2017 SOLC Day 12: Happy Holi!

My teenage son and I enjoy participating in 5K walks/runs together.  He's a pretty good pacer, as I have to take two to three steps to his one long-legged stride.  He also encourages me to jog a bit during the walks, an action that does not come naturally to this non-athlete.

I am fully aware how lucky I am that my teenager chooses to spend this time with me!

We prefer to do walks that benefit others.  Today's event incorporated a celebration of Holi, a Hindu spring festival, with a fundraiser for providing eye surgery and care for people in India.  We had never done a color run before; the spirit of joyous spring renewal and reparation made it even that much more meaningful.

The preparatory email told us all we needed to know--wearing sunglasses to keep the colored powder out of our eyes, keeping our mouths closed as powder was thrown, even covering our car seats for the ride home.  

It was a cold morning; our layers couldn't keep the chill from creeping in until the warm-up began.  First some traditional moves and stretches from a fitness coach, and then some Bollywood dance moves to get us going.  We eagerly started the walk, just to keep warm!

Five color stations later (and an orange face swipe from a well-meaning, apologetic walker), we crossed the finish line in under forty-five minutes.  A personal best--and probably the best I've ever looked at the end of a 5K!  I hope the Sankara Eye Foundation decides to make this an annual event.

2017 SOLC Day 11: Wild and divine

"For one wild, glad moment we snapped the chain that binds us to earth, and joining hands with the winds we felt ourselves divine!"

--Helen Keller

This quote from my daily reading sparked specific memories, moments when I felt stronger, connected to a bigger whole, more-than.  Some were moments of crisis, but in each there was a sense of exhilaration or expansion, of knowing, certain of my place and my abilities.

Nature has often been the catalyst for these feelings.  Sitting in a tree alone when I was seven or eight, watching light play in the leaves and listening to birdsong on the breeze.  Gazing at the stars as a teenager with my friends on a back porch, crying from the beauty of the moment and the camaraderie we shared. Sitting on the deck of a rented beach house as an adult, breathing in the night's salty air, watching the stars disappear as a storm rolled in over the Gulf of Mexico.

There were sad and scary moments when I felt a divine strength.  When my daughter was born at 26 weeks, I remember lying in the recovery room where my husband, staunchly quiet until this moment, broke down in tears, worried about our baby's survival.  I remember saying, "She will be fine.  It will be okay," with absolute assuredness.  I believe I would have known and said otherwise if the reverse was to be true, but it wasn't.  Something in me knew our daughter would ultimately survive.  Two years later, I was sitting in a recliner in my parents' living room, listening to the ventilator that was keeping my mother alive. I looked up to meet my mother's eyes, already oddly wide open as her muscles to blink were weakening.  I knew in that moment that she was ready to leave, though it would be six months before we were able to get to that place.  Life and death decisions in such circumstances expanded my sense of self, drew on power that was not mine alone.

Big decisions and risky decisions make me feel that divine exhilaration.  The moment I said yes to my boyfriend's marriage proposal.  Making the decision to become pregnant, both times.  Taking a job as a NICU assistant.  The first time I got my motorcycle into second gear, riding around a parking lot. Enrolling in the master's program to obtain my library science degree.  Each event has called on me to step up, step out, be involved in something bigger than myself.  And when I do, I certainly feel a bit wild and connected to a divine source of power.

2017 SOLC Day 10: Overslept, but Spring Break's ahead

I awoke with a start at 502am, thirty-four minutes later than intended.  Questioning my radio alarm clock (did it even go off?  was the station coming in clearly?  did I hit the button and keep on sleeping?), I did my morning ablutions and realized that I had nine days of Spring Break ahead to figure out the alarm problem.  

My mornings have long included almost an hour of quiet time before I have to prepare for work, so a half-hour late awakening doesn't faze me too much.  I might be more upset if I had gotten back in the routine of morning exercise, but an illness knocked me off track--another task for Spring Break.

My husband and I worked opposite shifts for almost two decades.  Since I was the early riser, I dressed in the dark so as not to disturb my beloved night shift worker.  I got into the habit of planning my outfits for a week or more ahead, laying out the next day's clothes the night before.  We've been on the same shift for four years now, but the habit stuck; no scrambling for clothes each morning.  This Spring Break, I'll be putting away the dark colors of winter and bringing out my bright pastels for spring and summer--that makes outfit planning fun, shopping in my own closet again.

Friday mornings in general are easier to navigate.  Blue jeans, school tee shirt, and sneakers are the uniform of the day.  And it's Lent, so I've chosen to fast (except for liquids) until dinner on Fridays--no breakfast or lunch to prepare.  

Thirty-four minutes late, but I've got time to sip my coffee and write this post.  Spring Break starts in ten hours.  Life is good!

2017 SOLC Day 9: The shape on the couch

Eyes still crusted from sleep, I close my bedroom door quietly, and notice a dull light coming from my son's windowsill.

His door is open.  Anticipating the reason, I quietly pad out to the living room.  The ceiling fan is on, and there is a long-legged lump on the couch, encased in a fuzzy ivory throw blanket.  

I tiptoe past him and into the kitchen, the rubber dots on my sleep socks making soft sticky sounds on the linoleum.  I get my coffee brewing as quietly as I can.  Foregoing my usual routine of emptying the dishwasher and reading in the living room, I pass him again on my way to the study.

Soft light on, I begin to type out my post.  I hear the coffee machine beep.  A figure moves in my peripheral vision and a door clicks shut.

The couch is empty except for the discarded blanket.  I empty the dishwasher, pour my coffee, and make my way back through the dark to the keyboard.  I feel no annoyance over the disruption of my morning pattern, only the bittersweet acknowledgement that these ghostly encounters will come to an end as college begins in the fall.

2017 SOLC Day 8: Not my place

I am taking the day off.  Not as a form of protest (though it's an added benefit), not for illness (though I am still dealing with the aftereffects of that nasty respiratory ick from three weeks ago).

Nope, I'm home today because, for the third day in a row, my library is being used for non-library reasons.  The last two days have been for testing English language learners.  Today is the district-wide "Kindergarten Roundup", so the library will be filled with parents enrolling their five-year-olds for the 17-18 school year.

I understand that in my overcrowded school, the library is the only large-ish space available to host such hours-long events. Our cafeteria is in business from 1030a to 130p feeding our 1200 students.  Same goes for the gym, where our PE teachers see multiple classes at once. So I planned ahead and let my usual Tuesday and Wednesday visiting classes check out extra books last week to get them through spring break.  

Today, I'm taking a personal day, one of only a handful I've taken this year.  I'm going to give my husband a break from morning chauffeur duty and take my son to school.  I might go for a walk before getting my biannual haircut.  I will lunch on my own, and have a few blissful hours before heading back to work this afternoon for test administration training.  (To my administrator's credit, she was willing to let me reschedule, but I just want to get it done.)

But I won't be there today, when my library is not my classroom, my refuge of literacy.

2017 SOLC Day 7: Considering the facts

There's been a lot of talk about facts under this new U.S. administration.  Mostly the fabrication of "facts", or "alternative facts".  One of the most important jobs I have as a librarian is to teach my learning community how to find valid and reliable information, so I cringe whenever I hear or read that yet another unverified "fact" has been proclaimed by a person in power. (Seriously, can we just shut down that Twitter account?)

But I am an optimistic realist.  One of my morning habits this year is to read a quote a day from a friendly little pocket book called "Nothing is worth more than this day.": Finding Joy in Every Moment by Kathryn and Ross Petras.

The quote on Day 48 is from Wendell Berry, an environmental activist/writer:

"Laughter is immeasurable.  Be joyful though you have considered all the facts."

Berry's advice may very well be my mantra during the tenure of the current president. Number 45 is generating a lot of material for Stephen Colbert and SNL, so the laughter will be a given, and my daily gratitude journaling will continue to remind me of the joy I can experience in everyday life. 

2017 SOLC Day 6: Speaking in tongues

My mother, born and raised in California, took Spanish in high school.  When we lived in Naples, Italy, she told me it was easier for her to pick up bits of Italian because it was similar to Spanish.  She learned enough of the language to navigate "on the economy" as we said back then (meaning away from the military base), and to barter with the vendors for produce, yarn, and clothing.

When we lived in Bangkok, I believe she learned a bit of Thai, too.  The same can be said for German during our Stuttgart years.  I think one reason is that she was determined not to be the "ugly American" who expected everyone around the globe to speak English.  The other reason is that my mother loved to shop.

I inherited the shopping gene, to the detriment of my finances.  The retention of language, not so much, despite French and Spanish lessons.  I can do a fairly decent job of reading aloud Spanish, Italian, German, and French; the sounds must have stayed with me.  Beyond understanding a handful of words in each, though, I am woefully not multilingual.  

My daughter, on the other hand, took Spanish in high school at my insistence, since we live in Texas.  In college, her love of Asian culture led to a minor in Japanese.  She became fairly fluent, a skill that serves her well as she lives and works there today.

I guess speaking in tongues skips generations.