Words for Snow

We put the dog in the station wagon and headed over the bridge for a walk around the Tidal Basin on this sunny President's Day. It was busy but not crowded as we circled by the new MLK memorial, through the FDR, and past the Jefferson on the newly re-opened promenade. As warm as it has been, the cherry trees showed no sign of abnormally early blossoming, and for that I was glad. I don't know exactly what mankind is doing to the climate, but I worry.

Of the four short documentaries we saw yesterday the one that stayed with me most was called The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossoms. The film opened with horrific footage of a black wave relentlessly pushing inland, scouring away every car, every building, and every person in its way and tumbling them along as it moved toward the camera. The movie continued as a story about the unimaginable loss incurred by the survivors of the March 2011 tsunami until it took a rather skillful turn to the tradition and symbolism surrounding the cherry blossoms.

Who knew that the Japanese have identified ten separate phases of bloom and have a word for each? That the annual return of the blossoms is a treasured symbol of both renewal and endurance? That the countless petals that combine to create such a wondrous spectacle are considered representative of the innumerable and anonymous citizens whose efforts make Japan the nation it is?

In light of such awareness, it can't be a surprise that there are thousands of haikus written about sakura, or the cherry blossom season. Here is one by Issa:

Live in simple faith...
just as this simple cherry
flowers, fades, and falls.

Long Weekend Short

The best consequence of the continuing commercialization the Academy Awards is the release of 15 films we might never see otherwise. Animated, Live Action, and Documentary-- going to the theater to watch the Oscar-nominated shorts is always a highlight of our February. It is the antidote to all those big-budget blockbusters (as much as I love 'em), and a reminder that there is so much more to the art than the industry of the movies.

Gentleman Where Am I?

I love my iPad... except when I don't. An errant keystroke just deleted three paragraphs of tonight's post. It was good stuff, too, all about crazy right-wing novels, time traveling, and various ways of bringing Abraham Lincoln back from the dead, but now it belongs to the ages.

Spinning

A little after noon yesterday our school lost all phone and network connectivity. At first it was a minor nuisance, for example we could not produce grade reports for the parent conference we had scheduled at 1:30, but we apologized and made it through without any trouble. As the outage persisted, though, we were reminded again and again of how dependent we are on technology, mostly because we could not access most of the instructional materials and information that we have come to rely on.

Late in the afternoon, a couple of my colleagues who were going to be out today were trying to make sub plans. One wrote everything by hand, which took several hours, and the other made arrangements to email everything so that it could be printed out this morning. Imagine the frantic phone call I got after he tried to contact school and realized that everything was still down. He was on his way to California and there were no student rosters, no printable copy of the vocabulary quiz he was giving, and the computer labs he had booked for his classes were useless.

Of course we improvised and everything turned out fine. But as the network was slowly restored throughout the day, it was uncomfortable and a little disturbing to realize just how critical this fragile web we have woven is.

View From Below

One of the occupational hazards of teaching younger kids is developing an inflated view of yourself. Such a skewed perspective can be difficult to avoid after spending years being the smartest (not to mention usually the biggest and the strongest) one in the room. Oh, there are always those who will test you, but most of us adults can best an eleven-year-old in any battle of wits. (Once a student asked a colleague of mine if it was Idaho or Udaho. "You tell me," my friend answered. See what I mean?) Such a professional life might at least explain, if not excuse, the arrogance of some teachers. (OK, me.)

Aaaah, but this Writing Club I co-sponsor could just be the antidote to this condition. Thursday after Thursday for an hour after school, I get totally outwritten by those kids, and today was no exception. They are funny, bold, creative, and really, really good writers. They are definitely serving up some humble pie, but I kind of like it.

Thank goodness they're still shorter than I am.

Ode to the Ode

I had a guest poet scheduled to visit my class yesterday. The timing was perfect-- poetry and Valentine's Day?-- and this particular poet and I have worked together for the last 4 years. Even so, I still had a nagging feeling that something was going to go wrong.

Later when I told the story, a colleague of mine said, "I'm going to start asking you for lottery numbers! You were right about this; you're usually right about the snow..." and she continued with a list of other accurate predictions I've made over the years. I liked that. I like thinking I have a little bit of a sixth sense, but as far as the lottery goes? I predict I'm not going to win it anytime soon.

At any rate, prescience is of no value unless you act upon it, and in this particular case, I did not. 8:15 AM found me desperately texting my poet buddy while making small talk with my first period class about how great our visiting artist was going to be. At 8:20 I kicked into emergency mode and began improvising a lesson about odes. Who knows where that came from? It certainly helped that I own a copy of Neruda's Odes to Common Things, and the Valentine's Day angle made things easier, too, but I truly believe that the key ingredient to what turned out to be a very successful activity was our collective focus on the positive.

For me this has been a tough year with a challenging group of kids, so the opportunity for each of us to express our appreciation for those things, both large and small, that make us happy, that make our lives a little easier, was priceless. Yesterday was a very good day.

Post Script: The poet overslept. He called at 9:30 to apologize profusely, and we rescheduled for tomorrow. I do have a back-up plan, but I don't think I'll need it.

That Was Then; This Is Now

It has long been our tradition to have heart-shaped pizza on Valentine's Day:

But, since she's been vegan, pizza just hasn't been the same for Heidi. So tonight's menu is heart-healthy rather than heart-shaped:

I don't care what we have, as long as she likes it and it makes her happy. Happy Valentine's Day!