Smart Students Teaching Me

Some good life lessons my kids are extracting from Thomas Hardy.  I wish I had learned some of these sooner.  To be honest, there are ways in which I'm still trying to learn some of them.  It's interesting given some recent life experiences and all the authenticity reading I've been doing lately.

From the mouths of babes:

"...she is so absorbed by what society has to say about her that she feels scared to accept her flaws."

"She is playing by the madding crowd's rules and is afraid to go beyond them."

"She listened to other people tell her how good of a man Boldwood is instead of forming her own opinion of him."

"The crowd also takes away her privacy and makes her nervous...this causes her to act without thinking.  Bathsheba thinks the crowd makes her comfortable and not lonely, but it actually takes away her freedom."

"Since she wants to be admired by everyone, she listens to everyone.  By listening to everyone, her opinions and feelings are changed, but falsely.  She feels things that have been warped by the minds of others, making her feelings and opinions false truths."

"Whenever a crowd is not present, the main characters have an easier time expressing their feelings without any fear of embarrassment."

"His actions are not the product of the masses around him and his thoughts come from an independend and unbiased mind.  His experiences with sheep have strongly influenced this viewpoint.  In a flock, those who blindly follow are doomed to either go through the journey of life without power and purpose or die a horrible death alongside their equally subservient brethren."

Beast mode

I gotta take a moment to celebrate myself and sing myself so pardon me in advance.

But dude some days I rock!  I pulled off what will be an incredible sneak and wrote some good riddles. I took care of people's emotional needs and logistical needs in a lot of ways today.  I wrote a pretty good rubric and self-evaluation guide. I taught nearly two full extra periods for no dollars just because reasons.  I came home and made five dozen Christmas cookies and five cookies shaped like snakes with stars for eyes, and now I'm gonna go mulch my perennials.  And I had a vague creative idea that won't win a damn thing but it's an idea I believe in and want to keep up long after Christmas.  I hope it is still good as the details flesh out.

Fueled by love (and one cup of coffee.  But maybe we'll make that two). This is how it's done!  And tonight I look forward to grading but probably quitting early on that so I can continue studying a very good, consoling book.  Beat that! 

Oh man, and seven hours later the day is still great.  We got the swing up on the porch and out of the weather, then Nora and I spent a good time out on the swing singing and cheering at, get this, looking out the "window," as Nori called it.  She essentially meant looking over the railing and it was worth cheering about.  So we turned on the magical porch lights lights, watched the dark start to creep in.  The air was electric today.  And alive.

And mulching awakened that obsessive gardener in me.  I have to write more about this later.  Too many electric sparks in my brain bzzzeet! bzzzeeeet!  bzzzzaow!

Then Jonah was full of funny lines today at dinner.

"Are we herbivores or omnivores?"

"Omnivores."

"YES! I'm a DINOSAUR!"

And so on.  Then we went to his Christmas pageant, which was pretty dang cute.  He was a lamb.  Jonah looks like a cool, confident kid when he's in the context of a bunch of three and four year olds.  He's so self-possessed.  And Nora was owning the audience.  

And I got bedding, so you know, the excitement of linens.  Aw yeah.

And then errands and phone calls and music and yoga in the livingroom, and it's near midnight and I'm still ON FIRE to write and do and open windows and and and.  I don't know what to wear tomorrow, so I probably should just stay awake.  

And my awesome door idea is probably not going to happen after all because I don't have any glue-gun ammo left and I'm not thinking I'm going to prioritize going to the store for that tomorrow.  But it's a cool idea and it involved, in part, gutting a CD player.  Maybe next year.  Ack.

Okayokayokayokayokayokayokay.

(EDIT:  The rubric was not as good as I had hoped; a borrowed glue gun allowed me to create some version of my original plan.  I will save the part that involved a gutted CD player for next year.)

Daily Gratitude

It's that time of year again-- posting my daily gratitude in a public place.  I forgot to start posting over the weekend, so please walk back in time with me a few days and then, if you are so inclined, please join me in sharing your gratitude for the world.  This kid wouldn't claim any kind of wisdom or great worldly understanding, but I can say that cultivating a more vocal spirit of gratitude makes a big difference for me.  It allows me to tune in to the blessings and tune out the sad trombones...although, now that I think of it, that womp wahhhh sound is something to be grateful for, too.

So here we go.

November 1st Daily Gratitude: Brothers, great company, stopping in the middle of party prep bustle to read about King Solomon, the Cleveland Museum of Art.

November 2nd Daily Gratitude: The fellowship in a group of women I know, driving alone so I have complete control of the soundtrack (and can sing like a madwoman), going back to Evolution Yoga after a too-long hiatus, and feeling God's beauty wrap around me and support me.

November 3rd Daily Gratitude: Crazy looking handmade dresses from the thrift store, having friends to talk to on rough days, ropes + yoga, laundry + Munk/Walking Dead, wordmath.

November 4th Daily Gratitude: Work days at work, guitar in the background (and how it makes my brain work so much better!), spontaneous thrifting adventures, a chance to teach yoga (that's a blog post in itself) walking in the wind, coming home to my kids and those hugs and that garden and playing outside, watching a large cardboard box cartwheel down our block in a beautiful way, and then watching my darling husband run across the street, dropkick it, roll over, rassle with the box, and bring it home for us to fill with leaves.  Laughing hard.  Play dough, bath time, Nora's constant talking, love love love is all around.

Post your own gratitude!

This is the Stargazer sculpture at the CMA