Spring at Last

Not long ago my husband and I sat and watched a deer through our living room window. She was in the barren sumac patch on a downward slope toward the pond behind our house. Nosing around in the late-spring snow, she seemed to be foraging for food. Maybe she was looking for new shoots coming up out of the ground, a yummy, spring delicacy for deer. She came back up empty.

After some time of searching under snow, the deer began eating bare branches off the surrounding shrubbery. The deer, like the rest of us,was waiting for new life to burst forth. I wonder if she grew tired of her winter fare: boring, bland, barky.

I know how she feels. Just last week I sighed as I put together a pot of venison stew (please forgive the irony). I find myself longing for warmer weather vittles. Perhaps some grilled meat and a spring salad with a tall glass of lemon sun-tea. Some years around this time my chives are coming up in the rock garden. Young, tender, green and delicious.

Nothing quite compares to freshly grown greens and early spring edibles. But alas, we, like the deer, must be patient a bit longer. I know that life is already pushing upward, coming out from under the covers and beginning to stretch and let go a yawn so big it will swallow up the remnants of winter. Thankfully, this weekend has, at long last, brought warmer temperatures. 

We in northern Minnesota still have some melting to do, but brown grass is now part of the landscape and spring looks as if it just may catch up to the calendar. For now, a bare landscape is replacing snow, but I know what is ahead: life, bursting at the seams. Maybe by the end of the week I'll be able to dig around in my rock garden and find some springtime herbs. Maybe. At any rate, I'm glad for the release from a long and overextended winter. It was getting to the point, with snowstorm after snowstorm, that I didn't feel as if I could take much more. Then, it ended.

Life is like that sometimes. Problems come that grow bigger and more stressful, sometimes overbearing. When that happens and I feel as if I am at the end of my rope, I just can't take it anymore, a solution comes. The problem is resolved and the internal storms that were raging on come to an end. Like spring stepping up and leaving the snow behind, it feels as if winter never even happened and life holds new hope. 

ENCOURAGEMENT: Wait a little longer. If you have a problem that feels like a snowstorm in springtime, wait. Life will begin anew once more.

The More Things Change...

Have you ever heard the saying, "The more things change the more they stay the same."? I've always thought it to be an odd statement and never have given it much though. Until, that is, I found myself with teenagers living under my roof.

It is humorous to me that my teen kids think that I don't really understand what it is like to be a teenager. Well, they are wrong. I remember. The problem for them is, I remember too well, as does their father. Growing, changing, learning, seeking, needing, wanting, dreaming, struggling, and, worst of all, hormones. Eew! (Is that even a word?)

Sure many things have changed since I was a teen. I didn't have social networking, I had a bicycle. I didn't have email, I had a mailbox where stamped letters would carry my correspondence to its recipient within a day or two. I didn't have a cell phone, I had a rotary phone that was stuck to the wall. Multi-tasking had yet to be discovered by anyone under, say, 20.

So much has changed. However, the important and vital things, the human nuts and bolts of being a teenager have remained the same. Pimples are still rampant. Boys still have growth spurts two weeks after mother bought them three new pairs of jeans. Girls still fuss over their hair. And, yes, hormones still make these once pleasant, compliant children into super-sized kids who almost become like strangers some days.

I don't understand? Really, I do. When my children tell me they are the only ones without iPhones in the school, I realize it is highly unlikely. I also remember feeling like I was the only one who wasn't allowed to take the MTC bus to Minneapolis on a Saturday. When they say that everyone is going with a date and why can't they? I remember that my dad forbade me to date one month and then granted my wishes the next, two days after the boy I liked found another girl. Funny I survived such devastating humiliations.

That's the beauty of memories. They help remind me that my kids will also survive. No need to cave in. No need to worry that I'm simply creating future conseling sessions for them by handing down rules that other kids don't have. They will survive. For the record, that's another thing that hasn't changed about us humans. The will to survive. I survived my parents' rules and regulations. I'm relatively sure my kids will survive, too.

ENCOURAGEMENT: Do the right thing no matter how hard those kids try and convince you otherwise. Someone has simply got to be the grown up!

Who Do You Perform For?

Over the weekend, my daughter had two orchestra performances. Four, really, if you consider that each of the two scheduled performances included music from two separate orchestras. She does the piano part for both. There is a more mature, seasoned orchestra and a beginner orchestra. Both, however, are wonderful and very accomplished. The advanced orchestra is mainly adults with some advanced youth. The beginning orchestra is comprised of some adults and many, many children. It is considered a fiddling group, as it is mainly strings - violins, mandolins, cello, bass, etc.

I sat through the events on two separate days, enjoying watching my daughter play. But there was someone else in the group that caught my eye. James. He looked about eight, maybe nine. He played a violin, very well.

The thing that stuck me, other than his extraordinary ability to play the fiddle, was some sort of far away expression on his face when he played. From the time he walked on the stage, through each song, until the performance was over, he seemed to be in a world all his own. It was clear he was not performing for anyone in the audience, anyone on stage. He seemed oblivious to the presence of so many others, minus the occasional glance at his conductor.

I wondered to myself, who he was performing for. He didn't seem conceited in the least. He wasn't performing for himself. He didn't seem self-conscious. He wasn't performing for the audience. He clearly wasn't intimidated. He wasn't performing for his peers. He wasn't uptight in any way. He wasn't performing for his conductor and teacher.

This little boy was simply playing. He was doing what he loved and doing it so well and with so much assurance that he was like a magnet for my eyes. I found myself watching him with such joy that I had to restrain myself. Orchestra performances do require some semblance of dignified behavior from audience members.

James started me wondering who I perform for. Do I do what I do with concern in my mind about what others think? If I am being judged? If I will make a mistake? I long to perform unrestrained, like that little fiddle player. He stands in my mind as a perfect image of doing what you love. With gusto, with intensity, with single-minded devotion. Such a big lesson from such a small boy.

ENCOURAGEMENT: Perform as if nobody is watching.

Accepting the Unexpected

Sometimes in life, the unexpected happens. Usually it has nothing to do with our plans, hopes, dreams, wishes... schedules. I suppose that is why it is called "the unexpected" in the first place.

Today has been a day of unexpected events. To begin with, I overslept by about 45 minutes. I simply don't oversleep. My internal alarm clock always gets me up, so I rarely set the irritating buzzing devise that sits near my bed. I like to wake up naturally. But today, no alarm, no early rising. I had to hurry.

Amid the early flurry of showers and french toast, I found out my son's head cold was much better. But my daughter, I discovered during breakfast, had come down with early signs of the same sickness. I wasn't sure if I should be proud of my son for finally sharing with his sister (without being asked) or if I should be discouraged. She has orchestra performances this weekend. Not a good time to get sick.

The next unexpected event came after I dropped the kids off at school. I had signed up to substitute teach for an early learning group of two-year-old children. I've never worked professionally with this age-group so I wasn't sure what to expect. When I got to the classroom I discovered that I was the lead teacher, not a helper. Oh my. I reminded myself that they were only two. Most kids that age don't notice mistakes. They only notice a warm smile and a good snack.

The last unexpected event of the morning came in the form of a late-season snow storm. When I arrived at my job, the clouds were sending down a flake here, a flake there. No big deal. But as the morning wore on, inches began to pile up on cars and sidewalks, with road conditions getting bad. I heard stories of going into the ditch and sliding through stop signs.

I suppose the snow storm shouldn't have been unexpected, since this year's winter doesn't seem to want to depart. It has been cold. But one would expect a small warm-up by now, toward the middle of April. I suppose I should thank the snow. Now the lingering Christmas decorations that I just haven't taken the time to remove from the front of my house look as if they still belong.

With heavy, wet, persistent snow, schools and programs began to close. Afternoon and evening activities canceled, including my late afternoon class I was supposed to teach (not help with). I left just before noon to pick up my own children from their school, now closed due to weather. My schedule was completely sabotaged by some unseen formation, high up in the earth's atmosphere, that decided to deposit all it's clinging droplets of moisture.

On the way home, I looked at my daughter, less chattery than normal, looking a bit flushed and tired. The head cold was making it's presence known. Poor girl. I suddenly began to feel grateful for the unexpected snow storm. So what if we should be out raking up last fall's leaf remnants this time of year? So what if the soil wouldn't be warm enough to plant early this year? So what if the larger lakes wouldn't have ice-out in time for fishing opener!

The snow gave my daughter a gift. A warm bed in lieu of a hard, cold desk. A cup of licorice tea in her hand instead of a math book. A cozy blanket instead of a prop during a late afternoon play practice. Thank you snow, thank you canceled classes and practices. Thank you unexpected events, sometimes you are just what the doctor ordered.

ENCOURAGEMENT: Go with the flow, sometimes it is a blessing when our plans fall through.

Some Things Never Change. Other Things, well...

Lately I have been working part-time as a substitute teacher in a local school district. I have worked with various grade-levels and filled in for absent special education teachers and teachers for honors students. It's been quite a variety.

Until now, I hadn't been involved in a pre-college school system for almost 30 years. I didn't know what to expect. Would it be just as it was when I was in school? Vastly different?

What I have found is some things, many in fact, are the same as I remember, while other things have changed. Little boys still fidget in their seats and play the drums with pencils that have no erasers. Little girls still tell them to be quite. The girls aren't as disruptive in an audible manner, they avoid paying attention to the teacher by passing notes, doodling on folders and daydreaming. Of course, there is plenty of daydreaming on the boys' part, too.

Unauthorized gum chewing still seems to go unnoticed, for the most part. Girls still gravitate toward pink and other bright colors while boys wear jeans and T-shirts. Of course there are exceptions. There always have been.

The walls in the classroom still bear pie charts and chore charts; a clock with a second hand, and, for a new twist, a smart board. Blackboards and chalk have been replaced for the neater, high-tech teaching tool of today. No longer does the naughty student or teacher's pet spend 10 minutes after the bell rings banging together dusty erasers.

In my class yesterday, I experienced the biggest change in the classroom in who knows how many generations. There was a lock-down. Tornado drills I remember. Fire drills I remember. But never a lock-down. It seemed a dark cloak that weighed down giggles and bubble gum, hair-bands and innocence. And it was only a drill.

Today's students need to know what to do if there is an unwanted "intruder," as the school calls it. We know the translation: a shooter. As I crouched near a wall, door locked, shutters closed, with 30 students who were instructed not to make a sound, I got a little choked up. I thought about all the students who have crouched in fear, not in practice, listening for the sound of a gunman's boots, not just a harmless teacher checking to make sure the door was secured properly, procedure followed.

I thought about my own children, and all the kids, at a school just a few miles from me. So very young. Then I thought again of the students who have fallen victim to a school intruder. What were they like? Bright smiles, love art, hate math, sings in choir, science geek, teacher's pet, outcast, mean girl, football hero, shy kid, late homework, A+, future doctor, teacher, mailman, preacher, parent, grandpa, neighbor, friend.

Some things in school have changed. Different in a way that is unimaginable sometimes. I guess since I had to experience the lock-down drill, it became a little more real to me that this world isn't the safe place we like to think it is. Really, it never has been. I suppose I have to accept that. It is hard for me though, to think of the children who suffer. Why the children?

ENCOURAGEMENT: Pray for our schools.