Almost

At the moment I am listening to "Goldmund" by Threnody over and over. It is such a starkly-played song. A few beautifully pressed piano notes, a pedal working itself up and down, the rise and fall of a simplistic melody. This has been an especially crazy week, and I am finding myself in need of extra calming activities before I try lying down to what have been fitful sleeps during these past few nights. I have never been good at the whole sleep thing; my busy thoughts, always rummaging around the packed boxes of my mind looking for some lost item, repeating the steps of the day, the conversations, the things said and not said, the swirl of the past enveloping me when I should instead be walking in a dream in some distant world.

We almost lost the school this week. On Monday morning I received a notice to send home to families: the closure of this little school would be voted on by the district trustees at a Tuesday evening board meeting in Lytton, a three hour drive away. I sent notices home and families rallied to attend the meeting.

My own plans saw me in Lillooet on Tuesday at a seminar held by Gabor Maté who is a medical doctor who now writes and speaks widely about attachment, addiction, and the importance of early relationships with available and responsive adults in the lives of children, among many other topics. He also has some very innovative and convincing theories about the rise in the diagnosis of ADD/ADHD in young people. He spoke a lot of the breakdown in family and societal systems. Where there used to be whole villages raising children, we now live in nuclear family structures and the primary caregivers of young children are often under such tremendous stress and pressure imposed by our current style of living that they are not emotionally available to their young children in the way that a child needs to develop healthy brain circuitry for dealing with his/her future emotions and interpersonal relationships. He talked about the importance of helping professionals, like teachers, to question what we ourselves bring to the relationship with our students; I think this is incredibly important, and is something I try to continually ask myself in my relationships with students and with other people in my life, although it is far from easy at times.

There was a lot more in his talk that sparked little fires in my mind, but I'll save it for another time, a time when sleep is not brushing itself across my eyelids.

Back to the school. Parents, students and local business owners attended the meeting last night, even though this meant that some of the students didn't get to bed until midnight, and THEY SAVED THE SCHOOL... for this year at least! Trustees decided not to consider the closure!!! Exciting news for a community of this size. Without a school many of the young families here would be forced to move elsewhere to provide an education for their kids, and the entire economy of the town would be impacted. It certainly came close though, and with such low enrolment numbers I'm sure the threat of closure will not retreat far for long.

Tomorrow I am headed into Vancouver on one of those whirlwind weekend trips. My boyfriend, Darin, who currently lives in Oregon, is going to be meeting me there for a few days of errand-running, people-watching and nature-scouting. I can't wait! We'll probably go on some long hikes in the woods together, and to be honest I am hoping it rains. It doesn't rain much here, and I find myself nostalgic for the sweet smell that bleeds from the pine and cedar forests after a fresh downpour, and for the springy feel of the layered needles and leaves coating the dense forest floor.

Hello coastal forest. I'm coming to visit you.

Here's the song if you would like to spend a few minutes letting a simple melody fill your ears.

"Goldmund" by Threnody