Lessons from grade school

The more things change, ................the more things stay the same. In some ways.

These days, I wonder around, sadly nostalgic about all of the things my children and their children will never experience..........They will never know the wonder and joy of playing in their own dream city, built from the ground up using sticks and rocks and mud, Matchbox cars traversing it's highways and bi-ways. (They have toys!!) (TOYS? You had toys? Well, in my day, we had one orange to share between us............." LOL Sorry, I digress.......

They won't have memories of playing "Witchy, witchy Bluemont" and "The Aldie Damn is breaking". They won't dance on picnic tables to 45's, they won't buy penny candy at the corner store and they won't have those long lazy days of summer that we had that seemed to stretch into eternity and allow that anything was possible.

What they will have is "structured" summer fun, healthy nutritious snacks, and games that are considered safe and politically correct. Don't get me wrong.............Safe and healthy are good....but I have to say there was something very liberating about eating candy by the bag and having Kool-aid and sandwich cookies at VBS each summer. (Today's VBSers are lucky to get goldfish crackers instead of carrots and celery sticks) And there are countless kids today who don't even KNOW what Kool-Aid is. (Listen up, kiddies, and I will tell you about colored sugar water served up in a smiling plastic pitcher)

But, just when I think all is lost, and that kids today miss all of the good stuff, I will overhear a couple of them or observe some time honored kid tradition, and I smile,....I guess I am just a tired old woman wishing for the world to remain the same, and ( at least in the ways of kids everywhere) it does.

The things we all need to learn, we really do learn in grade school, and the things we do in grade school must really be primal, passed on genetically through the generations. What else can explain the irrational need all children have to spit on their hands before climbing on the jungle gym.( Hasn't all of our talk about germs and viruses and personal space and bodily fluids sunk in yet?)

So here are just a few of the lessons I have gleaned from working with children these past few years:

1. anything, ANYTHING can be used as a ball.

2. Most kids, if left to their own devices, REALLY take that "it's not fair" phrase to heart....generally, they self police, and I have witnessed many an act of kindness in the name of fairness.

3. "if a grown-up didn't see it, I didn't do it"

4. the opposite of "hot outside" is "cold outside" and for most kids, there is no in between.

5. underneath the most irritating child is the most enchanting person, just waiting to grow up

6. sharing is a concept easily grasped by school-age children and often outgrown by high school age.

7. "cat" and "kat" have the same meaning, and most children have at least one good "kat" story to tell

8. a child will tell you that Daddy yelled at Mommy with the same equanimity as telling you they got to eat pizza twice over the weekend. (Beware Mom and Dad, kids tell all)

9. Being "out there" with their feelings of anger, frustration and hurt is okay with kids. They watch it unfold, keep their cool, make objective suggestions, and when Joey calms down, all is forgotten and Joey is back in the game.

10. Forgiveness is inborn, it it "taught out" of us apparently, and in grade school, it still thrives

11. A salad is a salad is a salad, and no amount of ranch dressing is going to make it into pizza.

12. A caterpillar is a pet.

13. Wrinkled, crinkled, bent paper is as good as fresh flat paper (and it is only me that is so OCD about using new paper"

14. "Water" is the universal word for "celebrate with abandon" in kidspeak

and finally, at least for now.......

15. There REALLY is a half birthday mark, and being 8 and a half is REALLY a world apart from being 8.

Idle ramblings

which I will say happens ALL of the time, despite the fact that I never have any idle time....funny, how that happens, isn't it? Some of our best and brightest thinking occurs when we are not able to harness it and use it to make the world a better place.

So, .....I decided it had been a very L-O-N-G time since I had blogged, and it seemed like it was time, (even though in truth, I have nothing in particular to blog about), so here I am. And as I sit here, gazing at my computer screen, I am thinking harder and harder, trying to remember those moments of epiphany I have had over the last few weeks that I now actually have time to share.....

And guess what comes to mind? NOT ONE BLASTED THING.....It is true, I am not a roaring, smoking intellect, but, YES, in fact, I often have moments of crystal clear clarity of thought,....times when the great wide sea of confusion clears long enough for me to make a realization, to have one of those "light bulb" moments, yet now, not one of them is coming to me.

So, since I have last posted, I have managed to cross that invisible boundary into wizened old woman.....(turned 50), and what do you know? I am okay with it.....In fact, I feel a certain victory in it, a certain "je ne sais quois", as though I have actually woken and found myself in a new land, inhabited by real people with real hearts and souls instead of the shallow and superficial residents of the village of youth and vigor....

Don't get me wrong. There is still that heart catching moment when you remember some small detail of your young life, when it feels like some old memory has been pulled from you, and you know in that instant, that you will never feel that way again. There are those times when the pain from those leftover hurts comes back, and even though you can bear the pain in a way that you couldn't before, the joys and the sweet memories that come with it are almost too much to bear.....like looking into the sun without any glasses. And maybe that is what we do.......maybe all of our lives we are building shields, growing tougher and thicker skins so that we can survive. But when you remember your tender past, you remember it almost as a mother remembers a child...

And maybe that is what true old age is........that group of people who have managed to significantly dull the pain of life, (or at least put it into perspective), giving them the capacity to show compassion and understanding and care to those still going through it, knowing that none of us, REALLY, can take it............and knowing that the pains in life and the joys are what has made us who we are, but in some perverse way, we must keep those feelings capped off.....to survive.

And maybe, just maybe, that is what heaven is.................or at least one part of heaven. Heaven will be the time and the place to feel the pain of our lives, and correct it, get it right,......Take back the hurt and the anger, and the regrets. Say the "I'm sorry's" and the "forgive me's" that have been in our hearts in life. REALLY and TRULY make it right. And maybe heaven is the time and the place to truly share our joy. When we can finally live IN that joy and IN that light without fear of it going away, and when no one else wants it or needs it so badly, they try and steal it away from us....

And maybe that sense of peace that old people get nearing the end of their lives.....is really, their anticipation of that great day in heaven when past meets present and we get to love again and live again, without that great overcoat of apathy we have worn like our second skin, most of our lives. and maybe taking it off, and really feeling those feelings again, is like the first warm sun of spring, touching our skin after the cold, cold winter. I can't wait to dance in the light of the sun, surrounded by all those people I love.

Or maybe, I am just a crazy old broad who needs a second cup of coffee this morning.

Not sure......but I know that today, my worries and stresses are greater......my pain may be duller, my joys not as pronounced.....I worry, (and worry and worry and WORRY) about my kids and my grandbabies...I don't want them to experience pain and loss and disillusionment in their lives.....but as for me,......living "in the middle" isn't so bad......................

It's a simpler life,.....not complicated with people, places and things. Really, by now,....all I need to be content is my home, my family, and my self respect.....and of course, all that and a few hundred skeins of yarn. So give me my coffee by morning, my tea by afternoon, a good loaf of chewy bread and the happiness and safety of my young, and me and my old man can call it a good day.