thanks given

Hi! It’s been a while. Life happens way faster than I can write about it. Thankfully the massive amount of snow (!) has allowed time to slow down and catch up. Schools have shut down all over Scotland. There’s nothing like an unexpected snow day to boost morale! Ellen, Larry and I bust out the skis, snow-board, and “sledge” and headed up the hill yesterday.

A few quick updates: This place is beautiful, as are its people. I am amazed by the warmth and hospitality they continue to show me.

Teaching is a welcome adventure. I am realizing my own teaching philosophy (which would have helped in writing all those “Philosophy of Education” statements each semester…). I will be realistic and tell you that school has been as challenging as it has been enjoyable, a good combination. Nine times out of ten, the day does not go as planned. More like 9.9 times out of 10. But I love the children more each day; and the accent never gets old.

We're studying Thanksgiving this week and last. It's a completely foreign concept. I was really into the whole pilgrim thing and how the story of their voyage and faith connects British and American history, how it can link both my students and me to our shared ancestors. I forgot the Scots hate the English. Anyway, we did a Mayflower voyage simulation and all of that Plymouthy stuff. Then I tried to paint a picture of what it looks like to celebrate Thanksgiving today: family, food, and football.

One day we were talking about what we were thankful for so the kids could give thanks on their turkey handprints. I asked what it means to be thankful. One hand went up. Here’s what she said:

“It’s like…being really glad that something exists.”

Perfect.

This post is me being thankful. I’m really glad that you exist.

paddle through

I have this little quote from Frank Lloyd Wright on a Good Earth tea, that sweet cinnamon kind that reminds me of Aunt Mary and my roommate, Lizzy. It’s a teeny slip of paper that I have held on to, its words becoming a sort of undercurrent: “The more I live, the more beautiful life becomes.” I have considered his words, weighed them, wondered if he’s right. This must have been true for FL W. His life is marked by innovative and beautiful designs, certainly exceeding his tea drinking audience.

"The more I live, the more beautiful life becomes"... Maybe it's like this: when you hold a newborn baby for the first time. You oooh and aaaah and say how beautiful it is although newborn babies are not as beautiful as they are…miraculous. But you say he’s beautiful and you fall in love with him a little bit. You love him without really knowing who you are holding. The knowing takes a while. You haven’t yet grown to love it or learn it. But then you devote your days and nights to caring for and loving him. You discover the things that make him unique. You share his first smile, and other "firsts"; and gradually you find that a love you did not realize could grow, has in fact grown so tremendously that you cannot imagine a time when that baby was not a part of your life and all of your heart. The more you know, the more beautiful he becomes.

There is something to be learned all around us. There is beauty to be noticed and taken to heart. I think this is what Frank L W is talking about. However, on a camping trip a few weekends ago I failed to embody that posture of humility or life-long learning. We went white water rafting, and I was over it before we had our life-jackets snapped. It's one of those fun touristy activities that requires no real challenge aside from auditory processing: listen and respond to your fearless guide telling you when to paddle.

I’m a canoe kind of person, a do-it-yourself kind of girl rather than a release of liability signer. This was my attitude as we embarked on our packaged adventure. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt (classic Paul Skinner line). I was less prepared for the ways the Ocoee River brought Frank Lloyd Wright’s words to life. I forgot the beauty there is to be held when you least expect it, the lessons we learn without asking.

Here’s what floated to the surface. They are truths I never considered during past rafting trips--parallels that are easily drawn to this season of life:

1. Listen to your guide.

2. Paddle hard. When you come to the rapids, paddle through it. When you’re totally soaked and cannot see between cold splashes of water, keep paddling.

3. You are not alone.

4. When you come to the place that is calm and sunny and deep enough to swim, lay your paddle down; and jump out of the boat. Let the current carry you, and the pull of the river free and guide you.

I'm not trying to be cheesey. Maybe that comes naturally. And I'm certainly not trying to over-spiritualize camping trips or babies. This is the life I've been given and the way creation reminds me of its Creator. The simplest lessons seem to be the most profound, and the ones we learn and relearn. Perseverance. Trust. Humility. "The more we live..."

If you are in that peaceful place and free to float, then I hope you leap with the boldness of Peter into the water around you. Trust your life-jacket to keep your head above water and enjoy the ride. If you are in the adrenaline rush of rapids, your arms tired and eyes blinded by water, keep paddling. I pray you have the strength to press on, to paddle hard and paddle through.

little baby corn

I've always wanted to write a children's book—to create something generally heart-warming that conveys a simple truth in a simple story meant for little hearts and minds. That sounds sing-songy but I’m serious. What I love about children’s literature is its tangibility, humor, and succinctness. These stories usually have a clear-cut beginning and end; and everything pretty much makes sense. Not so with the stories and characters in our lives. My desire to write a children’s book has taken on a new shape—one that is less picture-perfect, way less cute, and grounded in the reality of my own story. (But if this blog were a book it would have watercolor illustrations.)

As every day gets warmer and the sights and sounds of summer settle in, the beauty of this season compels me to write. Little baby corn stalks shooting up from the earth, bathed in sunshine make me thankful for those rainy days.

For me, this season marks the end of college and the beginning of a new chapter. It’s a freeing and equally terrifying thought. College was like a children’s story, actually. It had a clearly defined start and finish with lots of surprises and adventures in between. I’ve said goodbye to days in Bloomington—to walks on worn sidewalks and wooded paths to class, to the lingering smell of beer in the air on Kirkwood.

I have not always been deeply appreciative of the freedom in college, this world that does not completely resemble "the real world" (as our elementary and even high school teachers call the unknown places lying beyond graduation. I can hear my geometry teacher’s voice, bless her heart, "You may not think this is important now, but when you're in the real world..." implying that our sixteen year-old worlds are not in fact real? So far I haven't had to find the cosine of 90 in my post-high school journey…yet.)

But the here and now of this very real world is a beautiful place to be. Today is a gift. I don't want to ignore or put off for tomorrow what is growing in my heart today—seeds that somehow survived a hard, cold winter underground. They represent life—which is meant to be shared.

A few weeks ago some friends and I camped out at my friend Maryann’s farm way out in the country. On the way we played The Animal Game….it’s this full-out strategy-driven competition where you count the number of animals you pass on your side of the car and compete with the passengers on the opposite side. Here’s the catch: if you pass a cemetary on your side, all your animals die and you have to start all over…Things can get pretty heated.

Sarcasm aside, nothing sets my mind at rest and my heart free like a trip to Maryann’s. It’s a place that brings peace with every mile between me and the shopping malls of Carmel. For as long as I can remember, the gravel road that leads to Maryann’s has been a sanctuary from the suburbs. It’s a place to run and to wander; to garden and to swing. It’s the second home I always wished was really mine. The sky is bigger and the grass is greener. Fields as far as I can see calm and excite me all at once. The quiet is mesmerizing…nothing but wind and birdsongs in the trees.

I walk alongside fields of corn in its tiniest babiest stages of life, row after neatly planted row. This new life, so preciously small mirrors the landscape of my heart. It was dormant for a while. The ground was so hard that a force stronger than myself had to uproot the tangled weeds that had taken over. This overturning of the ground was messy and it hurt. I felt empty and weaker than I have ever felt. That season was necessary and purposeful so that new seeds could be planted and new life could grow. Something had to die in me so that I could experience life. There is promise and hope that each little corn stalk will grow taller and stronger every day; and it has a long way to go. I trust that the sun will rise again tomorrow and the rain will come. Storms will roll in and life goes on one day at a time.

I’m thankful that life contains more adventure and growth than can fit in a children’s book, far more than we can imagine or predict. I can’t take it all in. I can’t read it in one sitting and hold it in my hands and have it make sense cover to cover. This season is marked by things like heartache and trust, by joy and pain all mixed together. Often, I just don’t get it. Life is puzzling. But Robert Frost said that he could sum up everything he has ever learned about life in three words: it goes on. That is what this summer is teaching me, and what the beginnings of little corn remind me: it goes on.

remember me

It's not often I see and experience a complete 180 in a number of weeks. But it happened this semester.

Our story starts in a fourth grade classroom in south-central Indiana. My teaching partner and dear friend Sophie and I were placed in a town we had some pre-conceived notions about. Things like poverty and stories of racism. I read that 20% of men and women ages 25 and up have a high school diploma, and less than 5% have a college degree (I studied those statistics thoroughly, hoping I was missing something.) The way in which the school operates is the antithesis of everything our IU education has taught us to embrace. It was different, and differences can be daunting no matter how small.

We walked into our classroom and introduced our upbeat, smiling selves: Mrs. Wallace and Miss Skinner—two of IU’s best and brightest ready to make a difference. I tend to walk into new experiences with a degree of naivety and overconfidence. This was one of those times. Our classroom teacher, Mrs. C was unlike anyone we expected to find in an elementary classroom. She yelled. She deliberately belittled her students, threw their papers on the floor, and made a few kids cry—all in the first fifteen minutes. Rarely have I experienced such tension. Sophie and I fought back our own tears…it’s not supposed to be this way. Children should not be treated so unfairly. We wanted to cry with them, to hug them and wipe the tears from the faces we had just met. And I’m not being dramatic. This was a sobering day that darkened my rosy glasses. I remember wondering how will I survive until 3:30? I wasn’t sure I could make it, and I should not have to deal with this. These children should not have to deal with this. It was too much. I came home feeling helpless.

Gradually, we built some semblance of a relationship with Mrs. C, and with each day she softened. She began to trust Sophie and me a little bit more. One day Sophie said, “Maybe we’re here for her…” The thought that maybe we were there to encourage a hurting woman surprised me. But maybe Sophie was right.

Mrs. C let us teach more and more lessons. The kids were pretty much enthralled with anything we threw together. (They clapped at the end of a story I read.) Sometimes during our lessons, I would see Mrs. C smile in a cheerful way at something we or one of the kids said. As time went on I realized I was walking on eggshells less and less. She allowed us to interact with the kids in the way we do—to treat them as people with unique thoughts and valuable ideas. She may have disagreed with everything we said and did, but she let us do our thing. Although the students were not allowed to talk in class, Sophie and I created activities that allowed them to share their thoughts and to work with each other. We wanted to encourage rich discussion, to hear their ideas and why they think them. Slowly we fell in love with those kids. We began to see the energy and spunk and intellect that had been stifled all year. Even Mrs. C warmed up to us. She left what she called “love notes” for us: instructions for stacks of papers to grade…but still, she called them love notes. This was a big deal in a place we felt very little love.

Fast forward to today: our last day with our fourth graders, so full of that innocence and unmasked affection that children possess. I realized how attached I have become to them, how much I have learned from them. They taught me some valuable lessons. Not to judge a book by its cover, or a school by its reputation, or a classroom by their teacher. I learned to never take a student at face value, or a woman by her tough outer shell. They showed me that the soul has infinite depth.

A few months ago I would never have dreamed that Mrs. C would sing our praises or that she would thank Sophie and I so sincerely for our help. I am floored. And very much humbled. Ours is a story of unexpected change: attitudes, perspectives, and a complete change of heart. It’s a story of how my love for children has grown in a place where at first I found very little loveliness.

Sophie brought some treats today, sharing the meaning behind each candy in their bags: Smarties because they’re so smart (of course), 3 Musketeers to remind them to choose good friends…heart-felt sentimental stuff. Reminders to encourage them in sweet, truthful ways. To wrap things up we asked them to write “Advice for Mrs. Wallace and Miss Skinner…” mostly because we thought it would be hilarious to read their advice for us as future teachers. Instead of advice, most of them wrote thank you’s and, “we’ll miss you so much…”.

Here is Jaden’s advice, but first some context to understand him: he’s the student we’ve been told is “failing fourth grade” who came to life during a social studies unit we taught. He is bright and expressive and makes connections the other kids miss. He is lovable and makes me laugh. Here is Jaden’s advice scribbled on a slip of paper:

“most important: remember me.”

We hugged goodbye and again Jaden said, "don't forget me." I told him I will always remember him. Most important: these are the kids who are shaping me.

what the heck in the world.

Never thought this day would come. I might be the least likely candidate to start a blog. Sometimes I wish the internet did not exist. But I do enjoy reading blogs of friends and family far away--people I love who are captivating and talented "bloggers" (where does that word even come from?). But I never pictured myself sharing life in this way. I write in the comfort of my own home or backyard or journal...not online.

Never say never.

I feel compelled to write. The knowledge that life as I know it is about to change brings with it a sense of urgency. In these last days of college I am suddenly aware of the freedom I have taken for granted. Writing about it is my last ditch effort to commemorate and share this season. Also, I'm writing because my Uncle Jeff in AZ asked if I would consider blogging in the fall when I'm in Scotland. I told him maybe.