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Gratitude

The 100th Day, A Day to Reflect

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Goalposts. They’re everywhere. Lines painted on turf, items crossed off a to do list.

They’re the physical and metaphorical end zones guiding us in the direction of goals.

In sports, the goalposts are clearly defined, outlined in brightly colored paint. Athletes make their way down the field in bursts of energy, progressing towards the goal line. Sometimes they cross the line, sometimes their progress is deterred. All the while, time is ticking away and every moment counts. Because the game has a finite amount of minutes. There is little time to celebrate when players cross the goal line, score points for their team. Taking time to celebrate during the game is not an option. Game time is too precious, the stakes too high.

In so many of our real lives we, too set goals and get to work making our way down the field, mindful not to run down the clock. We achieve one goal and quickly set another, keep moving forward towards the next goalpost. Over and over again we repeat this process. Set goal. Work towards goal. Achieve goal. Repeat.

This week while so many are focused on football’s Super Bowl, I’m preparing for the primary grade big event, the 100thday of school. In the primary grades, the 100thday is a. Big. Deal. It is a major goalpost.

100 means so much to small children. It represents an understanding of math concepts. 100 equals 100 ones, 10 tens and 1 100! 100 days is also a big deal because it signifies such a huge chunk of time passed in the eyes of a young child.

Historically, the 100thday has been a fun-filled day in my classroom, centered around the theme of the number 100. My students complete a number of 100 themed math and writing activities. Laughter fills the classroom as children ponder what life will be like in their far, far away future.

Year after year as the 100thday came to a close, I struggled with remaining present. Rather than basking in the joy of the day, I couldn’t help but think about the looming June goal post. After 100th day, time seems to magically speed up, the remaining days pass at an accelerated pace. Rather than marvel at all the good learning that had occurred, I thought about all that still  remained to be done!

This year I’m choosing to view the 100thday through a different lens. This 100thday, my students and I will take time to reflect and we will celebrate. Because they have invested a lot of effort into their learning. They’ve done hard work, pushed through challenges, made great progress.

And what a powerful lesson for all of us; parents, educators, children. To take time to reflect on our efforts, make note of progress we’ve made, and be proud of how far we’ve come.

There will always be goalposts. And time will always be precious. But there’s always enough time for acknowledging, appreciating and celebrating where we are now.

©Kathie Z.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gratitude and Garlic Mashed Potatoes

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It’s Thanksgiving morning and I’m enjoying the special quiet that comes with being the only one awake. Even the dog, snuggled up close is snoozing.

While I enjoy my second cup of coffee, I can’t help but reflect, count myself among the blessed. Both of my children are home. All are well in our house.

You can never have too many potatoes!

In a few hours, the four of us will be heading to my parents’ house for a day-long feast. We’ll join my parents, siblings, their spouses and children. We will assemble as a family (minus my brother and sister-in-law, my nieces and nephew) once again. It will be a long, noisy day, so for the moment I’m enjoying my solitude. Bathing in the quiet. Feeling grateful.

Grateful for the family I will see today. Grateful for the family who will be celebrating with others. Grateful for the friends near and far. Grateful for the love that connects us all.

If I were to continue listing all of the people and things to be grateful for this year, I’d stay in this space for who knows how long? And the mashed potatoes, my contribution to our family feast wouldn’t get made. Aside from my daughters’ amazing scratch made pies and pumpkin cheesecake, my mother (with great help from my sister) insists on making everything herself. Except for the mashed potatoes. My mashed potatoes. Which are actually smashed with garlic. Which have grown in quantity from three pounds to five.

This year there will be some empty chairs. And we’ll miss those absent. A lot. But we’ll still feel grateful. Grateful for each other. Grateful for the amazing food. Grateful for…

Because like garlic smashed potatoes, you can never have too much gratitude.

©Kathie Z.

 

 

 

 

A Walk in the Woods

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Sometimes we just need a break. I came to this epiphany following quite a week. Personally and professionally, it had been. A. Week. Busy, busy, busy. And utterly exhausting.

Work-wise, it was conference week. Three days of meetings to discuss achievement, concerns, and set goals. Sandwiched around an abbreviated teaching day (in which we try to accomplish some serious learning).

I truly enjoy parent-teacher conferences. Each meeting is an opportunity to sit with the most invested stakeholders, the parents, and be reminded we’re in this together. All of us sitting at the table want the same thing; the best year for the child. As our 20 minute meeting progresses, the love parents feel for their children fills the room. I’m reminded of precisely why I’ve chosen this career.

During my last conference of day two, my cell phone rang. The parent asked if I needed to get the phone, her conference had run long. “No,” I said. It could wait. When I checked my phone, I saw my younger daughter had called. Needless to say, her calling mid-week is out of the ordinary. She’s our Friday night or Saturday morning caller. Nothing more than a texter mid-week.

I called my daughter back the moment the parent left. She was upset. She’d had an accident, was injured. The university doctor said a week away from school would be the best thing for her healing.

She’d been in a car accident in high school and suffered a horrible injury. I knew the importance of swift treatment. I shifted from teacher to parent, went into action mode. We needed to get our kid home as soon as possible, have her seen by her primary doctor. The following 24 hours were a whirlwind. After a jam-packed day of work, my husband and I made the 500 mile trip to fetch our daughter and bring her home to start the healing process.

Our doctor confirmed what the university doctor had said. She needed rest. And nothing else. No screens or media were permitted. No television watching, no book reading, no podcast or music listening. She needed quiet rest. While she napped and snuggled with the dog, I cleaned, did laundry and tried to stay quiet.

Outside our cozy little house, it was storming. I was beginning to feel dark, unsettled like the weather.

I tried to stay quietly busy. I roasted a chicken, filled the house with the comforting smells of home. We carved pumpkins to place on the stoop to welcome trick or treaters. But still, I felt less than great.

Sunday morning the sun rose and the yellow leaves swayed in the breeze. The outside was calling.

“We should forest bathe,” I said to my daughter.

“What?” she asked.

“Go for a walk in the woods,” I clarified. “Take a hike.”

“Definitely,” she agreed.

We loaded the dog into the car and headed for woods. It had been a few years since we’d hiked here, a favorite from days ago when the kids were small, the dog was a puppy. As we made our way onto the path, my daughter and I chatted, reminisced about time spent here with friends. We took in the beauty of the woods, noticed the loamy soil below our feet.

A happy kindness rock we found beside the path.

We made our way along the familiar path. Out of nowhere, an enormous Labrador came barreling towards us, barking, tail wagging. “He’s friendly,” a woman called, running to catch up. We introduced our dogs, chatted for a moment then continued on our walks.

With each step, my tension dissipated, was replaced with feelings of peace. And a true sense of gratitude. Gratitude for the beauty of nature, the opportunity to get away from it all minutes from my house, the gift of walking with my nearly grown daughter and just be. In the company of nature and other solace seekers.

As we made our way around the trail, a bright object caught my eye. Then another. Hand painted kindness rocks children had left beside the path. Pink and orange and purple reminders of goodness. Hope. Optimism. Healing.

The rocks decorated with fluorescent paint and children’s handwriting shifted our moods, buoyed us. We made our way back towards the road, met another dog walker. “Is he friendly?” the man called. “He is,” I shouted back. Once again, dog introductions were made, wishes for a good walk exchanged.

And just like that, the magic of the woods had shifted everything. I was reminded of the gifts of quiet, connection, and gratitude available to each of us.

©Kathie Z.

 

 

 

 

 

Tesser Well

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In 1977 I was ten. And I was most definitely not cool. Nope. I was the kid who would likely be labeled as “quirky”-that ambiguous, catch-all phrase for kids who are different. Kids who see the world through a lens uniquely theirs.

In the fourth grade, my otherness became official. A handful of classmates and myself were identified as “multi-talented” and placed in a special academic enrichment program; an experiment in education that shaped the way I see the world and myself.

My classmates and I looked forward to Thursdays, our weekly learning adventure with our funky, brilliant teacher. She was unlike any teacher we’d ever known, any adult for that matter. With long, curly, red hair that hung half-way down her back, aviator glasses and buffalo plaid flannel shirts she broke the mold. She was hip, modern, cool. She spoke rhythmically, enunciating syllables, used elevated vocabulary and encouraged us to do the same. And she listened. Fully.

This teacher was like an enigma and we students were captivated. She enthusiastically instructed us to be imaginative, think in novel ways, encouraged us to pursue inspiration, soar. It was in this classroom, working with this gifted teacher for a few hours each week, that I temporarily morphed from a silent, shy student to a bold, carefree, confident kid.

One of my favorite parts of Thursdays was read aloud time. It was during this time that I discovered my favorite book, A Wrinkle in Time. As my teacher sat upon a desk, reading aloud, everything seemed to fall away, disappear. The story had sucked us in. And I was hooked. So were my best-friend-classmates, the Brown twins.

When summer came, we read and reread the entire Meg Murry series. We spent countless hours discussing the books. We were a ten-year old book club before book clubs were even a thing.  All because of Meg. Smart, angry, determined, complicated Meg. Who was lost, struggling to find her place in the Universe. Who was the hero of the story. The perfectly imperfect character. My how we got her. Because Meg Murry was us and we were her, in a kinda sorta way.

Then one day that summer, Mrs. Brown, mom of the aforementioned twins, learned that Madeline L’Engle, our favorite author, would be doing an event for kids at a Hartford department store. Of course, we had to go!

I was so excited as my friends and I rode the elevator to the eleventh floor of the department store. What would she be like, we wondered? I privately hoped she would be a bit like Mrs. Whatsit, my favorite of the otherworldly beings in A Wrinkle in Time. Although she didn’t fit the description in the book, Ms. L’Engle did not disappoint. She had short, gray hair cut into a pixie cut and kind eyes. She seemed like a genuinely nice person.

As she explained her writing process to the handful of bookish kids who’d assembled, her eyes sparkled. We knew the cool kids were at the movies seeing Star Wars and we didn’t care. We were here with one of our real-life heroes, being inspired. Ms. L’Engle talked about imagination, story ideas, and explained her writing process. As she spoke, she sketched an elephant on chart paper (it was an idea for a book she was working on). She gave my friends the sketch and then took some questions before signing books.

I chose my favorite, A Wrinkle in Time, and waited on line. When it was my turn, Ms. L’Engle looked me in the eyes and asked my name, inquired about its spelling. She smiled as she inscribed my book. She looked into my eyes as she handed me the book. “Remember. You can do anything.”  Silently, I nodded in agreement.

I walked away, opened the cover and read. Tesser well, Kathie.

That moment remains one of the most special of all of my childhood memories. And my Dell Yearling copy of A Wrinkle in Time remains one of my most prized possessions. How powerful and empowering Ms. L’Engle’s words were on the page and in person.

As A Wrinkle in Time hits the theaters this week, I hope a whole new generation of special kids discover a new hero, Meg Murry. And I hope they read Ms. L’Engle’s book and hear the message and are inspired.

© Kathie Z.

 

 

Love Day

By

It’s Valentine’s Day. A day to celebrate love.

As I write that sentence, I smile, shake my head because it’s a funny sentence. A day to celebrate love. A day. Which grammatically means one. One day to celebrate love!

Last weekend I was out running errands. I was on a mission. Cards for my daughters and husband, pencils and stickers for my students. Valentine’s Day, placed right in the middle of the year’s shortest month, was days away.

While errand-running, I ran into a friend, a former colleague outside our local Barnes & Noble. She’d headed out on this freezing, rainy day to pick up some Valentines, too.

We stood there on the sidewalk, fingers and toes going numb from the cold, catching up. A lot had happened since I’d last seen her at a colleague’s retirement party last spring. Or was it the spring before?

She’d become a grandma again. This time to a grandson. She scrolled through her phone, showing me pictures of her beautiful grandbabies. Her eyes sparkled as she filled me in. She told me about her daughters who had baby-sat my kids when they were wee ones like her grandbabies. We stood on that wet sidewalk, catching up, counting our blessings, sharing the love.

Our talk transported me back in time, at least 15 years ago. We’d collaborated a lot then, become friends. She, a decade older than me, became a role model. She was committed to her work and still a fully engaged mom. A passionate artist, she was an inspiration.

Back then, I’d fretted over not being good enough, struggled to find balance in my life. I worried about things big and small. Life was difficult, hard work. Because I was still tied to my perfectionistic ways.

I think back on those Valentine’s Days of years gone by. The days when my students entered the classroom full of excitement, still beaming over being served heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast. Heart shaped pancakes for breakfast on a school day?! The thought had never occurred to me. And not thinking about showing my love through a grand gesture made me feel bad.

But that was then. Listening to my friend recount her recent days with her grandchildren and grown children, I was reminded of what’s truly important. This woman was the embodiment of love; self-assured, kind, and strong. She was available and present. And here she was, outside a bookstore, poised to buy her grandkids a book or two that she undoubtedly would read to them over and over again.

I smiled picturing her on the sofa, reading to her grandkids with her gentle, nasal voice. How loved they must feel! Then I thought of my girls when they were little; freshly bathed in their footie jammies, snuggled in close, following along in a picture book as I read aloud. Remembering this nightly ritual from those days so long ago, when life felt so rushed, I feel happy. I realized all was right in my world, even if I didn’t know it then.

It’s in these seemingly insignificant moments of our daily lives, when we make ourselves present, available; we show our children they matter, that they’re loved.

On this Valentine’s Day, I’m reminded that simple, regular expressions of love are tools that uplift our children. Cheers from the sidelines, goodnight hugs, a jar of maple almond butter in the fridge. All are expressions of love. As are just because text messages, answered phone calls and cards that arrive in the mail a day late with the words, “I love you” written in ink. And maybe, just maybe, heart shaped pancakes on a school day.

What I do know is, love is powerful, infinite, transcendent. The ultimate gift we parents can give and receive.

© Kathie Z.

 

 

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