Back to School

http://www.charmofthecarolines.com/.a/6a01156faa621f970c0120a9166d13970b-800wi

I have always been glad to point out to people (OK, mostly to plebotomists taking blood or nurses putting in an IV) that having good veins

 is one of my talents.  My other talent is 

school.  I don't usually tell them that.  

Somehow, it doesn't seem relevant.  

Tonight, however, it is not only relevant, but totally ideal to think about.  Summer session at Palm Beach State begins next week.  I am signed up for two classes.  One is an Environmental Issues class in the Horticulture department.  My guess is that the bulk of the material will deal with environmental issues effecting how land is planted, watered, landscaped, arranged, preserved . . . or something like that.  

It is required for the Landscape Architect certification program.  I am also taking an Internship/Work Experience class in the Horticultural program.  Both are taught by Dr. George Rogers.  He is the kind of teacher that could make a crumpled paper cup into an interesting subject.  He approaches very difficult, compact material and opens it up so that you feel like you are discovering the subject all by yourself . . . with him standing off to one side, cheering you on. More 

concerned that students adsorb the material, his disarming (kind of off-kilter) jokes and nick-names for flower and their characteristics combine to make it possible to learn and then USE that information; making sense of the world.

I am excited about the coming chance to re-enter the sweet, swirling vortex of organized learning.  

In "You Have Mail," the main character talks about a bouquet of 

sharpened pencils--and I love the thought of that image.  Though it has little to do with the tools that I use to learn--computers, bytes, binomial systems, tables and lists found on-line and then memorized.  

Still . . . the piquant moment when freshly-sharpened graphite and wood pencil meet clean, white paper on a flat wooden desk top . . delicious.

Words That Change the Heart--from one of my all time favorite books

Ida B by Katherine Hannigan, Chapter 12, 18

     "I couldn't do anything except curl up like a ball on the floor of the barn and lie there, crying.  The kind of tears that burn your eyes, and the sort of sobs that make your chest ache so that you're sure it's going to bust open.  And when the sobs finally ran out, the tears kept coming, so I lay there with my mouth wide open, but I hardly made a sound.  Just air going into me, and a heavy wind full of sorrow coming out.
     "But as I cried, my heart was being transformed.  It was getting smaller and smaller in my chest and hardening up like a rock.  The smaller and harder my heart got, the less I cried, until I stopped completely.
     "By the time I was finished, my heart was a sharp, black stone that was small enough to fit in the palm of my hand.  It was so hard nobody could break it and so sharp it would hurt anybody who touched it.
     "I stayed there, staring ahead at nothing, with just about nothing left inside of me, for quite a bit.
     "And then my new heart came up with a resolution.  Because when your heart changes, you change, and you have to make new plans . . . I could feel the hardness of my heart spreading into my arms and my legs and my head, and it felt fine.  I would win . . . And that was the end of me listening to anybody or anything, other than myself and my new heart, for a long time.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *     
     "And she was wearing me down in ways she probably didn't even intend to.
     "Ms. Washington would read to us each day after lunch, and her voice was like different musical instruments.  She could make her voice go low and deep and strong like a tuba, or hop, hop, hop quick and light like a flute.
     "When she read, her voice wrapped around my head and my heart, and it softened and lightened everything up.  It put a pain in my heart that felt good.

The book tells the story of a grade school aged girl who lives on a large farm, an apple orchard.  She is home schooled by her mother, and spends hours among her trees.  They speak to her and she hears their poetry in the wind.  Her mother gets cancer and her father has to sell part of the farm to a housing development and they cut down trees--her trees.  Her mother gets cancer and she has to be enrolled in public school.  Ida's heart is hardened by the terror and pain that she feels . . . it is softened by the understanding and patience of her teacher, Ms. Washington, and magic--the magic of words read aloud.

I love the book, because it not only speaks to me, but speaks the words that have defined me during times in my life.  The story is not mine . . . but it is mine.  As Ida cries, I also cry and my soul feels the barbs of her hardened heart.  As she listens to her teacher read aloud to the class, my mind fills with words from the stories that I have listened to, read out loud to my children . . . and have also read to myself in quiet times and quiet places when I needed to hear the magic of their sound. 

Words we say to each other land in the heart and grow.
                          CEWH

Words have power, more than we can know

Words we say to others, land in the heart and grow.

By words, the earth created,  By words, the stars are paired

In words we hear eternity, by words our hearts are shared.

Words have power, more than we can know

Words we say to others, land in the heart and grow.

Will they bloom, sustaining life? or will they root and rot?

Will I be traitor-coward or be the hero sought.
                                                  from Words Have Power, talk given June 2012, CEWH

Ms.Hannigan's book, Ida B, is a work of art rendered in words.  I have been blessed by her talent and am grateful for the chance I've had to read and re-read her creation.

What To Do

1.  brush the 3 rabbits, 2 cats and dog
2.  clean the bathrooms
3.  vacuum for dust bunnies
4.  read scriptures
5.  physical therapy
6.  check email
7.  check calendar for coming appointments
8.  work on school with Nate
9.  work with photos
10. eat
11. water plants
12. remember to take meds
13. finish cleaning out clothes closet
14. prep foot care for Brent
15. sweep porch
16. play with Brent, the kids, the pets
17. love Brent
18. pray
19. sleep
20. study for my classes
21. remember to smile
22. remember to sit up straight
23. remember who I am
24. look around me
25. prep house to paint
26. look for kitchen table with drop leaves
27. do laundry
28. clean up
29. cook dinner
30. love Brent better

The House is Piling Up Around Me

While I was putting some things we wanted to sell onto Craig's List, Brent was cleaning the living room.  I saw, out of the corner of my eye, him come and go--bringing stuff in and putting it down.  After about half an hour I look up and I find that I am surrounded by piles of papers and piles of books and piles of notebooks.  When I catch his eye--he smiles at me and tells me that he has brought me all the things that I needed to look at and put them all in one place for me.

!

I think that I will try to find something else to put on Craig's List.

Another Day Better in January 2013

Finally able to sleep.

Brent is asleep at last.  It has been a long day.  We went to see the doctor and they took the 42 staples out of his left knee and put 24 steri-strips in their place.  The swelling around his knee is coming down . . . most of it is congealed blood.  Last week the surgical assistant we saw tried to pull some of it off, but the mass was too thick to get anything out.  His legs have always been muscular and lean--now the left one has a huge, red, angry knot in the middle of it.  It reminds me of a boll in the trunk of an ancient oak tree.  

ERRANT SOCKS THAT WAUNDER IN HOPELESS LONELINESS and Osteropeniua 1200 Calcium 2000 Vitamin D

Blue Moon in Utah

On Wednesday night, I was asked to provide a short spiritual thought before the RS Enrichment meeting.  I talked about my "manic" button shoes . . . and how the difficult things we overcome are not left behind us, but woven into who we are and what we are now capable of doing and feeling.  I read a short excerpt from a letter I wrote to my sister Susan, but never sent:

           It seems like I only call you when I need something.  When I saw that I'd missed your call, I immediately thought how wonderful the time I got to spend with Martha and you in Minnesota.  I so enjoyed putting together the photos for your long, empty wall.  When I look up at the night sky here, I recall your overwhelming--stunning--midnight masterpiece . . . no lights but those provided by the planets and stars.  Your students (then and now) are fortunate to be exposed to your keen instruction.
           I asked Meg and Lauren last year if five years ago they could have imagined what their life would be like today.  Meg had just been married then--now she hs two children and a husband who loves her.  She makes bread almost every day and takes "bunny (shaped) buns" to friends who are feeling overwhelmed.  Meg told me she could not have thought she would be so happy.  I visited and  her apartment is cluttered with five small construction (in Jon's words--kon-stuck-sun) trucks I just brought for him, soft toys that Kate has chewed and drooled over as she cuts her first teeth . . . and errant socks that waunder in hopeless loneliness:  forever separated from the mates that the dryer ate.  There is a soft, quiet feeling that everything is in its proper time and place.

I heard on the radio, the next evening, a bit of a radio show that I'd never heard of before:  A Way With Words, described as a lively hour-long public radio show about language, on the air since 1998 [with a]uthor Martha Barnette and dictionary editor Grant Barrett.  One of the comments that stuck in my mind was a closing assertion that a real writer needn't be compelled to produce 50 novels or a continual stream of poetry.  Some need only to know that they have written a splendid, inexplicable sentence.  Poe once said that the best sentence he ever wrote was the first in his story "The Fall of the House of Usher."  Of course, there is always Snoopy's "It was a dark and stormy night . . ."

I think that one of the best things that I've written is the phrase contained above:  . . . errant socks that waunder in hopeless loneliness:  forever separated from the mates that the dryer ate.

To end this entry:  the results of my first bone scan came back this morning:  Osteropeniua--the beginning stage of osteoporosis.   It snuck up on me--I didn't even know that anything was wrong.  Creaky joints, yes, but not that.  I wonder if this is what it is like to discover that you have cancer.

I hope I never find out.

Better Than Me

Geiger Tree Flower and Penny

It happened today--one of those events that you remember all of your life.  Remembered, not because it was a commonly pivotal thing (birth, graduation, marriage, death), but because it revealed something about yourself to you.  It stands out in my memory like the first firework in a 4th of July night.

I was driving to class.  Not really a class class--a survey of native Florida plants.  It is a semester of field trips and wandering treks through nearby parks and reserves.  Dr. George Rogers teaches to identify the plants and trees we find.  It is a delightful experience each week--if you get there in time to start down the trail with everyone.

And I was late.  There was road work and both lanes were merging into one--left into right lane.  And I was late.   I pulled into the right lane.  And I was late.  A red Honda drove past me--intent on skipping ahead in line.  I sped up.  I was late.  I started to get angry.  The Honda tried to jockey in front of me.  I sped up . . . but the car in front of me started to slow.  It continued to slow down--until there was a space in front of it big enough for the red car to slip in.

I was still late, but I was also ashamed of myself.

The guy driving the car in front of me did what I should have done.  One driver let me in . . . maybe he was late, too.

Next time I will be the one to slow down.

I will remember and I will be better than I was.