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| Koopa and I play during our St. Stephen's Day 1/2 inch of snow. |
Did I mention that it's incredibly hard to blog while school is in session? Like, so hard that blogging is only one of a long list of things that get shoved aside to do during holidays and breaks.. Also on that list is "have fun and quality time with family" and that mission was thoroughly accomplished during the break, despite that we didn't leave the state.
We hit up the Pueblo Zoo over break, on a day that the temperature was in the 60s and the sun shone out bravely.
Check out the lion cubs!! The Pueblo Zoo recently welcomed lion triplets! They were hilarious to watch, especially as their mom because increasingly frustrated trying to round them all up. She ended up transporting them one at a time by mouth, only to find that the other two had dispersed again!
Something that you need to know about our family if you're going to be current with our doings is that Robert has become an informal part of our family. This is partly because he lives down the street and is Miles' VERY BEST FRIEND. And, it is partly because his family, whom we love, has been struggling. His dad has some serious health problems, so we often are happy to have Robert come be with us if it helps his Mom go to work, or take care of his dad. So Robert was a part of a lot of our winter break and is a regular feature in our weekends. Sometimes Adele gets a little third-wheel-itus! But most of the time, they're successful at including baby sister in their games.
The next day, the temperature soared into the 70s! So we hit up Lake Pueblo for some nature rambles.
This is really one of my favorite places in Pueblo.
Made it! I'm so out of shape, folks. I've kind of resigned myself to it, until late February/March when I intend to resume running. There just isn't enough light at this time of year, when one works from 8-5.
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| There was plenty of light on this holiday afternoon, though. |
Adele had my adoring eye on her like the whole time, with her new Marvel dress and her Shirley Temple curls (she got foam rollers for Christmas).
Lake Pueblo is unearthly; I wish I could take every one of you there.
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| These bizarre-o eels might be my favorite. They're like three inches tops, and they remind me of the souls of the mer-people that Ursula stole. |
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| Loved this pensive pacing bear |
Mr. Lion gave us a good show!
After we left the zoo, Joel and Bri showed us another Denver treasure: Cousin Christopher’s food truck! Joel’s step-brother has moved to Denver and started a Western NY themed food truck! Complete with buffalo wings, garbage plates, and salt potatoes, all absolutely the therapy for a cold day spent outdoors. You get to eat in the nearby brewery, so of course we took advantage of that too! I told them I finally felt like I was on holiday. Thanks Joel and Bri!!
A couple more zoo photos:
School went ahead and started on the 3rd, 10th day of Christmas notwithstanding. I made one more batch of sugar roll-outs for Epiphany, though!
Well now. I’m well into January and nearly to a second semester at the middle school. If you want to know, it’s hard. It still just skins me alive to manage so many young people all day. Most days it takes more patience than I have. I could fill your ear with opinions about the shortcomings of education in America, but I’ll leave it at this: our classes are too big. 30-32 11 and 12 year olds is too many in a small room. It feels almost like my first year all over again. I have been emotionally all over the map, from internalizing my self-hatred over my lack of patience and insufficient compassion for the kids (many of whom come from heartbreaking family and economic situations), to wanting to escape and struggling to be present, to bitterness, to this stubborn determination that keeps me showing up with optimism every single day.
Ultimately, I do see this as a huge opportunity to not only learn to be the kind of teacher that can really bless my students, but also to grow as a person. I am finding more and more that there IS a gap between stimulus and response, that you can notice that gap and expand it and be so present in that gap that you can truly choose your response to even a very provoking situation. I am returning to my prayers.
In the evenings, I walk Koopa under a sky that’s now a little lighter every night, and I sometimes escape into podcasts, sometimes pour out my day to the sky, sometimes just enjoy the quiet and the complete lack of anyone needing anything from me. One night, I saw an owl!
My #oneword for 2018 is open. I think I always need to remember the joy and freedom that comes from openness to the moment one is in. Anxiety wants you to preserve your safety by remaining closed off: to new experiences, to others, to the present moment. This year will probably demand new kinds of openness; every day at school already requires it.
In good news: Jon has submitted a draft of his dissertation to his committee!! This is a huge milestone for us; pray for smooth sailing through the revision process! He got an assistantship so we wouldn’t have to pay tuition this semester, but who knows about summer! We’re hoping it’ll be all finished by then.
(Finally a little bit of snow has come today, to make it feel a little bit like January. It may amount to half an inch.)
And whither then? We cannot say.
(We are on the second to last chapter of The Return of the King! 15 months later)
Above, the cue cards I ended up making for Mary, the one cast member who couldn't seem to memorize her lines. Below, the cast waits patiently for their turn to preach the gospel to the congregation!
This year, I decided that if I was going to be directing the pageant for the second year in a row, I was also going to write the script. Over Thanksgiving, I banged out what I thought should be in the pageant: a prophecy from Isaiah, references to Jesus' family's poverty and obscurity within the Empire, a visit from Elizabeth, portions of the Magnificat and absolutely no Magi. Those are Epiphany characters, for one thing, and for another, there are never enough children to fill all those roles at our little church. So we stuck with Luke 1 & 2. 
Adele's first line was, "Hail favored one!" She recited all three of her multi-sentence lines perfectly! Miles' several lines were likewise flawless. The only cast member who ended up needing support, in fact, was Mary, and the cue cards did do the trick perfectly. 
Every year at Christmas, I have some moment of perfect happiness. Sometimes, it's more than one. Often, this happens at the late night service on Christmas Eve, or it might occur while making cookies or while caroling or while reading A Christmas Carol. This year, the pageant was it; that whole service was bliss. I just gazed at Mary, at her sweet and solemn and uncertain face, at the Christ Child (beloved childhood doll of the narrator, Myracle), at the frolicking sheep and swaying angels, and at the delighted smiles on the congregation's faces, and felt that it doesn't get any better on this earth. You can never hold on to that kind of happiness; all you can do is notice it when it comes and remember it when it's moved on. You can make yourself feel anything, which is a lesson I've been a long time in learning. But you had better notice what you feel, especially if what you feel is this kind of awe and joy. 
I have been to four services, including a very joyful one today, Christmas Day, and the "midnight" (10:00) service at which the choir sang fit to burst the rafters, but nothing has equalled this one. I told the kids before we started, "you guys are preaching today. You are the sermon. Your job is to tell everyone the good news today, so make sure you show them with your faces and your bodies that it's good news!" and they delivered. I put a calypso "Mary's Boy Child" at the end and with a lot of encouragement, I got them to dance around some while they sang. Even the sheep capered around really blithely. 
And we took a rushed family photo so as to get it into the Christmas card the first Sunday of Advent. The ornaments aren't even on. Amusingly, the rush was completely unnecessary, as the photos ended up being delivered to our apartment in Newport Terrace in Blacksburg. I'm still waiting for them to be re-routed and arrive in Colorado. We could have gotten a better photo than that, but I'm actually pretty impressed I made cards at all, given that this is the first December that I've been teaching since having kids.
