Snow Day

Our fourth since mid-December, as a matter of fact. We have two left before we start digging into spring break in April. Some people get all nervous about using them up; I would rather stay home on a miserable day in the winter. OK..I would rather stay home on a nice day in April too, but April is not always springy here anyway.

So the view from my back porch door looked like this earlier in the day:





Which, as lovely and peaceful and serene as it is, inspires me to knit these:



Yep. Four projects, all in varying shades of orange. Clockwise, from three o'clock, are Ann Campbell's Circle Socks in Trekking XXL (don't ask the color number, the ball band disappeared a while ago). Then, some Bluefaced Leicester in the "Monarch" colorway from Black Bunny Fibers. It's part of the fiber club Carol Sulcoski runs. Next, 'Vog On Socks from Aleta Fera in the summer 2007 Knitty. They're in Koigu PPM. And that big honkin' cake of yarny goodness in the back is Decadent Fiber's Cookie Dough. It's the beginning of a self-designed vest.

Add to that the fire-engine red mittens I'm cranking out for the second-grade classes at school and you might assume I'm starved for color. You would assume correctly. This is a hard time of year. Fresh snow is very pretty, the purity of the white contrasting with the deep evergreens and bare, dark tree trunks of oaks and maples. However, fresh snow does not last and soon, wherever there's foot or car traffic, it turns the color of light brown sugar. (It does not, I assume, taste like light brown sugar.) Then it devolves further into the color of mud as a preview to what we'll see for two months in April and May. Starved for nature's palette, knitters, weavers and spinners turn to the best replacements we know.

I'd like to do some more dyeing soon too, especially cochineal and indigo. I love intense colors, and those two give me the best fix. I fear I may drape them around my shoulders once they're finished. Or maybe a fishing pole extending from a funny hat, like a carrot for a donkey.

In non-fiber-related creativity today, there's two loaves of quick bread cooling on the counter; whole-wheat molasses, and honey bread. Yum. There's chocolate chip cookies waiting in the wings. Most of this will go to school tomorrow, as much as I'd like to eat them for all three meals. I haven't done much baking lately, and now I want to bake EVERYTHING. Fortunately, all you have to do is put a plate of goodies on the table in the staff room, and by lunch it will have quietly disappeared.

Snow days are a gift not to be wasted.

Please read my comments. :-)

The ones from the "Kids Who Make Me Proud" post: Diane Z. Shore, the author of "This is the Dream" (the book I mentioned reading to my kids) somehow found my little blog and sent me the nicest comment. I couldn't be more pleased to give her wonderful book more publicity, and I will certainly share with my 5th graders that a real live author wrote to me! They'll be just as excited as I am. Thank you, Ms. Shore. When's your next book coming out?

P.S. You may notice that it looks like two comments were deleted from that post. That would be because I somehow managed to post Ms. Shore's comment three times. I was pretty pleased, after all!

Kids Who Make Me Proud.

When I refer to "my kids" here, you'll remember that I'm talking about the 300 or so I have at school. I don't have any of the "live in the same house as me" variety.

This is a story about my fifth graders. They are, in general, a delightful bunch. Kind to each other. Polite. Friendly and full of smiles. Not trying to get in each other's pants. (That was last year. I'm not kidding.) I really enjoy working with them.

Although I am a music teacher, I also tell my kids that I think it's important that I share things that are important to me. Not to make them believe the same as me, but to give them as many different perspectives on things as possible. I constantly harp on getting the information you need, and doing what you have to in order to find that information. So it's not unheard of to have a music class where we talk about the jury selection process, like we did when I got called this past fall. I needed to go into some detail about why we had to be ready to have/not have our usual morning rehearsals, and why I couldn't give them a clear answer ahead of time. So, civil education it was that day. And I didn't mind one bit.

Today, of course, is the day we celebrate the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr. I wasn't sure how much kids understood about the background of this day. I mean, they can all say that MLK was a civil rights leader and he was assassinated and he was an important African American. But why did he have to do what he did? Well, that's a little less clear. And since we also study American folk music pretty intensely in my classes, we've been on a Woody Guthrie kick lately. We've talked about how Woody wrote about what he saw as he traveled the country and how his experiences influenced what he wrote. Since he did a lot of traveling during the Depression Era, there's a lot of references that the kids don't get yet, so that takes some explaining. And of course, the more you explain, the more there IS to explain, and the more there is that I CAN'T explain.

Many of Woody's songs have a theme of social justice, and let me tell you, fifth graders are all about fairness. So we expand that idea: not only is it fair for everyone to have a turn in the game, but it's fair that we all get to play in the first place. They know that you won't always win, but they also know that you can't win unless you try playing. Why is that so important outside of kickball at recess? And so the conversation goes, until we've moved into the bigger picture. It's not the experience of these kids that people were ever excluded from the game.

So last week, it was time to bring this up in terms of the civil rights movement of the 1960's, given that today is what it is. We read together an excellent book, "This is the Dream" by Diane Z. Shore. Get a copy; you won't be sorry. In short, it puts the inherent unfairness (which is what fifth graders understand) of the concept of "separate but equal" into terms that make sense. When one little guy mentions that isn't it funny...now the cool place to sit IS in the back of the bus, we can talk about how it's different if you WANT to sit there in comparison to being FORCED to sit there. When we get to the part about separate schools, and how several of our friends could not be at school with us, it hits home even more. When one little guy says, "But I'm mixed. What about that?" and I have to explain what that meant for you, it hits home. When another says, "But my skin is darker because my dad is Puerto Rican, not African American," and I have to explain that it just gave people who were looking for an excuse to exclude you one more way to exclude you, the kids are horrified for their friend. They declare they would fight for their friends, and I believe them.

They don't understand how people could have been so unfair. So unkind. So (in their words) stupid. How could people not know better? How could they make something so shallow such a big issue? Why did it have to be a big deal? I do my best to explain. I remind them that I certainly don't have all the answers. They have to live and learn it themselves. They need to understand that it wouldn't take much for it to happen all over again, because all it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing. (I wish I could remember who said that. I'll look for the accurate quote and source.)

I am proud of their outrage. I am proud that none of this makes any sense to them, that they just can't understand how people could behave like they did. I am proud that they sense the inherent wrongness of it all. I am proud that they don't shrug and say, oh well, that's just how things are. I am proud that they don't want to let it happen again. My kids are compassionate, thoughtful, and determined. I am proud to know them and lucky to be their teacher. They are our future and our hope, and I think we're in good hands.

Conflict.

In my brain, that is, which should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me. I'm pretty sure that in every situation, there's more to it than meets the eye, and I will ferret it out.

Anyway, this situation at least does warrant a little personal conflict. I'm still trying to figure out how to post personal things here without trash-talking the participants. This one is especially tricky, as it has to do with my very own personal parents, both of whom are very much alive, and neither of whom know that I blog. I'm not worried about them stumbling across this, and it's not anything that ever was a secret, but I want to remain respectful. I also want to be honest to myself. Let me know how this comes across, OK?

My parents divorced when I was in eighth grade, after several difficult years. Shortly thereafter, my father married the woman who played no small role in the destruction of my family. Being a confused 13-year-old who was (and still is) by nature, a peace-maker, the only conclusion I could come to was to behave as if nothing at all was wrong (even though plenty was). I desperately wanted everyone to feel better, and somehow it was up to me. Instead of going through the usual difficult-teenager-angst-drama that could have happened, I slapped a smile on my face and marched forward, the perfect daughter who kept her head up high and made no trouble. I worked very hard at balancing the time I spent with my mom and the time I spent with my dad and his new ready-made family. I referred to her as my stepmom. I was a child expected to deal with this as a rational adult, and of course I rose to that expectation, because that's what I did in every aspect of my life. What I wanted and felt rarely entered into the equation; it was about how I could provide what others wanted and felt. I put up a good front, and most of my friends would be surprised to hear that I had any problems with this at all.

Fast forward several years. My stepsister was about to graduate from high school. (She's eleven years younger than me.) Almost to the day of her graduation, my dad's wife left him. Just like that. Ka-boom. No warning. Already had an apartment. Gone. Now, having known him for about 39 years, I realize that my dad is not the easiest person to live with. But this was a really low blow, particularly when he found out that she had set herself up with some *cough* outside comfort several months earlier. The irony of the situation was not lost on me.

It rang my chimes pretty good. My sister (almost three years older than me) had always maintained that as soon as our stepsister was taken care of (you know, got through school and braces and all the legal stuff), that she would bolt. Turned out my sister was pretty much right. She tried to maintain some positive contact with me, and I tried to stay neutral at first-mainly for the sake of my stepsister. Then my dad shared some information with me which knocked me out of neutrality, and for the first time in a long time, I chose a side. I chose my dad, and severed ties with her. I don't regret it. I have missed my stepsister, as she had grown up before my eyes, and then disappeared.

I'm from a small town with a healthy grapevine, so I got regular infusions of gossip...I mean, news from my dad and friends that live there still. So one day the news trickled down that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. While I would not wish such a thing on anyone, even someone who had a hand in turning my life upside-down, I was pretty nonplussed by the news. I almost felt like, "Of COURSE she did." This was a person who liked attention, and frankly, what a way to get it. I know that's unreasonable, but I also took it as a delayed reaction-the child-like anger I hadn't been able to feel almost twenty years earlier. I had reached the point where I couldn't fake it anymore. The cancer went into remission, things looked fairly positive. Then, about two years ago, my dad found out that it had metastasized, and invaded her brain. Again, I didn't give it much thought. They were able to beat it back until this fall. Her decline was swift, and on Friday, she passed away.

I cried briefly, feeling the confusion and hurt from so many years well up again, but it wasn't sadness. It's not grief over a loss. Yet the conflict: she was good to me. If you could block out the fact that she helped to destroy my family, she was good to me. She referred to me as her daughter, but didn't expect me to call her anything but her first name. Her parents welcomed me into their home, and were unfailingly kind. She drove me to some rehearsals, I tried out conversations I needed to have with my mom on her, and overall things could have been worse. So do I continue to let those things outweigh everything else that happened? It wasn't personal, after all...she didn't do anything to ME....right?

I decide no. She did do something to me. She wrecked my family and pretended it was OK. Things weren't worse because I sacrificed my true feelings to make this all work for everyone else. Dammit, I made it a lot easier for everyone at my own expense. With her death, many of the feelings that I squashed for so long have re-risen. I believe that the universe always gives us a choice: deal with it now, or deal with it later. I could not have dealt with this earlier. But now I have better tools, more options, and less of a need to please everyone who crosses my path. I am more likely to take care of myself first. I am much less likely to put up with charades for the sake of appearances. And now I can feel what I didn't before, acknowledge it, see how it has affected my life since, and heal it. I'm about to turn 39, and it's time to give the frightened 13-year-old some long-awaited consolation.

Do I still have things to work out with my parents? Absolutely. It's not all her fault. I see this less as a loss (for me...not for my stepsister) than as a balancing event. I gave up a hefty chunk of my childhood for her attempted happiness. It didn't work, and it wasn't fair of her to use my family like stepping stones on her path. It seems she had a hefty chunk of her adulthood taken away in return. My happiness is still my own responsibility, but the release of these emotions is part of the process. If something else could have happened to be the catalyst, I would have accepted that too. This is not a happy event. I'm sorry that my stepsister has lost her mother before she turned 30, before she could get married with her mother present. But if it had to happen this way, I will take the good that I can find in it. Otherwise, the whole situation is meaningless, and in my mind, having meaning leads to having hope. I can't live without either one.

Oh wait!

I just remembered, I WILL be able to blog before May, if I blog from the main bedroom of Apartmentia. Warmth is not an issue in this room. (Well, it IS an issue, but in the opposite direction.)

So now I just need to have an idea to write about, but I'm sure I'll think of something.


P.S. Teaching five private lessons after school is a really bad idea. Live vicariously through me on this, and JUST SAY NO.

Can't blog.

Too cold.

See you in May. (Hey, I live in the northeast, spring does not come early.)

Gems from the music room, part one.

Me: "Student, no wonder your sax won't play. This key is all bent up. Did you drop it?"
Student: "Only a little."