Springtime Flux

I've always gotten Spring Fever.

Every year.  It's a little embarrassing. For me this manifests as nervous energy, forgetfullness, preoccupation with pretty things, falling in love with every other person who walks down the street or sits next to me in the cafe, rushing more, napping more and eating ice cream. We're nearly through it this year, and it has passed quickly, perhaps because of how satisfying this spring has been.  I know it's boring to talk about the weather, but really it has affected this whole relocation so much and so postively that I can't stop talking about it yet.

I loved seeing flowers pop out of the snow, people poking out of their heavy overcoats, leaving a scarf or mittens home one day or the next, challenging winter as it faded away.  Spring seemed so brave and hopeful.  Last week we had a legitimately hot day, and it showed us what summer will be.  In Seattle somehow, the weather seemed more distant, unassailable, and here, it feels as though the bravery of a few hatless souls may have been responsible for the whole damn thing.  In Seattle the trees would suddenly be abloom, but here there was a nice, long, smooth budding phase that allowed us to prepare our hearts and our bodies for spring.

At work, it's a whole other type of adjustment. Now instead of the parade of snowsuits, hats, scarves and mittens, it's the process of sunhats, sandal straps, water bottles and sunscreen.  The kids are happy to just sit in the grass and stare, to swing, swing, swing to hold hands and run one way and then another.  They have each mastered something brand new on the playground in the last week; the rings, pumping on a swing, flying on their bellies on the swing, climbing to the top of a tall, tall ladder, sliding down on their bellies.  Like little spring animals learning how to walk, to run, to fly or hunt.

At home I'm trying to keep some of this energy with me as I ride my bike back.  I'm still having a hard time with so many hours of my life given away to my job and commute, but the bike is faster than the train, now, and getting faster every day.  I'm still practicing my unicycle every week or so, it's still difficult to go more than five feet or so.  Maybe I'll practice again today as I clean the house before houseguests arrive.  I finally found a yoga studio that I'm crazy about which is a few less free hours in my week, but more than worth it.  It's also local soccer season, so Z and I have attended one Revolution game, and one Boston breakers game.  We'll return to ther fort this weekend with friends this time to see another Rev's game.

This is one of the most boring posts I've ever written, but, it's what I'm thinking about.

Next time, I'll have something hilarious, thoughtful and shocking for you.

Trash in the Sky Day

The back part of my classroom is all windows.  We eat back there, and we've spent a lot of time lately, watching the pigeons, squirrels and crows who visit our side yard and playground.  Today, I looked up and saw a big piece of paper floating on the breeze about 30 feet in the air.  As the spring breeze gently set it down on the playground, I looked up and saw another that looked like the paper wrapping for a toilet paper roll tossing around up there.  "Guys?  Did you see that trash?" I asked the three year olds around me?  They didn't so some of them said that they did as they looked wildly about, and the rest admitted they didn't.  They caught the next piece of garbage as it fell, though.  Our school is nestled in the bosom (or lap depending on your perspective) of a Harvard housing project of high-rises.  I imagined that someone had irresponsibly left garbage on their balcony and it was now being distributed by the elements.  

"Whoa!  There's another one!  Happy Trash in the sky day, everybody!"

"Happy Trash in the sky day, Kendra!" somebody hollered back.

About an hour later, we went out on the playground with another class.  A teacher and a kid were looking up for a long time, when I saw a stretch of paper towels drifting past the branches of a tree.  I wandered over with a wry, knowing smile, ready to tell them about trash in the sky day... and realized they were watching a squirrel build a garbage nest!  The little one would run into the dumpsters, grab some paper material and then drag it way up the tree and try to stuff it into the tiny stick frame it had constructed! 

Another sign of spring, and reminder that there are parts of THIS urban ecosystem that I'm just not prepared for.

Mommy's little helper

Part of my job is to lie down on the floor and rub kids' backs to help them take a nap.  It sounds wierd, and it is incredibly intimate, but it's also great and enables kids to have pleasant afternoons.

Yesterday everyone was totally stoked about Halloween and totally a mess.  I got a pillow and sat next to this little boy who really likes me.

What are you being for Halloween? He stage whispered.

It's  not time to talk now, it's time to rest.

He smiled at me and said You could be a Mommy.

Awww.  I thought.  He thinks I'm nurturing and warm.  He also thinks that I'm different enough from a mommy that it could be a costume.  That's really sweet.

You could get some toilet paper and wrap it around and be a mommy for Halloween.

Yep.

He meant mummy.

Are you lookin at me?

Finally saw Taxi Driver.

YES I've made it to almost 30 years old without watching it. I DIDN'T watch it when I should have when I was a teenager, and desensitized to blood and guts and then I just never got around to it. Then tonight I was babysitting, and therefore knitting in front of the tv and checking out the list of "free" on-demand movies (which is a like a tiny, crummy, depressing video store. I can't remember most of the 100 or so movies there were, but The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Evil Dead 2, Leonard Cohen (A biography?) stuck in my mind. I stopped when I got to Taxi Driver, because, I thought, "When else will I sit down and watch Taxi Driver?" It was, of course, brilliant and awful, but I felt a little ashamed with all that cussing and assorted nastiness on the screen with a sweet little girl asleep upstairs.

I was babysitting for someone who lives in the Navy housing in the middle of a huge park near here. I felt a little creeped out driving through the unlit park at midnight, then once I got out, got lost in the suburb that surrounds the park. (Comically I got lost because I was behind someone. I thought I was going the right way, but the streets were little and quiet and I became unsure. As soon as I did, it occurred to me that if I were not on the arterial, then I was just following this car around a quiet neighborhood at night and probably making them nervous. This convinced me to NOT pull over to make them possibly feel better, which if FUCKED UP I know. As I pulled onto 15th at Dravus, there was a guy face down in the road who had obviously just fallen out of his wheel chair. I pulled over and helped him into his chair... and helped him cross the street. He was very drunk, and kept trying to tell me this over and over again but failing. I got him underway and went and sat in my car in an empty parking lot for a minute. I'd offered to call 911, but he'd told me not to(because he was drunk) but I was pretty worried for him since he was in a really busy place with people whipping around corners and very hight curbs... right before I saw him, I saw a dude totally blow through a red light.

In my head, Travis, the taxi driver was pissing and moaning about all the scum and trash and garbage in the street and scowling at the poor guy (Did I mention he was wearing only one shoe) and my favorite meditation teacher was telling me that nothing was wrong, that I just needed to see what is without judging it, and my yoga teachers were all telling me to do no harm. (?!) The bitter, scarred coworkers I had in the shelters told me I knew better than that guy about how to keep him safe, and the better ones told me that he deserves to make his own choices and I had no right to intervene and betray his privacy. Finally, exhausted and confused I stopped thinking and called. I took the easy way out. It's interesting to think about the things that are automatic for a person. Because of one job that I had, calling 911 is just as comfortable and mindless as moving a child's glass of juice away from the table's edge, blessing someone when they sneeze. Just automatic, easy. (The meditation teacher's got a lot to say about that, I bet.)

After I talked with the dispatcher I made a small loop, but I didn't see the guy. I felt dumb, because so many of the people I knew who wandered around this city at night in all kinds of vulnerable, loaded, disabled states were usually, stunningly fine. I felt a little better that he was gone, that he was right to tell me not to call, and my call only made me feel better and didn't do anything for him.

Then I came home and turned on some bright lights and drank some orange juice to cheer me up. It's almost working now.

the darndest things

Yesterday I sat eating hummus, pita bread and carrots with some kids.

"Kendra, what vitamins are in carrots?"
"Well, I don't know a lot about vitamins, but people say there's vitamin C in carrots."
"Yeah, I'm taking some carrots because they're good for my eyes."
"I've heard that carrots are good for eyes and bubble gum's good for ears."

I had never heard this before, and wasn't sure if I'd heard her right. "You've heard bubble gum is good for ears?"

"Yeah. Maybe not. That's just what I heard." The kid was embarrassed because of my reaction.

Then another teacher remembered that we chew gum on airplanes to help our ears adjust to the pressure. AHA! Eating gums IS good for ears. We all felt better.

Air.

Yesterday, I knew I was getting sick when I woke up. I had tickets to Cabaret, though so instead of going home to bed like I should have, I stayed out until about 11. Then I broke with my practice of never going to work sick. Today was "spicy work" one of my favorite traditions in our group, and I really didn't want to miss it both because I love it, and because everything would have been harder for my co-teachers.

We planted window boxes today. As I coughed and sneezed my bleary way through the morning, many different people said "Kendra, are you sick again? I think it's this building." Our new building is fantastic, but it has a climate control system that means that the windows don't open.

There was a table set up with boxes and organic soil and plants from my local organic fertilizer and plant store (might miss that in Boston). Kids in my small group were asking questions. One in particular didn't get it.
"Where will you put the window boxes?"
"Over there on the window sill."
"Where will the plants live?"
"In the dirt in the box."
"How will they live there?"
"We'll take turns watering them."
"But the windows don't open."
"Yes, that's true."
"But how will they live? Plants need sun and water and AIR to live and the windows don't open!"

Aha. I assured the kid that if there's air enough for people there would be air enough for plants as well. And I looked meaningfully into the eyes of the other adult in the room and coughed.

Going Easy

Yesterday, I played Go with a 7 year old. I taught him the game some time ago, and he asked me "Go easy on me though. I'm not that good." I told him I'd help him play, but that I wouldn't really go easy on him. I showed him that in Go, there's a rule that provides for one player to have a handicap, so we set him up with a 5 stone advantage and then we started to play. After just a few turns I said "You can change your mind if you want, but I'm going to show you something that you could have done." I showed him and he changed his move to the better one and we kept playing. This happened periodically, and then after a little while another kid came. She has more practice with Go and she gave him advice and helped him talk through his moves. I stopped pointing out obvious moves because his friend was doing such a good job. After awhile, another (even more skilled) kid joined them and he had two advisers. At one point, I made a really cool move, and he said "KENDRA! You're not going easy enough on me!"

Going easy is an interesting thing. I explained that I was one person playing against three people, and that I wouldn't not capture his pieces to make him feel good. We wouldn't be playing a game if I did that! Then, later I played Bingo with some Kindergartners. When one kid who's challenged by patience and self-control was really on edge because he'd gone an astounding 6 turns without placing a marker on his card I TOTALLY looked and made sure that the next one I picked would be on his card. He was relieved and didn't lose it and I had no sense of guilt or anything over how much easier I had made the game.

What's that about? I don't particularly ENJOY bingo, in the same way that I love Go. I'm crazy about both kids though, and they both wanted to do well. Is it because one kid had the wherewithal to ASK for what he wanted and the other one just said "OH NO! I Don't Have THAT ONE!" at an increasingly loud volume? It's not generally my style to give kids what they want when they yell at me.... that teaches bad habits that embarrass me later when we're in public.

After I won that game, I played the kid's adviser number one. I told her I'd give her a bigger handicap, but I wouldn't avoid good moves just because she's a kid because we were playing a game and games are fun and I want to have fun too. We played the game and she was stunned that she lost. She's seven, and I taught her how to play the game, and she couldn't believe that I won. (!) I think maybe THAT's why I don't want to "go easy". I remember where I was when I beat my dad at chess (confidential to dad: if you were going easy on me back in third grade, kindly keep your damn mouth shut) because that seemed like something big. I also remember the first time I actually knew the answer to a question when I watched my folks playing trivial pursuit. (It was something about an elephant.) This is because I was a kid around adults who played games for fun, not to teach me anything about who I am. I lost a lot of games.

Perhaps that's it. I play games with kids because I love to play games, not because victory might make them feel good. I've taught kids how to play more games than I can count. If "going easy" is pretending that I didn't see that double jump, or letting you have my rook, I have NEVER gone easy on a kid at a game that I like. (I have however stacked the deck at Candy Land AND Chutes and Ladders...and I refuse to play Mousetrap... ever, no matter what.) When kids are disappointed that I don't "go easy", maybe they're used to grown ups treating games like I treat bingo. (Which is NOT a game, in my view, but a way to trick children into learning to memorize spelling words, college students into spending some time not drinking and old people out of their precious time and money.) I play games like they're FUN instead.

(Whew. I'm glad I figured that out... I was thinking that I might just be an inconsistent meanie.)

exhaustedthoughts

I've been working long hours at my job to pack up our school and get ready to move.

It's crazy, man, and I am tired.

I just got an email from my sister (who also works in an early childhood) detailing Schul Sylvester (Or "School New Years") Where Jessy lives, there is an outlawed holiday all about small children getting up at 5 am to celebrate the last day of school before break. Traditionally (it is no longer endorsed by schools or parents) children would ring doorbells at 5pm. Today, while they are not endorsed, kids use fire crackers to explode the doggy-doo receptacles all over town.

As soon as I recieved the email, I called her because this holiday was too good to be true! I talked to Ivo, her husband, who told me that it was much wilder in "his day" and that the police had to start cracking down in the early nineties when it got out of control. He asked me "you remember the corner a block from my parents' house where the grocery is ?" "Of course" I said. "One year some teenagers occupied it and threw chairs at anyone who came near."

My sister lives in a wierd ass country. (Apologies, J & I) We all know stories of Teens gone ape shit that are way more principled or senselessly violent or unprincipled and more harmful. This holiday is at once kinder, gentler and more brutal and independent than any American childhood celebration.

Meanwhile, I spent the week/day packing up a classroom. Think about how hard it is to move with your loved one. It's not as gratifying to move with your coworkers. Although I have to say it is MORE gratifying to move with parent volunteers... these people are showing up until all hours to pack up our stuff.

Now, to bed.
Goodnight.

Holiday plans? ha ha haha hahahaha.
kp

Lice and a song

Today, before the kids arrived, I discovered that one of the kids in my group, and her brother have lice.

Later, when I went to pick half the kids up at once school, I sang an excited kind of theme song called something like "Check the Big Kids' Heads for Lice Day". It had a verse and brief chorus and it rhymed and musically made sense. It was dumb, and repetitive and I couldn't remember it ten minutes later, to sing a reprise for some kids who were late, but it made kids giggle.

This proves that it isn't just my mother's voice that comes out of me anymore, it's also my dad's.