Proverbs

A person's anger should be respected
even when it isn't shared

a person's happiness should be shared
even if it isn't understood

a person should be understood though
he has brought both his brows together
in anger and also suddenly begun to laugh

a person should be in love most of
the time this is the last proverb
and may be learned by all organs
capable of bodily response

by Grace Paley, Fidelity

Holy week

Let me tell you about this holy week. The weekend before, I took 10 of my students to the Destination Imagination tournament. It was a culmination of an after-school program I have been running since the beginning of the year; the culmination of tons of hard work the kids had done, mostly packed into the week before. It was fun and crazy and tiring. Coming off that high, exhausted, holy week started.

Monday, St. Patrick’s day, I didn’t go to work. I had a drink with some friends and recuperated.

Tuesday, I went to work, felt deserted by my teammates.

Wednesday, I snapped at one of my favorite teammates, and then stalked around school all day annoyed at my boss. After school we had a pointless meeting that I just wanted to throw up my hand and walk out of.

Thursday, one of my teachers, who I really respect, told me I didn’t look good and was anything wrong? Every night that week I went home exasperated, annoyed, and angry. I ate some cruddy food for dinner and feel asleep.

Friday, Good Friday, the day to contemplate Jesus’ death, we had a bunch of workshops about “Life after Americorp”. I sat through hours of people telling me things I already knew. On that note, I went home and feel asleep. I savored the thought of going to the Easter Vigil at 2:00 in the morning. It is a tradition my mom and I participated in at home every year. It always feels good to be awake when no one else is, praying like the hard-core person I think I am.

But it never works to plan to be holy for just one hour. My alarm didn’t go off. I woke up at 5:30 in the morning, mad at myself, mad at the world for taking away my chance to feel holy.

I went for a walk to watch the sunrise. Standing by the river I tried to really feel all that I was feeling. I admitted that I was mad at myself. I admitted that I was frustrated with my job. But none of that gave me that holy feeling I was looking for. Then the sun came up. And the trees across the river completely blocked the view.

Holy Saturday (Dead Saturday) I worked on forgiving myself for everything that had gone wrong the previous week. I took a three hour nap in the comfy chair. I read a couple chapters in Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott. I was feeling a little better by the time I went to bed.

Easter Sunday dawned and I woke up with a smile on my face. I made coffee cake, went to church, then cooked and ate dinner with a bunch of friends…including the team mate I had snapped at this week. I’m not saying it was a total transformation, but somehow things look better this side of the resurrection.

Awesome!

Some days I wish I could grow facial hair...

http://www.worldbeardchampionships.com/

Just for now.

Tamie had this one on her blog a while back and the song popped back into my head today. Dear friends, I think I have theme going. In conclusion, this is not how I want to spend the rest of my life. But "for now" I am going to give it my all.




Quote of the Day:
And you, an ex-suicide, lying on the beach? In what way have you been freed by the serious entertainment of your hypothetical suicide? Are you not free for the first time to consider the folly of man, the most absurd of all the species, and to contemplate the cosmic mystery that is your own existence? --Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos

Here for now

I had this song stuck in my head all day, so I decided to share.





The part I'm feeling goes like this:

thinking maybe I'm just standing here
because I want to be liked
yes, I know I need my instrument
but does my instrument need to me mic'd
I keep imagining that pretty soon
I will just disappear
and thinking that one thing is what saves me from
my fear of being here
here for now, I'm here for now, I'm here for now
here for now, I'm here for now, I'm here for now

Update

There is only one word to describe this last week...but I'm so frazzled I can't even think of it right now. The kids all had the week off for winter break, so we at City Year ran day camps. The theme of the camp was "Let the games begin". So basically I spent the week playing all sorts of games with kids: dodge ball, soccer, ultimate frisbee, cards, mofia, and lots of other games that we made up on the spot. It was a blast, but my legs are sore and I've starting making this noise that makes me feel about 100 years old whenever I have to bend over to pick something up. But not a bad trade for a week of fun away from school.



In addition, on Thursday night I went to see Ani Difranco in concert. It was amazing! I don't even know how to begin to describe it. I sat in the second row, close enough to see Todd the bass player's fingers move across the strings. As you may know, a lot of Ani's music is not of the cheerful variety. But the concert was one of the most uplifting experiences of my life. I left so full of energy that even though I had spent the day running after children, I couldn't fall asleep till the wee hours of the morning. And if that wasn't awesome enough, Over the Rhine opened for Ani. The lead singer Karin has an amazing voice. When she sings acappella, it sounds like she is accompanied by a full band.


Then on Saturday I came to a full stop. Seriously, didn't even brush my teeth or change my underwear (that may be too much information. It has recently come to my attention that working with middle schoolers has negatively effected my self-editing instinct). Today things are mostly back to normal, so there is hope for the week.

I've caught the gardening bug.

In church today, we read Mark 4: 1-20. That's the one about the seeds getting sowed on different types of soil. Some on the road, some on rocky soil, some in the thorns, and finally some in good soil. The preacher pointed out that this is her favorite parable since it is the only one that Jesus explains point blank. Guess he just must have gotten tired of the confused stares from the crowd. A dude can only take so much.

The cool part was that she spent a good part of the sermon talking about what makes the good soil so good. It has to have the right pH level (between 6.5 and 6.9 apparently). It has to be loosely packed. It's got to have lots of organic material and nutrients.

Now, I know what she was going for. She eventually asked the metaphorical, "what kind of soil am I?", question. But the whole time all I could think about is my desire to grab a shovel and dig into some very non-metaphorical dirt of my own.

I know where this urge is coming from. I am reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and it has quite taken over my thoughts. It is about the author and her family spending a year living off their garden and only products grown in their county. She recounts the joys of picking the first tomatoes, the day the cherries ripen, and eating the eggs carefully watched over by her youngest daughter. It makes me want to quit my job and go full time into food production.

I think I might have to settle for trying to run an after school garden with my kids. Challenge 1) finding a place to put said garden. The maintenance staff at school doesn't seem to thrilled with the idea, but I'll try batting my eyelashes a little more next week. If not a school, I have an idea of someone off campus who might let us dig in their dirt. Challenge 2) I have no idea how to start a garden in New England. There is still 2 feet of snow on the ground, so I'm assuming it's going to have to wait till mid-March at least. But that's why they invented libraries and master gardeners. I'll see if I can find a couple of each.

Anyway, I really hope this works out. I don't know what else to do with all this garden fever. I'll keep you updated as my veget-itis progresses.