Day # 181: A glance back at grief

#181

I just took down my show.  It feels a little like Christmas, a little disappointing.  

This photo reminds me of a game we used to play at birthday parties when we were young.  Everyone would take something they had on them or in a pocket and put the item on a tray.  Everyone would study the tray for a bit.  Then one person would be blindfolded.  Another person would chose an item and say "heavy heavy, hangs over your head, what does the owner do to redeem it?"  and the blind folded person would have to think up a stunt for that person to do.  I think I hated the game.  I don't remember, I just remember studying those trays.   I also think that when it was my turn I tried really hard to perceive whose item it was so I could make the task appropriate to that person.  

I wrote again this morning.  I will go to the Bookmill again tomorrow and complete the Indiegogo write up.  I do need a video.    But I can do it with my webcam.   I'm excited, I may actually get this up so that my timeline of being completed by January 1st will happen.  Keep you fingers crossed.

6/30/2010

Five years ago I was trying to care about my work.  I really cared about my students, and I cared about doing a good job on my program, but I needed to focus on my Mom.  I drove down there weekly.  The flower picture was taken outside Mom's bedroom window.  My sister had planted beautiful lilies there for her to see from her bed.  I think because of the conflicting feelings and the pressures I went into shock for the rest of the year.  When grief overtakes like that, when grief dominates a person, they don't really know it, they believe they can just push it away, but that is not what happens.  I became walking dead and finally in December fell ill.  It was awful.  Our culture needs to make room for grief.  Pay attention, it is important to your health to pay attention to grief.

Unlike today; I am very alive and present in my body.  In some ways I am too aware of my feelings, but I am going with the idea that one cannot be too aware.  

Day #180: Learning to see through each other's lens.

# 180

Is that a Japanese sky?  I spent the last forty-five minutes trying to take the moon.  It is almost full and has blue sky behind it with many clouds scattered over the sky.  Every time I thought I could do it clouds covered it and then the sky began to turn this color.  So you get the melon colored sky instead of the almost full moon.  

The Coop was full of friends tonight for dinner.  It is also the last night of my show.  I really like the show, it is too bad it is only up for a month.  But alas, maybe someone else will ask if they can show it at their place.  You never know.

I went to the Bookmill to write today.  It felt so good to have a computer to write with.  The main reason for that was that I got to do some more research.  I found a timeline of the history of adoption policy since 1870.   When you just look at bullets of acts pass and you don't understand the data that caused the act to come up and get passed, you miss half the history.   If you put the time line next to the time line my women's stories tell, they would show very different things.  Throughout the time line though, they bullet research that was done on adoptees and the negative impact adoption had on the majority of them, and yet the policies seem to move more and more towards relinquishment and not in helping families stay together.  Why is that?  Is it economically more feasible to break families up?  Is it that we cannot figure out how to help people learn to live less abusive lives?  Or does it have absolutely nothing to do with social policy?  I am curious to figure it out.  Who makes the laws or passes the acts in the end?  Mainly state governments and judges who tend to be white males.  Yes, I am curious about all of it.

Day # 179: Celebrating A Life

 

#179

In 1978 I came as a researcher for Dr. Dalton Miller-Jones to the Gill Elementary School and was taught to embrace children for who they were.  I was taught to figure out what their strengths as learners were, to teach towards them.  I was taught that people learned best when they were interactive and when they cared about what they were learning.

Today I was at a celebration of life of one of that team I came to work with in 1978.  Many of the original people were there this evening, many of those children, now in their mid thirties were there and many grown students of mine who continue the tradition of respecting children were there.  

I am so full, and I am so over the top with emotion from the lens of a 25 year old, idealistic, fresh from a college where learning was nurtured, placed into a family, a superb elementary school where I learned to be a very good teacher.  The place where I learned to do it right, to learn the tenets that make me love GCS and also make me know as a 62 year old I will never go back into education or human services because the government has made it so you cannot teach to these tenets, nor can you serve children or people in the way they need to be served.  It is not a matter of lack of knowledge, it is a matter of being hog-tied and told no, I will never go back.

Granddaughters dancing in celebration of their grandmother's life.

R.I.P. Reenie Wood and thank you for beeing a steady and stable member of several teams I worked with throughout the years.  You were loved and appreciated.  

Day #178: ROYGBIV

#178

At first we believed that there was some sort of toxic spill, and we couldn't imagine what would cause the colors we were seeing.  And then we remembered the rainbow run and the Supreme Court and .... but we still don't know what they used to make the colored powder.  When cars drove through it it rose in huge clouds.  It was an amazing sight.

Both of these flower photos were taken in Edite's garden.  It is an oasis on a main street.  You sit in the garden and you could be in the most rural spot, but you are not, you are in an enchanted garden.  I'm going to make a calendar from my Edite garden photos for sure.

 I don't remember my fortune from tonight's cookie. Something about wealth in friendships... something I do not take for granted, but it got lost in the other noncommittal statements.

Day # 177: Infatuation with Family

#177

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

I was explaining to your great granddaughter, Zoe, that your real name was Augustus Sherrill Whiton Jr., but everyone called you Pete.  "Why, Lindy?"  "His grandmother, Zizi called him Pete."  "Why?"

I don't know, I can't believe it, I don't know why Zizi called you that, but throughout her journals she refers to you as Petie.  Anyway, you would have been 97 today, that would be following your 68th wedding anniversary.

6/26/2010

Five years ago today I was in Pt. Reyes Station, Ca.  with Emma.  The trip was wonderful.  There was a reunion of my Mom's family and we had all gathered at a beach on Tomales Bay.  We had such a sense of family.  Even Emma claimed my cousin's grandsons as her own cousins.  The three kids explored and I caught up with my cousins who I had not seen in 8 years at that point.  I always feel as though I am family there in that spot.  It is both sharing similarities, discovering the influence of genetics and it is the place, Pt. Reyes.  I feel centered there.  I'm in my comfort zone.  

                                     6/26/2011

6/26/2015

Zoe may grow up to think about us all the way I feel about Pt. Reyes.  She will at least always identify this swing as family.   

Day # 176: Tired But Happy

#176

It is just seven and I am so tired, so very tired.  We spent a couple hours in the lake today and it was very pleasant but I forget how tired it makes me to play with children in the water.  And now as we relax at home all I want to do is crawl up into my bed with a book and read.  

6/2010

Two kinds of swimmers.  Swimmer was Emma's pet duck.  Swimmer was an incredible pet for a nine year old.   He talked to her all the time.  Once when we brought Swimmer home from a Vet hospital and she was nervous in the back seat, Emma sang to her and pet her and she went right off to sleep. One of the most beautiful moments of my life, I swear to it.  They both were so in touch.  Sweet girls.

If clouds hadn't blown in I would have stayed in the water with Zoe for much longer, but both Emma and I got cold and came out, wrapped ourselves up in towels and sat and watched Zoe dive for beautiful rocks for another 40 minutes.  Do you remember those days?  That time in life when diving into a clear lake and finding bright orange rocks, scooping them up and bringing them to shore was just an ecstatic activity.  I want to do it again tomorrow.

Lost Daughters   a link to a good article today.  Anyone interested in adoption should read it.  Often Lost Daughters has important insightful work.  I love following it..

Day # 175: Hangin' With Zoe

#175

I was eight in 1961.  I played Little Buttercup in H.M.S. Pinafore in the third grade.  Zoe is eight in 2015 and in someways will enter third grade a whole lot more sophisticated than I was.  But in other ways not.  I don't think I ever thought I would be more than 50 years older than someone in those days.  I don't think I ever thought I would be 50, but here I am with a beautiful great niece who has the same joi de vive that her grandmother had in the sixties.  What a joy she is.  

I let Zoe take most of the pictures today, but here are a few I took.   It was a wonderful afternoon.

The creek was an interesting shade of brown and the reflections were very bright.

And here she is trying to pass as her great aunt Lindy.

Alright, so much has happened this week and my brain takes it in but I am not processing it all.  I will have to put it in words sooner rather than later, but for now we are going to have to settle for looking at beauty through photographs.   The one thing I do want to say is that The Discovery Center in Turners Falls, Ma.  is a wonderful place to bring kids.  Zoe and I had a great time figuring out which birds were which and she learned how water comes out of the mountains and flows into creeks, rivers and the ocean.  Then we went and visited the creek.  She learned that mosquitoes are abundant at the creek.

Day #174: Approaching storms

# 174

Would have been my parent's 68th wedding anniversary today and it is my great niece, Anna Cole's 14th birthday. Time marches.

This is the sky over a half hour this evening. No tornado, but drama off to the Northwest.  Pretty spectacular.

For some reason thunder reminds me of my mother.  It used to frighten me. Back in the summer of 1975 Mom and I lived in a log cabin in the middle of a huge cow pasture in Marlboro, Vt.  When the storms would come we could watch them move up the valley.  The view looked all the way back to Springfield, Ma.  One night we all watched search lights on top of Mt. Tom and thought UFOs were landing.

During that summer I stopped being automatically scared of the storm.  My brother, Geoff and I sat in the hallway of the cabin while the lightening struck all around us and we learned to figure out how far away the storm was.

Found no rainbow throughout this, just this berry bush in my backyard.  Berries were really sweet.

Day #173: Summer Is Official

#173

Alice called out my name when I walked into the market today.  She is so cute.  I do love children.

It is official, summer is on and we are talking trips to go places to swim.  I have to get my car fixed and write though.  I can't just go play with all the kids.  I'm such a pushover.  

Was there something off astrologically today?  

I didn't think that during the day at all.  The day was kind of wonderful and we managed to get most of Emma's Cosplay outfit on sale and made up of clothes she'll wear everyday and she had a really good time doing it.  This is a kid who does not necessarily like clothes shopping, but today was a success.  She then sang a song with her Dad at an open mic and did a great job.  That was fun.  

But everyone else had drama and bad things happening to them, so I ask again, was something bad happening astrologically?   

Day # 172: A little something on a Sunday

#172

I think I wrote something for Fathers Day last year and never posted it. It had something to do with mixed feelings, but to tell you the truth I miss my Dad.  My scanned photos of him were lost in the computer crash, I'm going to have to rescan some.  Anyway, to all you fathers, happy day.

 http://www.thelostdaughters.com/2015/06/exposing-roots-family-history-community.html

This is the first thing I read this morning.  I really admire this woman and her writing.  I think it is worth going to.  In case it doesn't work it is on the Lost Daughters website.

I was just taken to dinner for a father celebration.  Dinner was superb and so was the company.  Really good food.  Really good.

       

Day #171: Mutton and Mead

#171

This was a day to remember for awhile. Besides the fact that the weather was rather wonderful, so were the activities.  I worked the farmers market this morning and did not make a penny.  But everyone loved my new poster and I did come up with another good idea.  So it'll happen, I think.

Mutton and Mead is a Medieval Faire.  Emma was in the cast this year.  There is a play that is going on in an ad libbed way throughout the fair, plus there are events and activities, such as jousting, mud wrestling, tavern singing and belly dancing.  In the picture below Emma is dancing with another member of the cast.  There are a group of members of the Shire who are teaching people to dance.  It was really fun.   

2 more members

Mutton and Mead are having a photo contest on their website, too.  I took about five hundred and fifty photos today, probably five hundred of them at the fair.  I narrowed them down to about thirty five that I really like.  How many can I safely enter into the photo contest?  How do I figure out which ones to submit?  

I had my hair done in a french classic braid placed on top of my head.  And I got kind of a sunburn on my face.  I look different tonight

.

Day # 170: A Little Rant

#170

Two days before the Solstice.  It is perfect weather for it; 90* and breezy and clear.  But it does amaze me every year that the days will begin to get shorter and shorter and that in 12 days the year will be half over.  It is all part of that remarkable universe system, just keeps going around and around.

And us humans just keep making the same mistakes; we just keep repeating behaviours we know hurt us or hurt the world to one degree or another.  It makes little sense to me.  What needs to happen for people to really get the message?  A white boy goes into an old established black church where people are praying and shoots 9 parishioners.  How clear a message do we need to understand we have to do the work to change institutional cultural racism and we have to pay attention to mental illness.  We have to stop supporting war and reprioritize that money towards healing our society, from building youth centers and parks and organizing opportunities for children to have voice and to learn to know each other and each others' cultures and religions.  And we have to work on addressing mental illness as a societal issue. We have to discover compassion and find ways of addressing both the emotional and the chemical issues.   And we better do it soon.   

I did a photo shoot on the Bridge of Flowers in Shelburne Falls today.  I built my inventory for the Bernardston Farmers Market tomorrow.  It was productive and fun.  

Day #169: 365 Day Project

#169

Today started off as a complete and dedicated work day, but along about three o'clock I picked Emma up to go write at the Bookmill and it turned into a photo day.  I took a lot of pictures today of a lot of different things.  It was really fun.  I also ate hotdogs with a fun group of kids.  

Large tag sale supporting a town skate board park.

I did write, but I am so tired at the moment I am going to forgo posting my writing and tomorrow night I will post double and not as many photographs.