sadness...again

i think deeper than any pain of my own, i feel most the sadness of a young soul closing eyes to its own potential. i hate, i really hate, when a child truly believes it is no longer worth the effort to hope. the sparkles--even if they twinkled only on occassion--disappear. and they smile and laugh, and i can still sense their gratitude for all i've done. but they become a young zombie, locked inside the box this society holds them in. and it's like the stars falling out of heaven. the discomfort of utter black.

and a voice to sing with

i've recently finished reading the Memoir of Joan Baez--"And A Voice to Sing With." i have always been facsinated with her music, and her life. she has done so much to end violence in this world that seems to rock on the edge of constant tension and pain. i took a vietnam literature class in college, and while i was often broken over the reality of war, i don't think i've ever been as touched as i have been by Baez's experience in North Vietnam where she was visiting for good will and peace. the first time she cried in vietnam, she writes:

"Well, I had scratched the surface. I wondered what was really going on inside of me. I wondered about the children who spent their lives ducking bombs. The ones I'd met seemed very stable. Perhaps it was better to have something real to deal with than to conjure up, as I had, symptoms and phobias all of your childhood. Here was the difference I'd thought so often about, between vicitms of ourselves and victims of circumstance. me and my years of therapy. Me and my friends who went in and out of psychiatric hospital, trying to decide whther to live or die. And here, where teh children had always known war, perhaps here life was a little more precious...Perhaps there was no time for phobias here on the battlefield" (Baez, 1987, 210).

This is common comment from my close Israeli friends as well. They often comment in disbelief at the antics of young people in America...children in Israel don't have time for this. They are preoccuppied with grieving loved one blown up on a bus, or cousins gunned down during their required military service. How have we become so pacified with video games and consumeristic materialism that we forget to celebrate family and simple joys of living?

Baez also writes about Christmas spent grateful for a 24 hour cease fire by the US. She writes: " All the stories about Christmas have been written. They are of abounding love, sacrifice, rebirth, and forgiveness. They are about children in their time, their joy, their magic. Every year they are told again and again, and they are fresh and warming to the souls of the weary and old. They become true even if they are only wondrous fantasies. Because it is the one time in the year that those of us who celbrate it have an unwritten alibi to be nicer to each other. An extra inch or two of love. Christmas to me is exquisite." I think in some ways this is how I felt this year. Knowing that my family is about to change forever with marraiges and births....it was the last of my childhood family. And now, more exquisite moments to come...

I see the moon and the moon sees me...

moon. who decided that is what that spheric creamy, butterball would be named? i really do prefer Luna. tonight i nearly drove myself off the road into a ditch or tree or river gazing at Luna. it is amazing to me that something so distant appears so close and three dimensional. after awhile, i can see the way it peeks through the velveteen blanket. maybe mars and saturn were playing catch and instead of breaking the glass ceiling, their toy was caught in a net of stars. have you ever seen a tennis ball caught in a chain link fence? that is what i am reminded of.

in other news...i'm pondering how some humans can be so intelligent and sweet and such really big dorks at the same time. seriously. i'm sure the same can be said about me at times. i asked my roommate this, and she said that i'm not stupid but i'm a dork about math. i said, no i'm definitely stupid when it comes to math. this after an afternoon spent homeschooling a ninth grader in the "vary d..yada.....constant...yada something" that i don't comprehend. but i did learn that y=kx, and that m (which is slope)=k. i've never seen k before. i have heard of slope...definitely failed a test with such words on it in mathmatical context. i was excited to be given k and y and solve for x. it was fun. (i did not just say math is fun--finding a solution is fun).

i had dinner with an old friend...a thought i was not excited about it, but i found myself overwhelmed with nostalgia just the same. and i talked to the friend of a friend accidently on the phone, and found myself highly entertained, and curious.

Monday....

Today was not typical for a Monday. We had a supervisory responsibility at school today for a big music festival, so no students. It wasn't hard work, but it got a little dull. I like my students, and I enjoy working with them, so it's nice when I actually get to do that.

We had sunshine--a full sky of sunshine--today. And for the past three for that matter. It significantly affects my demeanor in general. I feel a little lighter, even when it's so cold your snot freezes upon walking out of doors. But gravity seems less effective on such days, and that's okay with me.

I've been listening to my very first book on tape while driving. I can't believe how quickly I arrive at each destination. I find myself sitting in my car a little longer than I need to just so I can hear what happens next. It's similar when I read, I suppose...just one more page, I tell myself after each page.

South Padre Island 

Sheila and Daisy 

Joining cyberspace

So, I suppose there is a first time for everything....I'm joining the land of cyberspace because Christa said I should. And, well she has one, and I wanna be like her.