number the stars

99th post.
365 days of blogging.
90th day of substitute teaching!
21 days until I leave LA for about 121 days...

for the last 2 weeks I have been working with a special education class at Hollywood High and I know this might sound cliche-- but they taught me so much. I spent the first several days feeling like I was going to explode, or lose it, or kill them, or crumble in a crying heap on the floor in utter defeat. But I made it!! And we learned a lot from each other I think. I challenged them quite a bit, demanding a "crazy" amount of work from them, and I made sure they had fun, and respected me and each other and the aides in the room... and now I actually miss them a little bit. The best day was when I brought in the game Taboo and we played that by a very modified set of rules that included being able to say ALL of the 'taboo words' and actually say the main word out loud but in slow motion... They loved it.

Then the past 2 days I have been working with sixth graders in a sort of honors program at a public middle school designed by Richard Neutra. I have gotten to listen to 120 presentations on "Building a Healthy Relationship" where the kids had to make a wheel with 8 sections describing "what you need to have a healthy relationship." Big hits were- "communication," "loyalty," "trust," "love," and "patience." My favorites were: "rememberance-- remembering the things that someone you love tells you and their birthday and stuff," "personal leisure time, or space-- so that you don't lose your mind and you do your own thing because couples who spend all their time together are boring and then you don't have anything to tell your boyfriend or girlfriend about," and "time-- you can't have a great relationship after only 1 day, it takes time, and you need to spend time hanging out, like for 5 years." Those are actual quotes. Wow, 5 years is almost half of those kids' lives.
If only all the confused 20-something year-olds I know could remember what they may have known so viscerally at eleven... what happens in those 15 or so years? It would actually be a compliment to say that some of the behavior is "childish"...

As much as it makes me crazy I am really grateful to these kids I get to teach. Yep, you guess where this is going...
they keep teaching me. SO much.
Swell.

april showers

The best way out is always through.
Robert Frost

I had a flicker of this quote in my head all week and searching for it in all of Frost's perfection I came upon a few others I love.

Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.

Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.

April showers bring May flowers

that saying came into my head in the middle of the night last night/this morning. In the semi-conscious state I was in it actually made me feel better. symbols and sayings. metaphors are everywhere if you look for em, and the choice is up to you whether you go positive or negative. The little things that can make a person smile and feel so much better.
Little roses everywhere if you only look for em. Deep breath and the smell is sweetly yours.
Another saying that that April one made me think of is the one on the outside of the big salt cylinder,-- "Mortons" ??
"When it rains it pours," with the forlorn little girl strggling against the wind and rain.
Sometimes a person might feel that way too and then it can be harder to find the sweet spots hiding behind every moment.
If you are in deep, a slump that is, the only cure I find to work is whole body. Whole body laughter. Whole body holding of another person. Whole body dancing. Or swimming.
Hmmm, off I go.