Good 'Enuff Recovering

It really helps to stop trying to drive, walk, work or even move too much when your disc herniates. But there is something to having the back out-I suppose the central nervous system being whacked-that really is very mentally challenging. And then, of course, there is the pain. This time around I had to deal with thoughts the syrinx will be a major problem one day, or these days, knowing what expansion in that can cause. I do not feel hot and cold as others now, it's more like iced skin, and my feet and now legs are numb, there are bladder things blah, blah.

So I started crocheting again. Anyway that's kind of what I thought to bring here today.

I could lay there, and do that at least, and it helped. It proceeded from a dream- that crocheting. Lots of things for me are addressed that way. Just how I am. So I returned to crocheting. I was taught by several people, initially by my grandmother Gladys Pearl Himmel Lucas, and then by Janice Mason's ( my friend in Junior High) mom. It's funny but until Janice came to visit, recently, I had forgotten (or suppressed) how much her mom did for me. How I missed knowing my friend. Facebook connected us, and boy was that great... But then I recalled her mom working with us girls. It was a great restoring of memory for me. As a child the one wearing the crocheted vest with matching purse in blocks in olive and orange, that would be me. We all miss those days with the bell bottoms, probably up on platforms.

So I thought I'd make shawls, and I wish that didn't sound like I was 70 to say that. At 50 it's bad enough, but I lack a cool word. I have lost, however, a lot of my crocheting skills so I looked for a book and on Flickr for "ideas". You'd be surprised the enormous amount of beautiful things if you go there and type in "crochet shawl." You don't get the patterns, but I stink at pattern following mostly.
I've been trying to find a way in recovery to think about something besides worry over not teaching, money, or what I should be doing so on.
This helps.

For one thing you count stitches. Or you can, sometimes I don't need to, but my stuff this far in is simplier. I'll work up to more complex things. Or go back to work, and not have a moment to make anything. But I am recovering slowly enjoying making these, hoping in the next few days to finish a few more. My mom was always a good audience praising what I made, but she's not fond of the greyish one here....and her mind is on another escalation in troops.

So far here's what I've got and I do think in a way it is applied math.
I was thinking about that working.

That's a few days work, but I'm glad that I am at least capable of that.
I ordered a book about crochet afghans, my next move...

Looking hard at wonderful work there- I see a tremendous amount of complex stitches, some with two hooks simultaneously, very creative work but very intimidating. Like everything else people seem to have developed skill sets to unbelievable levels. If you want a book that is really good I like this one. But I'm not fool enough to think I can make a lot of it without time, possibly tutoring, and a whale of a lot of applied math thinking.

50 Sensational Crochet Afghans & Throws by Bobbie Frits

I like to think, myself, that we will keep some of this in our work with children. I don't think in years passed my grandmother or Mrs. Mason thought that if they taught me it would help me recover from times in my life when medically things broke apart, but they did know that moving my hands, that making things would serve me in my life. It was quite wonderful spending time with both of them trying to learn from them what they were doing-of course both of them at a much higher level than my clunking.
When I taught third grade and my 4ths for years and the 5/6ths I taught them to crochet. It might not amount to anything but when Larry King died, a student in my first grade, in a year I attempted that in 1st grade it turned out in the service they said he crocheted scarves for those overseas. I know that touched me deeply. It seems to me that's off the "testing" charts and might not even matter to folks now.
But it is awfully cool to make something from yarn.

I know a wonderful children's book I used with his class as we made out "creations" that year eight or nine passed, when I wasn't scripted and recess we spent in making.... It was one I really liked:

Charlie Needs a Cloak by Tomie dePaola

We used to take the book, that describes a weaving process from sheep to wool to the creation of a new cloak, read it coupled with a Reading Rainbow on Rumpelstiltskin because in that show it highlighted a weaving section and children could really see weaving. Then we made a book like Charlie's story because DePoala just takes you that way into making, and we would make things from yarn too, taught some crochet, made snowmen from found things like yarn and fabric. At this time of the year I thought it was important to incorporate handcraft into the teaching since it is that which shows us elements of people's past, echoes of what they made and valued.

That author, Tomie DePaola is this ethic throughout his work, and so many of his books used to fill my experiences with the kids as suggestions to doing, until it was "scripted out." And what a loss. I don't know why. What they claim seems false.Why do this?
I don't think we are building better minds, math thinkers, technologists for the future. I think we have lost our collective minds.
Sorry.

You can give a teacher twenty DePaola's and you'll see a difference in the way of thinking that I think has the potential to connect the children to valuing the skills, knowledge, the value of making and doing. I definitely read him with the children as I can.

And now when I want to say more I'm hobbling off to try and start another and get ready for my kids returning for Thanksgiving from college. I doubt they'll wear these, but I can hope. I've got a few scarves and caps to make that I know will be at least there if they want them. One day, sweaters!

Take This Broken Wing And Learn To Fly

The toughest part of having taught twenty some years ago in South Central was kids died.
And other kids knew it.
Even as young as in the 4th grade. Younger.

But I taught 4th at 93rd Street School, and it came into my overcrowded, underfunded, bookless, supply-less daily job with 38 kids as stories of what was happen' out to the brothers.
Kids died of drugs and gang violence.
Our leadership demanded we "not talk like that." In fact the Assistant Principal an inch off my face told me shouting, after an intruder with a knife in my room departed, that this was not a gang issue -that was what happened in the valley she bellowed, she seemed at the time an irrational being. I was looking at it.
But the kids did know. And when they told you it was with a fury and accuracy and a voice unlike any you could deny or squeeze back into silence. If you would listen, you would learn.
I had no choice, my job was to teach. And to do that I did not have the luxury of illusion, distance, denial, or scripting. I worked within the reality that the children were in a war zone.
And sometimes I couldn't understand the kids in my class, their language was so distorted.
Or so a part of the neighborhood I went into to teach. Everyday we learned about one another.

I was young then, and had no children's library of my own, and my room had nothing. But if I could have a book to take back to then I really would like this one. It's called "Bird" and it's a good book.

by Zetta Elliott (Author), Shadra Strickland (Illustrator)

I can imagine it on Reading Rainbow. Except they eliminated the show from PBS instead looking for something they call letter skill or whatever that was. It would be perfect for LeVar Burton to use. I can see it followed perhaps by a piece on birds, or on bird keepers, or on artists that draw from nature or children doing a bird study. I can hear and see a show in my mind. From 'back in the day, when we wanted to talk to children or hear them in their lives. When a story ran through it.


It's a smaller picture book, Bird is, and in it a child is facing the loss to the forces of the streets of his brother Marcus, and his Grandfather two months later dying perhaps from the strain of it all. What you learn as you read is that the narrator, "Bird", likes drawing, and drawing is helping him define himself, helping him to understand a very tough reality where he lives, and a kind of sanctuary for him too. He is younger brother to a kid who really was an artist-slowly we see him grieving his brother-honoring him-talking to him in pictures, he looked up to that boy who fell into the cycle of drugs and lost. He, "Bird", tells his loss simply, without a lot of gorier detail that might not fit a kid's picture book format, but he does share his sadness, hopes, and his naivete, his lack of understanding of what was happening-that's there too, as well as his understanding as it grew of what drugs does mean there. Things like Marcus needing a "fix" lead him to ask how they can "fix" Marcus. Things that I might have liked to say long ago to those kids, or have a format for discussing, this book gently allows this.

I suppose what I like is that the book examines the choices that this narrator has, how art helps him, informs him about himself, and how he has to carry on with this incredibly sad situation. It's funny but there is something in the way it ends, talking of the flight of birds, souls, broken dreams, possibility, that would have been very useful to me then.

In that time, long past, (that drives me even now both to care and to see), I recall the power of art, making, creating. I recall the times I spent a little of an almost nothing salary given the cost of my living, and the seeing things the children were able to express creatively and how little they had by way of creative experience. No crayons, coloring, museums, books, no connections to their own cultural beauty. It was so harsh, so scarred, so defaced, so war-like in that place at that time. It was so fulfilling to have arts for them. Music meant so much.
I wish I'd had this book. When I look at the pictures of the makers-they might have been infants then.

"Bird" is named Bird because of how he looked as a baby- but he does love birds, sees them in his hood, he watches them with his now semi-guardian Unc Son. There is something in that. I don't know how to express this, I find myself where I work now in a pretty ugly prison over school, sad looking school-hopeless, often looking at the birds. There is something of the metaphor of flight, soul, spirit, hope that the author and illustrator are touching.
When left to so little, in such circumstances, looking to these animals as they inhabit free in a way, symbols, in some kind of relationship to speaking to how we are as we are there-it brings some message. I find myself wanting kids to do bird studies, watch birds, understand nature with the nature flying into to watch us. I do a lot with this, my husband at his school does more. The book connects to something in me -that I felt down in very difficult situations a very long time ago-this connects to tying that to some hope there, always some undefinable possibility.

So it's a book that can be added into classrooms and libraries, shared with children to talk not only about their reality, but the reality of other children, and I cannot say this enough this is why we read, to understand one another and to introduce children to this.

I would have reviewed on amazon, but I cannot. There are folks there that place unkind comment, votes, notions that twist meanings, and have political and personal agendas of intolerance and greed, race and lack of real world work or understanding, that review for rating and ruling, and frankly I don't think good books should have to be looked at with those that might fail to get this book would help children. So it is too what I do reviewing is share personal experiences and I am blasted for that at times by folks that are intolerant of whatever it is they won't allow me to do. And I've been ganged up on there, and having taught in climates of that, seeing that, knowing that in the real lives of kids-I cannot put this book and what I have to say there.

Think of donation to a library, reading with your kids, including in your classroom, sharing with budding artists. Talking about birding. The truth is, I think children that are born into poverty, and difficulty, and isolation-it is an issue, but misunderstanding it is too. And that seems to be an epidemic right now. Teach children with material like this to care about one another so they might never shove another down. And not admit to the hurt they are doing.

If I had not worked within the schools and situations I have worked in, I might hold many of the narrow and faulty assumptions I see spouted like founts so often....anyway....just thinking I suppose.... this book would have helped those kids, then, who must be the parents there now, oh my, and I hope that the fact "Bird" exists means that there has been much forward positive improving. Of that I don't know nor understand well enough, being removed, hoping always for kids there. I hope that over these past 25 years things improved. That lawsuits like the William's Act got them some text books, that class-size went down, that they got AC to cool 109 degree rooms like I experienced. But then I know what's coming down in CA now, class-sizes are soaring, massive amounts teachers-friends- are losing jobs, supplies are cut, budgets are being hacked,here at the UC level it is a gutting. What I know is a 6th of our population lives in this state's economy and our rank to 48th in the nation in spending in ed, means that the poor here then represent a very huge number of folks that will be cut further from opportunity and hope.
I know that.

I'm a teacher. I've worked in a lot of situations in my career, seen a lot of dangerous, difficult, damaging reality. Gave my time to it. My health and heart. Seen kids born into this.
And we've seen the generational issues, the issues for poor immigrants arriving into it, seen the issues for children coping with economic, social, racial, and other troubles. Seen the outrageous violence and crime. I am a teacher that took all that on as just a kid too. Just wanting to make a living, try to build a life.

Now I'm out on leave with a severely broken, herniated back.
I think of kids I taught that make me cry that remind me of Bird.
I remind me of Bird.

It's a good book. For a troubled soul.



I notice it recieved a Coretta Scott King Award, good choice. I made a decision recently. I think I'd like to recommend it, we could try it together. Every month ( no stress if it's every season) I'm picking a book, kid's book, buying it, taking it and giving it to the PUBLIC library. No fuss-just when my kids visit. I'd like to donate similarly to a school-but the new systems seem resistant to reading books with kids. Especially outside a script.
So at least there a child might, possibly, connect if there is someone like Unc Son in this story, talking to them, connecting, taking them, and showing some interest in their lives and in story.
I see that in my neighborhood sometimes.

An article my Mom recommends reading

It seems almost amazing this is a "discovery"
But it is an article to read
The New York Times
Their Future Is Ours

My Mom handed it to me insisting I read it.

What Can I Be Thankful For In Teaching, a Photo Record

One thing I seem to do is obsessively observe and take pictures of things, especially my classroom children. I have permissions,yes, and about 25,000 pictures. But I'm thankful for this because I am a visual person, possibly the irony in that I should note to you.
I'm really so poorly sighted as to be legally blind without glasses.
Very poor vision that was not corrected until I was in my teens. All my childhood my learning was second hand. I suppose I relied on other kids, we call it networking now. I just couldn't see boards or walls or slides or films or what we had to see to do our work even the page was iffy. I developed my hearing in this for sure. But when I got glasses the beauty of the things I saw, that I'll never forget. Concurrently all I did well in my thoughts was to draw. I had to draw it was a compulsion. So this opened up the possibility to see. To me vision is such a gift, along with touch, writing, sound, all seem so inter-connected with my meanings. And when I was given a camera just a year or so ago it was a delight. I really thought I had been given something everyone might want to see with me. I think now...maybe just my family indulges me.

So here are some alphabetical thankful visual thoughts.
From the "collections" that Flickr houses, bless them.

A

I am thankful for the artistry of teaching and I've chosen this set of pictures to celebrate that:

Finishing the Rocks

222 photos

And ABC's:

abc activity Sept. 23, 2008

38 photos

And Asian Art:

Asian Pacific Art, Pasadena,...

246 photos

B

I am thankful for the BEAUTY of our earth:

Santa Barbara Botanical...

430 photos

And beaches...

Beachwalk Thanksgiving 2008,...

326 photos

And beaches...

beachwalk december,2008

257 photos

Beach Walk, bird watching...

326 photos

Beach Walk June 1 , 2008

118 photos

beachwalknov21, 2008

166 photos

Ventura Beach Walk July 25,...

180 photos

Beachwalk Thanksgiving 2008,...

326 photo

BEACHwalk, Thanksgiving200 8

326 photos

Please BIRDS:

Waterbirds, Ventura, Dec 27,...

616 photos

WFVZ, Western Foundation of...

249 photos

WFVZ, Western Foundation of...

249 photos

Bread:

bread day, fish making, 1st...

95 photos

Butterflies too:

Butterflies 2-27-09

37 photos

Butterfly Release April 20,...

buttery release and kids...

75 photosAnd bubbles as well:

Bubble Play June 2009

56 photos And Back to School Nights:

Back To School Night Hathaway,...

91 photos

And BMX Bikes:

BMX Biking, Hathaway Oct 1,...

42 photos

And lovely bees:

My bee swarm

35 photos

C

I am thankful for Children:

Dance of the Penguins in Room...

40 photos
And CRABS:

Crabs on the Ocean Mural,...

46 photos

Herman the Hermit Crab, new...

41 photos

hermits nov 2008

43 photos

Hermit crab cleaning days

67 photos

Three Hermit Crabs Meet, Jan....

57 photos
And our calendars:

October Calendar 2009

28 photos

September-Calen dar Project...

33 photos

Chinese New Year, of course:

Chinese New Year 1st Grade...

42 photos

For Circle making:

Circlemaking Summer School

14 photos

And Cinderella:

Cinderella, Thousand Oaks...

60 photos, 38 videos

Of course Clifford:

Clifford, Puglisi's class,1st...

25 photos


D

I am thankful for Dad's:

Dad's Day 2008

18 photos

Dragonflies:

Dragonfly, September 2009

28 photos

E

I am thankful for Earth:

Our mother:

Earth Day Event Yr2 2009...

165 photos

Constructing Earth Models 4...

66 photos

San Diego Earth's 2008

155 photos

Kids in 1st make This Earth on...

18 photos

Earth Day, Exploring Space and...

74 photos
And eggs, of course- silly:

Non Traditional, Ukrainian...

111 photos

goose egg pysanky, non...

27 photos

Ukrainian Designs/ Egg Making,...

146 photos

Eggs on the Ides of March 2008

86 photos

F

I'm thankful for fish and frogs:

1st grade Room 10 Frogs,...

22 photos

White Mollie Babies, Hathaway...

35 photos

Rainbow Fish Sept 2008

20 photos

some school pictures sept 25

43 photos

Out Little Froggies Went A...

20 photos

Monterey Bay Aquarium, evening...

255 photos

Rainbow Fish Making-Sept 2009

32 photos

movies Fishy Song Summer...

25 videos

Not as thankful for fires, but for firemen and women, yes:

Canyon fire, air visibility in...

firestation 2 Oxnard,CA Sept...

97 photos

fire station fieldtrip...

151 photos

Firestation 62, Oxnard, CA...

111 photos, 5 videos |

Field Days:

Field Day

148 photos

More Field Day Shots

92 photos

Student Field day

72 photos

Friends:

Special friends set 1st grade

17 photos

food program drawings, rather...

24 photos

G

I'm thankful for the gift of working with children. Script free, cause NONE of this came from anyone thinking up something but ME.
I'm asking you LOOK at what has been now scripted away here.

A Day of Summer School Making...

Green Eggs and Ham

Green Eggs and Ham March week...

36 photos

H

I'm thankful for all the hands that hold us:

hand jive

19 photos

Beginning of 2009-2010, I Call...

57 photos

House Making

House Making, 1st grade...

63 photos

The House by 1st Grade...

30 photos

And hats:

Hat Day, Feb 27, 2009

81 photos

Teacher Self Portraits,...

24 photos

Kid's Crazy Hats March 11,...

27 photos

And Huntington Gardens:

Huntington Gardens and...

413 photos

And for hummingbirds

sophia's 18th birthday

73 photos | Edit

Hummingbird videos from my...

22 videos

Hummingbirds October 12, 2009

36 photos, 1 video

And for hawks

Small hawk outback, March 13,...

31 photos

I
I am thankful for idioms

Idioms? yep idioms..and similes and metaphors,

Quick as a cricket writing...

45 photos

"Don't Cry Over Spilt...

19 photos

"Icing on the cake"...

40 photos

Icing on the Cake

19 photos

"A Penny For Your...

18 photos

"The Cat's Pajamas".. .

20 photos

"Let The Cat Out Of The...

19 photos

"Raining Cats and...

20 photos

"Weak As A Kitten"...

19 photos

The Apple Of My Eye, Idiom of...

20 photos

"It's a small world"...

22 photos

Like Two Peas In A Pod Idiom...

21 photos

A Little Bird Told Me, Idiom...

20 photos

It's A Piece of Cake, idiom of...

20 photos

J
I'm thankful for jelly fish

jellies and summer school 2009

45 photos

Jumproping:

jumproping, 1st time Nov 6,...

77 photos


K
I am thankful for Kites

Kite Making Project May 8-9 ,...

79 photos

Kite and Drum Festival May 24,...

72 photos

Day at the Beach Flying Kites

32 photos

L
I am thankful for the walks to the Public library

My Class walk to 'Liberry' in...

53 photos

Goingto the Library Oct 4,...

41 photos

Going To The Library, Nov 28,...

55 photos

Going to the Library with Van...

25 photos

And for the Lunar Eclipse

Lunar Eclipse 2 to 3 AM Aug....

249 photos

Thankful for leprechauns

leprechaun project

25 photos

M
Is for just everything....

Monarchs 2009

44 photos, 1 video

Money...

One cent Oct 2009

21 photos

Money, Money, Money 1st grade...

18 photos

Monsters

42 photos

Big Green Monster, Oct 9

42 photos

monkey drawings june 2009

39 photos

Monkey Drawing, Community...

153 photos

Mona Lisa's 2009

37 photos

Mona Lisa 2009

45 photos

Mother's Day, 1st Grade, May...

175 photos

mother's day present, 1st...

148 photos

Mesa Union Music Festival May...

188 photos

Money, Money, Money 1st grade...

18 photos

Mapping a classroom, 1st...

20 photos

Martin Luther King jr...

112 photos

mapping communities nov18,2008...

40 photos

Mother's Day May 9, 2008

50 photos

Our miming lessons, May 2,...

67 photos, 9 videos

Our Mime Visit, 1st of 8,...

89 photos

Missions, Hathaway School 4th...

79 photos

Our Mime Visit, 1st of 8,...

89 photos

Mesa Union Music Festival...

644 photos

magnetics March 19, 2008

120 photos

Martin Luther King Jr. As see...

16 photos

Theme 3 Focus Wall

14 photos | Edit

Maori Dancers Hathaway School,...

300 photos

N

I am thankful for Native Americans

Friendship necklaces, Nov 26,...

76 photos

The Raven, Native American art...

50 photos

O
I am thankful for Obama

Portraits of Obama by 1st...

33 photos

President Obama Portraits

62 photos

Sophia's trip to Occidental...

112 photos

Paper-Obama Nov. 5, 2008

23 photos

P

Pumpkins and more I'm thankful for

Pumpkin Farm (Underwood) Oct...

180 photos

Playdough turkeys 2008

83 photos

My Nephews visit the Underwood...

84 photos

Puppet Show From the Catskills...

59 photos

Great Pumpkin

51 photos

Mr. Potato Head, Oct 22, 2007

30 photos

Class Pumpkins and Harvest...

16 photos

pomegranates, squash, gourds,...

36 photos

pumpkin school post

59 photos

Next to Last Day Portfolio...

101 photos

Pinecone Drawings, Observation

88 photos

Molly's Pilgrims, Making Dolls...

204 photos

Q

I'm thankful for integrating literature which is not allowed anymore

Quick as a cricket writing...

45 photos

Pumpkin Farm, Underwood...

388 photos

R

I am thankful for a room to teach within

New Room Windows 2008

59 photos

My Classroom Start of...

32 photos

S
I have too many s's to say all the thanks...

Sunflower Paintings and Bag,...

121 photos

Sunflower Garden Project 2009...

23 photos

Seed Songs Oct 2009

4 videos

Sunflower Project 2009

77 photos

Van Gogh Sunflower Bags Oct...

84 photos

Santa Barbara Botanical...

430 photos

Spring Flowers, April 4, 2009

32 photos

San Diego A Walk Seaport...

482 photos

Santa Plates/story connection...

27 photos

Great Southern CA Shakedown,...

23 photos

Ssunflower painting (1st...

38 photos

Sunflower painting Sept 23,...

52 photos

Santa Cruz, UC Santa Cruz...

201 photos

Salinas, San Miguel Mission,...

141 photos

Trip 8/11 Steinbeck Center,...

159 photos

Santa Barbara Zoo Trip March...

239 photos

Sunshine Feb. 8, 2008

46 photos

Unbelievable AM sky, Jan. 8,...

24 photos

Sunset Ventura Beach, Dec 27,...

624 photos

snowscapes dec 2007 1st grade

20 photos

Snowpeople Gallery from sunny...

53 photos

Santa Mimes, Hathway, dec 11,...

24 photos

SNOWMAN, DEC.2007

50 photos

Shells in San Diego

57 photos

Two Months of Sunrises

432 photos

Sunflowers and the Weeks...

49 photos

Summer school 2007 Sea and...

53 photos

T
I'm thankful for trees, thankfulness, turkeys, this and that, turtles too!

Santa Cruz, UC Santa Cruz...

201 photos

Sea Turtle Making Summer...

54 photos

Thankful Thankgiving 2008

61 photos

What a Trip (to the...

71 photos

Trees class Oct 3 , 2008, 1st...

49 photos

Tweety

87 photos

Class Turtle April 21, 2008

14 photos

the turtles march 2008

7 photos

Todays birds and fish, Thanks...

56 photos

turkeys

27 photos

TREES

7 photos
U
Ummm

V
I'm thankful for Valentines and Very Hungry Caterpillars

The Very Hungry Caterpillar on...

70 photos

Very Hungry Caterpillar, Open...

237 photos

Larry's last sunrise, visiting...

68 photos

100th day f school. 100 spot...

72 photos

Valentines Love Bugs 2009

94 photos

valentines2009

135 photos

W
I'm thankful for White Houses, Washingtons...

1st grade White House

35 photos

White Houses Drawing Project,...

80 photos

George Washington Portrait...

30 photos
X

IS For Exploring Space and Time a Project I'm so thankful For.....

Exploring Space and Time,...

150 photos

Exploring Space and Time May...

10 photos

Earth Day, Exploring Space and...

74 photos

exploring space and time,...

19 photos

Exploring space and Time...

17 photos

Exploring Space and Time Tues....

13 photos

Exploring Space and Time At...

99 photos

Exploring Space and Time, Dec...

265 photos

Exploring Space and Time, Dec...

265 photos | Edit

What Is A Day? Exploring Space...

89 photos

Exploring Space and Time Nov....

101 photos

EXPLORING SPACE AND TIME NOV...

10 photos

Time and space october 23,...

105 photos

Exploring Space and time, Nov...

46 photos

Exploring Time And Space,...

85 photos

Exploring Time and Space,...

118 photos
Y

Z

Forgive Me I'm sleepy!

Recovery and Resilience, Falling Skies

Fallin' Sky

It broke, my back
In pieces like the Legos
My nephew has in piles on his bedroom floor
Tucked in plastic containers like fly fisherman ties
Heads, arms, weapons
Pull to find what you need,
I need the drawer marked
Spines

All from lifting the books of Native American poems
Turkeys, pilgrims and all
I want to share with my children in class
My back broke
I had to waddle
To the front and leave
Like a falling burning star
It hurt so badly
Snapped

My class looked at me
Ran around, I stood stiffening, Frankenstein,
Asked about the chrysalis' in the aquarium
Wouldn't settle
And write about salad
I left them to think about what salad they would make
It went in their journals
They were happily
Drawing the mix in bowls
After writing

Their drawing was so insightful
When my husband finally got there, to remove me
I couldn't move
Except I did.
Electric pain ran the length of me
My legs felt numb
But he said the kids were engaged and
Their work was extraordinary
It was him coaxing me
To come
Home

Now I'm trying to find a way to heal
It's a pill for pain, for muscle relaxing
One for nerve support, inflammation
A heart pill
Another for the stomach to move the food
Through a partially blocked intestine
And I wash it down
Three times a day
Losing focus
Creation

Kids draw to express their meanings
Like their song
Something else is there, hear it,
Something at the level of gesture
Neuron
Synapse, connection
That holds the group bound in the activity
Mind
It is a golden thing this way of seeing
Becoming human
Through
Art.

Just a few days ago I dreamt a way
To start healing, by seeing a shawl to make
And now I'm dreaming ways to show place, time, space
Seeing ideas, releasing from the person
Inside me, foreign feeling, almost given,
That I am getting
When I am doing something
That matters
It helps
Me heal.

In some debate about what narrowing in schools
Does or why to maintain the arts
I find the word Healing
I find the Dream
I experience the real Truths
Of its power of positive
The reason is in the Connection
Allowing us to be vehicles for vision
For making
Seeing.

Why would I think everything should be bound up
In the arts?
It is in the saving that I find in that
medium
The shawl that holds me
The image that possesses me
The music that I hear
That has to be sung
It transforms my being
into the butterfly.

I am a butterfly now, one that is falling
The sky that held me is falling
The lead and I go down
Broken flight
Held in gravity, pulled down
Heavy and hurt
Flapping wings, breath
Flight stolen
Body snapped
The sky has fallen.




Somehow in the last two weeks I lost.
For one thing my back was so injured I couldn't walk or get up, or go in to teach. I think it must be a pretty severe herniation of my disc, but combined with the syrinx and spinal stenosis perhaps enough was done to explain the pain. So until Thanksgiving my job is to "heal."
If you know me I'm not very good with being in a bed unless I pick it; I'm lousy at sitting around; I feel compelled to be in my classroom; I am basically oriented to be working. Chicken Little stuff, the sky is falling. So any blog I write let's get that out right away.
The sky is falling.
I drew a drawing yesterday. I see it now as the "Sky is Falling" but today I'll try another.

When this first happened on a Friday, and for the next three days, I screamed to move.
Boy was that hard on me. I'm pretty stoic about pain I deal with it often.
Jack had to lift and push and roll me around. What worried me most, besides the pain, was I stopped using the restroom. That was a five day issue so I thought perhaps I'd be finding surgery on my "to do" list. With bad back pain you do"roll" and getting up inside the whole body feels like it isn't. You feel things so differently. Lifting the lid on the toilet kills me, just that little bend. For some reason the men in my house in the last two weeks are getting religious about putting down the seat. Amazing.
But I guess the MRI (which I did with Versed and didn't panic too much), anyway, it showed a herniation, worse one than before-same place L4/5. Somehow this week a just back vacationing surgeon looks at that somehow if we transport the films, and I get epidurals- IF they ever get satisfied about how a now 8 day paper transfer from my doctor to that doctor goes. Anyway, I've gotten to the point where I can hobble a bit. I had a bad night last night. Bad night.

I had a dream where a man was drawing a field in Monterey and with each new drawing, drawings the size of my house, he further pulled himself up into space-kind of like google earth works. He called the dummies he did of this his "reverts" in the dream. It was amazing when he was at the dirt and insect level, amazing in the fields level of the plants and then the view of mountains that hem those fields. It looked a little "mappy" at the stage where he was up at the highway level, road and overview like a plane might see, which is when I woke up. Once again.
Dreaming in terms of art. Such a cool idea.

This is something that has been coming to me over and over this time, this recovery, this time- I have to make my way through a difficulty.And art just keeps appearing.
Others have their thing. I just get psychic reminders to make something.
In this case specific reminders. Like real things-dream things.

The other night buried in some dream I saw this navy crochet shawl.
Not exactly like this, but kind of:



I was feeling especially lost in this hurtness. In severe pain, unable to move. Struggling. In my sleep though I saw a rather beautiful crocheted navy shawl -I thought waking, "Man, that was a nice looking shawl. I'd like to make that for one of my kids." And in a way that gave me a forward thought. I decided to make it. Or make ones trying to create it.

So then I made Jack against any sense at all take me to the craft store. I could barely walk the aisle. The yarn was all 2 dollars. That just reminded me of another era-I'm guessing the effect of the economy.
So I got some. Then I got some more.



Delightful yarns were inspiring.

I'm hoping she likes it. i'll do one for Sophia but I got coral and olive and a ruby peach for that.

And I've been drawing.
Because pretty much if the scale is small I can lay to make it. Collage would work but I found these wonderful pens:


And I've been seeing what I can do with these incredible new markers. On-line they were 5 dollars cheaper so I ordered them for my kids. All the kids draw so well when they do it!
I really like them. Very close to pen and ink without the drips. I made this but it looks a bit uneven. I'm drawing Jack's pots and they are a bit like that.

So I'm trying to find ways to get through the time distracted from the pain, to heal.

It's just in this time I realize how much I can only talk through making and doing and thinking of new things to make and do and new ways to do the next picture.....or try to start another project. When i'm asked or I read things about the arts in schools I really wonder about those that would remove the application of creativity, the model making, the artifact building. Such a low level understanding of learning is hardly worth addressing.
It's just ridiculous.