Work as Play

Learning comes slowly when weariness is near.  How can I wake up to life and do even the simplest of tasks with energy?  Sleep more.  Lovely, long days of summer fade now in September and I will grow content with more sleep so that those few hours of the waking day are fresh and my soul stirs with the joy of doing. Look at Rogan,  how he creates the scene by setting that dinosaur so close he seems to be watching for the moment when the boy will take him up and make play.  I think that I can see my work like that - a toy to pick up and start to play here in the "fields of the Lord".

I just want to see my grandson. March 31,2011

I have new pictures, one or two, that I pour over and make my background.  But I want to see him.  I want to hear his questions and his cries and I want to know him, to understand him and to be able to communicate that I love him.  His life, a long adventure of discovery before him, and mine still open but oh so much further on.

New Shoes March 30, 2011

The Foot Zone solved the problem of a pronated foot.  My student is trying to run track and his knee is hurting.  We found out today it is because his shoes are not supporting his arch and the inward twist is transferring to his knee.  Great to find a solution and thanks to Tim at Foot Zone we have the answer.  He supplied the name of the song, playing in the store at the time, and the artist to my music loving "son".  Wonderful to watch discoveries being made every day.  Ended with the lyrics of "Bad to the Bone" being sung with gusto.  Love that abandonment to the joy of life and want to imitate it.  Fifteen year old boys can lead the way.

Work March 10, 2011

Wonder when I get up for the 7 am meeting how I will make it to the the 5 pm end.  But the day rushes by with meetings and moments with kids and their teachers and I remember work is this lovely, continual, communal arc of pleasure for me.  Weariness is the occasional side effect but sleep and health give back the joy each dawn. 

Disappointment March 8, 2011

This afternoon a colleague told me of the tragic death of Mel Levine.  Having read his work and been moved to think differently about how people learn I am devastated by the news.  A hero has fallen and the dust is rising leaving an ugly cloud of disappointment.  I cannot find a way to think about it.

The List. March 7, 2011

Today, the list was shortened.  Funny how I like to run from that list but running never makes it shorten.  Cancelled appointments made room for arranging doctor visits, gifts, haircut and the work of teaching words.  Tonight we studied "guilty" and talked of being guilty, feeling guilty and the fact that I can be guilty but not feel it.  I always feel it.  That nagging, incessant voice that says you should have done those jobs last week.  Just doing the list has taken down the feeling and left me lightened.  Next, we spoke of "character" that role or part someone plays in a book or movie.  But it is also that part of me that tells the world the kind of person that I am.  As we discuss this meaning it strikes me that more and more I want to be the one who does the list.  Is getting stuff done a trait?

My Boom March 5, 2011

Saturday.  The long, lovely, morning coffee and quiet conversation with my daughter.  Luxury of time to sit in the midst of love eating peanut butter toast.  Moving slowing towards a leisurely shopping trip then looking, checking, rejecting and finally buying a few clothes that should work.  Lunch at Boom Noodle where I read that, "In Japan today there is a popular term, “my boom” that means, “The thing I am currently obsessed with.”  Although the restaurant is currently obsessed with noodles and fresh ingredients "my boom" is the daughter and the husband with whom I share this meal.  My boom is not transient but rooted in my enduring joy in belonging to these two and they to me.