Catching Up

Here is my math class at the Boys and Girls Club in Lacoochee this week. Angel, on the right, has just turned in his dollar winning one hundred points word. (Sweetbay). These kids are middle schoolers, and in this photo they look so determined and sweet. Even the room looks good! But none of that is the true thing. What you can't see are the kids who are juning around and flipping the math materials on the floor. One kid said a "bad" word (that I did not actually hear, but someone in the room did!) He's gone! What you don't see is the dreariness of that space and the other stuff going on there- the loud MTV, the pool games, etc. We tune it out. However, I did return after my car wreck and they were glad to see me.
Javier and David you can see working in the background are the stalwarts. They always come and they are certainly motivated, working quietly and consulting each other about the algebra. I do not know much of anything about them yet, so that day I brought a watermelon to cut up and serve after the class to the kids on the picnic table outside. As we devoured the sweetness of it they told me about what they read for pleasure. (They read!)
Then, later in the week I went to the used book store and picked up some paperbacks I thought they'd like.
After being with the little kids at the elementary school in the afternoon, I approach the middle school math gig with some dread. I turn into Patti Lane, dodging the dogs and kids, try not to see the detritus of lives gone bad, take a deep breath and get the stuff out of the car. But, then, I am there and it is all worth it.
I am thinking about the upcoming summer. I know that Javier is about to join the football team for high school and he tells me he'll be practicing every day. I don't know what David has in mind. I am thinking of ways I can get these two talented boys to be engaged.
So, I do these things with kids, and my great reward is the expression in their dear faces. I am planning to have a summer arts camp, parents and kids making art together and ending the day with swimming in our large pool.
I love this kind of volunteer activity, but also I need the time to work on my own stuff (painting, clay, quilts).
I have a new car! A Honda Fit- very economical and basic, but it gets from point A to point B.
Our harvest from the garden is bountiful right now. Cucumbers! Beans! Collards! Those wonderful new potatoes! Herbs! Multicolored carrots! Onions! Squash, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants are coming along. Lettuce is just about gone in the heat, but so far we have eked out a salad every night. The armadillos have discovered ways into the garden but mostly they have been foiled by the containers they cannot reach.
Since the wreck I have been here in the country-almost two weeks! In that time the hickory trees have leafed out and the wrens in the barn have hatched their eggs. A black racer has become my constant companion outside the studio. He stretches his length outside the back door, and then curls up in the leaves at the corner of the building by night. He doesn't mind my coming and going as I tend to the kiln and water the plants. If I get too close he pretends he's a rattle snake and shakes his tail. Red shouldered hawks are nesting in a tall tree back of the barn. Their young constantly call for food.
Back to the city tomorrow in my new car, renewed.