I can’t recommend this memoir trilogy enough. Unputtdownable! I’m on Landlines.
Well, it happened. The hour glass now has less sand on the top than on the bottom. Both in general and in terms of my pending retirement from teaching, depending on how one looks at it – I’m nearly there. I can’t wait to be finished. Not with living, with teaching in an elementary classroom. There are a great many things I would rather be doing than trying to convince children to do things they don’t want to do. Oh it has been a long and winding road, but finally the school year is approaching the Almost End. The children are very sparkly and robust. I’m both allowing and bypassing things I wouldn’t normally. Where there’s an easier way to get something done, I opt for the path of least resistance. I wonder at times if this wasn’t the best, most productive strategy all along and why for decades I chose a more difficult route. I shall ponder this not at all. Leaving my teaching luggage by the side of the road will be the easiest thing I have ever released. I am done thinking of it. I will deliberately avoid discussions about the state of education. I DON’T KNOW is my new motto.
Will our current president bring about the downfall of democratic life? I’ll wait until the smoke clears before I panic. Troubling things have been set into motion, but will the courts put a stop to them? I think so. Will he abide by them? Time will tell. Will a 4-year-old brat continue to pick his nose in the oval office while his unelected crackpot daddy gives press conferences to a select group of hand-picked reporters? I don’t know.
I’m retiring in 17 weeks. Here’s what I’m planning to do:
Draw more squirrels & hares. Draw more from life. Draw more in person with other homo sapiens on a regular basis. A few middle-aged mammals can fit comfortably around my recently found table on the back patio. I’d like to get a regular group of LA artists together for draw-a-thons. Inquire within.
I’m loosely planning trips to Virginia, Paris, Dorset, England, Santa Barbara, Mendocino, remote cabins in California.
After 22 years my kitchen cabinets finally got repainted by the wonderful Pato The Handyman. He was at Moss Cottage in January doing a few spruce ups.
Be well, friends. Keep calm. Life is pretty good, even with all the jackassery.
