Time

Whoa, some schools impact you for life.

  Home base in childhood; for me at least.  Unlike a lot of my friends. I had the safety and comfort of elementary school usually for a few months at a time.  I believe I spent one and half or two years at Simcoe Street school and a whole year at Greendale.  I know my parents managed to have me enrolled for a whole 3 days at Helix...before deciding to pass me back to Centennial in Hamilton.

Just a few of the many, many moves with new teachers, friends and rules. Yet, I loved school. It was the best place I could be from age 4-17.  It didn't matter to me if I was in French school like I was in pre-K, Catholic school where I spent half those years, or the various public schools of the Golden Horseshoe:  each one welcomed me, brought me structure, hope and oh yes, education too.

Saint Annes though was a different sort of bird.   I landed there sometime in grade five due to a move with Mum and the sister she was living with:  for a few winter months in the middle of the school year of 1979-1980. 

Just a few months, but wow, unforgettable.   A whole different world even to all the other catholic schools I had breezed in and out of over the past 7 years.  Mandatory 1/4 rosary in the morning, quick and instant detention, even the schoolyard (huge as it seemed to be)  had a subdued and reverent feel. Mandatory  Mass on the weekend where attendance was taken by an Altar Boy: if he wasn’t busy bragging about peeing in the Holy Water font or sneaking sips of Communion Wine in the vestry.

My tentative friends admonished me for the slightest infraction:  don't say a cross word, keep the volleyball on this side of the door, wear your hat or Look out, you will end up writing Time!

Ah, writing time!  The ultimate punishment, save the strap, that filled us with fear.  Now, don’t be alarmed if you have no idea what I am on about: writing Time was about as alien to me at ten as it likely is to you.  I soon found out though.

 At St. Anne’s if your teacher thought you wasted her time: you were handed several sheets of foolscap and the Dictionary .  You were instructed to turn to the word Time.  Depending on the severity of your infraction you were instructed to copy by hand the dictionary definition of the word time onto those endless blank reams of paper.

Did you ask a dumb question?   Write the definition once.

Were you whispering to your friends in class?  Five times.

Were you truly being disrespectful or disruptive?  10 times.

No one dared step out of line really.  Your hand would cramp instantly at the thought of being naughty.  Also, naughty as defined by the Nuns is a very different gauge of what is and isn’t acceptable.

I have never experienced a group of children so completely cowed and cowering before or since.

I didn’t have the confidence then to express how badly I would have liked to return to my former Public School, Centennial.   Situated in a grubby area of Hamilton just across town next to another school called Bennetto lay a beautiful oasis for child development.  Mr Russ’s classroom felt like a slice of pie, with whipped cream served daily in your favourite flavour.

He brought in parachutes for us, held contests where the winner got McDonald’s,and specially ordered science kits that arrived in giant wooden crates. Excitement at the sight of a wooden crate was instant- something great is happening today! My core memory was the develop-your -own -film science kit.

A bunch of cheap cameras.  A trip to the park by my house.  A gorgeous fall day where it still feels like summer. I’d been there lots but this day was special.  “Take pictures of whatever you want guys!   The bay, the birds, your friends or a blade of grass. It’s up to you.”

Cut to our classroom the next day- weird black plastic bags that fit over our arms:  the cameras placed into them from the other side and zipped in along with a circular container.   We were instructed to carefully remove the film from our camera, place it in the container and close the lid.

The containers, which were similar to a short soup thermos, were then removed. They had a small spout with a cap.  Our next step as ten year old scientists was to add some foul smelling chemicals to that spout.  Thermoses lined up on the back counter by the class Guinea pig and it was time for lunch and tetherball.

We returned a truly noisy bunch to a classroom with a new blue clothesline.  At some point, after the required time elapsed we were allowed to carefully open those film canisters and hang up our precious strip of negatives.

On day three we were given a few sheets of photo paper.  Told to place our negative on a paper, given a strange contraption with a light bulb. We sat our masterpieces under our individual lights and waited hopefully.

Like magic, images of our friends, the water, the sky appeared in lovely sepia colour.  I had those 3 little photos for years until one move or another disappeared them.

Yes, it was an awful neighbourhood. Yes I was confronted at that tender age with fistfights and threats and a random dude at that same park on another day who was bigger, stronger and sucker punched me because he felt like it.  It was 1979. 

However, that was a tiny price to pay to be part of Mr. Russ’s world.  🌎. I wonder often what happened to him? I hope that his career and life were fantastic.  He deserved to win the lottery and be given a Harley and a kitten just for the half year that I spent in his class.   I cannot imagine how many others feel exactly the same.

It’s been over 45 years.  I can’t forget how valued I felt in that classroom and how free.

In my weird and varied educational experience I have known some amazing teachers: Mr Russ, Mr. Dodson, Mr Mavor  Mz Vukobratic Mr Schoenfeld:  that’s just five of many! I have known quite awful ones who’s names are lost on me now and who’s memory I have probably blocked for good reason.

In my adult life I know so many teachers: really super good ones. Some retired, but with stellar histories of caring for kids.  Teaching, encouraging and inspiring.  

For those who are still out there fighting the good fight everyday-  I see you.  I thank you.  I hope someday that 45 years from now a sentimental grown child remembers you.

Only Human

But A wise man once said once said that you should never believe a thing simply because you want to believe it....tyrion lannister, got, 2017

   For so long now I have believed that life is something that doesn't just happen to you.  That we make choices: our response to  circumstances determining as much of our happiness as the situation itself.

Yes, life is challenging. Often frustrating.  At times, life is actually baffling. It is easy to get lost asking why.  Why do things happen the way they often do? It would be so easy to tie myself up stewing over the facts: that death has touched me and those around me; that people are often petty and cruel; that adulthood is fairly thankless at times. There are many reasons why I, and likely everyone, could become bitter.

So, I look in the mirror and I ask myself: what do you want to believe? Some days it is harder to find an answer.  I believe I want to insert kindness into my day.  That there's more than enough of the negative.  That there has to be balance out there and I can give that. I believe despite the fears I stare down daily that it is going to be okay.

Its not easy.  It would be easy to say- I've been dealt a crappy hand of cards and I am just going throw them down and refuse to play.  There's no win in that. I could cling to that truth and be sad....and say, but its true!!!  I won't. I refuse.  Its the kind of truth that only leads to despair. I just don't have time for that.

I look inside and try to drum up a better truth to attach to my soul.  Not a greeting card platitude but a macro belief to guide me. So I look to the examples set by those wonderful people who grace my life. My friend Susan who always found a way to rejoice in her life. Her happiness was infectious.  Was her life perfect? No. She faced bullying, I witnessed that.  She overcame a bad marriage. She even found it in her to celebrate her emancipation from that.  She stared death in the face and still took time to spread joy in those around her.

My friend Ramona: also an inspiration.  She reminds me daily that life is a choice or series of choices. She has reshaped her career to reflect what she wants life to be. She has gone from being ground down and whittled away in the workplace to putting light into the world. Her work, as a life coach, now empowers so many others to choose to be the things the want to see in the world. She reminds me that the universe, if you ask for help, will work to put you in the place you need.

My children as well, who keep stepping forward to grasp any issue that is thrown their way, give me hope.  Whether it is illness, grief, the miserable bullies that we find, or just the daily challenges...work, homework, relationships, their direction in life.  Each one of them meets each obstacle with integrity.  They overcome and beat the odds at an alarming rate. It's comforting and fills me with wonder.

It would be very small of me to ignore the beauty of the people who have been given to me to love. If I was to say, it is just so hard, I can't continue, wouldn't I be a silly git? If I was to become jaded and throw up my hands and say, there's nothing I can do-that would be a lie.

So I choose. I choose to try. I choose to find a way to put aside my annoyances, my fears, my hurts. I choose to be welcoming, positive and gracious. Even when it hurts. Even when I would rather retreat. Even when I feel the deck is stacked and the odds unlikely.

 What do I choose to believe?  Nothing major. No giant world view. Just one small hope:  That I can step forward and try.

Experiment Awry

Back in the mid90's at my wits end with my kids teacher, I decided to try a small experiment in behavior modification.  I was pretty desperate for a solution.  When you are 25, busy, working, going to school and taking care of two kids and a house there isn't all the much time to be called into the grade 1 class and forced to sit in a mini chair listening to a high strung teacher grumble.  But for three months I was forced to do that daily.

No amount of communication could get Madame to see she was part of the problem. No suggestions from me ever made it past her sardonic smile. I had a bored child on my hands.  My Darling girl whos mind outthought most adults and who had set out to make school fun.  A teacher who had a love affair with conformity. Who found my little beans brilliance serial killer level disturbing.  Somehow, out of that situation I found myself getting served with Grade 1 Detention ad infinitum.

Unable to convince Madame to try anything new I turned to the one person I could influence.  I explained to my baby that her hijinks were rather unwelcome.  "But its soooooo borrrrrrring Mummy".  I know Baby. You only have about 20 more years of oft boring teachers to deal with.  No worries, we are going to try something.

I knew I was going against the permissive grain of the parents around me.  ( Deep breath! Be brave.). Baby, take this little elastic and wear it as a bracelet. Okay. Now every time you want to get out of your seat, feel you need to tell your friends to ask unanswerable questions, shoot spit balls from your drinking box straw or tell your teacher a wild, wild story and prove her gullibility please give your wrist a little snap. Worked charmingly. No more detentions for Mom. Just 8 hours of one bored kid 5 days a week and Madame had no problem with that.

Enter the nosy Mom!  Having seen how my 90's version of the fidget spinner restored classroom peace for me Mom 1, the self appointed Mayor of Grade 1 parents, decided it was just the ticket for her bored child, too.  A day later I hear her shrill complaint.

The school called and gave her a movie of the week level warning about self mutilation. Turns out that instead of a tiny snap to remind oneself to be good her Darling decided to try to use the trick to change her friends behavior.  No matter how much she twisted that elastic....or how blue her fingers turned her friends remained annoying. Odd.

I hadnt forseen that extrapolation of my experiment. For a six year old it was a brilliant thesis. Missed one minor given, that's all. Nothing in this world you do can force another human to change. You can complain whine cry manipulate and even dominate but real change is all the other persons deal. Sorry Bunny. That's just the way it is.

We would like it to be easier to change people. As Mom and Dads, bosses and employees, lovers, friends. Unfortunately, behavior rises from so many competing factors. Personality is a strange mix of biology, experience and current and past social mores.  Behavior takes all that and then adds quality of sleep, nutrition, the environment and available tools and pops out something new at the end. It can be fantastic. It can be dismal.

Still, all we can do as humans is change ourselves.  If we change enough then sometimes people around us must change to adjust. We control how much or how little other's behavior can affect us. Our own level of tolerance determines how easy or hard that will be.  We can choose to be like Jello. Just let the cream poor over us and jiggle- largely unchanged. We can choose to stir and become a yukky mess of gelatin and dairy. Changed largely by our own reactions and behavior.

This is our human truth. Even now in the " new millennium" where we teach our children its their right to be offended by anything. Like that is a healthy notion. Sorry, kids, your rights, your feelings, your discomfort still ends at the tip of the next guys nose. Agree or disagree, be offended or dont- theres only one person we each truly control. The self.

Eden

Quarter past five.  Deep in the most private part of your soul you smile.  Your heart knows that anything useful you have been inclined to do at work today is done.  There is only one persistent drive left in you today.  The drive to punch out, say a pleasant goodbye and rush home.

The travel time is not enjoyable but  worth it.  In twenty minutes your key turns in the lock.  It is an amazing sound that key makes.  You open the door and are greeted with open affection.  You set down your bag and spend the next 40 minutes hearing amazing stories.  "Do you know what ?  Manda was in art and she was laughing 'cause Issac burped and it was soooooo funny, and the teacher said "That is enough" and we tr-i-e-d not to laugh but we couldn't and Manda had milk come out her nose!"   I bet that was pretty funny. "And guess what else, we only have four more days of school, and then next year, we might get this teacher and he's a really nice teacher, and if we get him he  has ipods in his class and if we get him, know what else?  We get to use them when we are done our stuff and I really, really really hope I get him."  That just might happen, kiddo.  I am pretty glad that you are already excited about next year.

You smile inside and it hits you.  There has not been one single development at work today that can hold a candle to the conversation you just had.  This moment right here was the most important meeting on your schedule.   So, you make dinner and check for homework while your gorgeous husband shows the munchkin how much the cucumber plant has grown.  You thank your lucky stars that he is home tonight with you. It means  there may just be a long walk in the country or a drive out to the lake for all of you, together.  You hear them giggle.  It is not the kind of giggle you hear at work where you wonder; What has happened now?   Just innocent bell-like laughter and with it the tension in your neck begins to melt away.

It is good to be home.  It is magical.

Glowing Earth

It is full of this indefinable thing we choose to call love.  A sometimes chaotic fusion of baking, WII games, guinea pigs and back rubs. Of wall hangings handmade just because He thinks you might like them. A quick nibble on the back of your neck while you fold socks. Snapshots and portraits and preschool art frames glimmering in the background.  A list of chores of  Sisyphean proportion to keep it all running in some predictable order.  As much a thinking game as it is slugging to get it done.  A constant series of questions we ask ourselves:  How do I make it better?  Make them happier?  Guide them in the right direction?  Keep it positive and inspiring?

 Outside these walls the world can knock you out repeatedly whether you are four or forty.  Bullies. Irate customers. Idiot drivers. The just plain rude.  Disappointment can reign sometimes out there- but at home it has no hold.   We plot against it here.  Fortify against frustrations.  Actively build each other up in a cocoon of safety, strength and respect.  The next time we head out the door we each take a little bit of home as the courage that beats within us.

Yet, it is only four walls and a roof.  It is pleasant, organized and comfortable.  It could

Summer Fun

use a new coat of paint.  No one is knocking from Architectural Digest to say, "Hey, can we do a photo shoot?"  Yet, it somehow, in it's simplicity, is an oasis. There is so much good here in this one small place on a very big planet that I bet it glows on google earth at night.   Like a star doused in fairy dust.