Heart Hinge—Day Fifty-Nine

Feeling sort of like a dandelion today.  Not the yellow flower kind but the blow-away fragile kind.   The school year is still in mighty force, yet concurrently we’re setting up next year’s schedule.  Educators are eternal optimists.  We take a look at what we’ve done, what we can do, and where we’re headed from here.  We analyze it on our own terms, and we analyze it on everybody else’s terms as well.  Sometimes all that analysis gets in the way of teaching.  Ask any teacher.  They’ll tell you.

Also, a year ago my dad died— Here comes the anniversary!  Is that what it’s called?  Seems like an anniversary is a “celebration” kind of day, so someone needs to come up with a different word.  It’s a dreaded day.  When that Day comes, it will no longer be truthful to say “he just died” and yet I’ll still feel that way.  It’ll still be fresh  and raw and new and tragic.

Well, in spite of it all,  life moves forward and life is good.  My family is closer than ever.  And a precious new granddaughter has been born!  Loved ones have had surgeries and come through with flying colors.  Goals are being accomplished.  My first graders are adorable.  My daughters are amazing people.  My friends are numerable and they mean the world to me, and I include in that group my old high school friends who are apparently aging right along with me. There’s  some sort of surreal time warp where we vanished for 40 years and now we all look like senior citizens, because we are.

I walk with confidence!  I know that every day I’m closer to launching that research project I’ve had my eye on.  And I am closer to articulating amorphous concepts into simpler household words that make the world a better place.  Along with my sweet husband, I am learning to grow my own “microgreens” and taking healthy steps toward becoming more of who I want to be.  And isn’t that what it’s all about?  Cause even if I’m a dandelion in the wind, my roots run deep and I am held in place.

It’ll be okay.