can’t be interrupted in order to do that thing I can’t bring myself to do. In procrastinating I’m not sitting idly by with my feet up eating bon bons. Oh no, I’m inventing things to do so that I won’t have to do the object of my avoidance. It’s quite tiring, really, all this busyness to keep from doing that one little (or not-so-little) task that has become the center of my universe for a little while as I scurry from hither to yon dodging the settling down and the sighing – lots of sighing – that will be necessary to complete it. A lazy person wouldn’t go to all this trouble to type all these words only to have a blog entry, would she? Even with dishes unstacked and bills unpaid and clothes unwashed and papers ungraded, laziness wouldn’t be thinking, processing, typing. . . surely that’s procrastination instead. Surely I’m smart enough to know the difference.

Eyes Wide Open

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Posted by in Free Thinking, Poetry

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imageIn that proverbial blink of
Your very own eye
Things happen before you
No use asking why
In the turn of a head
In one look away
A life can be changed
In the balance and sway
Of the spinning of globes
And the running of trains
In the swoosh of the air
The first roar of a plane

Sometimes no movement
At all is required
Sometimes situations simply grow tired
Or hearts cease to beat
And lungs cease to breathe
Before we can beg –
Someone will leave

On notice you be
The next time you blink
Things are more precious
Than you might now think
For the world keeps on spinning
Won’t stand still just for you
So in closing your eyes
There’s a risk you are due.