not good underground

Well... my root garden this year has kind of been a flop so far. My herbs are doing well, but the others, not so much. These, although beautiful, were really really bitter. Sad.

Triathlete

Jenny has been training all summer for this triathlon, and today was the day! She was pretty nervous.. as in only slept three hours last night and had the uncontrollable shakes this morning before the race type of nervous. Honestly, I am really proud of her. She made a truly decent showing at the race. She came in 23 out of over 100 or so racers. Jenny is nothing if she isn't consistent in effort. If she decides to do something, she generally gives everything she has to do it right, like for example, when she decides to hound me to the point of death to get my haircut, or the entire time she was in college and never got a "B." She has always been like this. If I dislike something, like say.... trying to build the front steps.... sometimes I put it off or sometimes drop the thing entirely. If Jen decides she is going to do it, she works hard... and does it. I wasn't surprised by her effort. She practiced consistently throughout the summer. She actually physically changed because of it... huge ripped shoulders!!! Well, maybe not huge, but definitely defined. She hated biking in the beginning of the summer. I actually teased her because she would constantly ride the break..."Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" here comes Jenny. At the race today, I think it was her strongest leg. She was somewhere in the front half of the middle at the end of swimming, but by the end of the biking leg, she was right there near the front, despite knocking over everyone else's bike while trying to get on her's and taking the time to set them all up right again before leaving.

Its inspiring really. To see her start something she's never done before, train... hard, and then find success. One of the reasons I went to college is because of watching her work hard for her success. It something that I take with me to my class... "It has very little to do with how smart you are, and really everything to do with how much you want to do well and what you are willing to sacrifice for that goal." Jen is smart, no doubt, but it is her will that really pushes her over the top and leads to the success she finds. The picture to the right is her finishing at a respectable 1:16:35. Jenny has shown me in a deep and really life altering way that the decision to do a thing the right way is a powerful thing, but the real place where the change is made is in the grinding determination to see a thing through. She should be very proud, I know that I am.

db

Just a bit more...

Today was my last vacation day. I have the weekend of course, but I always have those. The kids don't go in until Tuesday, but I go in for meetings and such on Monday. I asked them what they wanted to do with me today, the last bit of the summer, and they said...... Wooberry. I think the fact that they get to choose all of their own toppings or something, I don't know.... they love the place! Nora got Strawberry yogurt with M&M's and Gummy bears. I got original yogurt with salted peanuts and Orange Boba, and Henry, true to form, got crazy flavors: Peanut butter yogurt, Passionfruit Boba, and Pieces of Lychee Fruit. ha ha. He loves eating things like that. He's amazing. He would take a good salad over chicken fingers any day of the week. I love him.

Jenny's triathlon is tomorrow. She's nervous. It will be fun to take pictures of her crossing the finish line. I will have to get Nora up to get to Comet Pond for 8:30 in the morning, which might be something equal to Jen's triathlon.

db

lantana

I went to Bemis Farm Nursery in Spencer to pick up a couple of plants for my class. Bemis Nursery is a great place. I actually don't really go many other places for plants. Spencer itself seems to me to be an agrarian, pleasant little town. I know some people feel otherwise (especially those couple friends I have who live there) but I love the place. Its hilly and farmy, St. Joseph's abbey is in there... they have a Dairy Queen... I mean come on. That's a lot going for a place.

While I was at Yankee Candle in Deerfield with the Nymans this summer I asked Amy about this pretty little plant that had varying yellow and red flowers, and she told me it was Lantana. They had a small one there for under 10 bucks so I went ahead and bought it. The next morning this little guy showed up. Love that.

I am working my way through a few of Thoreau's works right now. I can't believe how much I am relating to his philosophies. Honestly, I think I am verging on being a Transcendentalist. I wish I had read through more of his works while I was younger. It may have changed things for me a bit.

db

About to go

Have you ever been in a fight? Or, how about had major surgery? There is this time that exists before something like that happens that drives you crazy. Even if what you are waiting for is essentially awful, the time before it hits can be worse. Its like that with school right now. Not that that is awful, its just .... coming. And I am waiting. I have my ducks mostly in a row, a couple are still waddling off here and there, but they are quick to fix. I made a new site for my class... in fact, here is a link. I am very happy with it this year. I made it from scratch, which I always do, but I tried for more of an apple mentality then a pc this year. Simple, clean, meaningful. 

Maybe that should be my mantra this school year. Simple. Clean. Meaningful. I have been in my class a few times now. The plants are back in place, with a few new additions. The tables are in groups, the books are alphabetized. I restocked the paper. My computer is in shambles though. In fact, its on the hallway floor outside of my classroom. They gave me a new one. (this could be bad) I have a lot of things that I have collected through the years on that old one. Things like online timers and templates for all sorts of things. It will be ok... say it with me.... it will be ok. 

Henry came with me on my walk this morning. He keeps talking about how things would sound if they could talk. Bugs this time. I planted that seed in his head a couple of months ago. He was nervous about something or other and I could see him pacing and rehearsing in his head. So I asked him what the trees would sound like if they could talk. We went on about it forever, mimicking the big fat oak and the spindly birch trees. Things like that stay with Henry, and with me as well I guess, they are like safety blankets. A nice place to put your mind when it wants to run away from you. Maybe Henry is nervous about school this year as well. In fact, I am sure he is. He does the same trick that I do when I am nervous about something: bury your head in the sand and never acknowledge that it exists. He hasn't wanted to get school supplies. Its coming big boy... you can't stop it. You can only embrace the thing and bend with it as it goes. As we were walking today I heard the muffled whoosh of a helicopter above us. It was cool one though... one that sounded like it was being silenced in some way (like those black ones that come at night ;) ) I zoomed way in on it and found that it was a state police copter. Cool! If you can zoom the picture in you can see its printed on the side. At any rate... what were we talking about? School or some such nonsense. I guess that its starting soon or something...

db

leaving

Nora is in kindergarten. Henry is in third grade. God....

They are so brave. Nora's worried. I can tell. She is afraid, and she has a right to be. We are, in essence, entrusting her to someone else for a bit each day. Thank God we are only doing this for half a day. But still. Half day kindergarten is still somewhere else, with someone else. I really want them to stay. I am going to have a rough time with this growing up thing. I know it. It seems like it is all picking up speed and I just want it to slow a bit, let me get used to things...

Nora's kindergarten teacher better be a freakin saint. I am a part of that system...on purpose. I teach in the district that they both go to school in, and that was not a coincidence. I am here, watching out for both of them. Way more than they know. And I will be here, both behind the scenes and in plain view, making sure they are ok. What else could I do, I am their father.

Holocene

We are not simple. Sometimes things can penetrate the simple cover we put over ourselves and stir what is deep in us. I keep watching this video. I like Bon Iver, a lot actually, and this is my favorite song off of this album. But it is the video that dug into me. When I first saw it I kept thinking the boy in the video reminded me of Henry. Today I realized that it wasn't Henry that I was seeing in this video, it was me.

We live in these enclosed machines that walk around and see what is around us through what amounts to windows. Like cars on two feet. I move through life much of the time like a spectator. I have distinct memories of being so confused by what happened around me. people. relationships. friends. enemies. family. strangers.  I remember strongly feeling that the world would someday throw me off of it, and I had no idea how to hold on. I was desperate to somehow interact with what was outside of me. I still am. Like this boy who sees the water and skips a rock across it. Interact. Make it move. Affect it. Make it a part of you. Classify it. Know its name. Step up to the waterfall and raise your hands. Be a part of it. Make it a part of you.

I spent a while alone today. Its a rare privilege... I spent three hours alone, two of which I spent in the backyard lying down first on the grass and then in Henry's fort with Chaucer, who somehow managed to get himself up there with me.  And I thought, and listened. I think the whole taking pictures thing for me is to somehow internalize what is outside of me. To take it with me and make it part of who I am. I want to know who I am. I can't find it in the people around me. Honestly, I have no idea who they really are. Even my own kids are growing in ways that I don't fully understand, seeing the world in ways that I don't, or can't. I need connection. I have a really hard time finding that connection in conversation with people. I am not good at that kind of thing.

I guess I see people the way the boy sees that ocean. Throw a rock in, make it react, make it a part of you. Beyond that... I'm not sure. Even the relationships I have with my own family, who I hold very close, seem to slide sideways and slip away sometimes. And as effectively as I can, I gather them back and hope for the best.

I need to breathe and be a part of what is around me. I need to receive and give with same motion. I need hand holds...security. To know deep down who I am and to see it reflected in what I do and surround myself with. Like the boy, who by the end of the video lays back and digs his hand into the black sand. To know who I am, and where I am and what that has to do with me. I think that boy is cradled there. Held up by the black sand under him.

This blog, my writing, is not just what I see, its who I am, told in pictures and words. Its my eye that is seeing these things and then taking it, and finally retelling it here, hoping that some of you will know that much more about me. Or maybe its so I can know me that much more.