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Mrs. Klank

14 Sunday May 2017

Posted by CrimsonKirk in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

moms, Mothering, teaching

 

For the last three weeks I have been plopping myself down in various school classrooms around town, working as a substitute teacher. This, after eighteen years of staying home, being ‘mom’. Entering the work force is a challenge, of course, mainly because you must get up and get going so early. But the job I’ve returned to – teaching – is not all that different than momming. In either case you rarely get to sleep in. The pay is awful in both. And the benefits are limited – one gets ‘work with no obligation to put on bra or shoes’, while the other gets ‘summer’.

In many ways, these two jobs are essentially the same. The souls you ‘shepherd’ all day are gross and loud. Many of your charges pick their noses unabashedly while almost all of them whine incessantly, even if you’re literally just showing them a movie. The older kids stink, and the younger kids cry, and you forget when you’re not around hordes of children anymore how often and overwhelming just those two downsides are. Yet you tolerate these rascally little humans even as they shout ridiculous things at you, such as, “Mrs. Klank” or “Ms. Kick” over and over. You work hard to instill a handful of decent thoughts and inspirations into their growing psyches, even as you stealthily plan your next solitary bathroom break and heatedly scribble ‘Wild Turkey’ onto your ever-lengthening shopping list.

In the past two weeks, my notion that teaching is eerily like mothering has only solidified. Because mothering involves dragging your kids through society – schools, doctors, sports, music lessons. While teaching means prepping kids for leadership roles within those societies. Which all just goes to say that rarely do you mother or teach in isolation. It is a community you find yourself thrust into, not one you hand-pick for yourself. And for better or worse, you meet all kinds here. Mothers who swaddle their babes in expensive, linen breast-sacs until they are well-past three years old. Mothers who tell you flat out that your stair banisters are ‘filthy dirty’ as they stand in your entry-way, dropping off multitudes of kids for you to moniter. You’ll meet mothers who carry tiny dogs with them wherever they go yet don’t notice when their own child runs into the street; mothers who seem like they take drugs and most likely ARE taking drugs; moms for whom the word “no” has been supplanted from their vocabulary by “child-centered”. Perhaps even on the same day, you’ll meet other moms who thrive on order and execution and sincerely question you as to what type of bread you serve and when was the last time your family had a fire drill run-through? You will have awkward conversations with moms who want to confiscate your teen-aged child’s phone while they are with them, and then even more awkward conversations when you show up to a classmate’s birthday party only to realize it is actually a church rally. The list goes on and on but you get the point. Moms have to hang out with all kinds of other moms, and most of these ladies will not be your personal cup of tea, believe you me!

The same basic truth goes with teaching, but particularly so when you are a substitute. Every day you encounter vastly different set-ups and styles. There’s the classic ‘Ms. Ruler’, who comes complete with a Pier One sofa and mood lighting ensconced in one corner of her classroom. She’s forked out hard-earned money for different color-coded rugs for each activity; included picture-coded seating charts within the lesson plans; while her students are bound –  by blood, sweat, and tears, often – to Ms. Ruler’s ‘do’s and don’ts’ and that sneaky little second hand on the big, over-the-door-clock.

Then there’s your ‘Doris Day’ teachers (Que sera, sera…whatever will be, will be) who leave no sub plans at all; in fact, they’ve lost their attendance folder long ago; these teachers often have desks spilling over with old notes and stacks of books and papers, none of which are current or helpful in any way. There are no name tags anywhere within their magical kingdom, and a sharpened pencil is worth its weight in gold. These student’s whistle while they work, sing while they sum, and ‘line up’ at the door like a poorly-drawn amoeba, which then slithers down the hall eagerly consuming every other student it encounters along the way.

There’s ‘Mr. Stoplight’, whose entire lesson plan entails dire/overt warnings about particularly challenging students – Beware! Caution! Danger Ahead!

‘Mr. Bueller’, who schedules an hour and a half for the driest, most painfully dull lesson plans imaginable (i.e.; a six-page packet on the unpronounceable first emperor of china, sans interesting details or historical context… anyone?…anyone? ),

and finally,

Ms. Rainbow, whose every inch of wall space is covered with kaleidoscopic art work and inspirational sayings such as, ‘You did not wake up to be mediocre!’ and ‘Mistakes are expected, respected, inspected, corrected’. She’s penned, ‘Have fun and Enjoy their Spirits!’ in purple calligraphy atop your lesson plans, and reminds you to use ‘caring words’ to encourage students to finish up their papier mache’ projects this afternoon. “But by all means, if the sun’s out – CELEBRATE!”

Where I fit in to all of this I really don’t know –  what I can say with confidence is that every single teacher’s amount of time allotted for lessons is way too long for a sub…and that there is no possible way to predict what a student might say or do at any given time.

Take the day I asked one second-grade girl how to pronounce her name: Alallia. “A-Lah-Lee-A” she said, pleasantly. “Well, that’s just beautiful!” I gushed, thinking inwardly that I’d never remember that for a hot second. “How did you come by such a unique and exotic name?”

“My Grandma smoked a lot,” Alallia answered, rising from her desk and eyeing us all squarely as she spoke loud and proud, like a miniature Ms. America contestant. “She had a tube in her throat, so she couldn’t talk. Before she went to heaven she signed my name to my mom with her hands. Then she died.”

Thankfully the class was stunned into silence for several moments. Imagine what that poor grandma was most likely trying to sign – Help! Morphine! Pull the plug!  Well…the daughter went with ‘Alallia’ and on hindsight that seems optimistic and makes as good a story as any. However, I did make a mental note forthwith: do NOT ask students to explain their names (Sorry Tiger-Amari, you will sadly remain a nomenclature mystery).

Another day, after I had abandoned the boring but malicious Emperor of China in favor of a story on the sinking city of Venice, I asked the students to do a ‘quick write’ about one place they would like to visit, anywhere in the world, and why. A very sad boy (whose name was Tristan – literary magnificence!) raised his hand to share, which surprised me, as all morning he’d been a slow worker, struggling to keep up and stay on task, and in fact he’d broken down in tears several times out of exhaustion or sheer frustration, who knows. Anyway – he seemed to take to the ‘quick’ write concept (five minutes), thus he raised his hand, so I called on him to read his paper aloud:

‘As you all know, I have a depressive nature. To help me with this I think I should go to Canada. They say they are the nicest people in the world there. I would still be close to my house here in Washington, and I could eat pancakes, because I know they have a lot of maple syrup there. I think it would be nice to visit Canada and all those friendly people who smile a lot and maybe I would even like it there. I would eat a lot of pancakes if it is really such a happy place.”

Happy does not begin to describe my own reaction to this paragraph that contains within it the underlying essence of why one might continue to teach, instead of sailing away to a Caribbean island to slurp rum out of coconuts.

This last week as I sat in Ms. Ruler’s third-grade class on her unbelievable sofa that is nicer than anything in my own home, I tried valiantly to ‘teach’ a particularly needy student. This boy, Matthew, was tall and big and loud, and he had all the typical troubles of a very easily distracted, tall-big-loud boy, and so I had appointed him my personal ‘buddy’ that day, and let him do some of his work on the white board, and generally gone above and beyond to ensure that he did some ‘work’, to all the other student’s rightful dismay. At this point in the afternoon he was seated opposite another little boy, Jordan, who was rather frail, quiet, and polite; a speed worker who seemed to have none of the issues facing Matthew. Yet as I sat there between the two boys I noticed Jordan crying, very quietly. “What’s wrong?” I asked. Jordan wouldn’t answer. Matthew did, though. “He don’t have anymore friends!” he declared, matter-of-factly. “Something bad happened at recess, I don’t know, but no one likes him now.”

I tried to hide my shock at this frank summary, but Jordan woefully nodded agreement. “I’m starving, too,” he declared, Eeyore-style.

“Yep, he’s going to starve himself now!” Matthew yelled. “And he’s going to kill himself, too, because he don’t have any friends anymore.”

I thought I should nip this in the bud very quickly, so I said, “No, Jordan’s going to be just fine, Matthew. Jordan’s a strong, smart boy who’s having a sad moment right now but in a few minutes he will go wash his face and drink some water and come back and work with us here, won’t you Jordan, and after that it will be time to go home and Jordan will eat a snack and everything will seem much better.”

Jordan sort of shrugged, like ‘yeah, maybe. We’ll see.’

“In the meantime, Matthew, you need to start writing these words. Look at the next one there, it says astronaut. I think you could write that on your paper lickety-split.”

Matthew sank back into those beautiful sofa cushions with an enormous heave. “I can’t, teacher. My heart is too soft.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, anxiously checking the second-hand on the clock myself while inwardly screaming, ‘HOW MUCH LONGER CAN I GO ON BEING THIS PATIENT AND KIND AND WISE??? UGH!!!’

Matthew was tearing up now, too. “My heart is so soft because Jordan’s going to kill himself. And he’s starving. And he doesn’t have no more friends. It hurts when my heart is so soft like it is.”

Here I sank back into the cushions and had to agree with him. Teaching is exasperating. Momming is endless. Life is painful and slow and crazy and loud and stinky and blurry-fast and colorful and funny, too, but trying to deal with everyone’s ups and downs through all these minutes and hours is exhausting.

Mrs. Klank’s heart is too soft indeed –

even when there’s a Pier One sofa to sink into.

IMG_3984

Second Son

21 Friday Nov 2014

Posted by CrimsonKirk in Uncategorized

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

birthday, eighteen, elf, Kids, moms, mothers

I have not written for a long, long while, because I was tired of myself. I felt like I was trying to write about me, which therefore meant hammering on mostly about motherhood. Yet all mothers, unless they are experiencing some unimaginable tragedy of some sort, face the same sorts of frustrations and elations as I did and do, and no matter how creatively I spin it, yada yada yada, we get it – I’m still just one mom among many, dissecting the daily minutia.

But soon it will be my second son’s eighteenth birthday. And last year, on his birthday, we were all suffering from a vicious, vomity flu, and so the birthday boy spent his birth day and night staggering from the couch out to the front yard to projectile vomit in front of the neighbors. And he graciously, unbiddingly did this because the inside two bathrooms were being used by vomity girls and grown ups too sick to wish him a happy birthday or even contemplate the word ‘cake’.

And so I am inspired to wish him a Happy Birthday this year, publicly and profusely. And to direct your attention to the first sentence of the second paragraph, in which I utilize a key identifying phrase. Eli has always been my second child, my second boy, my second wind, my second chance. His birth happened in Massachusetts, far away from any other family, and when he was born after a long, stressful day and night in the hospital they rolled the two of us down the hall and put us in a shared room with another couple who’d just had their first baby. And that baby screamed non-stop. NON STOP. So that even during those first hours, when I was lying there gazing down at my quiet, blue-eyed, new little boy, some other boy was already overshadowing him, literally.

I had a very hard time picking a name for this second son of mine. I wanted to name him Jonathan, but Damon and I argued for months over the spelling (he wanted JOHNathan, I insisted on JONathan). That one H did us in. The name was scrapped and nothing else fell into place. For months and months I stewed, feeling bad that of course I had wanted a girl, since we already had one boy, but now the baby was a HE and I couldn’t picture him, or name him, or even figure out where to put him in our tiny little military house.

So it was that we placed a crib at the end of our very long, very white, very boring bedroom, and in that crib we had some blue snowball and candy cane material that we made into bedding and bumpers. That was all we had for décor. This baby had nothing else new or exciting or interesting at all. All the baby clothes and paraphernalia I already had from Jacob. I needed nothing except perhaps a warm bunting of some sort, because this second son of mine was expected in December, and we were in Massachusetts, and Jacob was born in California. So I did buy some blankets and warm little outerwear for this vague ‘Snow Baby’ of mine soon to arrive. And then I waited. Each day during Jacob’s nap time I’d load a tray with Oreos and milk (oreos around the rim like a clock, milk in the middle), then waddle up to my bed, where I lay with the tray balancing on my bulbous tummy, eating and reading and crying as I stared over at that little forlorn crib waiting at the end of the room for a baby I couldn’t fathom.

Then one day I saw a greeting card in a Hallmark store that had a grinning little elf on it, with a flurry of snow flakes and candy cane trim, and I felt that this baby needed something cheerful, so I bought this little card and framed it and hung it over the crib. It read: E is for Elf

Each afternoon henceforth during nap time I still stuffed myself with Oreos and quiet weeping (Must Not Wake Jacob!), even as I stared down at the little crib area and the one little photo, thinking silently, ‘well, E is for Eli’. Then I would reprimand myself because I’d read it wrong. “No, it says ELF.”

Then ding, ding, ding, at last the lights went on. Hot Mercy! His name is right there! Over the crib! E is for Eli!!!

So he was named and subsequently born and I brought him home from the hospital during the first snowfall in Boston that year, and I sat in the car next to his car seat and looked down at him bundled up in the little green, quilted bunting I had bought for him, and he reminded me of Maggie from the Simpsons – pale, golden hair. Puffy, heart-shaped lips. My little winter star baby. And I loved him immensely and wondrously and was suddenly glad to have him.Star Boy

And now eighteen years have merrily rolled along. And all that time he has been my second son, but also my happy little elf and a sweet shining star within our family. Instinctively, he is merry and bright. And perhaps more remarkably, unusually patient and undemanding. Throughout his entire childhood, while events were planned and carried out virtually non-stop for Jacob, Eli never complained when he had to wait his turn. And if things turned out disastrously with Jacob and we were no longer wanting to try them again with Eli, (soccer, baseball, boy scouts, the IB program, French, just to name a few), then we didn’t, and not once did Eli whine or fuss or say, “But what about ME!???”

When three more girls arrived in the years after him, and I was sick and overwhelmed and then eventually somewhat back to normal but now glorying in the girlness of THEM, he loved on them, too, and rarely demanded my time or attention apart from daily necessities.

And now he is eighteen! Emancipated! And I, the no longer legally necessary parent, ruminate over how much I miss his little boy smile and how he could jump straight up onto the couch’s arm from a both-feet-side-by-side standing position and then literally crawl up the door frames and hang upside down, smiling at us. I miss him wandering around the kitchen every school day morning (after asking him to get some lettuce for his bearded dragon) yelling bewilderedly, “What’s a bin?” “Huh?” “Where’s the bin?” I miss him drawing endless circles in his Blues Clues notebook, and spelling out “I WANT TO GO HOME” with his French fries on restaurant tables, and how the one time (the ONLY TIME) I took him out on a ‘date’ all on his own to Claim Jumper when he was about eight, we both ordered hot fudge sundaes and by the time they arrived he had slumped over in the booth, sound asleep.

I miss that little Star Boy, who good-naturedly followed his older brother on every adventure and whim, but who lit up our whole family with light and sweetness and early morning happiness.

From the moment I realized his name and brought him home in his star bunting in the snow, Eli felt like my very own little Christmas Elf, born both merry and bright, brimming over with enthusiastic energy and love.

Meanwhile I, the mother, am rarely merry and almost never brim over with anything but indigestion. Which was exactly the scenario the other night as I lay in bed, grumpy and malaised, contemplating abandoning my country once and for all Von-Trapp style, when Eli burst into the house after riding his bike home from high school choir practice.

“Mama!” he cried, rushing into my room. “Come and see the stars! They’re so beautiful!” His cheeks were bright red from being out in the crisp night air and his blue eyes – how they twinkled (that doesn’t seem technically true, but it paints a picture, doesn’t it?)

He came to my bedside while I hemmed and hawed and coughed and chortled and stood there practically boucing upright with excitement. “Come on, Mama, you need to see this, it’s incredible!”

So I followed him outside in my nightgown, trailing this suddenly tall, grown, man-boy, and we stood under the stars, and he laughed with delight and happiness at how bright they were, how many you could see, look up, look up, isn’t that so incredible, Mama?

And it was! The quiet hush of night wrapped around us. The cool, wintery air brought us closer together. His golden-reddish hair glistened against the shimmering stars overhead. The moment seemed immense and wondrous and I was suddenly so very glad to have him, there by my side.

Eighteen is a big milestone. It is like turning the page on a whole new chapter of your life. Yet I have no party planned as of now, no presents purchased. All I have is a birthday wish for my second son on his eighteenth year: that he knows this. All of this, that I’ve just written down. That somehow this Mama, without even wishing on an actual evening star, got him. Him! My star boy, my second son.

Isn’t that so incredible?

 

 

 

 

 

Dab-a-Dab-a-Dab {twang}

01 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by CrimsonKirk in Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

babies, banjo, moms, mothers

IMG_1331Round and round the living room I twirl, squishy baby cheeks pressed near my heart, rockin’ a little girl, singing breathy bits till her eyes fall, heavy, heavy to sleep. “Three little birdies, outside my window, singing a sweet song, melody pure and true, this is my message to you…”

Sixteen years ago I was doing the exact same thing – dancing back and forth between the walls of a tiny house in Massachusetts, clutching a newborn next to my chest as if he were a swaddled little star dropped from the midst of the swirling heavens, padding back and forth in slippered feet, dropping whispers soft as snow, waiting for slumber.

For the last two weeks, here in Seattle, I have been watching my friend’s newborn little girl, Miss Abigail Rose. She seems such a doll-baby – soft, pink, perfect – her big, blue eyes opening and closing mysteriously, attuned to some other world still. LooktothestarsRoyalAbigailPrettyinpink

I take her picture all day long. Instant message tiny bites of her every action – smiling, napping, cooing – straight to her Mama, working away downtown. I recall the days when I had to drop off my babies in the early morning chill, wrench myself away to work, crying, blurring my mascara alone in the car. Each day trudging forward despite leaving my vitals behind. All day long watching the clock, wondering how my babies were faring (Sadly, no one could IM me pictures of them back then, before iPhones and such).littlewomen

Today my children are nearly grown. Nowadays they march out the door each morning while I’m the one who stays behind, half-dressed, wondering when they will return. What’s a career mom to do when she no longer needs to ‘mother’ full-time? Like so many other folks, I am out of a job, and my prospects for securing new employment don’t look great. Over time my skill-set has whittled down to three main assets: 1) rocking newborns to sleep 2) playing the piano 3) turning cartwheels – none of which seem to be in great demand, nor command much of a salary anywhere at all. I suppose I might qualify for data entry somewhere, if I find the right clothes… brush my hair…hitch up my bra…lather myself with pluck and luck.

Yet suddenly, instead of looking for a job outside the house, work has come to me! A baby, who needs tending until her Grandma comes to town. I happily agree. What could be more ideal?

Immediately a time-warp sets in.  Round and round I spin, till I’m right back where I was at 24, walking the halls with a baby attached to me. Here I was thinking the end of mothering was near, but wonder of wonders, the path stretches before me once again – this land of blankies and binkies and pure, unblemished faces. And I begin again as eager and ill-prepared as I was eighteen years ago.

Every day I entertain my one year old boy with books and blocks and balls. Each day I dress up my itty-bitty girl in bonnets or scarves, pin-stripes or polka-dots. I teeter-totter between the two of them, back and forth, marveling at how I went anywhere or did anything when I had three…then twins….boy howdy, you forget what a lot of toil and energy young creatures require of their mothers!IMG_0946

Finally 4pm arrives, and Abigail’s mom or dad return to swoop her up with visible relief. They smother her with kisses and carry her home.

And I am left with little Lochlan, who screams, roves, claws at my pants-leg, begs to be carried now that ‘Dab-a-Dab-a-Dab’ (his version of ‘Abigail’) has departed.IMG_9876

He has me all to himself, or so it seems. Yet Eli swoops in, demanding food, telling me his high school was on ‘lockdown’ today, describing two big fights at lunch, begging me to find his Crew clothes and make him jam toast, please, please, please?

Annalise arrives with oboe in hand, clutching permission slips to be signed, texting her friends, searching for scissors and tape, ribbon and glue. In no time at all her shoes are embalmed in glitter glue, her hair braided then unwound, Grape Juice spilled all over her bed, every last possession thrown hither and yon, overturned, upended, searching for what’s previously been thrown to the floor.

Juliet, Katriel, and Holland run circles through the downstairs, begging to hold the baby, begging for snacks, begging for help with homework or tying shoes. They want help finding badminton rackets, a pencil sharpener, band aids, some crayons, Katriel’s library book, Holland’s lost baggie of goldfish crackers, Mia’s phone number…on and on it goes. These little women argue over who pulls the train for Lochlan, who changes the baby’s diaper, who gets more strawberries in their bowl, who stirs the macaroni without spilling any, who can hold the baby…now, now, now!IMG_0934IMG_0936IMG_1304

Jacob wanders in and out the front door as I lead my fragile charges between couches and beds and bouncy chairs like horses to and from their stalls. I slice bananas, change diapers, find blankets, warm bottles, all while he and his new girlfriend swoosh past me, hand in hand, coming and going who know’s where? I try to smile. Say hello. Pull up my pants, play the part. Wonder if this grown child of mine is actually going to his job, doing his school work, showing up for class, being responsible?

One morning the nurse from the elementary school calls.  Juliet’s sick. Stomach cramps, appendicitis, she really can’t say. Tells me she’s pale and shaky with lots of pain. I worry that it’s ileus – a kink in the intestines (which she’s had before) and sigh. Here I thought that was behind us! (Or is it staring us in the face once again?)

Babies are stuffed into buntings, shoes are pulled from beneath sofa cushions, pants are buttoned, coats zipped, cuffs rolled up, bottles collected, car keys located, then off we go – haltingly, baby-step by baby-step, out the door, yet it feels like so much more – like an expedition is underway, a great, big, vast journey, and I’m the unwitting guide, forced to carry gear and act knowledgeable and remember facts and locate essentials and enforce safety and explain patiently and still push this tribe forward, step by tiny step.

Damon appears at dinnertime; Lochlan and Holland head home; I am done. My back hurts from carrying babies, my head hurts from all the noise, my inner self longs for quiet and stillness. I head upstairs, while Damon starts dinner.

After a bit Katriel knocks on my door. She finds me lying on top of the massive piles of unfolded laundry scattered over my bed. “Do you want to read me a story?” she asks, with the innocent chirp of a nine-year-old. “No,” I mutter. “I’m so tired. I need to rest for a bit.”

“Would you like me to pat your head?” she offers sweetly. “We could watch ‘Good Luck Charlie’ together.” I nod. This actually sounds nice. Katriel crawls over the laundry and settles in next to me, while I flop my head onto a pillow resting atop her tummy.

After a minute or so Katriel stops running her fingers through my hair and says sheepishly, “Mom, your hair is really greasy and dirty…when is the last time you had a bath?”

I sigh. “I don’t know. How many days since Dab-a-Dab-a-Dab’s been here?”

“Um…she’s been here over a week, Mom! Gross!” Katriel groans. “You need to get in the tub, pronto!”

I tell her I’m too tired. “Come on, I’ll make the tub nice and warm for you,” she says, tugging gently on my hand.

I follow her downstairs and force myself into the warm water. Katriel brings me a towel from the dryer. Then she carries in a little step stool and places it next to the tub. “Here’s your wine,” she says, carefully setting a full glass of wine down with a flourish. “And wait, there’s more! I said I was going to make it nice, but I’m really going to make it super nice, just for you!”

Katriel next appears with two candles, which she lights and sets next to the wine on the step stool. Then she says, “Would you like me to play for you now?”

“Yes, please!” I feel immensely better already. My girl scampers off and returns with a banjo slung over her chest. She sits herself down on the toilet lid and begins to strum out the one chord she knows, over and over. After awhile she is singing along to the up-and-down twang. And this is what she sings, word for word:

Mommy’s in the tub

Washing her hair

With soap and stuff

That spreads around

Like an oil spill

Where duckies swim

Amidst it all…

Till people come

And scoop them up

And clean them off

With soap and stuff

Just like Mommy soaking

in the tub…

Here she stops to breathe and I beg her never to stop. This moment needs to linger, both in real-time and in memory.

Of course eventually she grows tired, and I exit the tub, only to dash, naked, out to the computer desk to copy down her lyrics. Then I head straight back to bed. I throw all of the clean clothes onto the floor and crawl under the covers. Katriel returns clutching a book and slides in beside me.

“Now I will read you a story,” she declares triumphantly, waving her library book in my face. “But wait! First you should brush out your hair so you don’t get tangles, right, Mom?” I nod reluctantly. “Don’t worry,” she says…”I will wait for you.”

I do as instructed and brush out my hair. Then Katriel tucks the covers around me once again and says, “This book is called ‘The End of the Beginning’ by Avi, and it is all about the adventures of a small snail and an even smaller ant.”

I put my head back on my daughter’s tummy and listen to her read:

“The two adventurers were going along. Avon was singing.

“Stop!” cried Edward. “We’ve reached the end of the branch.”

With great care the two creatures edged to the very tip. From there they looked out at the cloudless sky.

“The end of the branch,” said Avon, mostly to himself.

“The beginning of the sky,” said Edward, mostly to himself.

“Which is it?” asked Avon. “The beginning or the end?”

“It depends on what there’s more of, the tree or the sky…Think of all the things that get in your way along the branch – leaves, bark, other creatures, a million things to slow you down. Now look at the sky.”

Avon looked. “There’s nothing there.”

“Exactly. Which means that it will take longer to climb the branch. And if it takes longer, the branch must be bigger. And if the branch is bigger than the sky, that means we’re at the sky’s end, but only at the beginning of the branch.”

“You mean,” asked Avon, quite amazed, “that after all this time, we’re just beginning?” I had no idea how far you have to go before you can start. Almost makes me want to stop.”

“You can’t do that, either,” said Edward severely.

“Why?”

“Can’t very well stop if you haven’t started, can you?”

“Edward,” cried Avon, “I never knew how important it was to start before you begin.”

And turning around, they began.

Lying in my warm cocoon, I begin to drift away. With my eyes closed I listen as her sweet, pure voice continues on…

Cik, cik, cik, cik, cik, cik.

“What’s that?” asked Avon.

“A cricket,” explained Edward. “Isn’t it irritating the way all crickets sing the same song? That’s the trouble with most creatures. They have no creativity. They do the same thing, the same way, day in, day out, from parent to child, without ever doing anything differently.”

…my littlest girl, now – right now – perches at the end of her own beginning! Merrily she turns the page on a new adventure. And I am at peace. IMG_4808

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