10/24/06
Leaves lie in circles around the trunks of trees, colours gently blending across the piles of two different kinds of tree …
Ms Spur and I do knitting and cross-stitch after dinner (sometimes watching hockey if it’s on), and invariably start to get sleepy at 9 pm! "We’re old," Ms Spur wails …
I walk to the school, sometimes two or more times a day, and find myself in all kinds of funny situations. Here are a few:
– kneeling in the library next to my kneeling eleven-year-old student, surrounded by music books, holding one aloft and screeching "YES! MOON RIVER! FINALLY!" then turning to her and saying brightly, "See? Persistence pays."
– making amazing eye contact with a two-year-old boy (why does he remind me of Art Garfunkel?) while I play Minuet in G
– drawing a penguin sliding down some ice to make a point about a piece of music, and sitting there dumbfounded as my simple cartoon makes my student giggle for at least a whole minute
– listening to a student play a Bach prelude with real feeling, and wondering what the heck to work on with him
– taking tickets at a concert, then sitting by the door and cross-stitching, peering through the glass and sharing a smile with one of the performers as he sings
I have a whole world of things to say; I can’t write an entry. I might have to write music. It makes me alternately almost manically happy, and then very somber and thoughtful …
But I will say this. I remember writing in my journal when I was sixteen or seventeen that an idea of life was blossoming in my mind: something about the value of quiet steady work with occasional moments of beauty, like a gold thread running through a tapestry of subdued hues. My work right now is feeling like this. I get nostalgic now and then about the image of girlhood I have (the luxury of shyness; the sensual pleasure of reading a book by a window during any kind of weather).
Your silence is not worrying. Your entry is soothing & exciting. Ciao,
Warning Comment
It’s nice to come full circle and feel again the same flush of perspective you felt at 17. Sometimes the most unexpected things make me giggle. I can see how a penguin cartoon would.–
Warning Comment
RYN: Thank you for the perhaps excessive credit & it is fact that we continue to learn from one another. I’m still waiting for the collected coaching & teaching tips by MOosh. As for your dad, he is very perceptive to realize that he can learn from his kids. I certainly have & do. It was overt while consulting with Christopher Robin & more subtle with Tigger with the way she models her business behavioral conduct especially with her management of her vendors without whom she’d be dead in the water. Asking your dad to imagine a confused kid might be a stretch. You might consider recommending the 2 of you volunteering to coach a current biology 12 student where you can model & he can practice working with a kid rather than imagining them. He is a bit removed from a home full of kids to major domo homework. And he may not realize the nature of a classroom culture. This also suggests that he might assist in a classroom to observe what a classroom full of contemporary adolescents is like. My ex-programmer brother-in-law Pete got his elementary school credential & was defeated by a room full of 4th graders & very hostile parents. You & yours continue in my prayers. Cia
Warning Comment
Did he have a mop of curly, gingery hair? That’s sort of obvious, I guess, so probably not! I like the feeling of your entry.
Warning Comment