When Harry Met Rand McNally

Harry holds a photo of the McMurdo Research Station, Antarctica

In case you haven’t read my blog lately or seen my endless Facebook updates or don’t really know me well, or at all… I’ve been on something of an Antarctic kick lately.   I mean like, I am obsessed. 

I won’t rehash the last six months, but my students have had some pretty thrilling and unique opportunities to get up close and personal with the continent in general and penguins in particular.  I think it’s a place I need to visit someday.

As I prattled on and rattled through our prairie school building blathering and gushing about penguins and researchers and the wonders of Skype, the in-house maintenance man, Harry stopped me in the hall one day.  He had heard about our Southern Hemisphere adventures.  “You know I’ve been to Antarctica,” he calmly stated.  I arched an eyebrow.  “Really?” I said with a bit of shock.  “Aww, I’ve been there thirteen times,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.  He couldn’t stop the slow smile that spread across his weathered face at the look of shock on my quasi hippie face.  I stared, speechless.  “Wait, are you telling me that… wait... WHAT?!?”  He leaned heavily on the snow shovel in his hand and grinned.  “I guess I’ve been all over the world.” 

Turns out our Harry used to work for the National Science Foundation as a government contractor.  He has zigzagged literally all over this big blue marble, once even working for NASA to set up a transmission tower at McMurdo.  I just had no idea.  No idea at all.  I couldn’t ask questions fast enough and begged him to soon be a guest of honor in the Magic Tree House and regale us with stories.

When our second Skype chat was arranged, I asked Harry if he wanted to sit in on it.  Did he ever!  As the Darlings asked their carefully rehearsed questions of the researcher, Jean Pennycook (dang, I love that name), Harry had a few questions of his own.  He piped up every few minutes with a new question for Jean, obviously enjoying his walk down memory lane.  Finally I handed the digital mic to him and urged him to talk to her directly.  She was honored to speak to a man that had helped build her research facilities at McMurdo.  She and Harry sort of forgot there were five cute-as-pie first graders sitting (shockingly) quiet, waiting for the focus to return back to them.  When Harry took his chair again, he was grinning from ear to ear. 

Today he showed up with boxes of artifacts.  He unloaded them on our round work table and began to pass around faded photographs of ice pack hovercrafts, icy runways, unattractive industrial buildings, himself posing with penguins and seals, breathtaking volcanic mountains, and certificates awarded for his spectacular work in the name of science.  He had rocks and driftwood.  He had mess hall napkins imprinted with the McMurdo name.  He had a ball.  And so did we.  

It was the perfect cap to our unit of study.  I mean, books and video feed are great.  But… this guy has been there!  It doesn’t get any more personal than that.  Our own Harry who throws salt on icy sidewalks and keeps that old beast of a furnace pumping hot air into our vacuous building has lived the very the things we have read about.

Perhaps my favorite photo was the one he took at the South Pole, the absolute bottom of the world.  And by the way, try explaining to first graders why you aren’t upside down and fall off the earth when you’re in Antarctica.  Gravity shmavity.  It makes no sense to them, WHATSOEVER.

ANYHOO, I am nearly finished with the book, “South with the Sun” by Lynne Cox, which recounts the first person to achieve the South Pole.  In 1911, Roald Amundsen claimed the title in the name of Norway where others had tried and failed, many of them giving their very lives for the bragging rights. 

As I stared at the grainy image of the white bleakness of the geographic pole, marked by a literal pole (believe it or not) and the flags of explorers who also conquered the feat in the name of their home countries, I was reminded of the spirit of adventure and courage that picture represents.  Man is so tenacious in his desire to see all of this great world.  I share that longing, in some small measure.  I am afraid I own the soul of an adventurer. 

And so when I read of Amundsen and Byrd and others who faced great odds and did the previously impossible, I am impressed, and a little envious.  Harry has taken his own rightful place in my mind of great world adventurers.  He has been to places and seen things that I never will and has stories to entertain and educate.  Harry rocks. 

To commemorate the day, he generously donated a chunk of Antarctic rock covered with spiny moss to our Discovery table – a true and irreplaceable treasure. It might as well be from the Moon itself.

Thanks, Harry.  It just goes to show that people are so deliciously surprising.  Everyone has their own story to tell. 

Harry will be happy to tell you his…

Roald Amundsen on his historic expedition

Antarctic Skype II

Today was Skype #2 with our Antarctic researcher, Jean Pennycook.  Again, we brainstormed for questions beforehand and practiced speaking into the microphone.  We even had a gallery of guests for this visit (more on that later).

This time when we connected we heard the sweet chirping of baby chicks, which are almost a month old now.  They began hatching December 9^th, the day after our last Skype with Jean. 

As we chatted with Jean, the penguins began crowding around her laptop and she told us that penguins are very curious creatures and were actually responding to the sound of our voices!  I can hardly wrap my brain around the fact that the voices of my North Dakota first graders caused a stir in a penguin colony near the South Pole.  Incredible and mind-blowing.

She also told us the penguins we named, Blackie and Snowy, were occupying Nest #1 and they had two chicks.  The mom, Snowy, is away from the nest right now getting food and they are waiting for her return.  After our visit I went to the website and we saw pictures of “our” penguins along with script crediting our class with the names.  We’re famous!  You can see for yourself at the following link.  Scroll down the page to Nest #1 to see pictures and our name mentioned.

http://www.penguinscience.com/education/royds_nestcheck.php

Nest #1 daily progress:
http://www.penguinscience.com/education/nest_1.php

Now about that special guest…

In the hallway one day not too long ago, the school maintenance man, Harry, stopped me and told me he had heard about our previous video chat.  Then he knocked my socks off when he told me he had been to Antarctic THIRTEEN TIMES!  Wait… WHAT?!

Turns out he used to work for the National Science Foundation and traveled doing construction for their projects.  He told Jean today that he helped build the lab at McMurdo Station.  She was amazed and thanked him for helping build the very facility she uses during her research time there.  Harry grinned from ear to ear.  We cheered and called him our hero.  It was a priceless moment.  He is planning to bring boxes of artifacts to school in a couple of weeks and do a “Show and Share” with the Darlings.  We can’t wait.  I think Harry’s pretty jazzed too.

What a day. 

To hear the giggles of my landlocked prairie children as they watched the antics of those entertaining, noisy, mischievious birds is icing on my middle-aged, quasi-hippie cake. 

A note about the video:  It is lengthy (12 min.) and the first couple of minutes are fraught with technical troubles.  You might want to fast forward to about 1:20 minutes to avoid all of that. Also, due to the video camera angle, the screen appears to be washed out, but our picture was crystal clear and breathtakingly beautiful.

Polar Opposites

Waiting for the Antarctic Skype call

Today made my Top Ten list of all-time favorite teaching days.  Forget top ten.  Top five for sure.  OK, fine. Top three.  Absolutely top three.  And the first two don’t count.

It began in Boston.

Last May I had the privilege of being a workshop presenter at the National Science Teacher Association’s national convention.  I loved every minute of it.  I loved sharing ideas with other teachers and I really loved gobbling up every workshop I could fit into my bloated schedule.  I mourned the lack of days and hours to see, hear, and learn more. 

During one of those workshops, I met a researcher named Jean Pennycook.  First of all, is that the greatest name ever, or what?  It belongs in a Jane Austin novel.  Jean presented a workshop on her annual pilgrimage to Antarctica to study the Adelie penguin colony on Ross Island.  Jean is also an educator and loves to get other teachers hooked on penguins.  From the moment she opened her mouth I was entranced. 

Among the many wonderful educational opportunities she shared with we science freaks was the offer to Skype with our classroom students.  Say WHAT?  I am so there.  She also promised to mail postcards to our students with the McMurdo Station postmark.  (Sigh) I was in teacherly heaven.

Fast forward. 

We mailed our postcards a couple of weeks ago and are working with our school art teacher to create an original flag that will be flown at the colony with accompanying pics for posterity’s sake.  Jean and I have been exchanging emails for several months in order create a timeline of events for our interactions.  Today was the designated day to introduce Jean and the untamed continent of Antarctica to the Darlings.  I have been so excited for this I could hardly sleep last night.

I did harbor a bubbling fear that technical difficulties would abort our virtual visit.  The miles separating us number something like eight thousand, after all.  Not exactly a quick trip to the local 7-11.  I also questioned the quality of our connection.  Would we only see alien, frozen faces and distorted images?  And lastly, would the Darlings stay attentive or spiral into a Tourretts syndrome convention? 

Turns out I had zero to fret about.  It could not have been a more seamless, perfect experience.  We connected with Jean right on schedule.  The signal was absolutely stunning.  As you’ll see in the short video clip, the moment our computers connected we were staring into the faces of Adelie penguins.  It sucked the air out of the Magic Tree House for the briefest of moments.  We couldn’t quite believe what were seeing.  It was a little surreal. 

They were glorious.  And funny.  And curious.   And surprisingly clean and white.

I was so enthralled I could have wept. 

Last week we brainstormed for quality questions.  These I typed onto individual sheets of paper and my students grasped in their hands today like seasoned news reporters.  We passed the digital microphone from student to student and they spoke slowly and clearly and waited politely for her response.  My heart nearly exploded with pride.  Pretty sure it did explode.  I am not sure what is pumping in my quasi hippie chest right now.

I got a little reflective too.  I couldn’t help it.  What a magical age children live in today.  School is so darn COOL!  My gracious, when I was in elementary school, the highlight of the day was being asked to go get the copies off the mimeograph in the office and getting to smell the ink all the way back to the classroom.  I’m sure I lost brain cells from all the fumes I sniffed.  Holy cow, that stuff was intoxicating.

But these kids… they literally have the entire world in front of them and the universe beyond with just a few keystrokes.  I follow NASA on Twitter.  I can’t get enough of it.  The images send me into a swoon.  I know I sound ancient when I say it is utterly, completely, heart-stoppingly amazing.  It IS amazing.  And I AM ancient.

I count myself blessed to be able to teach the way I would have liked to learn.  Maybe that’s why I am so crazy about teaching.  It’s sort of a do-over for me.

Lucky me…

 A short clip from the beginning of the conversation

Fun Facts:

·      Researchers must carry in all of their food for the entire duration of their stay.  McMurdo does have a commissary, but these things must be helicoptered in (and you thought YOUR grocery bill was high!).

·      Jean wears about 25 lbs. of clothes at a time to stay warm.

·      You cannot determine the sex of a penguin anatomically.  Researchers just wait to find out who lays the egg.

·      The Darlings were saddened to learn Jean would not be decorating her tent for Christmas.

·      The ocean is about a mile from the colony.  Mealtime is quite a hike for those short waddlers.

·      The penguins are not afraid of the humans.  Amazing considering they live in an uninhabited land.

Feathers and Steel

I watch the slump of her shoulders as she boards the bus for home.  Her hopes of going to State are dashed.  Her last high school season for one-act play is over and done.  This was not the way she had envisioned it ending.  Her disappointment is palpable. 

As school chaperone for the day, I take my place near the front of the bus and long to go to her, but know she prefers to be alone for now.  I must wait until we are home.  I can hear the splintering of her heart from three rows up.  She wants her senior year to be perfect.  Of course she does.  They all do.  They want to be applauded and awarded and toasted.  They long for a legacy, of sorts.  “Oh, she’s the one that took all those awards, remember?  Yeah, she was something!”

It is a natural desire.  I don’t begrudge her those dreams – no, not one speck.  But as I sit in the gathering darkness on a bumpy school bus, snowflakes swirling in the beams of white headlights, pieces of staging and costumes littered about, I am acutely aware that tonight is a mere foreshadowing of life. 

She cannot know that.  She is not supposed to know that.  Not yet.  When you are seventeen, life is only about dreams about to be birthed.  It is about balancing on the ledge of future happiness.  It is all about HOPE. 

I already know that her life will not be perfect.  Whose is?  I think back to myself at her age and how many of my friends from that time have experienced every conceivable trial known to man.  I have borne the weight of a few myself. 

She will know disappointments and personal failures.  She will question at times whether she made the right choice.  She will shed tears of heartbreak.  Who has not experienced these thoughts and feelings at one time or another? 

She is human. 

She will too.

I turn in my seat to look her.  She is so lovely.  Her long tresses are golden in the fading light.  My heart beats with every beat of her heart.  I know that the mask of indifference she is wearing now is an attempt to prevent tears from splashing down her tired face.  I wish I could magically create that senior year she longs for and dreamed of.  I cannot.

And yet…

Maybe…

… maybe, the greater kindness it to simply share her journey.  Just be there, like a lengthening shadow across a summer field.

When she faces disappointment and her heart constricts with pain, listen and nod.  When she is angry and lashes out, lovingly point out the greater perspective.  When she feels low and useless, help her see herself through my eyes.  And when her body crumples into my mine, wrap around her arms of unconditional love and will my strength into her fragile soul.  She will hear the whisper of my voice low in her ear reminding her that she is made of feathers and steel; fragility and strength in one breathtaking package. 

I also know, there will be moments of ecstasy and boundless joy.  I will be there then too. 

And so, my Love…

Cuddle your hopes.  Pull them close to your youthful, beating heart and caress them to fulfillment.  Fan the flame of Possibility and its cousin, Ambition, until they are warming fires in your soul.  Set your face to the wind, spread your beautiful wings, and soar to azure skies.  There is nothing to stop you from flying to the moon and the twinkling stars beyond. 

And I…

I will watch your retreating figure until it disappears into the heavens and I will clap and cheer and grin like an idiot.  I will be ridiculously proud of all you are at that moment. 

As I am proud of you tonight.  You are so incredibly talented and wonderful. 

And on those days when the winds buffet you about and you need shelter from the storms…

I’ll be here. 

Always.

The Real Teacher

I am sitting in my classroom waiting for the next parents to trickle in.  It is that iconic event we lovingly refer to as Parent/Teacher conferences.  Let’s be honest here.  Nobody loves it.  It is a long day for teachers and drudgery for most parents.  Because my husband and I sent our children to a tiny K-12 school district, all conferences were held on the same night(s).  Traveling from class to class for our four children literally took hours – 10 minutes at each stop to tell us our children were doing just fine and 40 minutes to discuss our wheat crop and current grain prices.  The bright spot was the homemade desserts and coffee loving displayed in the hallway.

I am on the other side of the desk now.  I actually like them more now than I did as a parent.  I get to look parents in the eye and honestly share the strengths and challenges their child possesses.  Most parents appreciate the honest appraisal, I think.  Better to know than wonder.  It is usually a healthy conversation. 

I think my experiences as a parent have helped me as a teacher. I try to remember the feelings of being told they were excelling or struggling.  It can be an emotional roller coaster.  Every parent wants to hear praise and glowing reports.  It can be tough to hear less.

As a formal educator now, there are few things I am a little desperate for parents to understand about their child in this great grinding wheel of education.  Maybe these things will help you understand your child’s experience better in general, and teachers in particular.  Here they are:

1.     I will never know your child as well as you do.  I spend many hours with your child, yes indeed, I do.  Sometimes too many hours and sometimes not enough.  I assess and listen to them stumble over words and struggle to add those darn 9 fact families.  But your child is your progeny.  Your flesh and blood.  You know their moods and what happened at home this morning to make them so weepy (or angry or silly).  I am an expert at teaching.  You are the expert on your child.  Speak up.  Tell me if I misunderstand your child’s learning style or fail to see their grasp of concepts that seem to elude them at school or on a test.  I want to hear it in your own words.  I like your child, but you love your child.  There is a vast and unfathomable difference.

2.     You are and always will be your child’s best advocate.  If you are frustrated that they are frustrated with something at school, please come to me.  I can only address the things I am aware of.  If they love school, do me a favor and tell me.  Teachers like an “atta boy” once in awhile too. 

3.     I am not your enemy.  If there is issue that leaves you frustrated or angry, let’s have an adult conversation.  Accusations will only throw up a few stony emotional walls between us.  Come to the table with the problem and some possible solutions.  We’ll talk.  I want to hear what you have to say but I don’t have the time or energy to wade through a sea of angry rants.  We can do this calmly and part friends.  I choose to believe the best in you.  I hope you will return the favor.

4.     We are partners, you and I.  I may not love everything about the way you parent, or communicate with me, or approach life in general.  It is quite possible you won’t love all things about me either.  That's OK.  The rugged reality is, we have been thrown together for nine months with the corporate goal of helping your child grow toward the next grade.  The raw truth is (oh, if parents truly understood this…!), I cannot do it without you.  I have file folders stuffed with strategies, graphic organizers, and cutesy art projects, but YOU… you, my friend, are the sun, moon, and stars in your child's universe.  If you say, “Let’s read together for a few minutes.”  They will come running.  If you ask at the cash register while you pay for your Slushy, “What is this coin called and how much is it worth?,” they will quickly learn that a quarter is worth twenty-five cents.  Your impromptu reading and math lessons will always go further than my carefully crafted, standards-aligned, works of genius. 

So when you sit in my tiny chairs at my tiny table for conferences and I show you reams of standardized test scores and examples of their work, I will look you in your tired eyes and say, “Let’s work together, you and I.  Help me understand your child and I will help you understand my student.  You may not know this, but I need you more than you need me.  You are the REAL teacher in this sloppy partnership." 

I hope you take your role seriously.

Join me...

When Snails Fly

It is becoming something of an established fact in our tiny school that Mrs. Dahl likes to keep a critter or two in her classroom.  My incoming students were so jazzed about life in the Magic Tree House that some began gathering gifts for me before school had even begun. 

One precious lass pulled a dead Monarch out of the grill of the family car and carefully stored it away for the onset of school.  Another captured snails on vacation and lugged them home for sharing with her classmates.  These she triumphantly presented to me on the day BEFORE school began.  Her ear-to-ear grin was priceless as she set a watery habitat on my Discovery table.  “Do you know how to care for snails?” I asked inquisitively.  “No,” was her unembellished response.  I didn’t either.  But she hadn’t killed them yet (obviously) so I figured I couldn’t do much worse.

I did notice that they were a bit… odiferous.  Downright stinky, actually.  I have an acute sense of smell.  It’s something of a superpower, really.  I can catch a whiff of sweaty gym socks from five hundred yards - cigarette smoke from the open window of a car half a mile ahead - garlic breath from across the teacher’s lounge.  It’s a gift, and a curse. 

I was a little concerned about my new students walking into something akin to a Louisiana swamp on their first day of first grade, but that angelic grin was killin’ me.  I didn’t have the heart to refuse her obvious joy, so I thanked her profusely, promised to care for them as best I could, then lit a Vanilla candle when she walked out the door.  It helped, but only a little.  These things were crankin’ out stink like pickups off a Ford assembly line.

Monday came and went.  The Darlings oohed and ahhed over the “pets.”  The stench intensified over the hours exponentially.  I had vowed to keep them around until Friday anyway.  I figured even a Bloodhound like me could endure five days of offensive odor. 

I was wrong.  By Tuesday morning I had had enough.  They had to go.  Now to think of a way to escort them out the door without devastating Angel Face.  Hmmmmm.  Her mother is my coworker and dear friend.  I went to her first.  How should I handle this?  She didn’t want them back, even though she was suffering from a sinus infection and couldn’t smell a darn thing (lucky duck).  We collaborated on a “release back into nature” plan.  Yes, the perfect thing!

I tried to be casual about broaching the subject with the owner of the Stinkers.  “Pets are wonderful and we can learn so much from them, but they are happiest in the wild”… yada, yada.  She didn’t have to think long or hard about it.  Yes, she agreed they should be let go.  I silently rejoiced.

After music, I signed our merry group out of the building, grabbed the sloshing tank, held my nose, and stepped into glorious fresh air.  I asked the original owner if she would like to carry them.  She adamantly refused.  “They STINK!” she declared.  One little pixie offered to carry our captives.  I am not sure she took a breath the entire trek.  I don’t know how she didn’t faint, either from the fumes or lack of breathing. 

Angel Face’s mother had suggested a spot just on the edge of town.  We found the algae-covered slough and stopped.  Pixie was dripping from sloshed, rancid water, even though I had offered numerous times to take the nasty tank for her.  Every time I did so she turned a deeper shade of oxygen-starved purple and shook her head no. 

There was a deep band of cattails separating us from the water so we stayed on the pavement and removed the lid from the tank.  Well, now here was a fine predicament.  There was so much vegetation between the Darlings and the water that it was impossible to gently lay the creatures at the edge of the slough, which would have been a fine send-off indeed.  “What should we do, Mrs. Dahl?” they wanted to know.  I thought for a moment.  I sure wasn’t wading into that cesspool.  In fact I was pretty sure I didn’t.  My friend had warned me of this.  “I think we have to throw them in, children.”  Heads swiveled in my direction.  I could hear their thoughts.  Is she kidding??  “You mean like a baseball?” one Darling asked hesitantly.  Yes, exactly like a baseball.  “Don’t worry, children.  They’ll be much happier in the wild.”  Sailing through the air will be sort of like a carnival thrill ride, right?

A burly lad reached in the tank, found the biggest shell, leaned back and wound up like he was standing on the pitcher’s mound at Yankees Stadium, and let her go with all his might.  I thought maybe, just maybe, I could hear the teeniest snail-voiced, “weeeeeeeeee!”   

The process was repeated until all snails had had their turn being launched into the August air by the gusto of five brand new first graders.  I asked Angel Face if she had anything to say before we headed back.  She shook her head and looked relieved to no longer be the proud owner of five snails.

We raced back to our tiny brick schoolhouse in the humid late-summer day, empty tank evidence of our escapade.  I lustily sang all of the words to Born Free that I knew, which weren’t that many.

I watched my new students laughing and sweating and happy to be free of the confines of the school. 

What did they learn? 

They learned that sometimes there has to be a Plan B.  They learned that sometimes the kindest thing to do is let something go back to where it came from.  They learned that Mrs. Dahl isn’t much of a singer.  They learned that, contrary to conventional wisdom, snails really CAN fly.  They learned that the best science isn’t found on the two-dimensional pages of a textbook.

And I…

I fell in love with five precious, sweating, laughing children who will learn to love this big, wide world as much I do over the next nine months.

I have the greatest job in the world.

The Autumn of Lasts

I can feel it already.  There are evenings now that contain the faintest hint of it; a bonfire that requires a sweatshirt… mornings that lay wrapped in shrouds of chilly mist… a Super Moon gauzy in the inky black sky.  It is coming. 

I am not ready.

This is a big year in the Dahl house.  Big.  I have been a mother for nearly three decades.  Chubby-cheeked, squalling baby Trevor joined the world July of 1986.  On Monday, the youngest of the Dahl tribe, sweet Hannah Rose, will begin her senior year of high school.  Did you hear what I just said?  Her SENIOR YEAR.  Yes, I am shouting this information at you.  It seems less real if I scream into the wind and the sound of my voice is swallowed by the gale and carried to an unknown place. 

She wasn’t supposed to be a girl.  I was pretty sure Mr. Dahl and I were incapable of birthing a female.  I had to ask my husband to repeat the doctor’s pronouncement that we had indeed conceived a girl.  I had always said I wanted four boys – no girls.  Boys are just so EASY.  They argue – they punch each other in the gut a few times – and it’s over.  No drama.  No petty catiness. 

After son #3 joined the ranks, I figured my wishes had been heard by the Guy in the Sky and I’d get that golfing foursome after all.  But there was a latent, growing need blossoming in me to try my hand at raising a sweet little petunia.  When she arrived, I knew our family was complete.  I loved her before I knew she was a she. 

And my oh my, did I have fun!  I sewed flouncy little dresses for her and found every shade of hair do-dad imaginable.  I curled her hair every Saturday night so she’d have a head full of bouncy blond spirals for church on Sunday.  I stocked up on tights and (gulp) paid the bucks for an American Girl doll.  We had tea parties with real tea and cookies and watched princess movies together.  I love her so very much.

But the cool breath of Autumn is in the air.  Only faintly last August as we raided the Kohls racks for just the right back-to-school clothes.  I felt the gooseflesh chilling my marrow and reached for a sweater as she went on a school sponsored state college tour.  I knew it was coming.  All of the usual signs were present.  But I have this ridiculous need to rebel against the onslaught of winter.  I wear flip-flops way too late in the season.  I refuse to wear socks year round – even on subzero days.  I raise my fist in the face of Narnia’s Forever Winter and shout, “I refuse to bend!” 

And yet…

… the leaves are turning.  The fragrance of chimneys belching wood smoke permeates the air and apple crisp bubbling in the oven. These signs of approach of winter all pull my face close and whisper, “It is here.  You must accept that it is time.”

So we raided the Kohls racks once again and finalized her fall schedule and made plans for a family college tour.  The ACT practice book sits on her desk.  A stack of unopened college admissions mail is scattered around her room like cards in a forgotten game. 

Her Spring is coming and my Autumn is descending.  She will choose a college and retake the ACT and tuck her truck stop job money away for college late night pizza runs and shampoo and overpriced textbooks.  And she will be giddy with the freedom of liberation from parental strict oversight, as we all were.

It is her time.  Time to take her first hesitant steps into adulthood.  Her future Woman is waiting for her there.  And so I must be happy for her.  The college years are really unlike any other time of life.  They will shape and mold and refine her.

I am happy for me too.  I cannot stop the advent of senior year and college freshman.  I wouldn’t even if I could.  I have been here three times before.  I am enough of an expert at it to know she will survive and thrive. 

“Why are you jumping ahead??” you are asking.  Savor the moment, Vonda!  Don’t wish it away and dive headfirst into waters that are a full year away.  What’s wrong with you, Quasihippie???

Fear not.  I will savor.  I AM savoring.  I watch her walk across a room and memorize the shape of her form.  I drink in the way her long silken hair catches the sparks from the sun streaming through the window.  I listen to her babble about everything and nothing and am fully in the moment.   I will not have these small treasures a year from now.  

I have been here before.  I know what lies ahead.

And yet, I know that John and I have good days ahead as well.  The last time it was just the two of us we were not even twenty-five yet.  We were flat broke.  It will be infinitely enjoyable to rediscover what it means to be a couple again.  And we will look forward to their visits.  Trevor comes home occasionally for the weekend.  The other two may land close enough to do the same.  Time will tell.  Our nest will not be so empty as just vacant in between visits.  I do not look at the years ahead as Winter, but rather an extended Fall.  I love Fall.  I think I will be OK.

In the meantime, I will sit on bleachers on chilly Saturday mornings and cheer for volleyball games.  I will clap and laugh for one-act plays and speech meets.  I will be there for every possible track meet (outdoor track in North Dakota is... interesting).  I will begin the time-intensive process of searching for childhood photos for her graduation party.  I will compile the invitation list.  Our tea parties will take on the shape and form of late night popcorn and shopping days.  I will savor and drink in and memorize while she is with me.  Oh dear.  There is a little burning behind my eyes even as I type the words… a little mist gathering on my lashes.  I suspect I will have this reaction to Sentimentality many times over the precious, fleeting days of My Autumn.  I better get used to it.

On her first day of Kindergarten, I held her impossibly small hand in my own, helped her put her things away, hugged her tiny frame and walked away.  I had no doubt whatsoever that she would never survive without me. 

I was wrong.  She flapped her fragile little wings uncertainly a time or two, then faced the wind and soared.  She has ridden the currents on giddy heights ever since.  She will be just fine.

I miss her already…