Musings On Reflection

After a few months of neglecting my blog, I have decided to pick it back up again.  I let it fall during the summer and I will cite the sunny wonderful weather as the reason behind my failing to write and keep up with this source of sharing. 

However, the leaves are now falling quickly from the wind whipped trees as another year in Vermont comes to a close.  The citizens of this state, after a rather devastatingly wet spring and summer are watching as fall settles on our fields and back porches.  The leaves, while not as vibrant as last year, due in part, I believe, to the rain, have still popped and are lighting up the Indian Summer sky that even covered almost entirely by clouds is still a brilliant blue that is only found in A Vermont Fall Sky.  Considering that it is getting colder and the hammock in the backyard looks forlorn and empty as it swings slightly in the breeze, no one brave enough to lay their back on it's woven ropes with a good book in hand.  Instead, the rocker, donned with a fleece blanket watches out the window as the leaves fall on birds and squirrels who, like the Vermonters, are gearing up for a long hard winter.  The lamp beside the stove has taken on it's renewed responsibility of gracing the room with light as the world begins to turn monochromatic. 

Considering all of these changes, it is time again for me to pick up the pen, and write.  It is obvious that there is no real theme to this blog besides being a young person in Vermont, and yet I continue to muse on what exactly it means to be a young person in Vermont. 

Now, as an adult without the net of college to catch me, I have jobs and responsibilities.  Sure, I still live with my parents, but there is no longer a place to run to.  Instead my life has become a pattern.  I get up, go to work, and return home.  How strange it is, still, to think that I am an adult and that I am part of a workforce.  All I can say on this matter is that life, like the leaves fluttering from the trees, passes almost too quickly to notice.  Fall just hit and yet the leaves are already lying in abundance outside the window.  And aren't we all passing our days just as quickly?  We watch the world spinning and as I have noticed, nothing ever stays the same for long.  And so, as I have dramatically noticed the world passing me by, I have chosen once again to pick up the task of the blog world and record, even if just a passing moment, what life is really like here in VT.

Ice Cream Breakfast

           Ask the small dog...
What shall we have for breakfast littles?
And brown eyes blue with age glance to the fridge
    Turkey
             Cheese
                       Ham
                             Maybe Chinese food
Ask the small dog
             Littles what would you like
Vanilla Ice Cream
Spooned from the carton
                 Share a spoon sitting on the kitchen floor.
Bare legs kissed by rays of sun escaped through mournig clouds.
                      Cold
                            Sweet
                                     Creamy
                                                All from a cold metal spoon.
Ask the white dog
              What shall we have for Breakfast
                                 And hold on to the memories.


           

Today I...

I have been wanting to share this forever, and I finally have a free moment!

A couple weeks ago I asked the students in my World Literature class to silently respond to the prompt that I had put on the board. The prompt was "Today I..." Inspired by a recent hit pop song, I thought it would be a good way to wake up the students early in the morning and to get them thinking about themselves in some way. While I hesitate here as I might sound self centered, I believe that sometimes it is important to stop and think about yourself. We spend so much time wandering around thinking about the things that we need to do, or the problems of other people, that I think sometimes we forget to think about ourselves.

The responses I got from students were varied. However they got me thinking. How do I feel?

Today I...

Feel absent.

I don't necessarily feel like myself, instead like a shell of myself. I put so much of my time and energy into finishing the first draft of my portfolio, teaching my solo units and completing my Gothic lit class that now that I am done with all of that and finally have time to reevaluate, I feel rather empty. So much of my life seems to have fallen away while my mind was preoccupied with other things. More than anything, what brought on this realization was going on vacation. While there was one person there who know about the portfolio and the student teaching, he had not been watching me go through it and so we talked of other things. We discussed books, tv shows, and nothing. I spent four days not worrying about anything of consequence. And so, now a week after my return I miss the nothing. I miss the companionship of someone whose life does not revolve around student teaching. I love the experience. But I also hesitate now to figure out what to do with myself again. I put my entire heart and sould into this and now it is coming to an end. What shall I do with myself?

I mentioned earlier the feeling of being a shell of ones self. How does that work? You look like you, your voice is the same, you drive the same car, sleep in the same house, but you are not all yourself. You are simply a body going through the motions of living as opposed to actually living. I know how cliche this sounds, and yet I wonder...Is it the lack of sunshine, the exhaustion, the anxiety over a future I have little control over or is it just change that has me feeling this way.

Today I...feel like nothing.

Scenes in a Bagel Shop

There is something to be said for the people who truly appreciate the wonderful healing powers of the bagel.  The thing about this albeit high in carb and calorie food is that the bagel has gotten me through some of the worst times as well as some of my best. 

Two people in my life truly appreciate the healing magic powers of the bagel.  And yesterday, I got to spend time with both of them. 

On the phone, it is easy for Rob and I to be ridiculous.  We say stupid things, argue pettily over where one or the other should park, discuss the true ramifications of a day spent lazing about doing nothing, or a doing filled with everything, the first typically being my first choice and his.  Something that always comes up in our conversation however is bagels.  Yes, sometimes the poor innocent food becomes a pawn in our tendency to pick on one another about what could be and never will be, but in this friendship, the bagel plays a central role.  Every time we part ways for separate parts of the country, we meet for bagels and coffee.  Since we say adios a lot, we share bagels about four times a year.

With Erin, things are different.  If we both make the effort, Erin and I can get together nearly every weekend.  Yesterday, we met for bagels in a Bagel shop on Church Street.  In typical Erin and Addie fashion, we made it not even ten steps into the place before some chick had insulted us.  Also in classic E&A  fashion, I ordered and proceeded to fight with Erin regarding her order until she ordered the same thing I did.  Erin and I spend our time laughing about the ridiculous, discussing the future, and trying to work out our feelings regarding the present.  Things are different with Erin and myself in that when life is shitty we talk it out.  We also know how to talk one another down.  This might be because we tend to know each other better than we know ourselves.  For this reason, we are able to make observations that cause the other to think long and hard about what we might really be thinking. 

The overarching theme here however, is not just bagels but people.  I find it somewhat ironic that the two people who I am still close with, the two people who still contact me back, and the two people who even if we go a while without speaking, who always manage to make me remember who I am, and that I am not disappearing all together from my life. 

So to the two people who never let me forget who I am.  I am thankful for you each day. 

"Isn't It Illegal to give a pop quiz on a monday?"

I guess this type of question should be expected when you ask students to put away their books and take out their notes first thing on a Monday.  I, laughed.  And how could I not?  The question seemed so strange and yet the student was completely serious about what she was asking me.  I asked her where her phenomenal information regarding ed law came from and she told me that since I had studied teaching and "stuff", her words not mine, I should know where it came from.  She was not being disrespectful, and she took her quiz and did her best on it.

If anyone is wondering, it is not illegal to give a quiz on a monday.  And for those who believe me to be a horrible person for giving a quiz on Monday...allow me a moment to defend.  I talked myself blue in the face on Friday reminding them to take notes on paper and be concious of what was going on in the epic of Gilgamesh.  No matter how often I mentioned taking notes, half of the notebooks remained sealed in backbacks and their owners were left to doodle on the edge of a random scrap of paper.  That and the quiz was straight forward enough that had the students read the book there would be no question as to the answers on the quiz.

This leads me to my larger thought for the day.  Why do we all dread Monday so much?  And why are we always so miserable when it comes around?  Consider this, there have been thousands of mondays.  There are more than 48 mondays in a year.  So, what's the big deal.  Why is a Monday so much different than a Tuesday.  If I had the choice, I would lead a revolt against Tuesday.  The second day of the week.  The week has started and yet there is so much more of it to come.  Yes Monday marks the end of the weekend and the beginning of the week, but aren't we all coming into another weekend regardless?  There has never been a Monday that is not four days later matched by a Friday.  And doesn't that make it all worth it?

We dread Monday, refusing to do things that on any other day of the week would be accepted as just another task.  So I wonder....If it's "illegal" to give a quiz on Monday....Is it also "illegal" to give a quiz on Tuesday?

The twenty Things I have recently learned in High School

1.  If you can't make them laugh, its not even worth trying.  Funny is everything.
          * This knowledge comes from a mistaken conversation regarding naked Bikram yoga...Something I have never done and yet they thought the concept was hilarious. After that, it was proclaimed that I was "cool".

2.  It's not about where you went to college, what your gpa was while you were in college, or what you do on the weekends.  Its about what you are wearing.  * High School students...they too are all about the scarf.

3.  You may be smart....they will always be smarter.  * Blame Creative Writing for this idea...I cannot please the poet extrordinair

4.  Anything you can do on the computer...is "the bomb" 

5.  High School students hate flowery poetry.  "Why would you write something that a normal person cannot understand?"

6.  If there were a class in sleeping, or being off task, I have been informed that not only would everyone take it, but they would all earn A's. "it's just so...you know...laid back"

7.  They are interested in learning...if you can teach them in a new and exciting way that engages them.

8.  High School is not a place to lecture....the best way to teach is to sit with them and talk about it.

9.  A "B" is never good enough

10.  Mr. Hyde may have been the physical manifestation of Dr. Jekylls closeted homosexuality...take that Freud!

11.  Class starts at 8:30 really means...class starts when the music stops.

12.  Shakespeare....."He's da man!"

13.  Teachers DO live at school...At least the good ones do.

14.  Oedipus Rex was an unknowing contributor to incest..."why do we all have to harsh on him so bad?"

15.  If you have girlscout cookies....you are the most popular girl in the room

16.  Silence really means whispering quietly so the teacher has to pretend not to hear you.

17.  Facebook knows everything...Teachers know essentially..."well nothing"

18.  "That Bird by Bird lady was way far off her rocker".  Apparently snarky, opinionated essayists are the enemy of creative writing students everywhere.

19.  If you have students put their heads on their desks to visualize a setting...they WiLL fall asleep.

20.  Students really care about their teachers and pleasing their teachers.  All they want is attention to help them get there. 

Flashback

People used to gawk at the father with four kids
one on his back, one on his front
and two by the hand.
Homeless? they would wonder
as he walked down the street.

Many winters now passed
same man same kids same street
now adults in their own right
walk in a line hands free from their father
still close by his side.

Memories fade
yet some images stay forever
imbedded in the mind.
A father who obviously
loves his children.

Sleepless in New Haven

Last night I couldn't sleep.  One would think that considering I was up at six, at MUHS until two, drove to Johnson for a class in Gothic lit at four, then went to Auri's to watch what I claim is the worst movie ever, and then drove home, arriving at 11:30 and staying up to go over it all with my mother that I would have fallen into the bliss only found in one's unconsciousness the moment my head hit the pillow.  Instead I lay, hazel eyes staring at the ceiling tracing the patterns in the paneling with my memory. 

I'm not sure what it is that set me off.  But as I lay there I thought of all the people who, like me, could not turn off their brain, and were instead staring into the oblivion that is life.  I counted my heartbeat, I counted snores erupting from my father who was fortunate enough to sleep.  I watched the lights flash in the hallway from the television left on by another sleeping body.  I flipped through my favorite episodes of FRIENDS but nothing would lull my mind into some sense of security allowing me to drift away.

My mind was alive with images from the day reeling around like clips from a movie replaying each moment in my head tirelessly analyzing each moment looking for a reason.  When I used to get this way I would get up and walk the halls in the dorm.  I could pace back and forth beneath fluorescent lights and no one would be disturbed through the thick self closing fire doors that separate college students from the reality of the real world.  Now, in a house where the inhabitants sleep with doors wide open in an attempt to lure the elusive white dog, the smallest step on the floor will wake someone.  I rolled around beneath batik fabrics looking for a place in the red pillows to rest my head and my mind.  I needed somewhere to place my thoughts.  Nights like these make me with I were a wizard the likes of Albus Dumbledore and could place my troubling thoughts in a penceive where only I could access them and they would no longer trouble my  mind. 

Just as I was drifting off the sleep, I heard the soft buzz of my phone on the shelf.  And I felt no need to look at it, rather, I was comforted by the fact that somewhere else in the world someone else was sleepless and I drifted off into a fitful sleep interrupted with fearful thoughts and troubled images. 

When my eyes popped open at five in the morning however, I did not get up. I continued to lie in my bed comforted by the warmth of flannel sheets, a fleece blanket and two quilts protecting me from the infamous cold.  I listened as my father whistled and sang as he got ready for work.  At five thirty, by my phone, i caught the scent of Bacon wafting through the banister and filling the entire house with a fatty salty smell.  At 5:41 I listened as the truck was cranked once...FAIL and then again...Success, if at first you do not succeed try try again, and then as the tires rolled over dirt sand and ice signifying the end of the morning concert in the kitchen. I responded to the message still in my phone..."You awake I need advice" and responded...I'm here now and full of advice. 

At 6 Am my alarm went off letting me know for certain that a new day had arrived and it was time to face the world.  This was when I fell sound asleep for fifteen minutes. Feeling safe that morning had come. 

Beauty Lives

I have spent the past five weeks of my College Career as a Student Teaching Intern at Middlebury High School.  In order to do this, I had to move home.

I packed my clear totes full of all my worldly possessions and tearfully said goodbye to the college life style.  I traded in the "Two Dollar Tuesday" Sundays spent watching movies and getting up at 9 AM for a jump start into my much coveted future as an educator.  While the transition has been hard, to say the least, and sometimes lonely, I could not be in a better position.

 I love the High School I work in, I love getting up at 6 because I get to see the sun rise and write in the quiet peace of morning time.  I enjoy eatting dinner with my parents, helping my brother with his essays and curling up in the recliner with the dog.  I have come to realize that I fit into this lifestyle and that being home on a Thursday is not a sin. 

Sure I miss where I was, and miss parts of myself that I left there on the hill, but when I am alone in my bed at night now I don't feel alone, I feel tired.  I sleep and I look forward to the next day not with dread but with wonder. 

This epiphony hit me today as I was teaching Creative Writing.  I had the students cut out 26 words.  I then had thme make those 26 words into a poem which I hung on the wall at the back of the room.  It was a nice way to get them back into the writing mode, and take them out of their apparent slump due to weather. 

After they left for the day, I sat down and completed the assignment for myself.  What I came up with made me smile.

Beauty Lives-

Thinking of sweet flashbacks.
The want here-
           Different.
Giving a worth to all passion.
           Tame art inside people
               Inspired spirit lessons.
Go.
It Matters.

It was a fun little assignment for the class, but for me, it was a reminder that things are going to be okay.  They always are.

Soul Shine

They say that llamas can read a person's soul simply by looking them in the eye.  LLamas are thought to be so perceptive that they can tell whether you are pure at heart or not and they are the type to judge. 

I was fortunate enought to grow up with two llamas in the backyard.  They were kind hearted and somewhat fecicious animals.  It may seem strange that the chosen Thompson family pets happened to be soul searching spiritual animals, but as my dad will tell you, it made us we were. The prescense of these phenomenal animals defined us as a family. 

This is poignant today because lately I have been spending a lot of time with the last of the Llamas from my childhood.  He is sick and dying and for the first time in years, he allows us to sit beside him and rub his neck and talk to him.  For years Ira has been to afraid of humans and has not let any of us come near him.  He has however, allowed us to stand near him while he came up to us.  He would always look a person in the eye and if you seemed good, in some way or another, he would come closer and give you a llama kiss on the cheek.

I named this blog soul shine, because for the majority of my life, I have thought of these amazing creatures in our backyard as the ultimate judges of character.  My siblings and I, we have pure souls.  We were fortunate enough to grow up with such spiritual pets.  And this summer when I heard the Allman Brothers song "Soul Shine" I thought of these animals that have so brilliantly touched my life.  " You gotta have Soul shine.  It's better than sunshine, better than moonshine and damn sure better than rain."