He is Risen indeed!

Here I am this Easter, huddling with tea and toast and a massive head cold. Didn't make it to church this morning and won't be making it over to a friend's for Sunday dinner. I'm a little sad about all that. Today is a holiday, and I will be coughing and hacking at home.

But the birds are still chirping outside my window, and the day is starting with bright morning light instead of the snow of yesterday. Even though I am not celebrating the empty tomb with fellow parishioners or partaking of some ham with my friends, I know that Jesus is here. I know that He is risen, indeed.

Despite all the junk that has been stirred up within me the last couple months, I believe that there do come those waves of hope. Maybe they don't last very long, but my hope is like a surfer, paddling out to the next wave so that I might be carried through the hardships with as much hope as I can catch (Kara will like that metaphor ;-)

I am a cynical person when it comes to the stuff we cannot see. I believe that if I have low expectations, I will not be disappointed, but the problem is that I'm disappointed anyway. Hoping is hard work sometimes. Some people have that hope easily, then you snarl "stupid Pollyanna" behind their back. For me, I know that I can have it if I want it. Here in my pj's on Easter morning, thwarted by this stupid cold, I can have that hope.

To me, Easter has always been more about resolutions than New Year's Eve. So here today, I resolve to paddle like mad for the next wave, and not let the swells defeat my faith. It will be hard work, and my arms will burn, but that hope might see me through to the shore.

April Rain Song (2/2)

So in this post I will try to be less cranky. I am trying to shift out of the rut that I get stuck in, and I've found that comes with discipline and practice, not just wishing it away.

This is the calendar post for April. It's a pretty nice message to have when I am feeling really crappy. I've been thinking about what I will say at graduation and this seems like it would be a good part of the message.

Also, I made this with my Aunt's old political buttons and other buttons I had... I felt like sharing my craftiness.


And April is National Poetry Month, so here is another April poem for you.

April Rain Song

Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain.

Langston Hughes

No matter how crappy I feel and how down I get, I know that the shift does come. Sometimes it comes when I least expect it, but I try to surf the wave for as long as I can.

April comes like an idiot... (1/2)

Well I wish I could tell you that I am like super awesome and jazzed about everything and happy happy happy. The best I can say of today is that the sky chair is up and the weather is warmer and my windows are open and the birds are chirping. But that's outside. Inside there is the rutted track of crappy, harsh self-messages that my brain runs over again and again and again. At least I can say that it is my brain and I'm not really crazy (I hope). But it frightens me how easily I get stuck in the rut. I am the skeptic and the general cranky pants who sits in the corner wondering where it all went wrong.

SPRING

by: Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

O what purpose, April, do you return again?

Beauty is not enough.

You can no longer quiet me with the redness

Of little leaves opening stickily.

I know what I know.

The sun is hot on my neck as I observe

The spikes of the crocus.

The smell of the earth is good.

It is apparent that there is no death.

But what does that signify?

Not only under ground are the brains of men

Eaten by maggots.

Life in itself

Is nothing,

An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.

It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,

April

Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

Snow in April. Which you can barely see, but it's there... lurking.

EF you, Jane Austen.

(this is a print by Yoshitomo Nara.)

Yeah, so I'm tipping towards the bitter part of springtime. The part where new things grow and birds are chirping and everyone is just so fracking happy. Great for you.

To begin with. It was an EPICALLY CRAPTASTIC week for me. I mean, I don't want to overstate the point, but lets just say I am amazed that it didn't launch me into a week of staying in bed watching the home shopping channel. You know, I have a lot of things that make me happy; my friends, my students, my cats, painted toenails, wearing flip flops in March. Those things definitely get me out of bed. But recently I've had a spate of hard times. I'm easy to cry. I'm up in arms angry a lot. I end the day sitting in my disappearing chair watching "Larkrise to Candleford" and playing Angry Birds. It helps.

In a very grand test of my will, emotional strength and sanity, I joined an online dating site. For more on how I feel about that, see the above photo. I haven't gotten any responses to my profile since I started a week ago. Hmmm. Okay. Maybe I am putting out vibes that I'm really not interested, maybe I listed one too many highbrow interests in my profile, maybe I'm just not cute. Maybe I don't really believe that there is a guy in the world who will ever like me for me. Last night we had our Jane Austa-thon, a bunch of high school girls sit in the library overnight and watch Jane Austen movies and eat scones. Girls who watch Jane Austen movies and read the books are doomed. Men are either Wickhams or Wentworths (rakish players or nearly perfect paragons of aloof but gorgeous charm). Yeah, good luck with that one, guys! But the way Austen writes about love is kinda the way I would write about skydiving; I'd love to do it, and I could watch it all day, but there is hells no way I am jumping out of a plane. You with me?

All I ask of you, dear reader of my blog, is that you send up a prayer for me during the next six months. You don't have to give me advice or tips or tell me how awesome I am. I've heard it. Pray that I would stop beating myself up. Pray that my cynicism would dissipate. Pray that when he emails me, I would not write him off as a goober who smells like soup. Pray that I would have an open heart. Pray that I would stop hibernating when the sky falls in. Thank you.

March Madness

A couple things. First, spring is coming. Can you feel it? The air is a little more damp and the birds are really loud lately. Spring also means cleaning out stuff. Last night I cleaned out my closet and filled TWO trash bags of things to take to Goodwill. I'm also prone to streamlining now that spring is coming. Gotta make stuff happen and make good use of time. Hibernation is over.



Good things: I am going to present at the Colorado TIE conference this summer. It's at Copper Mountain. I'm excited. I'm also going to New Mexico for IB training and good food eating. I also have some weddings that I'm getting pretty excited about. Time to buy new dresses and cute shoes.

On the flip side of the good things, there are also the really bummer things. I think my spring streamlining has something to do with the fact that other ares of my life are frustrating right now. Education... meh... who wants to talk about that? But it affects me every so often and I get involved to the point of "up in arms" kind of anger. Sometimes I just have to let stuff go. Stoopid education debate, you're RUINING my springtime!!



My Aunt Martha is not doing great. I'm going out there for spring break. What I'd really like is to take her down to New York city where spring is fresh and lovely (ironically) and where we've had a couple of really great trips together. There's more to see in the world with Aunt Marti and I feel angry that I don't get to have more time to do that. Don't misunderstand, I am thankful for the time we have shared and the places we have been together. I suppose that sustains me. But I'm still pissed about it.



Spring craziness is all about the transitions. We transition from winter darkness to early morning sunshine. We feel the new moments more acutely. We get these urges to go and be and do, and we are sometimes limited by our means. Maybe spring is about meeting in the middle. Maybe we have to get off the pole we've been clinging to and embrace the nebulous middle.

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

From "Spring is like a perhaps hand" by E. E. Cummings