Preservation

About twelve years ago, I had a little bit of a health scare. It turned out to be nothing, but for a few weeks I had the chance to do some serious thinking about my own mortality. When it was all over with, I didn't go sky diving or change careers or anything, but for a while I was really glad to be healthy.

Today I sat in a doctor's office with someone I love and heard the worst possible news: ...is back ...aggressive ...hospice ...make you comfortable. I was stunned, but not surprised; it had been a four year battle and clearly something was taking its toll on her. She accepted the information with grace and dignity. We asked a few questions and then headed home.

When I opened the rear hatch of the car to put her walker in, she spied the case of empty mason jars in the back. "Are you going to do some canning?" she asked, and for a moment her voice was a little stronger than before. I told her about my plans to put up tomatoes and peaches, but it was hard to look forward with much enthusiasm.

Rules of the Road

The other day I came across an op/ed article about whether or not we should try to globalize traffic rules, particularly which side of the road we drive on. I read the piece with mild interest; the author did a quick, but fascinating, historical overview of why some nations chose to drive either on the right or the left, and he also ran down the details of some tragic accidents that occurred as the result of tourists driving on the wrong side of the road.

I remember years ago renting a car in England. The agent at the counter handed over the keys to this Yank with only the slightest of hesitation. "Mind the round abouts, and don't curb the tires," were her sensible parting words to me. I found that driving on the opposite side of the road than the one I was used to was not really that difficult. It was like looking at one of those optical illusion posters where there are two images: there was a switch in my brain, and once I saw the other perspective, I couldn't not see it. I was amazed by how easy it was; I drove all the way from London to Stonehenge and back, and I only curbed the tires twice.

That rental agent was right about another thing, too-- going to the left on the traffic circles was really hard. In navigating them, I found that it never hurts to consciously check to see that we are going the right way, keeping in mind that it's all about context and perspective. Of course there's a larger lesson here: when confronted with predicaments, that switch in my brain doesn't always work the way I want it to, and it's always sound to mind the roundabouts.

ETA

There's a park called Gravelly Point on the Potomac River at the north end of the airport where, depending on the wind direction, you can watch the planes either take off or land. It's probably no farther than a hundred yards from the boundary fence to the end of the runway, so the planes are really close. The Mount Vernon Bike Trail, which runs 18 miles from Roosevelt Island to, you guessed it, Mount Vernon, goes through Gravelly Point, too, and for us, that's probably the easiest way to get there.

When the wind is from the south, which it usually is in the summer, the planes fly down the river and over your head as you stand there, and you never have to wait very long to see a lot of planes. From far away, they seem to be going so slowly, almost floating, until all of a sudden that whine becomes a deafening roar, and a hundred thousand pounds or more of shiny curved aluminum and rivets are impossibly suspended just a hundred a feet above you, and then they speed past, touch down with a slight skid and a little puff of smoke, reverse their engines, and slow down. Meanwhile, you can hear the air whistle and eddy above you, still spinning from the turbines. There's only the one runway, so they have to turn off right away, either because another plane is approaching or one is waiting to take off. Sometimes you can spot the next incoming flight while the next outgoing plane is still taxiing, and it seems like there couldn't possibly be enough time between them, but there always is.

When I watch the planes, I never imagine myself either coming or going, nor, as close as they are, do I ever see the people in them. Even so, had I nothing else to do, I could stand astride my bike and watch them land for hours, turning my head from north to south, following one after another, a witness to each as it safely reaches its final destination.

Freedom of the Press

We rode our bikes to the Newseum yesterday. This was the first time that I had been inside their new building, and it was very cool-- six levels of exhibits dedicated to journalism and the first amendment, with lots of really fascinating stuff.

Years ago, when the Freedom Forum opened the first version of their museum across the river from where they are so prominently located now, the principal of my school called me to his office. It was my second or third year teaching, and he had an opportunity for me. Seems there was this new thing called the Internet, and the ABC/Disney people were trying to set up a website with news content for kids, by kids. Their idea was to find kids to cover local newsworthy events and then to have them write them up and submit them to be published on their online news page.

We were one of the first schools in the area with a webpage of our own, and they contacted us to see if we had any students willing to cover the dedication of the Newseum. The international exposure that they were offering to our young writers was unprecedented at the time, and it was with genuine excitement that three students and I picked up our press credentials on the morning of the ceremony. Vice President Gore was the keynote speaker, and we were in the third row for his speech, although, as news of the day, it was being projected on all the huge video screens throughout the museum, too. Afterward, we were invited to a reception and then escorted on a tour of the whole place. The Möbius nature of being the press that covered the opening of a museum dedicated to the press was completely lost on the kids I was with-- but who could blame them? They were on deadline.

Incontinuity

A few weeks ago, I posted about the professional learning community I was tapped to facilitate for the coming school year. It is supposed to be a continuity group for teachers who have taken either the Writing Project Summer Institute, or the 3 credit hour course offered during the year. I was heartened by the fact that our county ELA department recognized how valuable exposure to the NWP can be AND how important it is to support teachers afterward. As part of the planning for our first meeting in September, I sent links to a couple of articles that I thought would be really good places to start our conversation about how to keep that writing project magic alive. One was called Teaching After the Summer Institute by Nick Maneno. It is by no means a radical manifesto, and I encourage you to follow the link and read it for yourselves, but I'll cite a brief excerpt here:

Teachers who have had experiences like the summer institute often find themselves explaining the benefits of student-constructed knowledge over teacher-directed practice, word study over traditional spelling lists, cooperative work over isolated practice.

But when I talk about writing practices with my teaching team, administration, and most teachers, they are often not able to transcend rubrics, writing prompts, and the mechanics of writing.

Today, five weeks after I sent the link to our central department, I got this response to my proposal that we use this article in our initial meeting:

I understand the teacher's frustration in "Teaching after the Summer Institute," (and I think this is evident in our office's support of the NVWP course and summer institute) but I don't think the article says enough about how there has to be a balance between form and creativity. It would definitely make a good conversation piece, but we don't want teachers to think we're saying it's ok to toss rubrics, domains, etc., out the window.

Don't Forget to Floss

We were invited to a birthday party for one of our neighbor's three-year-old daughter today. The party was at the home of a friend of theirs from church, "Grandma Lois," and the guests seemed to be a mixture of friends, neighbors, church friends, and preschool friends. It was an amiable group who gathered in the backyard, but as in most cases, the sub-groups sort of stuck to themselves. At one point, the birthday girl, in an impressive show of social skills, made her way through the guests with her mom.

The five of us 30- or 40-something women who made up the neighbor group found our attention drawn to a conversation with a couple of people from the church group. It seems that the assistant pastor was telling the Sunday school kids that every time they brushed their teeth they should say a little prayer-- why not kill two birds with one stone? Clean teeth, clean soul, right? The neighbor to my left raised her hand to her mouth, exhaled sharply, sniffed, and grimaced. "Damn!" she muttered. "It's the devil again." She met my eye and shook her head. "That's what he does, you know. He sneaks up on you like tartar."

Staycation

I sat on my stoop this evening grilling a couple of steaks for our dinner. How quiet it was for a Saturday night. None of the neighbors were around; no cars drove by. My unit is at the far end of the complex, and there is a small copse of woods just across the parking lot. Sometimes it offers the illusion of a much less populated residence. I looked up through the crab apple boughs that shade my front porch at the much taller trees in the woods and then beyond them to the sky. A chickadee buzzed twice in the branches over my head and then flew away fast, like he was late for dinner.

I'm a little out of sorts the last couple of days, because my annual summer trip to Maine ain't gonna happen. There are a number of reasons, but they're not really important. As I sat there tonight, I was focused on my dissatisfaction. I considered and rejected the logistics of an improbable October trip Down East to see it in its fall glory. I sighed and imagined myself on the back porch of the house we usually rent, looking out over the Eastern Narrows to Sargent Mountain in the distance. A breeze stirred in the trees and brought me back to this place, my home. I flipped the steaks and took a sip of wine. I adjusted my position on the top step, and realized my bum was a little sore from the eighteen mile bike ride we took this afternoon. August continues to astound us with its lovely weather; today was 83 with very low humidity. The evening, too, was perfectly pleasant... Truly? It wanted for nothing but my appreciation, and so I vowed to oblige.