Kazzy 5 comments

beginning the end


See that red chair?  That's where I'll be sitting on Thursday as I cue the kiddos on their speaking and singing parts in our program we hold in our classroom at the end of the school year.  They'll stand and sit and hold signs and recite nursery rhymes and even shake maracas.  The parents will cry, and so will I.  Because even though I am ready for the next things that will happen this Summer, I am not necessarily ready for my little friends to leave.

So weird the way change is what makes this job so invigorating and excruciating at the same time.  I'll worry about C, and wonder if he is learning how to solve his little problems.  I'll keep in touch with some whose mothers have asked for a continued connection.  It's always an interesting thing.

These chairs will be packed with grandmas and little sisters and camera bags.  I'll try and put my mind elsewhere as I stand and say how much I love the kids.  Ugh.  That's a hard part.  Then after the singing and clapping and bowing we will eat little frosted animal cookies and undoubtedly spill some punch on the carpet and take lots of pictures.  I will be in many of them.  Some will end up in scrapbooks and others will not.  I am not always remembered, and I am used to that now.  It doesn't matter.  We do what we can in the time we have.

We are both limited and unlimited.  It is the way of things.
Kazzy 6 comments

Is this thing on?

Between my 47 (yes, you read that right) IEP meetings this month and my home for sale and my teenagers and allergies and a few other things going on, phew, I have been absent from the blogosphere.  But, oh, how I have missed checking in with friends and having this place to write about what matters to me.

Today marks a year since we lost our little granddaughter.  I still feel the weight of that baby in my arms as I held her and whispered that I loved her. She has taught us a lot over these months, even though she was only with us for a few hours.

But even more than little Olive, today I think of my daughter-in-law and how much I love her.  And how much my son loves her. We could have lost her if things had turned a different way.  She is healing.  We all are.  Life is good and families are forever.



We are planning a road trip to Mecca this Summer.  Mecca = The Outer Banks, NC.  Where we go as an extended family to regenerate every couple of years.  There will be sun and sand and crab, and we will be happy there.  I am literally counting down the days until we go and I get a change of venue.  And the count is down to 111 days.

I can smell the water.  I can hear it.  Feel it.


Kazzy 12 comments

too quiet to hear anything


Sometimes being still is a real chore.
Sometimes I want to solve things.
To fix it.

I don't believe God only answers us with a voice still and small.
I believe many, if not most, of my answers have come while I have been in the middle of an action.
He either says, "Nope.  Not quite." Or he says, "Almost." Or sometimes even, "You got it."

I can't always hear when it's quiet.
I have felt bad about that at certain points in my life.
Like when people in church talk about these very sweet experiences of gentle revelation.
But then I realize that it is the personal nature of the communication that counts.  
I don't talk to my mom the same way I do to my sister or my friends.
They each need to hear me differently.  

My answers and promptings and discussions are tailor-made for me and my own personality and needs.





Kazzy 5 comments

flurries on rewind

Teacher Development Day today.



I am taking my lunch break. I sit here at the computer eating my buttered egg noodles and I look eastward out my classroom window.  What is it about a blustery, snowy day that makes me nostalgic?

I just had a flash of memory of living in CA and coming to Utah to visit family during the Winter.  My little boys had matching purple and black coats, and I would bundle them up for their rare visits with the white stuff.  They would usually just stand in it and look at me like they were asking, "What now, Mommy?" It was obviously foreign.

Or the time I was sliding on the ice when I was about 13 and a friend said he would kiss me if he caught me, so I put the gas on.  A few strides later I fell on a board that had frozen in the pond.  Two nails sticking out.  15 stitches needed.  But I must admit that he was very gallant as we waited for my dad-hero to come get me and take me to the hospital.

Nothing deeper than these memories.  Oh, and a melancholy sigh.  And now back to work.





Kazzy 13 comments

the business of change

Been forever.



We have listed our home for sale. I had forgotten how much time and emotional attention it takes to sell a house.  Every darn room has memories floating around in it.  I can't even write the feelings I have when I walk around in here.  But Geo and I have both felt sure that we are supposed to go in this new direction.  We won't go far, but we feel like we do indeed need to go.  19 years in this neighborhood brings nostalgia, but also a bit of restlessness.  In addition, we have felt like it is time for another family to enjoy this splendid neighborhood.  To raise their kids where they can walk to the elementary school, the store, the church, the park.  All of a sudden I feel like the house is almost pushing us away.

Strange how it is hard to cook, to go out and exercise, to keep in touch with friends, read blogs, to tend to regular things when you start to allow yourself to relocate, even emotionally only.  Distractions upon distractions.  It almost becomes paralyzing, not so much because of the busyness that comes with prepping a home to sell, but because your mind is fractured and random and offline.

If we don't get a bite here we will recommit and dig back in, happily.

Strange, the way we need to be so flexible in such a firm and sturdy thing as a home.


Kazzy 5 comments

This Wonderful World

I wish you all could come to my classroom on December 19th and see my little specials do their Christmas program.  You would understand why I love my job.  You would understand the innocence of children a little more.  You would understand why I cried when they each held up their paintings as I sang Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World".



The thick brush strokes of red on the heart (..."they're really saying "I love you"...), and the yellow stars and moon on the black paper (...the bright blessed day and the dark sacred night...).  I felt so dumb and so tainted and so concerned and consumed with worldly things while I thought about what really matters.

People.
Trust.
Honesty.
Covenants.
Love.

It's all good.

Kazzy 15 comments

Silenced

You're looking at (no longer listening to)
a big-time copyright infringer who has been shut down.
A guest post from Kazzy's husband, Gideon Burton.

Kazzy isn't too happy today. Her voice is being silenced, literally, by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Today she received a notice from Blogger that someone had complained of her infringing upon copyright. If she doesn't remove the copyrighted material from her blog it will be shut down. So, she's complying. After nearly 800 posts and many years, she doesn't want to put her blog at risk.
more
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)