Last night I was doing some paperwork and half-listening to “The Voice” on TV. I was suddenly alert when Blake started discussing the merits of gaining a team member who pushed at the boundaries of what would traditionally be called “country music.” He talked about the importance of fresh ideas and new sounds within a community of musicians that is considered, by some, to be a “club” of sorts. The talented young singer who stimulated this conversation among the judges was able to use her voice in such a variety of ways that none of them was sure where she belonged. I thought that perhaps she didn’t know quite where she wanted to fit yet. Blake said it gave him hope for the future of music to have such a talented, unique singer among them. That’s very high praise when you consider such a vast musical tradition preceding her performance.

What does it take for one’s ideas to be considered new or fresh? What nerves are struck to make us perk up and say “Whoa! That’s new!” Where does the feeling that we need to say something new come from? Or, can we relieve some of the pressure to create fresh ideas just by acknowledging that every human being is unique? Perhaps you sense my anxiety about this as a musician and a writer–I often find myself asking, “Do I have something worthwhile to say?”  Away from the keyboard, I worry that I don’t, but when I actually begin to play or write, another voice rises in me and all that matters is the act of expression.  Whether it is judged “worthy” is immaterial (well, mostly). Using my voice is enough, for now.

March came softly as a lamb with warm sunshine and gentle air. Surprised it could be March already, I am not quite mentally ready for this slice of life challenge. But I’m here. I’m doing it–because the last two years taught me that writing daily changes you, lengthens your view, deepens your perceptions, and gives you new friends. Just as the days begin to get longer and plants send their roots down and their shoots up, writing is an act that is a struggle to affirm a life. This month I hope to reach down and reach up to find a brighter day. That’s what I need to say today.

Unstructured time has always  been a challenge for me.  Even when I long for snow days and dream of all the things I could do, if I just had time, I’m at a loss when I actually do have time.

With the blizzard of 2016, I have been given a gift of time.  I have spent hours knitting a baby blanket for my daughter’s first baby; I’ve cooked from scratch; I’ve read in some books; I’ve played the piano each day; and I’ve worked on family pictures–an insurmountable mountain of memories of raising 5 children. I’ve walked in the snow, stared out the window, looked for the return of birds, and visited a neighbor.  These are all good things, but I wonder, is this the best use of my time?  Will I return to work wishing I had done more work?  Why does that question hang over me?  Where does it come from?

I wonder if part of it might come from age-old report cards, “Uses time wisely.”  Or perhaps from many Sunday School lessons about foolish and wise men, or from resistance to routines (which I have written about before.)

Here’s where I need to remember my OLW – NOURISH – and allow myself the permission to be nourished by the non-work activities that do give me pleasure and let go of the workaholic additives in my life’s diet.  Just as I need to learn how much is enough to eat for optimal nourishment;  I need to learn how much is enough of work and enough non-work for optimal mental/emotional health.  It seems like it should be simple, but sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to sustain.

I watched 2 TED talks recommended by a friend highlighting the power of classical music in everyone’s life (His teaching was brilliant – how do you know when you have your students?  By their shining eyes.) The second was about the power of conducting music and the many styles and variations there are among conductors.  I also found this instructive to my teaching–in every case, the conductor had power to bring the many elements together – orchestra, audience, music, interpretation, etc.  But the techniques were so different!  There was the dogmatic conductor, the playful conductor, the emotive conductor, and the conductor who knew to step aside and allow the musicians to make it happen.  So much like a masterful teacher knowing when to be each of those kinds of conductors.  In this writing, I think I re-discovered for myself that there is not work and non-work:  there is just life and all the experiences we have that inform and make our whole life’s work significant.

Here are the links for future reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9LCwI5iErE – Classical music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9g3Q-qvtss –Conductors

Nourish is the One Little Word I have chosen for many reasons.  This year is my 20th year of teaching and will bring my 8th grandchild.  I teach 9 groups of students each day (38 students in Grades 1-5).  I confess to a bit of fatigue and stress.  I know that nourishment is what I need to continue the journey joyfully and effectively.

There are many things that provide nourishment for me:  family, stories, music, poetry, friends, children, nature, knitting, birds, movement, even just being alone. When I have this full plate of vital, life-enhancing experiences (blessings) available to me, why am I starved for something to satisfy a hunger I can’t explain? It’s like when you open the fridge and it is full but there’s nothing to eat.

Clearly, working hard and being busy are not enough.

And, of course, nourish does rhyme with flourish.  That’s got to mean something.

Teachers who use rubrics often have discussions about cut-lines, what differentiates a 2 from a 3, or a 1 from a 2, and the like.  It occurred to me recently, that perhaps a 4-point rubric is part of the problem of surface reading that teachers face with young readers.  It’s possible that they have progressed up through reading levels by riding just a point above the cut-line.  What would that mean for readers?  Yes, they pass, but do they ever really connect with a story, infer a feeling or motive, fall in love with a character, or stay riveted to a rising action?

I’m coming to believe that this is partly my fault, if I have been one to “pass students” up the levels without ever really requiring and even demanding that their twos become threes and their threes become fours.  I feel bad about this and have made a commitment to myself to really consider how to stop the practice at my school of accepting mediocre reading comprehension year after year.  Teachers are under pressure to have students make at least a year’s progress, but is it really progress just to move up?  What about what can be learned by moving out–by reading broadly, across genres, deeper into characters, and across curricular boundaries?  I have been lulled by linear progress when I know in my heart of hearts that progress is dynamic in all directions.  I don’t know the word for that (it’s probably a math word), but I’m loving the idea and challenge of taking kids “off-road,” of getting them off the “just left of the cut-line” reading that satisfies no one.

I want to remember

this spring

when the early things

came late,

and the late things

came early.

When bluebells

spring beauties

and forsythia

bumped up against

plum, pear, and

cherry blossoms.

Azaleas, dogwood, and

redbud bursting–

In a rush.

Familiar rhythms

in cut time.

I stopped in to visit TWT this evening and was so rewarded by the posts I read.  I am humbled and thankful.

This week I accepted 3 musical challenges.  The first is the hardest – to accompany a semi-professional opera singer at a large event in Washington, DC this Saturday.  The music is challenging for my out-of-practice fingers.  I also notice that my stamina and concentration need some work, too!  Kind of like readers who haven’t read in a while.  It takes a while to connect.

The second challenge is to play the organ for a large church gathering on April 24.  Piano is my first instrument; organ is my 2nd language.  Kind of like our ESOL students, I’m not as fluent on the organ.

The third is to play for our school’s 5th grade chorus program in June.  I always love playing for children to sing and want them to have the best experience ever.

I’m thinking, why did I label these three events as challenges, rather than opportunities, or engagements, or performances? I think it is because I still feel that I might not measure up, so it is a challenge to be met. Then I thought some more and decided that I want to make these three musical moments joyful, just joyful. If I make a mistake, or if my pages get messed up, or if I lose my place, so be it. I want to let go of the baggage of expectation. I know there are no perfect performances, but there can be joyful moments. It’s about time I let myself have some.

Today I traveled across the country coming home from visiting my youngest daughter and newest grandbaby, Maggie. What a wonderful time it was to be with her and her young parents. While staying with them, I observed some very sweet reminders of what makes marriage work and what keeps it alive and sweet. Besides the joy of caring for a newborn, I was touched by the low mumble of their quiet pillow talk every night when the lights went out. I could only hear that they were talking, not what they were saying, but it made me happy. Another time, Mark came home with Jill’s favorite kind of cookie, knowing that she hadn’t been out of the house in days.

When I later opened my email, I found this poem posted by Ted Kooser, former US Poet Laureate, on his website “American Life in Poetry.” It seemed to capture the secret of keeping a strong marriage and affirmed what I had observed with Jill and Mark. I love how the comparisons in this poem are so accessible and real. The mundane things often teach us profound lessons.  The words that follow are Ted Kooser’s:

“I don’t think I’ve ever sold anything that, later, I didn’t wish I had back, and I have a list of regrets as long as my arm. So this poem by Melissa Balmain really caught my attention. Balmain lives in New York State, and her most recent book is Walking in on People, from Able Muse Press.”

Love Poem

The afternoon we left our first apartment,
we scrubbed it down from ceiling to parquet.
Who knew the place could smell like lemon muffins?
It suddenly seemed nuts to move away.

The morning someone bought our station wagon,
it gleamed with wax and every piston purred.
That car looked like a centerfold in Hot Rod!
Too late, we saw that selling was absurd.

And then there was the freshly tuned piano
we passed along to neighbors with a wince.
We told ourselves we’d find one even better;
instead we’ve missed its timbre ever since.

So if, God help us, we are ever tempted
to ditch our marriage when it’s lost its glow,
let’s give the thing our finest spit and polish—
and, having learned our lesson, not let go.

Yesterday, I was feeling very tender and sentimental as you may have read in my post. Today’s experience with Maggie was a little more comical.

I was changing her diaper when I heard a loud squirting sound. The next thing I heard was myself screaming as I realized that projectile poop was all over me and the changing table. It was rolling down the side of the changing table. Whereupon, she began to pee, turning it all into a major soupy mess of yellow “curds and whey.”  It has been many years since I handled such a mess and realized quickly that I was in a bit of panic.

Maggie is still too young to give a full bath, but I whisked her to the kitchen sink and cleaned her up while Mark heroically took care of the rest. I failed to mention that we had guests here to meet Maggie for the first time. That’s an introduction they won’t forget!

On another note, thanks to all who make this month of writing and sharing possible. Thanks to all who took the time to read my writing. Thanks to all who stretched my thinking and my writing skills by modeling new ways of approaching writing a slice of life.

My “slice of life” is currently like a fresh apple, a ripe raspberry, or warm homemade bread. It’s nourishing and awakening my senses to the goodness that is possible. Writing has made me happier.

I intended to write my 3/26 slice of life on my layover between Chicago and Salt Lake City. Well, that didn’t work. A three-hour delay in Washington caused me to miss my connection in Chicago which catapulted me to St. Louis, where I froze(!), then to Phoenix, and finally to Salt Lake on Friday, March 27.  After 20 hours in airplanes and airports, I was exhausted, and all I could think about was getting to my daughter and her new little baby.

Maggie was born on March 24, 2015 and everything went so well.

Then, I intended to write my 3/27, 3/28, and 3/29 slices, but I was attending to my daughter, rediscovering newborn love, and feeling utterly mesmerized. I guess I’m still much more a mother/grandmother than I am a writer, but I am learning that the desire to write doesn’t make up for the effort to write. If I don’t make an attempt to record these precious days with my inadequate words, then the days are just past.  If I try to say something, perhaps a bit more remains.

So, it’s Monday morning of my spring break, my 4th day in Utah. It’s full spring here in Utah with flowers, warm sunshine, sandals, and sunglasses (both of which I forgot to bring). I’ve never seen so little snow in the mountains at this time of year. It makes me fear for what the summer may bring if rains do not come. When you see all the beautiful flowers, trees, and lawns here, it’s sometimes easy to forget that it is still a desert.

I have a few quiet minutes while Jill and Maggie sleep to try to express some things I’ve felt the past few days.

Do you remember newborn breaths–irregular and soft as clouds and the breeze? Do you remember newborn hiccups–like chirps of toy crickets we played with as kids? Do you remember eight pounds of warm safe trust sleeping on your chest? Such a wonderful and beautiful contrast to the weight of worry or grief that can also sit there. Do you remember the sweet smell of newborn skin, how soft-as-down the hands and feet?  Do you remember tiny ears, already tuned to mama’s voice? What about hair, finer than the finest silk? Do you remember skinny little “bird” legs kicking when diapers are to be changed?  And flailing arms with tiny closed fists that sometimes softly punch in funny places? Do you remember the look of total contentment, satisfied, full-tummy baby bliss?

I started this month’s slice of life with the statement, “My baby girl is having a baby.”  As I remembered being her age and also having my first baby (22) and how little I knew, I felt some pretty normal anxiety.  I wondered how I could help, what I could share that would make a difference.  Guess what I have found in my few days here?  Mothering comes very naturally to this baby daughter of mine.  I don’t have to do anything but be here and love them.  She talks easily to Maggie; she plays Casey Abrams (Season 10 American Idol) and sings along because music makes her happy; she walks outside.  She moves and works at her own pace, in her own way, and it seems to suit Maggie perfectly.  As a mother, I couldn’t ask for more.  I’m so proud of her and believe now more than ever, that she knows what she needs to know.  She loves fully and freely.  She said that she is so glad Maggie is here, because now she has a little friend to talk to. My eyes fill with tears of wonder and gratitude as I write this.

Last night, we turned out the lights and were all in bed wondering if Maggie might possibly drop off to sleep:). Her daddy had to get to sleep to be up for his 8:00 a.m. class. Her mama was tired from a full day of mothering. Grandma was tired, too.

Then Maggie tooted. Mark and Jill started giggles that soon grew to belly laughs. This was more than 3rd grade, “she farted!” laughter.  I think it was laughter full of relief. Those first few days of fear–Will I be able to feed her, will she get enough, will her body systems work right–all were answered with a rather indelicate toot.

And life is good.