my dad

This is my dad. He was being a really good sport here and put on a mask I had unearthed in the storage room that serves my art classroom. I had brought it home and on the day we celebrated my youngest's birthday everyone tried it on, and Dad was so hysterical that I just had to take a picture.

This is the last picture I have of my dad... I need to take more.

He is in the hospital tonight with a blood clot in his groin. I just came back from seeing him and he seems fine. The same tell a joke, make light of everything kind of guy... but there is this dangerous thing in him... and it scares me.

The doctor came into the room while I was there. A man with an accent, a man of color, a very nice man... and he asked my dad a series of questions. Did he smoke? Does he drink? Is there any history of clots or heart disease in his family? No, maybe two a week, no. How many children do you have?

Dad says, "Two. I have been pregnant two times... how many times have you been pregnant?" the doctor tells him, "Two."

He asked him about his difficulty breathing and how well he slept at night. He asked about surgeries and prior illnesses. He asked all the right doctor questions and Dad answered them all honestly... except he lied or just forgot that he did have a fever in the past week...

Then Dad asked the doctor where he was from. The doctor replied, " Where do you think I am from?" And I looked at him, really for the first time, and thought, "No, he is not from India." But my dad said, "Ethiopia?" and the doctor said, with a bit of surprise, "Just to the north of Ethiopia"... or maybe Northern Ethiopia... He told my dad that no one had ever guessed correctly before. He asked him how he knew... and Dad said he had met a couple of other fellows from Ethiopia and the accent sounded right.

How could he hear so clearly?!? I was pretty amazed at my father right then. The doctor was impressed, too.

He told me I had a fine father, and a healthy one... and then I said something disparaging (why why why?) and the doctor said, "No, he really is a fine man."

The doctor told me they would keep him in the hospital for three days. Tomorrow I will go stay with my mom, although I will only be there at night, after work. Dad will worry about her less that way.

I will miss two days of water aerobics and one day of water yoga... I know this is self-centered of me, but I really hate to miss my water aerobics.

When I left, I kissed him on the top of the head and told him to behave... why didn't I say, "I love you Dad."

I am afraid. My dad is supposed to live. I want him back in his chair lecturing me with all his wrong-thinking conservative Republican opinions, so I can tell him I just can't talk to him any more...

But then... none of this is up to me.

Sunday

I need to work on lesson plans today. I brought home a stack of papers that need to be organized into complete thoughts and then reformed into something that flows into a day to day plan for an art project.

I have just finished the first rotation - a ten-day sequence of classes that changes continually through out the year. I now have a feel for all the grades levels and for the flow of my schedule.

I need to work on my fourth grade lesson. In the last two weeks I taught African masks from the seat of my pants. I heard one by say, "Boy, I didn't know art would be so fun in fourth grade!" and another boy gave me a note telling me much the same thing. Wow! I am not used to such praise. I feel like the bar has been raised a bit. I know what they liked about the project. That, I think I can duplicate. What I don't really know is what they learned. So today I will work a bit at developing little mini lessons, sound bites, to pepper here and there with hopes that some of these take seed as knowledge and understanding.

I also need to look more closely at my 6th grade plan. Last year they came to me in the morning. This year they come the last period of the day. That change in schedule dictates that I change how I teach, so last year's plans must be modified. I need to make it the class more user friendly. By the end of the day a quiet sixth grader can turn into a snarling, resistant participant. I have come to realize I no longer have a defense system that protects me from mean people, so I need to find ways to engage the whole crowd. I am going to take a clue from my excited fourth graders and look at ways to make the projects more "fun." I have been looking at a book on the art of Jacob Lawrence, I think this may be the direction I choose to take.

I have had a couple of other revelations today. My green dress that I have worn to church for the last couple of years is noticeably tighter. The website www.cowboylegendsofsantefe.com has a couple of pairs of boots I really like... so the boot fetish is still alive. The scripture reading I am scheduled to do today at church has one non-sensical sentence and that really bugs me. And that I am beginning to feel really whole, and I hope this feeling lasts a long long time.

in the mess, I am at peace

No pictures today...

I fly to Portland tomorrow. Need to be at my parents house at 4:30 a.m. to take us all to the airport. I think that means I need to be up by 3. Me-oh-my... that is early.

I have started back to school. Returned from New Mexico on Sunday and met 8th graders at my classroom door at 8:30 Monday morning. So far so good.

Funny, my attitude has undergone a shift, I think. Last year I spent nearly the entire time completely stressed out over whether I was going to stay in my job or retire, and right now I feel almost mellow.

I have no teacher's desk... they ordered a new one for me and took mine out, thinking the other would arrive before I did. Wrong. But I am completely not bothered.

My computer is not working... but then I have no desk to put it on... and I just look at it and kind of chuckle because I have noticed that someone has plugged it into a socket that I know from last year does not work.

I forgot how kindergartners are the first day of school. In the thirty minutes they were in my class I think I said "stay in your seat" about fifteen times, but by the end of the period when I asked them what my rules were, they chorused, "Listen and stay in your seat!" Of course it will be months before I can really get them to listen or stay in their seat... but they are beginning to get what I would like.

A little first grader cryed yesterday and today. He was here last year, but he has been home all summer, protected from the great big world of school. He told me between sobs that he was feeling "stressed out".

Today, at the end of the day, I thought, "Three days down..." and I told someone that when this year was done, I only had three more to go... if I actually got that far.

Also today, Cheryl told me they think her husband has lung and bone cancer... they are waiting for results. I talked to my sister and she is feeling cut out of her daughter's lives now that she has married and moved away, and her husband is not well either. Then I talked to my youngest who has been dealing with company and transmissions, and because she would like another baby and her husband does not, so today after she gave away their high chair she went to the humane society and got a kitty.... the kitty's name is Rocket. So tonight I have been praying for all these people who are suffering one one level or another... that some movement of the spirit gives them comfort and hope.

Some of this makes me wonder what am I waiting for? Am I waiting three years and one hundred and seventy-seven longer for my life to begin... but, you know... I think my life has begun... and it is going somewhere... and I just need to relax and be attentive to the ride.

Tomorrow I will be in Oregon with my parents and attending a wedding on Saturday. Who knows what interesting things I will encounter along the way.

color, texture, yarn!

I absolutely love color and texture... I think I have mentioned that before. This whole color texture thing got me into knitting... and into a bit of trouble in the yarn department. I have a couple of years worth of yarn. I need to either a. quit working entirely and just knit, b. learn to knit a lot faster, or c. form a yarn club of some sort... Anyway, I frequently swear off purchasing any more yarn and usually find it pretty easy if the only stores I go into are Joannes's or Micheal's... but one of the towns we went through on our New Mexico trip was Los Ojos... and there, wouldn't ya' know, was Tierra Woolshttp://www.tierrawools.com/, just waiting to snare me.



Let me explain. Los Ojos is not the kind of town you would just drive into and say, 'wow, there must be some great yarn here'... No. It is a tiny, not overtly affluent little hamlet set into the rolling hills of north central New Mexico. But there is was, a yarn shop, within minutes of our campsite...

















I knew from the moment I spotted the sign on the roadside that there was a reason to take a closer look at Los Ojos, but driving down the main street of the town I could not have expected the wonderful place I would find. Tierra Wools sits on the northern edge of the town, within walking distance of the old Catholic church that serves as a landmark in most of these little villages. As I got out of the car and climbed onto the wooden side walk which fronts the building I began to see woven goods and hanks of richly colored yarn through the window. Once inside I found blankets and rugs, woven shawls and felted hats... and yarn. Hand dyed wool... hand dyed wool where the color moved and shimmered in the light. Beautiful wool. Wool that felt like the finest merino to the touch.



I couldn't resist. One skein, two skeins... beautiful tones that reflected the rare light of the rock, the plants and the sky of New Mexico. I also found that Tierra Wools offers weaving classes and wool dying classes.... I promised to return. When I got Back into the car, we took a picture of me with my new stash.




Oh, my! I cannot wait until I am home again and can begin to knit these beautiful colors together... and I am thinking about taking one of the weaving classes Tierra offers maybe next summer...

6 good things

Bill and I had our picture taken in front of a rainbow in the campground of Canyon de Chelly. He had been doing his Ricky voice all day calling me Lucy since I tied a bandanna around my head trying to control my unruly mass of curls. "No, Lucy, you cannot be on the show..."

This was the first stop on our 9-day camping adventure. We made the rounds of the ruins; Canyon de Chelly's White House, Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon, the village at Aztec ruins and the cliff dwellings at Bandolier Nat. Monument. We also shopped Taos and stopped at a Native American cultural festival in Farmington where Bill bought me a beautiful necklace. I lost one earring of a set I had made and Bill took a bunch of pictures, worked at staying as sugar free as possible and managed to track down an old acquaintance in Pilar, NM. I cooked and drove and was allowed to have my way almost the entire time. We ended our journey in Albuquerque, staying the night in a hotel and eating at a Brazilian restaurant that took the eating of carne to a new level. We had a good time, didn't squabble much, and enjoyed each other's company.

Here is an incomplete list of why I like Bill:

1. he sometimes calls me Lucy when everyone else knows I am an Ethel.

2. he appreciates my cooking, even when camping.

3. he buys a tumbled stone with no flaws and tells me it is just like me (overpriced?)

4. he reminds me when I have not made a complete stop.

5. he walks on the side of the road where dogs might jump out and attack me.

6. he keeps coming back

****PLEASE, can anyone tell me why I have lost my line spacing????

summer of solitude

My summer of solitude is coming to a close.

In forty minutes I need to leave this house and head to the airport to pick up Bill. We are heading for New Mexico on a road trip to see the ancient ruins of Chaco Canyon among other things... then I will head off to the Glen Workshop for a week of creativity in Santa Fe while he goes back to Idaho. Doesn't sound too bad, does it?

But I am mourning none the less. I have loved this quiet summer, this summer of silence, this summer of looking inward, this summer of peace and tranquility.

I am ending this time with projects unfinished. My dining room table is started, but not finished. Funny google-eyed chickens are beginning to pop up in the underbrush under a full moon I painted in the center of the table, but there is still much to do. It will have to become a Saturday job... the next time I really get a Saturday. The bead/jewelry projects I have laid out still sit, in stacks of colored ceramic bowls, waiting for me. I walk by and fondle the beads... but I have run out of time to sit with them... but they will wait on me, too, and I will find the time to complete them when it comes to me. The knit bath mat I began at the beginning of the summer... the same one I ripped out two times when it was nearly complete... is almost done for the third time... but almost is what my ex-husband would have said was "close, but no cigar"...

however, there are projects I did get done. I finished my essay I needed to submit to the workshop, I have gotten this blog up and running - looking and sounding the way I want it, mostly - I have done some small home repairs, tiled my daughter's bathroom counter, and made a birthday gift for daughter # 1, that I can't describe yet, since it is just now in the mail to her. Hopefully she will post a picture of it on her blog.

But none of these things could have happened, not even the half done stuff, if I had not had this wonderful block of time to think, contemplate, and create.

Solitude, I have learned, is a life restoring thing... it has opened a spaciousness where God has entered to heal and create within me. It is something I need to find in bits as I head out for a two week jaunt in New Mexico... it is something I need to work into my daily schedule as the school year resumes when I return.

But now, I need to run....

I will try to post from the road if I can!

Missing Gram

Yesterday, driving home from camping we stopped at a fresh produce stand. One of the items they had, besides tomatoes that really smelled like tomatoes, were black-eyed peas in the pod.

Although I am a black-eyed pea lover, I had never seen them "in the pod" state. I talked to the young man at the stand about how to prepare them and purchased a couple big handfuls.

Today, I sat at my kitchen counter as I listened to the laundry, waiting to add the fabric softener and popped the beans out of the pods. It was a time consuming job and so, as I worked I admired the greeness of the beans, their perfect shape... and I began to remember my great grandmother, sitting at the kitchen table in the apartment in Ottawa, cleaning a big bowl of green beans. She was crying.

Now, my great grandmother was one of the jolliest women I have ever known. She had a heart that stretched around everyone. She befriended strangers and made them part of her family. She had a contagious laugh that found humor in all of life's little speed bumps. She knew what it was to get the short end of things, and worked hard to make certain those she cared would not have to feel that way. I remember that both her daughters and her son-in-laws doted on her.

When I walked into the kitchen I asked, "Gram, why are you crying?" I was worried and distressed. I had never seen her cry before.

She replied, "John (her late husband) has been gone for fifty years and I miss him."

I can still hear her say that. I can still see her sitting in the green light of that high ceilinged kitchen. I have thought often of her there, missing her husband, and when I do I miss her.

Gram has been gone for thirty years. She knew how to love without reservation and she was loved for it. It is my hope that I learn to love like that... that I am willing to live with the joy and the sadness that real love brings. That I accept the responsibility that comes with loving and that I touch lives, just like she touched mine.