Creativity-- Tick Tock!

I'm working on getting into a creativity schedule. It sounds a little silly-- because isn't creativity spontaneous? Eh, as a teacher of gifted children (and as a graduate of the "gifted" program), I tend to think giftedness and creativity are both nature and nurture. You CAN create beautiful things out of nothing, but it's a lot easier to create beautiful things with fancy-schmancy art supplies, computers, and journals. Creativity is also a state of mind. I see pictures in the clouds. (And Colorado has an abundance of beautiful clouds!) I listen for unusual sounds and think in lyrics all the time. In working with children, I speak up about beauty around us-- in a sunset, in the set up of a plate, in the humor of a tv show-- to encourage creativity there too. Eh, who knows.

So, I have many, many posts trapped in my brain and scribbled in a journal plus many pictures in my camera and my phone to share. What's the hold up? Energy! Creativity! Cleaning up! Going to work!

This day has started fairly productively-- but it also started above 60 degrees (I walked the dog in a tank top, pj pants, and flip flops!), but it's been so blustery and windy, my dog keeps barking at all the sounds it's making in the corridor of our apartments-- to set that apart now, it's below freezing and raining-- which means, it will be snowing in about 3, 2, 1...yup. I see snowflakes out the window. 

I know I moved to a state that has cold winters from one that has one or two snows a decade, but it's still instilled in me that snow= snow day. Stay inside. It's dangerous out there! There's a part of me that wants to just keep this cup of mint tea going all day and watch Buffy on Hulu. Le sigh. My little munchkin will be disappointed in the car line if I don't make it. :)

So some creative things on tap-- some recipes of yummy foods I've made lately, some hiking recaps with gorgeous pictures, more painting, more fiverr orders that I'm delivering (woo-hoo!), and concert reviews. I'm going to the Colorado Writer's Workshop on Friday and I can't wait to see what types of things I will learn to help guide me on a publication journey. We went to see The Airborne Toxic Event at the Ogden Theater in Denver over the weekend and it was incredible. I loved the theater and the whole evening. This is the second concert we went to where they were filming the music video that night. Chris nudged me at one point because I was so into the show that I didn't notice the camera man filming over our shoulders! We are going to see another one of my lyrical favorites tonight-- Bastille. Definitely looking forward to this. 

Some of my favorite lyrics have beautiful imagery and symbolism to history, gods, and pop culture. I wonder where these guys were in some of my younger years-- I could have used these words:

When all of your flaws and all of my flaws when they have been exhumed,  you'll see that we need them to be who we are, without them, we'd be doomed

If you close your eyes, does it ever feel like nothing's changed at all? How am I going to be an optimist about this?

I don't want to hear about the bad blood anymore. I don't want to hear you talk about it anymore. It's been cold for years, won't you let it lie?

Do you understand...the future's in our hands and we'll never be the same again.

Icarus is flying too close to the sun... Living beyond your years, acting out all their fears, you feel it in your chest...Icarus is flying to an early grave.

Are you going to age...with grace? without mistakes? with a path to trace? Are you going to age with grace?

Oh I feel overjoyed when you listen to my words, I see them sinking in, crawling under your skin; words are all we have, we will be talking, what is there to gain? I feel overjoyed when you listen to my words. 

And last but  not least, their Sesame Street-like take on learning vowels: Ay-ay oh Ay oh. 

So, thanks for listening to my words. I hope to have some put together a little more coherently soon. Stay strong, my friends. Shine. 

Feminism Friday! The Idyllic Land of Norovirus

I wanted to write a status update (a la my friend Joan who writes small missives about her day) in the moment about this little experience, but then it seemed like I had too many things rolling around in my head. (I love Joan's status updates. It reminds me the good things that can happen in rough schools with the right person wearing her heart on her sleeve!)

We have a wreath because adults have wreaths. 

Lately I've been taking a step back, career-wise, and re-evaluating what I'm doing with my life. I worked really hard and nearly non-stop in my twenties and had a lot of stressful years. I have a lot of things I'm proud of-- a Master's Degree, many travels, much writing. Lots of stories from times spent with friends, romance and breakups, and laughter and tears. I said goodbye to my grandmothers in my twenties and I hold them very close in my heart-- their words sometimes echo in mine and I smile to think of all the skills and loves I share with them. Crock-pot cooking with whatever is in the house? Grandma Jane. Flower arranging (ah, dried eucalyptus smells so good!) and wreath making? Grandma Marilyn. I pulled out my watercolor painting supplies and have been working on those-- a skill I practiced while in one grandma's native Italy, the other's love of travelling firmly instilled in me.

The days of working 12 hours and feeling like nothing I do matters, even though I'm pouring my heart into every minute of planning, teaching, listening to, working with, assisting...lessons with children? That's on pause. And man, it feels GREAT. Teaching is rewarding, but it's become a field synonymous with levels of exhaustion akin to having triplet newborns. You love what you're doing, but as soon as one mess of poo gets cleaned up, there's another one waiting.  So a gap year of sorts was in order for me.

I've been nannying and babysitting for families in the suburbs of Denver. I love it. [Any names I use for children have been changed for their privacy. Any pics have their identity obscured because I think kids should be protected from the evils of the interwebz before they're in high school!]

Crockpot stew like Grandma Jane's

The town where I have been working is a very special place. There's a manner of frozen in time going on with these kids' childhoods! Kids walk, bike, and razor-scooter to school. They ride their bikes and take the local bus to the ice cream shop and have milkshakes before heading to the library, skateboard park, or nature trail. They play musical instruments and soccer...and the parents are in the stands or audience, cheering for their babies. In a word, it's idyllic.

After working in inner-city and OTP Atlanta for 10 years, I was left with the sinking feeling that childhood was a myth. Kids had to deal with food stamps and immigration (and they still do), and were generally learning skills (manipulation and lying) to serve them in a life that I wouldn't be proud, personally, to live. They were learning that school was about test scores and nothing more. It is incredibly disheartening for all parties involved-- parents, kids, teachers, administrators, law enforcement. Where did middle class America go?

I found it! (And I dearly wish it for every kid everywhere.)

The cul-de-sac where I've been finding myself every afternoon, Monday-Friday, has kids with swings, apple trees, scooters, bikes, gardens, friendly Fidos, and sassy cats. There are a group of little boys (ages 5-9) who play outside every day. One was using a magnifying glass (from his chemistry set!) to try to start fires. I shared, "Oh, I used to do that when I was a kid!" and he responded, "My mom said the same. It must be a rite of kid passage." Gulp. Wut? Kids talk like that here.

No Holy Grail outfits, but they looked like this. 

The boys also were playing with one of the oldest toys that any parent knows will entertain kids for hours-- a big ole box. I looked out the porch window and thought, "Oh dear. That child has a battle axe."

Box. Best. Toy. Ever. 

Yup. The neighborhood boys were demolishing a large box with their medieval (plastic) swords and battle axe. Boys will be boys, but it sure looked like fun to me. They jousted, they hacked, they smashed, they pillaged. And when the box was in pieces (and had been converted also to a dinosaur costume), they placed all the pieces in the recycling bin. One of them asked if I could try to bring a box from my house tomorrow. I promised I'd do my best. (Recycling dumpster, don't fail me!)

One of the boys noticed my State Park sticker in the windshield of my car (oh skills of observation, very coveted!). I felt that I'd been transported to a beach in SoCal-- as he put his little hands up (in a stop gesture) and said, "Whoa! Whoa! Do you go to Eldo, like my Dad? He has a sticker like that on his car from Eldo." -- yeah, bro, the hiking and climbing at Eldo are totally choice.-- Not really, I said, "Oh yeah, this is a State Park pass for Colorado. You can go to any of the parks. You've probably been to Golden Gate Canyon and Cherry Creek? But I like Eldorado Canyon too." Totally rad sticker, dude-bro.

Just painting this picture of the nature of these kids. They play outdoors. They eat actual food (one of the kiddos had a playdate, in which she searched the fridge for cherry tomatoes she'd picked from the garden (because "they'll go perfectly with our snack!") to go with the berries, cheese, and pretzels. They make their beds. They have TV time limits. They are adorable.

So why did I call this post Feminism Friday? Well, one of the kiddos (who's a girl) was having a playdate with two other friends. They carefully sat down at the table and completed their math  homework and quizzed each other over their analogies. I interrupted only to remind them at you have to say all the words that the colons stand for in analogies, or they don't really make sense. "Ship is to sailor, not ship dot dot sailor, as the colon suggests." These kids are that driven and sweet. There was no inkling that "math was hard because we're girls" and that's refreshing.

There's tons of statistics  (like college enrollment rates) and research that support that women are still underrepresented in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields. Women of color (more specifically Black and Latino) are terribly underrepresented, with this fear of science stemming (sorry) from elementary school years. Motivation, gender, and color are huge when it comes to which people will finish school with which degrees. Particularly, Latino girls see themselves as caretakers of others, and will, if they choose to seek a career, mention ones that relate to taking care of children and babies (teacher, day care worker, nurse), more than any other field. It's incredibly limiting and sad as a society to see this play out. The truth is, we need a society with women AND men scientists and doctors. Women and men bring different roles to the proverbial table, which makes better workplaces for us all.

(Quick side note: I just read The Green Glass Sea, which is a children's book that received the Scott O'Dell award for Historical fiction. It was GREAT. It dealt with a girl protagonist living on the base of Los Alamos when they were building the atomic bombs. The kids meet all the scientists you think about learning the early stages of radiation studies. It's a different side of WWII book than I'd read. If you have kids-- 8-12ish, make them read it.)

Imagine my surprise when the girls trotted upstairs to gather (it seemed like) every stuffed animal and

baby doll known to man to bring to the basement to "play daycare." I was a little disheartened-- these are girls who have scientist and engineer parents-- why are they stuck in this gender-role play?

I gave it some time, and laughed as I came downstairs to check on them. The babies were all in the side room-- in quarantine. They were using makeshift cell phones -- calculators, old phones-- to call all the parents at the day care. They'd come, not as day care workers, but as CDC doctors to quarantine the Norovirus. Yes. The Norovirus. One kiddo warned me, "Don't go in there. It's the Norovirus.  There's vomit. EVERYWHERE! We have to keep these kids on lock!" They giggled and laughed as they put on their imaginary medical gear to take care of the babies and to put on press conferences about spreading the virus. They put on serious voices and made day care outgoing messages for the parents of the children struck.

With the Ebola virus crippling Africa currently and scaremongering laypeople about hospital care of those aid workers returning home, (even in my native Atlanta and alma mater Emory) it seemed prescient that these kids were playing doctor/scientist/aid worker in the basement in Colorado. They are neatly living this beautiful idyllic childhood, but the real world exists.

And this highly-contagious world may have a few health care workers coming up through the ranks in a few years!!

Grateful for...stuff.

I've had this feeling. It's been growing- waxing and waning since about May. It's this overwhelming, but not scary, sense of gratitude. A sense that the town crier shouting, "12:00 and all is we-lll," is maybe, just maybe correct. It's late-- past my bedtime for sure. But this peaceful gratitude-- it means All Is Well. 

All is well? Yes. In two days, I'll be out of my apartment. My apartment was my safe haven, my cozy little spot. It was under 400 square feet-- just a rectangle with a closet, a bathroom, a kitchen, and lots of windows. Since I moved in my sedan, I didn't have furniture. So in August of last year, I was in little apartment with a slightly leaky loaned air mattress and a few boxes, bags, and suitcases of my things. I had a few things shipped from Georgia; I went to Goodwill, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Ikea, and Target; I checked freecycle and on Craigslist. I found an amazing amount of treasure next to the dumpster on my street, just waiting to be discarded, but with a former owner who hoped it could get some more use. Somehow, that little rectangle box with good windows-- it became home. It had my magnets. My cards. My pictures. My books. Somehow, all those things become you, even though 'you' aren't 'stuff,' our 'stuff' makes us feel like we belong. Have roots. 

In August last year, I bought a futon to sleep on. In November, I decided I was too damn old to sleep on a futon, so I bought a bed. That was a good choice. My little apartment with good windows had a rug, shelves, plants. The plants came from freecycle with many of the pots from Goodwill. Amazing what plants will do for a living space. 

But a year has come and gone. I've added clothes and accessories to my wardrobe I never needed before my life up here at 5280 feet. Snow boots, thermal layers, woolen socks, a headband with a hole for my ponytail. Hiking gear, running gear, picnic-in-the-park gear. I noticed it when I moved, and it became true for me-- I think Denver people don't mind having small apartments-- because they get to spend so much time in this great grand wonderful outdoors. The sun is shining 300 days a year-- even when it's cold, it's rarely miserable out.

All of that stuff came in-- one bag or box at a time and all of it had to leave too. So, here we are and I'm back to being grateful. I sublet my apartment (shh!) while I was in Atlanta for a conference and much-needed family time and it turned out to be the best situation for both of us. My "housesitter" was recently out of a bad relationship and needed a homebase that wasn't squatting on her well-meaning friends' couches. She kept the place clean and nice and took care of my furniture. She's a photographer and makes beautiful art. She paid on time and in full. Can't be anything but grateful there. 

And here I am again, feeling grateful. A mom I met, selling her that futon that I got back in August, pointed out that she "meets the nicest people on Craigslist." I couldn't agree more. For all that furniture that I required to make my little space mine, a lot of it had to go. The counter stools, the futon, the ottomans, the mounted dish rack, the vacuum, the bed. One by one-- with ads on Facebook (a bust!), posted by apartment laundry rooms and door frames (a bust!), and craigslist ads, I got rid of those pieces one by one. I haven't met one mean person on craigslist. They've all been grateful for the deal they got and excited for the "new to them" from my home to theirs. Two of the women I met selling things I no longer needed? Also started out, this summer instead of last, with a car full of stuff and nothing else-- departing from "back East" to this haven of buildings, mountains, and rivers in Colorado. Something so poetic and cyclical about getting the things that I needed to replace to someone in nearly the same situation, a calendar's turn around the sun later. 

For all those things I "needed," I realized I had too much. I gave away items on freecycle. I placed books in Little Free Libraries. I brought a load of odds and ends to the Goodwill (the cycle continues!). And somehow, my Christopher could stop gently correcting me for saying "your" apartment to "our" apartment. My magnets and books and jewelry and things were incorporated with his books and video games and art and Das Boot memorabilia. The stuff? It's our stuff. Or it's now someone else's. Lots to be grateful for tonight.  

Farewell little Dexter St. apartment. We had good times. 

So what about you? Could you distill your life into a few small boxes and bags? Fit everything in the space of a car? What stuff would you get rid of in your life...if you dared?

A Fairly-True Fairy Tale, Part 2

For part 1 of this story, click here.

A special holiday, one that the princess would have spent with her family in the southern kingdom, and surely the prince would have spent with his family in Wisconsin, the two took a picnic to a beautiful sunny spot called Golden and Clear Creek park. The pair traipsed around the old pioneer town and enjoyed wine and hors d’ouevres on the flat rocks by the water. They adjourned to the Indian Springs where they got a little loopy from the over 100 degree water. The prince and Princess, although far from family and ones they loved, were with Mother Nature…and each other on the Easter holiday.

A few short days later, the Princess noticed that the tickets to a wonderful madrigal ensemble would be in the realm of Denver that week. The Arcade Fire band requested that guests of their musical event would dress in appropriate attire, so the prince and the princess followed their command. They danced and swayed and again, watched the commoners jumping and dancing with delight of the sounds and lights of the music. It was an amazing concert…one that the Princess wouldn’t have attended without a prince to escort her—she was relieved and happy that he was the prince who’d accompanied her. When they adjourned to her castle, her sidekick Petey barked, but ultimately approved of the prince.

The prince and the Princess shared their culinary talents and the prince even joined the Princess and some of her colleague ladies-in-waiting (although they were princesses, they were servants to a very fierce Queen), and their children to an amateur hockey game and dinner. The prince waited patiently and took many photographic remembrances for the princess…he was very conversational and good with the ladies-in-waiting and the small princes and princess. The Princess could hardly believe it. Did this prince possess the charm, intelligence, wit, and ability to be around different sorts of people from the different circles of her life? The prince made many bold and chivalrous statements to the princess, making those butterflies in her stomach flutter.

The prince and the Princess were very, very happy when they were together. Unfortunately, they both had to attend the needs of their kingdoms (and their respective Queen and King bosses). When one night, the princess felt unwell, the prince brought her soup and flowers and a pair of listening ears. Again, the Princess felt enveloped with the kindness and earnest manner of the prince. A few days later, the prince arranged for the princess to have a special birthday dinner at a neighboring manor in the Rocky Mountains, called The Stanley. The prince and the princess had a magical hike in the morning through the National Park (remember the king gave her a pass?) on packed snow with gentle snowflakes drifting down through the evergreen trees. The prince even followed the Princess’s magical (but slightly fragmented) sense of direction and they took a strange turn to a frozen lake in the mountains. They shockingly made it back to the Bear Lake where his steed awaited them.

The following morning, after the delightful dinner at the haunted manor, the prince and the Princess braved the wet and slushy snow to obtain special small-town Estes Park treats—spun cotton that was in fact candy, popped corn covered with a cheddar dusting, and decadent caramels, fudge, and ice cream. It was a strange turn of weather—for the season of May, that the sky would dump buckets of snow, but the prince just smiled and laughed at how delighted the princess was with the frosty powder, even when she threw snowballs at him.  The princess marveled that the prince didn’t complain about her trivial culinary desire, but promised that it was a birthday gift, and his princess should have what she requested. 

As was previously mentioned, the princess had been tired and frustrated with the dearth of eligible princes that had found her in the realm of Denver. She’d nearly given up on the possibility that her heart could find love, when the prince from strange dominion of  Wisconsin swept into her life. His words were always kind and gentle and his eyes a bright, happy blue. The moral of the story is simple…when a princess, no matter what adventures she’s had, gives up on searching for her prince, and becomes her happiest, healthiest self independently...well, the perfect  prince finds his way to her.

(And he sends her flowers for her birthday!)

A Fairly-True Fairy Tale, part 1

Once upon a time there was a Princess who moved from the far away empire of Atlanta to the mountain realm of Denver. This realm had strange things like hockey games, snow in the fall, winter, AND spring, and lots of people who liked to hike, boat, and camp outside. The Princess missed her family and friends back in her old Atlanta realm. She missed the delicious food, the friendly farmer’s markets, and the mildly warm winters. However, the princess was lonely. Any prince who came her way seemed to be horribly broken. These princes were judgmental, uneducated, or lazy. They were broke, cheap, or both. They were princes who’d made terrible choices for their kingdoms, and therefore weren’t good enough to join forces with the princess.

The Princess’s colleague princess, the Lady Denisse, from a far country where they had mountains and cities and spoke Spanish, called Peru, advised the princess. She’d too had a long journey to finding her prince, and it took her across the globe and back to have found her prince Jeff many years before. She advised the princess, “Quit going out with the dwarfs, and wait for your prince.” It was good advice that the princess took to heart. 

The Princess went home to Atlanta in the winter season, where there was very little snow and a fresh baby niece Princess named Stella who’d just been born. She realized how much she missed having people to laugh with and to be herself around. You see, some princesses are very proper and do things a certain way, but this Princess was a little different. She carved her own path and played her own music to dance to. Apparently, the princes in the realm of Denver were looking for the boring princesses. She was sad as she returned to the Denver kingdom, driving a new-to-her Suzuki steed across the nation with her dear friend, the artist Slemonade and her long-missed sidekick, Petey Bella. 

You may know this, but every princess needs an animal sidekick (think of every princess you know!) and several dear friends and confidantes. The princess had a dear friend, Princess Al, who wore glass slippers and ran around castles very fast, pushing her little prince in a stroller. Princess Al was someone who the Princess really looked up to and she began running around the Denver realm too. Something about running, while miles and miles apart, made the athletic princesses feel closer. This Princess’s dear friends were all back in the Southern empire, so it was imperative that the Princess spoke with them via phone and text and facebook and gchat much of the time. All this communicating did keep her buried in devices…computer, ipod, smartphone, etc., but she still went to hike in the beautiful mountains surrounding the realm as often as she could. Her father, the old (but not that old) king even bought her a National Park pass so that she could go up to the Rocky Mountains whenever she wanted. 

One day, the Princess met a Prince at a comedy club in downtown Denver. They each brought their own steeds, because he came from a neighboring territory called Westminster, but truly, he was a gentleman from an either farther away dominion called Wisconsin. It was a strange land where the knights and gentlepeople hunted deer and fished for fish and had manners, but also had accents similar to those from their neighbor, Canada. The Princess and the Prince had a delightful time that night—they had drinks at an unsavory bar in Cap Hill, then watched the improv (what silly jesters there are in the world), and shared fried potatoes and drinks at a nearby tavern. Did the Princess dare wonder if this prince would be worth her time?

The Princess and the Prince had another encounter, a late one with magic pictures on a dark screen…a nostalgic cinematic experience at the Esquire Theater of “The Muppets Take Manhattan.” The Prince and the Princess shared a bottle of good Lambrusco and also shared many hours of conversation. The princess felt safe and open, like she could tell the prince anything. In the early hours of the next morning, the prince left his glass on the counter and departed from her castle. It was very sweet and pure. Maybe a week later, they enjoyed pizza at the magical Tony P’s. They shared a kiss on a windy sidewalk…which, while innocent, left both of their heads spinning. 

Later that month, the prince invited the Princess to a spectacle of a Rockies baseball game. The Princess didn’t particularly care about sports, but she enjoyed a crowd and the live action of the sport. The two walked to the downtown 16^th Street Mall area—an area people who visit Denver like to see, but the princess had not yet been to. The two had delicious food and fancy drinks at the Rialto café—another Denver fixture. They again, enjoyed conversing and each other’s company and laughing at the spectacle that a city can bring. The prince even blushed when a knave spoke to them and told them how beautiful the princess was. The Princess’s tummy was filling with butterflies, the more she spent time with him.