Changing Seasons

A knapweed plant begins its fall fade. The small purple flowers look beautiful, but these plants are actually an invasive species that thrives in disturbed areas like the gravel patches next to my home and beside the school. In the spring the students and I will be out there clearing these plants and putting some native species in their place.

Time

What a weekend, as they always are here. My family was up, everyone but my middle sister, and we spent our days walking, hiking, hanging out at Gun Lake and eating fabulous food under a sun-saturated sky.

As an assignment over the weekend I sent each student home with a disposable camera with the instructions to take pictures of the things they are thankful for. I explained that they wouldn't be able to see the pictures, and showed them how the cameras worked. "Why can't we see them?" one of my Kinder students asked, and I started to explain how photography worked before losing her to the click of her first picture: me.

I had my own disposable camera out and ready to use this weekend as well so that I have images to model some of the writing activities we will use the pictures for. I took pictures of Sanford on a walk with my Mom, of my family doing the dishes after I cooked dinner, of my parents dancing in my dance floor-sized kitchen, of the delicious turkey dinner at my own little dining room table. I realized many times this weekend that I have so much to be thankful for. My life here has blossomed into something very special. I have embraced it, this whole living-on-my-own-in-the-mountains thing, and in doing that I have been open to the many people and unique opportunities that have present themselves. I feel so thankful that I made it though a year up here on my own, and I look forward to the challenges that this winter will bring, however cold and long it may feel. I know that spring always comes, and I've learned to start taking things one day at a time by living here. I feel like the city presses weeks of plans upon my shoulders, but here there is space to breathe; I can just live at the pace of living. The only thing I really should do this week is collect another truckload of wood. And go to work each morning. And there is such freedom in the thought of just having to "do" these two activities. Everything else is open, and I am ready to say yes to whatever my wandering heart takes pause at.

Time. It has a different pace here. There is no traffic pressing me to leave early for work, stopping me from coming home after a long day. No rushing to get to the store or do errands. Time stretches its legs out, flaps like a flag in a light breeze, folding back and forth upon itself beneath a calm sky.

A friend who was over for dinner this weekend talked to my family about the history of this area, about how many thousands of people used to live here. What were their lives like, I wondered, and then I realized that I know many folks who were born here, and that I should spend more time talking with them while they are living here as my neighbours, as the pioneers of this place that I so recently began to call home. Questioning the past makes me think of my own childhood; after this weekend it has a much tighter grip on my memory than ever before.

On special occasions while we were growing up--unbeknown to me until this weekend--my parents would rent a video camera and would record us on VHS tapes. Twenty-eight hours of footage in total. My Dad recently realized that the quality of the tapes would deteriorate and so he had them put on DVD and brought them up here this weekend for our inaugural viewing pleasure.

They are HILARIOUS!!! My parents ask us to sing and dance and for me to show off my gymnastics moves. It's pretty crazy to see myself as a small child, my sisters and their simple yet deeply complex thoughts, my parents talking about how heavy the camera is and what's that blinking red light that seems to be on all the time, and can you sing us a song that you know, Jacquie, and I just belt one out that I happen to know off by heart. A song that I find now, at 29, still buried deep within the bowels of my neurons, not even dusty after a decade-and-a-half of non-use.

There is even footage of us horseback riding, dressed in party dresses imagining a tea party in the backyard, spiders included, me showing off the art in my favourite alphabet book, Northern Alphabet, which I had forgotten about but instantly the floodgates open and I remember. Mostly it is footage of my family and I just hanging out. And I am thankful that we had time to do this, to hang out and be kids, because there are many kids in this world who don't get that time, who don't have all of the things we had plus parents to record it all, how lucky we all were, although I'm sure we didn't know it then.

I realized in watching the few hours that we did how incredibly HYPERACTIVE I was, and how into artistic and dramatic play I was even then. I realize that I was always an artist, even as a child, but perhaps children are all artists until we systematically shut down their creative selves by demanding "right" answers and standardized performances from them; this is a topic for another post.

Thank goodness I found an outlet for my hyperactive self, a place to balance me out: any activity in the great outdoors, which at this stage in my life happens to be in my own backyard.

Before watching the videos I imagined scenes of my sisters and I fighting: over toys, over attention, over a misinterpreted glance. Instead the few hours of footage show that we were actually quite civilized to each other. I was even kind to and helpful with my two younger sisters! I guess it was early enough in our lives that we still got along, because from what I remember of our teenage years the waters in our household were definitely turbulent, and the roller coaster of hormonally-charged, independently-minded teenage girls was certainly full of crashes.

Now the three of us get along famously, but we would have rolled our eyes at you if you had prophesized this when we were younger.

Time. It has crept back into my life in the form of remembered memories. Were they there all along, waiting to be mined, still intact after all these years like the song that lay waiting to be sprung forth from the trap of childhood? Favourite toys, favourite dresses passed down from oldest child to youngest, of songs and rhymes I used to know by heart. In a way I feel I have stepped back, but at the same time I feel further along than ever on this journey we name a lifetime. Each step has made me the person that I am and each has strengthened the muscles in my legs so that I can carry on walking forward to a place that I can not see. All I can see is the path directly beneath my feet, but I can also look back to the places I have been, to where I have come from. For this all, I am thankful.

Fall Colours

This morning the bite of fall greets my bare feet as they make their way downstairs. I light my first morning fire of the season, happy to feel the heat leap to my face as the thin timbers become engulfed in an orange glow. 

Earlier this week I was content to be back splitting wood and organizing the pile that will keep me warm thorough the long winter months. There is a rhythm to splitting wood, a Zen quality where your mind grows blank as you swing the splitting maul, eventually hitting the right spot and opening the log as easily as unfolding a book on your lap.

Luckily I have a friend with a chainsaw and a faller’s license who is responsible for taking down the snags (trees that have died but are still standing) at the Kingdom Lakes Campsite nearby and doesn't mind helping me stock up on firewood. One more truckload and I should have wood to spare at the end of the season. Better to have too much, as collecting it when the ground is snow-laden would not be fun!

Last fall I remember walking with Sanford, both of us new to the trails that lead away from town into the hills. I remember thinking how beautiful the fall was here, how the golden leaves of the trembling aspen line the ground in colour, how the brush at our feet was painted the colour of a rich autumn sunset. I remember thinking that I would like to experience fall here again, and here I am.

 Logging off the Hurley. This was last fall, but there is lots of new activity there this year.

Water over what used to be a bridge.

I have been doing a lot of reflecting on my teaching practice and on the daily interactions between myself, the students, the experiences of us all in school, and this has left me with less time to keep up with the blogging. It’s a necessary part of my job, though, being able to think about what went well and what I would change, or what a student may need, what their behaviour may be telling me, where they are with a given task and what they need to push their learning deeper. It is absolutely amazing to be able to observe and think about the learning of so few students; an opportunity for deep reflection that few teachers have.

I have also been going out on my evening walks with Sanford and on long bike rides. Yesterday I phoned a few people to see if I could interest anyone in a mountain bike, with no success, so I just went out on my own again. When riding on my own I do not take any thrilling downhill routes, but stick to the logging roads with a sense of exploration. As I pedaled out of town I thought about how I feel completely comfortable doing things on my own, and this is why I have been able to thrive out here.  When there is no one else to join you then you just have to do what you want anyways, or else you will sit on a heap on the couch instead of being out in nature.

Sanford waits patiently for the photographer to finish :)

I have also been working on some paintings, creating a stain-glass window out of some beach glass I found in Oregon, writing stories here and there. I got a book from the library entitled How to Avoid Making Art (or Anything Else You Enjoy) which is a series of cartoons with captions written by Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, about how to get stuck in the pitfalls all artists (and many people for that matter) experience. A number of the cartoons resonated with me, so I copied a small collection to post around my little art studio as reminders. Right now I am looking at one that says “Demand 15 hours of free time to create, so you can ignore the 15 minutes you’ve got.” The second says “Slide into despair rather than take one small exploratory action.”

One small exploratory action at a time. That is how art is created. And using all the minutes you can steal from the day.

I’ve started playing the guitar again. Not sure if I already mentioned this. It was something I hoped to start upon moving up here, but then I became frustrated at my lack of progress and gave it up for a few months before going back to it this fall. Now I have learned a whole song, “Simple Man” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, and can play two originals that I wrote last year. I think I have realized that sometimes I just need a break from something before going back with a fresh spirit, and the workshop with Diego taught me that all creative pursuits use the same skills of exploration and open-mindedness; a sense of play threads their way through them all. They all relate, freeing me up to continue to be interested in tons of different things without the pressure to stick to just one. I am a dabbler, and it is great to feel an ease and contentment in this.

Well, it’s Friday and I’m off for a morning mountain bike with my friend Ian. Part of my family is arriving for a visit this weekend: my parents and my youngest sister. They have both visited before, my parents helping me move from Lillooet, and Stephanie staying here for a couple of nights before I had  really gotten settled. It’ll be nice to have them here now that I have an established life. I’m sure they will understand why I am so content here once I whisk them away on adventure after mountain adventure all weekend long.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Why I am a Teacher

I'll be doing a unit on spoken word poetry with my grade 7 student this year. I'm a HUGE fan of slam poetry: poetry that's read aloud as a performance piece.

Came across the performance posted below and I think it will stimulate some good discussion about the purpose of education. I became a teacher because school doesn't have to be this way, but for me in my teenage years it certainly felt so.

Enjoy. (And beware, there is a swear word...)

Brave New Voices - "Love Letter To Albuquerque Public Schools"

Creativity

Sanford and I head out on an evening walk. The air is lukewarm, the temperature of bath water against the skin, and the clouds are tufts of white high in the sky. It has been sunny for weeks, although the morning’s chill presses the leaves to turn gold, and the first layer of autumn crunches beneath our feet.

We set out on one of our usual trails up into the bush and veer up a hill, which starts my heart pounding and Sanford panting, dusty drool streaming down from the sides of his droopy mouth; his St. Bernard mouth, splayed at the sides, red shiny gums perpetually showing like strips of bacon hanging in a butcher’s window. A gaping mouth I try, sometimes unsuccessfully, to avoid brushing my hand against on our walks.

I see a path ambling into a clutch of trembling aspen and decide to take it. A well-worn game trail, new to us, leads us to one beautiful sight after another—to a view of two rivers crossing, marking their thick “x” of aqua water beneath yellowing leaves, to fallen logs whitewashed by the sun, to a hillside of fir closing out the evening light. Just myself, a dog, and the mysterious beauty of the great outdoors.

I’ve been going through an intense bout of creativity lately, perhaps due in part to this glorious weather we have been having, and perhaps due to the ease of sticking around to do the one-room school thing for the second time. It’s like summer still lingers, and with the warmth my mind is abuzz with fresh ideas and the excitement of living. Perhaps it was being away for most of the summer, and now that I am back at home in my creative space I feel renewed and reinvigorated with outside inspirations. I’m feeling serendipitously at ease here, like my life is flowing as gently and effortlessly as a river through a wide, shallow canyon. This is a period of intense, creative calm, if that makes any sense. The creativity is flowing gently through me, in drawing, in my pictures, in my writing, and I am finally stepping aside and letting it be.

Just over a week ago I went and took a one-day workshop with an artist, Diego Samper, who lives with his wife in Langdale on the Sunshine Coast. It was an absolutely amazing day as we discussed art, photography, painting, drawing. He is an artist who works in many different medias, and he gave me so many ideas that I can use in my own practice and in the classroom with my students. Our discussion and looking at all of the beautiful pieces of art in his home made me realize that I can dabble in a number of different creative outlets because they all complement and fit with each other. In the end it’s the process of creating, of causing something to come into being, that is the same, regardless of the medium in which it was done.

It has taken over a week to let the thoughts from that day settle into my cells, and I imagine I will continue to go back to my notes, taking different messages of inspiration away each time. It was truly an amazing day. There were a couple of moments when Diego and I were talking and my eyes became ringed with a lining of tears. It was as if this was the message I had been waiting for all my life. That it’s okay to explore everything you want to explore. That you don’t have to specialize and be a “painter” or “sculptor” or “photographer” or “writer”. That you really can be all of those things. But it takes time. And patience. And dedication. And trust. In the process and in yourself for being able to commit and follow through and let go and explore. The message I took away was that if you let go and explore then you will find the essence of your creative self. You will find your process of creating, and I believe we all have a creative self living somewhere inside each of us, waiting to be let loose on the world.

I’ll write a more usable summary of the workshop with Diego as I get into photography with my students but for now you get the artsy version as my mind is still whirling with ideas and enthusiasm. Diego also does day-long photography and art workshops, and obviously I think it is an invaluable way to spend a day. If you live in Vancouver you should get in touch with him and let the inspiration seep in :)

I have been meaning to go back and go through my journals from my Fraser River trip, and I will. I suppose I’m just squeezing the last juices from the rind of summer before the sun packs it in and we are left with short rainy days. The dark is a good time for writing and re-hashing ides, and I plan on doing lots of re-examining during the season between mountain biking and skiing.

This weekend I spent a good deal of time at a friend’s place on Gun Lake. It was fabulous. An alternative view to gaze at and be inspired by. I wrote in her studio, was treated to a couple of intensive waterskiing sessions (I even got up on a slalom ski!), and picked up the guitar again and started re-learning some songs that I wrote last year. If anything the long break from playing guitar strengthened the songs, as I was able to come at them with fresh ears and tweak some things that seemed a little off when they were so bright in my mind.

I think that is what I learned from my time with Diego too: I can take a break and come back to something, and if I have been true to myself, all the other things I have done on the break will give me a fresh approach to whatever it is I have gone back to, and it will be new and fun again, and the time will be right.

Like the walk with Sandford tonight, creativity is starting out on a path with the intent of exploration on your mind. It’s being open to seeing what is right there in front of you rather than being so entranced by the view that you forget to look at the late-season lily in bloom at your feet. It’s living in the world with a spontaneous heart and letting your intuitions guide you. And that is what I have been doing.

Music in the Morning

Each morning, right after the students arrive, we start our day by listening to a song or two. It has been a wonderful way to start each day, especially in a one-room school that caters to a wide range of grades. With my kindergarten students we practice moving around space to the "beat" or "rhythm" of the song, and they listen for which instruments they can hear in the piece. With the older students I take it a step further, discussing genre, the pop culture of the era in which the song was made, etc. Then I have my grade 7 student do some internet research on the group or singer and on the origins of the song, and have her pick out some facts that she finds interesting to open up discussion about music and art/creativity in general. We rotate choices during the week so that everyone can add their favourite songs to the mix. We have even been getting some suggestions from community members!

Sometimes we dress up, sometimes we stand, sometimes we sit, sometimes we lie down and tap our fingers on our chests, sometimes we move up high, sometimes down low, sometimes we watch the video up on the SmartBoard, sometimes we close our eyes and just listen. It's an amazing way to start the day, and I highly recommend it to anyone, even if you're just having a coffee on your own at your kitchen table.

Some popular selections so far:

Bette Middler - "In the Mood" (suggested by a community member)
Norah Jones - "Come Away with Me"
Sinead O'Connor - "Nothing Compares to You"
Ellie Goulding - "Lights" (Bassnectar Remix)

We're always up for suggestions, so if you have a favourite song to recommend just run your mouse over the "no comments/comments" text at the bottom of this post to add your comment. All genres are welcome, and the more obscure or diverse the better :)

Crescent Moon over Mt. Sloan