How did we get here?
It was such a rush! So noisy! So chaotic!
And now it is--take a deep breath--January. Shhh. Go to yoga class. Breathe. Wake up in the dark. Go to sleep in the dark. But enjoy the clear blue sky and the low sunshine and those long purple shadows. January will take a while. So will February. And March...well, let's not talk about March right now, let's enjoy some solitude.
January is a good month to forget about the vacuum cleaner and the pile of laundry for an afternoon or two and just read a very good book, all by yourself. If you are a grown-up, read, "The Windows of Brimnes," By Bill Holm. Sadly, as my kids would say, Bill is dead now and I truly wish he wasn't. I reread "Brimnes" on a plane back from "Out East." I was leaving my family in Boston, flying toward my family in Minnesota. In "Brimnes," which is a great meditation on living away from America in the comparative silence of Northern Iceland, Holm writes, "Victory, revenge, money, success, power-- all devour the alert, interior silence that lets us truly see the single snowflake in its tiny flickering of life..." Holm was a real music lover, and worlds smarter about it than I am, but he also writes, "Real music...cannot exist without silence." This is a nice metaphor for reflection and understanding the world around us. So I was leaving Boston, and Boston is a noisy glittering city tech bubble city right now, literally and figuratively awash in oysters and champagne. I was flying away from the decadent noise of East Coast fast money, heading for the sound of reality: teaching in Minnesota.
The best way to understand what I mean is to read a transcript of a a recent daily e-mail I sent to the families of my afternoon class students. Every day, at the close of class, one of the classroom teachers composes a summary of the day's events and sends it off to our families electronically. This summary always includes a copy of "The List" too, which is a daily journal of sorts that we keep with our students by dictating their response to the question, "What did you do today?" Some days, we don't have quite so much to say in this daily e-mail. Some days, we have more to say. And some days, we don't have to say much, because the kids say it in their very own words. 1/7/13 was such a day:
Spruce Room M/PM 1/7/13
Happy New Year and Welcome Back!
We missed you (and still miss those that weren’t with us
today). And thank you, once again,
for those wonderful “Happy Holidays,” thoughts and generous tokens of
appreciation; you overwhelmed us with your generosity.
We began outside, and, you know, because it was so very
balmy, we stayed outside for quite some time. We hiked through the Spruce Forest, to look for owls (we’ve
found tons of interesting mini bird poo under the trees and in the
branches—plus a few little owl pellets so we are hoping to make an owl
sighting soon). Alas, we didn’t
get lucky in the forest today, but we had a lot of fun stopping at our old
stomping ground, “The Mammoth Tusk,” dig sight (aka, upturned tree). Kids scaled the root system and
balanced on a multitude of fallen trunks for a very long time. Their feats of daring do amazed us. Everyone was clearly
energized by being back together. 
After a time, half of the group mosied over to the prairie
to check our other owl scat sight in an overgrown cedar and juniper clump. More scat there, so keep your fingers
crossed! We also found at least 10
deer beds, deer poop and pee and followed a deer trail back across our own
trail. We eventually rejoined with
the rest of the group and meandered back to school through the marsh, where we
spied many mouse holes and tunnels through the snow. The light was beautiful and low, the shadows long and blue. It was a truly lovely afternoon.
Back at school we had a asetic’s snack of saltines and juice
(our grocery order arrives tomorrow).
We had a enough time for a fun, and an unexpectedly poignant Group Time:
We began practicing a “fox pose,” doing some breathing and a
little movement. We then passed
the Talking Rock, sharing what we were up to over the break. I followed up with the book, “Fox’s
Dream,” by Tejima. This is a
wonderful book, if you don’t know it, please borrow our copy or find it at the
library. The wood block art is
beautiful and the writing is great.
So great, in fact, that it inspired your students to a fairly extended
meditation on family connections, life and death. In short, the story follows the fox through the winter
woods, where he has time on his own, in solitude to hunt and to consider
unexpected beauty all by himself.
What he encounters in the woods, on his own, inspires memories of his
own childhood, with his mother and siblings. Back in the present, he continues along in solitude and as
morning breaks, he comes across another fox. The story arrives at this “happy ending” very quietly,
and the fox's time alone weighs just as much, and is just as positive as the
prospect of companionship-- I think, anyway. And this all struck a big chord with the kids. Here are some of the things we heard,
right in the middle of the book:
“He doesn’t live with his mother anymore”
“But you can visit your parents anytime you want, when you
grow up”
“You have your own kids”
“And they have kids”
“You visit them”
“Your parents get old”
“They don’t live forever”
“They die someday”
“We’ll die someday”
“We eat healthy so we won’t die too soon”
“We can live a long time if we eat healthy”
“But you shouldn’t eat too much”
“So you don’t die too soon”
“We’re going to grow up”
“That’s the way it all works”
I don’t know how your afternoon was, but ours was pretty
important.
You know, I visited with my brother out in Boston, over the
break. He is a computer systems
analyst (not sure if I have that title right) and he makes a lot of money.
Necessary work, to be sure.
We don’t make a lot of money, to be frank, but look at what we get to do
for a living.
The List:
-hiked
-had so much fun outside
-found deer beds
-played Gymnastics
-walked on ice
-saw deer pee
-saw deer poop
-saw owl poop
-ate snow
-climbed the big tree
-poke in my eye
-played Godzilla
-Godzilla!
-Harper came to school
-saw geese
All the best,
Amanda, Luzia & Marlais
So, It's January. If you are a grown-up, read, "Brimnes." And if you are a kid, or a grown-up, read, "Fox's Dream." I dare say that Holm and Tejima have something in common: the understanding that there is beauty in the balance between companionship and solitude, between summer and winter, life and death, happiness and sorrow and we honor ourselves and our children if we remember to seek out solitude for ourselves, and to encourage our children to find it too, once an awhile. The world is a beautiful, hectic mess, but on a still day in January, you can see a single snowflake fall from a branch, glittering in the sun.
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