Tuesday, January 31, 2023

blooms, fumes, and news

Yesterday when I was making an offering plate to take to the temple with At, I couldn't find a single bloom. The paperwhites and hyacinths that were so heady a couple of weeks ago were all past their prime. A new batch of paperwhites I'd started had grown very tall and then very floppy, but haven't produced any blooms. I ended up taking silk flowers and fruit to the temple... Today, my Christmas amaryllis (from LB and TB) is blooming in the tea garden! Long may it bloom.

I must remember to ask Nu if they want me to listen or problem solve when they start fuming. Nu has an ambitious essay project, whose working title is, "the undersupply of creativity in alternative music cultures under capitalism." It's a wonderful topic and I've listened to Nu share ideas about it for months now, but it may also be a bit too much for a fifteen-year-old who's struggling at school to accomplish on a timetable and according to a rubric. They're currently mad at their teacher, and I didn't help matters by intervening to say that actually, the structure and strategies their teacher proposed seem relevant and reasonable.

A long teaching day with bits of sparkly news: AH, a student from last term, stopped by to say they'd taken the Howard Zinn quote in my email signature to frame their senior dance presentation; KS, my independent thesis student, was named as a Fulbright finalist; students I nominated for the Barlow award have been shortlisted. (Those students have turned around and asked for me to write their reference letters, which I'm honored to do... But of course it does mean more to do.)

And--TA-DA--at the end of the day, I got to pick Big A up from the train station! Nu had already gone to bed, but Scout and Huck are thrilled he's back from Wisconsin (or "Piss-consin" as the puppies call it disrespectfully because they resent that he has to be there so much). 

4 comments:

StephLove said...

It's hard to know what to say or not to say to teens even under the best circumstances (and harder at other times).

I'm glad Big A is home.

Gillian said...

Congrats on student success.

Sarah said...

Recently, I met a school mom in person whom I have only ever texted about a carpool we have with our freshmen athletes. Harry drives my shift (SO GREAT), so I have been super hands-off. I got semi-involved via text) the other week because our boys had a weird and weirdly hostile conflict. Well, when I saw the mom at sportsball, she gave me a huge hug and said “I am so sorry. This is my second 15 year-old boy, and 15 is really the very worst.” It was, like, the best moment of commiseration I have experienced in a long time. TL; DR: Your paper story resonated.

maya said...

Nicole--I love that your kids will ask for your input sometimes! What a lovely relationship you've nurtured there. 💗 (Big A is here until Monday--it's a goodly chunk of time.)
StephLove--Yes! And I definitely don't want to make things feel harder for them.
Thank you, Gillian. I'm very proud of them 🤗.
Sarah--OMG, thanks for the chuckle (and it also works as a mantra, doesn't it 😉?)

"I'm a weirdo/doofus/nerd/naif" (Part MXVIII)

I realized during my meditation this morning that my energy for contacting so many people yesterday (the "emotional labor" that St...