Designers and Engineers

But tomorrow, dawn will come the way I picture her,
barefoot and disheveled, standing outside my window
in one of the fragile cotton dresses of the poor.
She will look in at me with her thin arms extended,
offering a handful of birdsong and a small cup of light.

From: Sailing Along Around the Room – New and Selected Poems by Billy Collins

I want to pour all of Billy Collins’ poems in a glass and drink them. That is how beautiful I think they are. That is how much I love them. Today is Friday which means I have the next 2 mornings to revel in the dawn’s early light. Another work week tucked neatly under my belt and only 20 more to go before the next long vacation. 10% down 90% left. Numbers help me come to terms with this business of working.

Look at these. No, I mean really look. At first you might see a pile of gnawed pencils, paper clips, rubberbands, and all manner of items removed from my trash can. You will see dirty little boy hands and shirts. These photos were taken after lunch. That is the dirtiest part of the day. Lunch has been hastily eaten, much food has fallen on the shirts, hands are sticky with popsicle juice, faces are streaked with dirt and sweat. In case you didn’t know, after lunch little boys start running. They run around and around and around and around. They hide in the bushes where they aren’t supposed to go, they dig in the dirt where they aren’t supposed to dig, they trade Pokeman cards they aren’t supposed to have, they slip in the room during my breaks and distract me with questions while others rummage through my paperclip bowl. They surruptiously tear off bits of tape from the tape dispenser when they think I’m eating strawberries or cleaning my reading glasses. And then when they have their supplies they begin the work of designing and constructing rocket blasters, turbo flying booster craft, lightening dodgers, night flyers, and other contraptions.

Sometimes they set up manufacturing plants in their desks and build and design while I’m going over Fractions, Ordinal Numbers, or Commas in a Series. Little boys like to mult-task during class. They have whole other lives going on inside their desks. As long as they get their work done I don’t mind if they are moonlighting as pilots and engineers.

Don’t think for one minute that my 5 little girls aren’t creating things of their own. Their little minds are busy at work too, but this post was all about boys. Except for this one photo. Have you ever seen a more lovely, glossy, perfect hair-do than this? Me either.

Here is my sister with a birthday present from a friend. Don’t you think a cupcake cookbook and a cupcake platter are they perfect gift? I do! By the way you may have the idea that my sister and I are loud obnoxious beasts who don’t know how to behave in public. The truth is we are quiet as mice and that’s no joke. Imagine a couple of mimes or mute clowns making their way through the Paris streets. Now imagine one of the clowns with a camera motioning in special sister code for the other clown to Do Something Funny. That’s us. We go about our monkey business while maintaining a certain level of decorum. We are masters of illusion. Most of the time we blend seamlessly with the locals. Don’t roll your eyes. It’s true.

If you haven’t been over to see Judy Wise lately, drop everything and get over there pronto. I just can’t get enough of her visual journal pages and her travel journal pages are something to see. Also her photos of Spain are luscious.