what is important

"Anything that is essential is invisible to the eyes."

-via the Little Prince

Bertie Merrigan Miller

More glamorous than any movie star- My father described her as a 'wow' mom, as in when she walked in the room everyone noticed. My beloved grandmother died this week. She was 93 years old and did not have a line on her face. She laughed a lot, she had an angelic soprano voice and she loved life. She was one of seven children, raised on a farm as the daughter of Norwegian immigrants. Her house was the first to get electricity in the village. She was a nurse, a musician, a mother, a wife, and she had tremendous influence on my life. She was a lady in every sense of the word, the epitome of grace. She moved to Colorado to watch my brother and I grow up, and for that I will always be grateful.
I was crying too hard to speak at her funeral, the words I was supposed to read blurred and felt empty, as I have not been in a Catholic church for a long time, I was surprised as the priest chose to speak not about dying, but about the power of love. I can believe in Heaven just so that I can know that she is there. If anyone deserves it, she does.
Some of the many things I remember about my grandmother.
She served real breakfast, with bacon and eggs and strawberry jam. She also did this strange thing where she put banana slices in a shallow bowl with fresh orange juice. This was served with a spoon, sort of like soup and the bananas sort of marinated and you ate each one like a treasure. She had scientific bird place mats, I would always look at the Latin and the little creatures and feel content that all things were categorized and thus order prevailed in the world at large.
When I walked in the house, my hair was immediately combed, and my part made perfectly down the middle of my head a la Marcia Brady with the other side of her elegant black comb. Lately I have found myself very concerned with the orientation of my part.
She caught me in a lie once, I was horrified at the severity of her guilt and never made that mistake again. Morality was paramount.
My grandmother wore gowns, not just dresses, but real evening gowns to balls. Even more exciting was that I got to try them on, and amid the silk and fur and sparkle feel like I was in a different generation.
She had her suits tailored and made just for her, I remember going with her and watching the ladies measure her tiny perfect waist.
She gave me a dress she told me was made for her to picnic in, what a glorious thing to have a dress exist explicitly for the magical purpose of a picnic. I wear it often, and it is eerie how well it fits me.
Her skills at making hors devours were legendary, and oh her pies. She was a woman unafraid of butter.
She taught me how to play cards, gin rummy was her favorite. We played for hours on end.
She let me bang happily away on her pots and pans, and since she was innately a musical creature this must have been torture for I have no such talent. Our favorite toy was a huge cardboard box, we even made little windows and doors and she kept it in the basement for us to play with.
She always had ice cream in the freezer. Mostly butter pecan, and bon bons. She let me eat bon bons whenever I wanted, and this simple fact was extraordinary.
She let me sleep in her huge bed with her, and I'd never experienced the combination of huge luxurious space coupled with a warm sweet smelling cuddler on the other side. I never wanted to get up.
She introduced me to musicals, and I was voracious for them.
She had the most wondrous marble bathtub, with a skylight above it and I used to soap up my little butt and slide from one end to the other. When I got out she would roll me up in fluffy pink towels and tell me I was snug as a 'bug in a rug' which doesn't sound appealing, but it was the best.
Our favorite pastime was walking. Little ponds and lakes dotted her neighborhood and we used to walk around them in loops, just talking. I wish now that I would have done less talking and more listening. This is a theme in my life I am realizing.
She had a certain shade of magenta geraniums in profusion on her back deck, and when I was younger thought she had somehow invented them, and they only existed there. They were always the exact same color. The smell of the leaves makes me smile.
Her nails were always perfect, mine mostly grubby. When mine are manicured ( for about 48 hours) I always think of her.
I will miss her forever, and feel so blessed that she was such a tremendous part of my life.
I love you grandma.

the wave of Web 2.0

I know that technology is the tsunami of the future, and I want to embrace it with open arms, but am wary of getting too much seawater in my lungs, not being able to surface and watching helplessly as the things I care about are swept away into oblivion. In this process I fear losing my humanity and becoming a Borg like in the old Star Trek. I know this may sound ridiculous, but I want to make sure that my life is not dictated by technology, I want to utilize it as a tool, albeit a very powerful, very useful tool. By definition this means sometimes it has to go back in the box. Otherwise what happens when there is a blackout? When our energy sources dry up? If we define web 2.0 as sites which advocate and facilitate open information sharing and streaming, it has enormous application. Blogs are amazingly powerful, as I have found out via this class, and as I mentioned previously I would love to use them in a creative writing class to engage the students in their own realm. If I were an adolescent today I know I would love to blog, to gain the freedom of getting my words and thoughts out of my head alone, but without the fear of judgment, as I would have probably done in anonymously. Facebook, a relatively new addition to the cyberworld, has already infiltrated every pore of our society, and I too, haven fallen prey to its lures. I want to know what my old friends are up to, I especially love the photos (karmic revenge), and the connections that may not have been made otherwise. I read that if Facebook were a country than it would be the 4th largest in the world, simply based on the amount of users. Wow, this would probably be even larger if more people had access to computers and the internet. While I bask in all of this connectedness, I am still hungry for its physicality. While at the Denver Museum, I was informed that classrooms can set up virtual interviews to watch Scientists at work in real time, and even be able to ask them questions and be a part of the process as they make actual discoveries and revelations. I love this, how likely would this scenario be otherwise? An example used was a group of third graders watching as a scientist unearthed a dinosaur bone, which was obviously a torrential hit. This being said, when we got to go back in the collection rooms, I cannot even put into words the emotions that coursed through me when I got to handle a narwhal tusk, spiraled and primitive like a unicorn's horn, so substantial, cold and tangible. I felt like Merlin awed by the beauty of nature and creation. This is the kind of experience that cannot be recreated in the virtual realm, ineffable and heavy. This is what I don't want to get lost.

Alderman & I ( getting explict)

For this course, our main text was named simply Motivation. This is a huge topic, since without motivation as an educator I have no way of getting information across to my students in any sort of meaningful way. The text did provide some very valuable structure in terms of ideas of actual implementation. It mainly supported many of the Constructivist ideas I had already been exposed to, but instead of a vague presentation of ideas, contained research and statistics to back up these philosophies and how to use them in the classroom. The Scientist within me rejoiced at these hard, organized facts! I wished I had the paper version, so I could scribble thoughts and use the "toolbox" at the end of each chapter. Some of my favorite ideas:
I really agree with the theory about how effective it is when we start by setting the standards at floor level, not ceiling, and creating smaller steps as opposed to more intimidating larger ones in order for students to experience success as they move towards higher self efficacy and goal achievement. I have been able to use this in my classroom as students keep track of their own reading in little notebooks, book by book. At first it seems like a chore, but when they see the final list (that I typed up) they beam with pride at it's length and depth. This has also been seen in all of the personal reflections that our school used as a means for self regulation and awareness. Instead of a teacher-centric conference the kids wrote their own reflections (three times a year) about each subject, what they liked/disliked about it, what they were looking forward to, and what they struggled with and then a clear outline of their short and long term goals. After I read the text, I realized all of the wisdom behind this process, which is surely time consuming for the student, but so valuable because it is authentic and they can track the path of their own learning.
I loved reading anecdotes about children (stories are always the highlight for me) who were told they could succeed, educated about the brain chemistry behind neural plasticity and the relationship of effort to outcome, who then surpassed their own past standards and arrived at new levels of engagement with the material.
This was perhaps the most powerful concept for me, this idea that the mere thought and suggestion that someone can do better, actually enables that process. I will be sure to emphasize this fact in all of my future classes, especially with students who have a fixed mindset about their own limits. In my own life, perhaps I will be less forgiving with myself when learning gets difficult and I have been known to blame it on my lack of ability. Now, equipped with this new information I realize that so much boils down to effort.
I adored Isennagle's (1995) speech about welcoming her students and when she discusses setting aside time for the cultivating of the spirit daily, I found that essential and beautiful.
In regards to teacher efficacy, when teachers truly care, and the students feel that internally, they do perform better. When we feel like we can affect change, we do. This echoes the ideas of manifestation I have reveled in. I have had instructors whom I admire and want to please, who make me want to give them my all, and once I begin down that path it slowly moves away from just the yen to please into a realm of authentic learning.
I also resonated with the ideas of giving feedback using individual comparison standards, as opposed to comparing students with their peers, as I think that it makes so much sense to treat each individual as unique as opposed to the entire as being homogeneous.
I have been exposed to Alfie Kohn before, and his ideas about doing things with children as opposed to doing things to them, is one I feel strongly about. I thought about vegetables, since normally they are presented as a sort of means to an end, and many teachers use education as thus. By saying "eat these and then you can have dessert", you are implying that vegetables themselves must not be very tasty in their own merit, merely something to endure before ice cream scoops. Education is all too often presented in much the same vein.
Intelligence is not fixed! These mindsets which do not see the potential for anyone to surpass their struggles and make strides are poisonous to all around them.
The importance of making mistakes as a critical part of the learning process was also emphasized, and I cannot agree more. Often I have made mistakes on purpose just so I can see their glee catching a spelling error on the board and then move to explain that we all have learning to do, that the process is never truly over. The more honest they are with each other about their feelings and emotions about learning the more they realize that many of them are in the same boat and that they can help each other in areas of struggle.
According to Alderman, even younger elementary age students were very aware of teachers treating different students "differently". I will try to be more aware of this tendency, as although is crucial to recognize diverse learning styles and teach accordingly I certainly do not want students to feel as if I expect more/or less from them than any of their classmates.
Above all, this text made me ponder my own awareness of all of these theories, as it is one thing to discuss the ideas and another beast entirely to implement them.

Ode to the Universe

I am not a very religious person. Sometimes I ask for things, usually addressing a particularly ripe moon or the darkness hanging wise and quiet above my head. I am used to working for everything I have, and the results always taste better. Beforehand I wrote about my missing little cables, then about manifestation. I have many desires, most of them lofty and wild, but I am passionate about photography and really wanted those cords. My fabulous brother in Colorado saw the blog, and sent me one of them to the post office in town, and that in itself is wondrous, attesting to the power of the blog. The package was like an airborne bubble, so light and full. The two postmistresses who I hold very dear, Dale and Daphne laughed when I clawed it open like a beast. This was enough to make my week. The universe had made dessert however...My home here on la isla is tiny 10 x 14', but so is my carbon footprint. Everything has a place, a nook, it is like living in a puzzle. It is a hidden house, a shed-teaux, lovingly built by my husband and me. Attesting that I do not need much in this world, so small that it is a secret. Most people don't know it exists, the entrance is through a section of fence painted like the rest of the fence, a bland grey like ashes. It is like the Labrynth, you have to choose just the right spot to swing open. There is no sign, no handle/doorknob, and nothing that resembles a doorstep. Just a rusty wagon I use to haul things to big to carry. So when Luke and I strolled home from the beach last week and he said "What is that on the wagon? Looks like a phone charger..." my kidneys leapt into my chest. It couldn't be, no one in New York even knew I had a blog, or what specific model camera cord I needed. Yet, there it was, perfectly bundled with a tiny string, sitting on my wagon. A tiny little gift right on my pseudo-doorstep. The perfect fit spooning from my Rebel to my computer. Where did it come from? Who knows, it is a complete engima, but I'd like to thank Conor, and the abundant moon, mango orange lately making shimmering pathways on the Atlantic for anyone who chooses to see them.

Magic Beans

Last Spring, I planted some scarlet runner beans in my mother in law's garden. Pink and black splotches akin to an abstract painting and very mysterious looking. She was amazed at the voracity as Lo and behold, these beauteous beans took off and saved some pods from her harvest and sent them to me over in Colorado in a box for Christmas. I brought them back East and even though I got here late to start anything from seed, planted them hopefully in my sandy, poor soil. I talked to them. I told them to sprout and grow and be magical a la Jack. Here, where I live, it is a miracle to be thriving in spite of the salt air, silt & sand, weeds, ravenous evil deer, stubborn poison ivy,...
Yes, I may be a crazy plant lady...
So they have sprouted, and are growing by the day, it is amazing.
This week in my motivation class we are discussing the power of manifestation. I am also thinking about potential lately, this idea that our thoughts themselves are physical, taking up space and literally pushing intentions out as the universe moves to accommodate them like water, liquifying in the path of our desires. Makes me feel molten!
We watched a video by Will Smith ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT9u89IpFVw .) detailing his simple, eloquent approach to attaining your goals and success.
It is passionate, even violently so and I find myself taken in by the idea. What we want it ours for the taking, we must pounce on our wants, claim them with confidence and ownership.
He quotes Confucious, "He who says he can and he who says he cannot are usually both right", and I find myself wondering, is it really this simple? He says we are bogged down in the quest for complexity when what we really need to be doing is simplifying, focusing our energy on the things we really think are the most important in the pursuit of happiness. My question is, of course, how to get that focus, how to put on those horse blinders and keep on one linear path towards light and attainment?
When asked what you are afraid of, what do you answer? I usually answer that I am scared of mediocrity, bad things happening to people I love that are out of my control, and the like. However, according to Will, in some guru like sense, these things are under my control and he attests (very knight in shining armor fighting the ferocious dragon) that his fear is fear itself. That one must attack fears, one by one, break them down, and lay them bare to sun to bleach the bones. He says we must first know ourselves, then work damn hard at getting to where we want to be and not letting anything or anyone tell us we are not going to get there. This fear, this lack of belief is getting in the way of my beanstalk of dreams.
He instructs us to bend, command, and then demand what we want for our lives from the universe. I just need to decide now where to focus my lighthouse beam of energy and thought...
until then I will delight in the new leaves unfurling daily on my seedlings, give them bamboo stakes to support their ambitions and think about narrowing my own scope of desire to specifics.
I think I have been watering the entire garden, even the weeds, and I need to put my thumb in the stream of the hose and pinpoint the areas of growth I truly desire.

Feline fancy

Isis, who is at this moment curled up before me, is a tremendously eccentric small stripey cat. She once killed a raccoon, and goes for beach walks with me, so she is an atypical feline, thus deserving of analysis. She adores heights, and a bird's eye view, so anything with a branch or a beam is very very attractive. Driftwood is her preferred substrate. She is also quite ferocious, motivated, not by a hunger to devour, but rather by the desire to capture prey, to engage her bestial little carnivorous self. Isis travels well in all modes of transportation (she has been on planes, trains, trucks, and boats) without complaint so I'd like to think she is motivated by both the need to please and the quest for variety. Since she accompanies me, my husband, and our dog on walks I must assume she is also motivated by the need to belong, to be part of a pack, or perhaps some acceptance by Dune (the dog) and also the desire to explore and venture out. When we open a container of vanilla yogurt, even if she is asleep, her hearing becomes instantly supersonic and she makes her way towards the source, so I suppose she is also motivated by Dairy. I largely attribute this to the somewhat unsettling habit my husband has of "giving" her the top of the container. Isis is also motivated by warm, pillowy places which are well suited to napping, which she spends an inordinate amount of time doing. I'd like to imagine she has some epic dreams involving hummingbirds and trees that never end but I can only guess...And, of course, far too important to disregard, she is motivated by the pursuit of love, which to her involves a strange combination of heartbeats, old cashmere sweaters, and raw fish.

lost connections

For all my self proclaimed luddite-ness, I am absurdly angry that in my nomadic wanderings I have misplaced my USB connections. Meaning, I have an ipod that I cannot charge, I have digital cameras chock full of fresh photographs but no way to "upload". This irony amuses and befuddles me to no end. Herein the relevance to motivation. Do I continue taking photos if I can never share them? Are the images really for me alone or do I thrive on sharing my views, my kaleidoscopic perspective, with the rest of the world? And as to the music, can I subsist on crashing surf, seagulls gulling and the occasional plane streaking and rumbling above. Yes, but I crave more than subsistence, I always order dessert. My father enabled this indulgence. I want to post photographs, not just adjectives...grrr. Hence my growl. Silly little cords all tangled up in a tiny drawer and none of them fit. Like an angry puzzle.
We are supposed to reflect on technology in the classroom, well I haven't used it as much as I would like, quite honestly, but I don't feel that it is as important in the primary years as it would be for older kids. I want younger kids to be playing in dirt, looking at spiders and leaves and running around getting out of breath. I also want them to use regular old pencils to learn handwriting skills, and think about the beauty of words and spelling patterns before a life of spell checking where they can check out their brains and word applications will even auto correct for them.
If I were teaching older kids however, especially high school, I know I will need to get tech savvy, and quick, to engage them in their own realm.
I am intrigued by the usage of "smartboards" and streaming to watch scientists making live discoveries or interacting with kids in another country via webcam. I also love the idea of incorporating blogging into a creative writing class, as I think students would find it fresh and relevant to their own lives.
I have a lot to learn about technological tools, and am eager to find out ways to use them in the classroom, but I will remain committed to hands on physical learning as well. Mud pies and grassy knees, bugs in jars and pictures in the clouds.

the shiny hook and fickle fish

Apparently, as with most things I jumped in too fast, landed with a belly flop and the air knocked out of my lungs and didn't read all the instructions. This blog is an assignment for a class on Motivation, so I suppose I am supposed to wax poetic or academic about motivation. Hmm...it is not going to be easy for me to do these on-line classes since post surgery sitting is pretty much the worst position ever. I live on the golden beach. Computers have a terrible glaring habit which prevents me from doing all of this on my little porch. I'd rather ride my red bike around looking for dissonance and beauty, swim in the clear but now cold Atlantic, examine seashells, watercolor...etc.
So, my very motivation is slippery, fickle. A glittering fish that doesn't want to be hooked unless the lure is extremely tempting and delectable. Also, something lasting, something dynamic.
In the clouds today, a witch. Bing cherries and their succulent meaty ripeness. Tenderly weeding tiny grasses that invade my garden like infant soldiers. I like to get them by the roots, I must be careful of the way I bend lately, like a woman so modest she is wearing a miniskirt in a ghetto and has dropped a lipstick. This is not easy for me.
You see, I am a very distracted human.
Motivation is a tremendous obstacle in my life, I have such a vast array of interests and passions but to date have explored very few in any discernible depth. I dabble, I splash around, I move on to a novel shallow puddle of interest. I intend for this to change. Perhaps this class can teach me more about how to effectively and sustainably motivate myself. Instead of being very proficient in Spanish I would like to be fluent, conjugating verbs and tenses with ease and confident with my accent. Instead of being really "into" yoga I would like to take a teacher training course and have that evolve into a self practice.
So many venues for exploration...and yet whimsy beckons with a hinting green glance over a perfectly sculpted shoulder. The shaded path is more inviting, the cool languor and lassitude of leaves and darkness, nature and silence.
Right now I should be researching Freud, who I do find quite the provocateur, as he says that "dreams are the royal road to the knowledge of the unconscious", but I am going to shower in my wondrously simple outdoor shower, put on a dress that requires little thought/straps/discomfort, and walk to a dinner party involving fresh bivalves, smoked land mammals, and exotic cheeses. Perhaps after a few glasses of wine and drinking in a molten sunset that this isla is famous for (some say this is due to the proximity of Manhattan's toxic atmosphere, but the point is moot compared to the palette) I will return to my shed-teaux and dabble in a little Freudian philosophy. Sex and death , repression, childhood trauma, fixations and dreams? Combined with one of my most beloved eras, the Victorian age...Quite the tempting lure. But will it snag?

Suburbia Neopolitan

Since my surgery I am supposed to walk. The incision glares blue black, I suppose that red is only for the carnival moment of blood dancing with oxygen. I have stitches that they say will dissolve. How I wonder? Like cotton candy on the tongue? Like rain falling through the canopy towards hunger below? So, armed with a geeky red pedometer out I venture. Proud robins and fat bunnies hop around in the perfectly manicured grass. All of the homes are of a palette that makes me crave expensive Italian desserts. My ipod dies and I sing, "You've got to pick your Afro Daddy" loudly and off cadence and the old papery man washing his Cadillac looks at me as I have just smudged his car with my off pitch voice. I walk around and around the streets, in dizzying loops named for wild places that are far from these plains. I would like to live in a place with daring street names like Duel, Octopi, Gypsy, Nebula, Dryad. Actually I would like to live in a place where there is only one road and that is the one I live on.
The tiny swimming pool is crammed full of tiny kids in various floatable devices. Noodles, swimmies, ducks and whales all destined to deflate in landfills ever so colorfully. The mothers read chick lit and comment on their children's exceptional abilities. The fathers swim with their kids, I like them immensely more. Mostly, I look at people's gardens. They are, for the most part predictable. Although roses are irresistable regardless of their cliche history. I see lupine, lithe and regal. Irises that look like tiny palaces for Thumbelina with their furred golden mouths. Tiny pansies so insipid, so fragile I want to eat them. The poppies are my favorite, furred pods so primal alien, foliage like weeds and yet when they bloom they sway and bob like drunken countesses misbehaving in their indolent garish dresses. It is so hot that the blacktop smushes under my feet like cookie batter. The clouds oh so cumulus today, I see food chains, big fish eating littler ones. 5,304 steps today. Two days until I can walk along the beach.