Up Late, Need a Break

I am in the office, working out the kinks still left in my big Northeast trip, which I am leaving for on Friday! All of next week is nailed down--it's the following week that has a couple lingering possibilities. It's looking really good, and I am feeling very proud of it. 

A couple really cool things I am looking forward to:

-Tabling at the Brattleboro VT & Greenfield MA Food Co-ops

(NB: it is remarkably easy to schedule tabling outside a food co-op. Power to the community-food-owning people!)

-Giving a nighttime presentation at the Traprock Center for Peace and Justice in Greenfield, MA. I'll be screening a peace documentary on the California prison system made by students in the Spring '09 semester in addition to giving the normal informational presentation about Woolman and what we do here. There's even going to be announcements in the local MA papers about the night! Mostly I am really thrilled to be making a connection with Liz, the director of Traprock. I found out about Traprock on the internet and cold-contacted Liz who has now become a great support for our program. She is sending out information about Woolman and the presentation that night to her 250 person listserv!! Ouff, and you know how much I love listservs. 

I had more to write, but I'll just post that for now. PS the above was written around 2am.

Weird Things I've Seen in Phx Part 1

Its unclear whether it would be more productive to list the weird things I've seen down here, or complie a list of the normal ones...

I was driving to the light rail station in Mesa yesterday when I saw a group of three women standing on the corner, holding a sign that said "Donations car wash for funeral". It was sad and ridiculous at the same time. Mesa is probably the seediest of all the Phoenix area towns; it is always in the paper because it has an inordinate number of "massage parlors" with live in massusses and late late hours. There is a sign at the light rail parking lot which says, "Warning! May be one or more police bait cars!" Lovely.

On the other end of the spectrum is 1950s uber conservative Chandler. They are infected by a weird fad of car window decals that depict the memebers of their family. The stickers are all over the back windows of gigantic SUVs, showing a conga line of cartoon characters that represent mom, dad, kids and pets. I have not yet sustained any damage for my liberal bumper stickers (End this war and A living wage is a moral wage), I wonder if I should push my luck by getting a sticker that has two women on it? You know, just for fun?

Things I don't have in my bathroom cabinet

I recently did a lab with my seventh graders where they smeared bacteria from their mouths on a grow plate, and then applied different common cleaning solutions to see how well bleach, Listerine, germ-x, etc really kill germs. I just graded their lab write-ups. One of the questions they had to answer was, what other solution would you like to test? One kid wrote "an atomic bomb, a hydrogen bomb and hairspray". I think the only response to that is, all at the same time, or would you test one after the other?

I've slept outside twice so far...

Saturday night was the second time I slept outside since coming to Woolman. I don't have a sleeping bag here, so instead I bring my semi-ridiculous bright blue fleece blanket and also my double-sided red/rainbow quilt onto the soccer field and fold them both over so as to make a blanket pita pocket to sleep in. I must say it works pretty well, but in the morning my blanket-pita was pretty wet with dew. Not to worry though, the sunshine dried me out before I fully woke up. It was funny to later find out that several people had seen that I had slept on the soccer field before I woke up! I don't know why I thought that no one would notice a blanket pita with a person in it, but I did. 

Did I tell you that one of the students here asked me if I had slept outside before? At the time I thought he meant here at Woolman, but really he meant EVER IN MY LIFE. And he wasn't talking about without a tent either. Anyway, there haven't been so many times that I've slept in the great outdoors, but I'm certainly not afraid of it. In fact, I think it's been a great plus of living in this dependably dry climate. 

Thinking about climate, and place, and sense of place (this last one is a big theme in Jasmine's class) made me realize that the places I feel most connected to are the ones that I have chosen for myself. Maybe this is just a simple reflection on not feeling connected to the only place I haven't really chosen: the town where I grew up. I'd be interested to know if you feel connected to particular places and if you consider yourself a "placed" person or not. (This was a topic of much debate in one of the classes I observed.) I don't consider myself "placed" I value the freedom to explore and move and roam. Also, I think I've always identified more with the people in history who transferred ideas and objects, the traders and travelers.

Anyway, the same day as the "placed" person discussion there was a question we all discussed in small groups during community meeting: What does home mean to you and how are you experiencing home at Woolman? One of the students in my group said that to her home was pretty much a place where, no matter what mood your in or what is on your plate for the day, you're glad that you woke up there. I think that's a nice way to check in with yourself about where you are. What does it mean if you don't like where you are when you just wake up? Get out! Get movin'

OK one last school/class related thought. The other day I participated in one of the kids' class activities which was to write a letter to yourself that you'll get back on graduation. I told myself to keep working and to appreciate where I am and be at peace with this time in my life, and other things, but something stood out. As I read over what I had already, I noticed I included the imperative "STAY BRAVE." Upon re-reading this I finished the note by saying, "just noticed I wrote 'STAY BRAVE' instead of 'BE BRAVE,' and I think that has to count for something I've already gained in this place." It was quite the "suddenly self-aware" moment.

Finally...something we should do together, before we die.