Saturday, June 25, 2011

The Need to be Needed


Here are some kids who attended my first of the summer art camps.  Hiarintzi, so fearless is beginning to swim. Clearly, she has no idea that she could sink like a stone and she wants to jump into the deep end. We encourage her to cling to the side of the pool and we watch her like a hawk. In the next five weeks, we know she'll be swimming like a fish. Her father dropped her off this morning, confident that we'd take good care of this precious child.

Because of the possibility of rain we decided to have the swimming first and when the kids were tired and cold we moved to the barn and studio for the art.

In the next photo here is Manuel who is making a clay piece of which he'll be proud. His mom is by his side and the two of them are harmoniously working together.You could hear Spanish and English equally important, the kids easily going back and forth in both languages.

 All the two dozen or so kids and parents are totally engaged in making art from fifty pounds of red clay. We spread out from the studio into the pole barn. The kids run back and forth in search of just the right tool or more clay. The drying rack in the barn next to the kiln begins to fill up with finished works. Parents become intrigued and ask for more sophisticated answers. The whole group is so focused and calm, I feel I can expand and relax my tight control. I bring them interesting things to extend their work: some molds and patterns, more tools.

These kids range in age from 6-13. They all helped each other, laughed a lot. Before we knew it, it was time for lunch. There were lots of unfinished pieces but we all stopped for tuna salad and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, veggies and dip, cheese cubes and watermelon. One could get cold water from an Igloo.

They finished up, all pieces secure in the drying shelves. And then everyone, kids, moms and dads cleaned everything up. It was amazing! Kids sweeping, washing bats, taking the left over food up to the main house, collecting wet towels.

Reminded me of the school I worked in for so many years before retirement, when it was just normal to clean up your space! And the whole day reminded me of how natural and wonderful it is to have multi-age groups of kids, working together, teaching each other, respecting each other.

So, in my retirement from a wonderful teaching career, I threw up my arms in rejoice at leaving it. No more staff meetings, no more belly punches from stuff coming out of left field, no more strict schedules. And I passionately believe that one should leave to make room for the younger generation, whatever that might be. I wanted to make room for me and the stuff I never had time to do. I am doing this. I always have something going on- a book, a quilt, painting, pottery.

But I have learned that what is most important to my heart is to be needed in wherever I am so I reach out in the ways I know best- to kids.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Full Summer



The view from the front porch is perfect with the crape myrtle just beginning to bloom and promising a wonderful fucsia profusion of flowers for all of July. The hummingbirds are still feeding their nestlings there. I must fill the feeders almost every day.
I am preparing for the first day of Art Camp on Saturday. I reorganized the bins of materials, now neatly labeled and inviting. For the first session we will be making clay artifacts (aka lumps), and set them to dry and then to be fired before the next session. So I have cut the pristine bars of earthenware clay into manageable hunks and prepared bins of tools and spray bottles of water. I have also prepared another activity of making stickers. The balls for net games have been inflated, bug repellant is at the ready, and tables have been set out. I have engaged some volunteers to help and I am ready!
My spouse will be a lifeguard at the pool, and I am hoping to engage some of the moms to help with the lunch.
Ye gads! The lunch! I am going to have tuna salad (full of vegetables), whole wheat sandwich rolls, organic no sugar peanut butter, all fruit jam, cheese cubes, carrot sticks and tomatoes and peppers from the garden. Watermelon and bananas and water to drink.
So, with this in mind I went to our local super Walmart to stock up.
I rarely go there, but since I needed some containers of glue, tape, glue gun supplies etc., in addition to the food, it seemed a good choice.
I found everything I wanted except for the marbles. When looking for the marbles I came across a couple of kids in the toy department. (No Walmart employees are in evidence) They were spinning hula hoops and lobbing basketballs wherever they wanted. They were awful and awesome. So I engaged them in my hunt for marbles. We looked everywhere, hooting to each other.
"Look in the games place!" "Try the lego place!" We couldn't find them anywhere and decided that some kind of strange ping pong ball might do. I love these chance encounters.
Then I had everything I came for and I headed toward the checkout, wending my way between the scooters and carts of extremely fat people. Three times people in scooters asked me to hand them something they couldn't reach and I was happy to do it. The store should issue grabbers with the scooters.
I see a check out line but it says 'twenty items!' so I proceed to the next line.
Turns out that this line has a new checker with an experienced checker behind her. For some reason I always seem to get in the line of novice checkers. My karma. So, I start unloading all the stuff - the glue guns, the two enormous watermelons, the adhesive googly eyes, the masking tape, and all the lunch stuff and a bale of toilet paper.
And then I notice the dead silence.
In back of me are about fifteen people to check out. They are regarding me with such reptilian loathing and I don't know why. Finally, the woman in back of me says, "This is a quick check out line. Right there it says 'Twenty items or less'."
I hate Walmart, especially the Super Walmart. I don't know the protocol, I am not fat enough or savvy enough.
"What?", I say. "I thought this line was fine! I moved over from the other line."
All those good people patiently standing in line behind me with their fewer than twenty items regard me with distaste. The super checker is friendly and assures me that everything is o.k. (but please look at the twenty item or fewer rule next time. Please look at the overhead cone that designates what check out aisle you should enter.)
Meanwhile the very new checker is struggling with my $200 order and my desire to pack it into the weird grocery bags I have brought.
I am swiveling my head to note these cones for future reference. As the new checker slowly moves all the stuff over the console, I feel I must say something, make a statement, do a dance, whatever, to mollify these stony faced folks who are waiting in line.
I have swiped my card, and I proceed back down the line of waiting customers to tell them thanks, I didn't mean ill, I was ignorant, forgive me. I offer the woman behind me a banana. No dice. Finally I play the Pity card and tell them that a) I am not familiar with this store, and b) I am buying all this stuff for a free camp for Mexican migrant kids. No one took me up on the free bananas.
As I take off fast with my cart overfilled with stuff in strange bags, I call out my thanks.
They still look like snakes.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Paying Attention to Michelle

Here are some of my favorite people serving themselves to a sumptious celebration dinner. We all pitched in and made the food from scratch. We have grains, salad, chicken, fish, mashed potatoes, fruit! Of course, this is a special occasion and there are many dishes to be sampled. We are proud that most of the food has been harvested from our garden. For this special meal we'll have a dessert of pumpkin pie with whipped cream on top. (No Cool Whip!)

I am not about to write a book on the diet subject, but here's what I know. We are seventy years old, now slim and fit (well, mostly!). It feels great to be healthy and energetic, and I believe that most of this comes from paying attention to the foods we eat. I care about this. So here goes.

Some basic rules about eating:
1.
Never eat out or grab take-out. Bad mistake. Always make your own food from scratch. This way you have to be mindful about what you eat. You go to the grocery store and the green market and select what appeals to you. Then you have the ingredients for a creative and nurturing experience for your family (or even for just yourself). Try different recipes! Just experiment! Throw out that nasty gelatinous salad dressing you buy in the bottle. (Have you noticed what's in it?) Make your own by throwing on some good olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. So much tastier, so less expensive. Throw out those ultra packaged convenience foods that you stick into the microwave.  You can do better in your very own kitchen with your very own natural ingredients. Even after a tiring work day, you can do this, and it is kind of a restful meditation to make food for your loved ones.

If you rely on take out and fast food and the neighborhood restaurants, you are ingesting stuff you do not want. Pesticides, fat, too much salt, dirt, excess calories and the compression of time. Eat at home and you control this. Besides, if you cook you are expending calories in the process as you chop and stir, set the table and bend down to find that elusive pan. And it's a LOT less expensive! Save the restaurant experience for that special occasion.

2.
Get rid of those unnecessary sugary, fatty and salty things . Throw out the candy bars, cans of Mr. Peanut spanish peanuts (my nemesis!), sodas that have nothing but empty calories, and don't have a drawer full of chocolates or a bowl of candies! I always heard that you should have a fridge full of carrot sticks and fruit. But we all know that no one has time to prepare these things, and then, when you are hungry, these things just don't appeal. So, just buy a few things that DO appeal. A container of blueberries? A plate of melon carved into bite sized pieces one can eat while cooking the dinner? Our grandson stands on his kitchen stool and freely samples all the vegetables that will go into the salad. My greatest snack is fresh raspberries, washed and ready on the counter.

3.
Exercise! You've heard it all before. Just keep moving. Don't sit too long. Get up and do the laundry, water the garden, walk whenever you can, take the dog out. Try to make it a practice to work out for half an hour each day (videos, walking, exercise equipment,Yoga, the gym, whatever). I find it helpful to wear a pedometer and set a goal of 10,000 steps a day. Some people ride their bikes to work or swim after work. You just need to build in whatever physical exercise works for you.

That's it! Do this and you'll be thinner, fitter, and a better cook! If you cook your own food 95% of the time, I promise you that you'll be thinner and happier. You might even be moved to grow some of your own food. Maybe a container garden of herbs or peppers?

Monday, June 13, 2011

Domestic Tranquility

The flowers along the ramp need watering several times each day in this period of such dry, hot weather. Each morning and evening we are out positioning the sprinklers for the flower gardens. The vegetables are on a watering timer and get a drink morning and evening. We were away for three days earlier in the week and lost several plants to the heat and drought.

After a lovely family weekend with Quincy and his Mom we spent today dealing with the two major problems on our scope: the internet and the water, both critical to our life here in the Green Swamp.

We spent hours and hours and lots of emotional energy redoing our internet access. A lovely technician, Al, showed up this morning. (I had steeled myself to the fact that these folks never show up when promised without multiple bleating calls.) But this one did, and like Santa, went right to his work, ripped out the old receiver, a dinosaur, he said. He made sure everything was on line and perfect. I was so glad to see him I scurried around fetching glasses of ice water and was my most perky affirmative self. While he worked, we weeded and pruned in the exhausting heat that is now upon us.

My spouse has a wonderful way of being a perpetual presence when people come to fix things and install things. So, eventually, it was all done, and now we have lightning speed internet on all computers in the vicinity. So we went to our computers to deal with the hundreds of messages, mostly drek, to delete.

Later, just as dinner was fifteen minutes away and I was just out of the pool and washing my hair under the shower out there, the pump and water guy arrived. So I hastily grabbed a towel, shampoo plastered to my head, and sped into the house to finish my ablutions on the back porch where the shower curtain is green grape vines.

Our water from a deep well is afflicted with organic iron. This clogs everything from toilets to washing machines, makes the water stink, and everything in our lives is tinged with yellowish orange. We have been in a period of changing the technology of our water system and this has been a slow process. We have spent too much time studying the water in the toilets and wondering if it is safe to drink the water out of the taps.

The pump and water guy spent a couple of hours adding a new bunch of filters to an already expensive system. We hope it will work. After supper we spent some more quality/quantity time examining the water in the toilets. Instead of being orange, the water is now a gray blue. Keep on flushing!

But all this is worth it. Tomorrow we will be able to brush our teeth in clear water, and maybe pee in toilets that aren't alarming. We will be able to access the internet and our world apart from this magical place we love so much. Maybe some day we'll actually have cell phone reliability from here.

The chimney swifts who live in the chimney above the fireplace in the office have hatched their chicks, and every fifteen minutes when the parents appear with many tasty regurgitated bugs, there is a loud cacaphony. Domestic tranquility indeed.




Sunday, June 05, 2011

Lady Gaga's Shoes

Not! No way could I walk in those, and no way would I want to. Seems we are playing out the dregs of the bubble life of our early century.

Today we finished up the sanding and painting of six wooden porch rocking chairs we have had for twenty years. It was time. For less than $15, they all look new again. I will recover the chair cushions that have faded in the sun over time. We could have just thrown them out and gotten new ones.

One of my most recurring and vivid nightmares is the one in which I have to clean out the space for a school. The smells of mold and roach fear are palpable, and I hate to have to move all that old and musty stuff to dumpsters. The dream always ends before the place is pristine.

The Lacoochee Boys and Girls Club, as it sits right now, could be the opening credits for my nightmare. But it is real and actual. I am thinking that if all the parents of the kids who go there, and all the community activists and neighbors could give a long weekend to the project, we could make this place really inviting. It would take a few  dollars and some energy and organizational skills to get new miniblinds, new tables, new paint, outside beautification, the floors cleaned, and whatever Michael Brittingham and crew think is needed. Anyone can clean windows! Really, all it takes is community will.

On Friday, I took five kids from the Boys and Girls Club on a field trip to visit St. Leo's University. Everything there was so spiffy! There were no sagging blinds and no junkyard dogs hanging around outside the admissions office. Everything was clean and pretty, no litter anywhere. The classrooms and physical education venues were awesome. Every single kid was charmed by it all and ready to sign up right then to be a student!

Afterward when we went to lunch at Pancho's Villa, the local Mexican restaurant, they couldn't stop talking about it. They all want to go to college!

We don't have to send our kids to such a grim place as our local B and G Club. We can make it inviting. We can do this with energy and a little money. We are not buying Lady Gaga's shoes!

Thursday, June 02, 2011

There are still fire flies

As I walked out behind the barn tonight just as true dark was settling over the pastures, I could see in the margins of the woods those magical pinpoints of intermittent light, the last of the fire flies. In the palmettos I could hear the scuffling of the many small nocturnal animals who make their living in the forest litter: mice, armadillos, palm rats, deer, opposums, raccoons, night jars, bats and owls. In the early morning I see their tracks in the soft damp sand. Sometimes I find owl pellets full of tiny rabbit bones, and always there are the holes made by armadillo snouts, and soft wing feathers left by the barred owls.
Thursday! And I had no volunteering agenda with kids, something I have done all year. I am not sure just what I shall be doing next year in the volunteer realm, but I cannot imagine it will not include kids.
Tomorrow morning I am meeting four of the middle school kids I worked with in math at the Boys and Girls Club. We'll get together at the Pizza Hut parking lot, pile into my tiny car, and go to take a tour of the local college. I dare not ask, but I believe that some of these kids may be the children of illegal immigrants, and I know that with the defeat of the Dream Act, these kids can not attend our state colleges and universities. So, we are going to St. Leo University, near by, where illegals are welcome if they can pay. Also, it looks like a real collegiate place, furniture for the mind so these kids can dream.
After the tour we'll all go to Pancho's Villa, the local Mexican restaurant we all love. My treat.
It was hard getting these kids to let me know if they were coming, make the arrangements, and speak in my halting Spanish (on the phone!) to parents who had no idea that I wasn't the dreaded "authority" speaking. Finally, I got the director of the Boys and Girls Club to make sure that all communications were Go.
So, tomorrow, I shall be outside the Pizza Hut, hoping to welcome this motley crew for the promised field trip. I wonder if the boys will be neatly dressed with slicked back hair? Will Javelin, the only girl in the group, be decked out like she was going to church? I'll take my camera. Will they be there?
It is a leap of faith to think that these kids have actually been faithful attendees in my algebra class since December, and now will spend a few hours celebrating with someone old enough to be their grandmother! Even if none of the kids show up tomorrow, I think it has been worth it. I want those kids to have the education that makes it possible to examine their lives and find joy in what they can do. Tomorrow will be a small step.