Cardboard boxes are useful, under-appreciated tools. Not only can you pack your treasures into them, they can also be end tables for lamps, a castle/rocket/fort for a child, and an endless source of material for projects. It is amazing to me how much you can really put into a cardboard box if you try. When I was packing all of my things to move, I realized how very little I truly had. I thought of it as packing up my life, and if that's the case, then my "life" takes up a minuscule amount of space compared to others. I can literally fit everything into about 5-6 boxes, and all of that can fit into my little Dodge Neon. What a ridiculously small life I must have that I can cram it all into one vehicle.
Reality check on me: all of my stuff is not "my life." Thinking about all the movie characters and books and people who have said "I'm packing up my life" in reference to moving and having to shove everything into boxes, I am faced with the truth- we define our lives by our stuff. Not in a materialistic sort of way (though people tend to do that as well), but in a tangible sort of way. How quick we are to say our lives are ruined when something is destroyed or lost, whether it be as small as a note or as big as a house. We feel the need to identify our lives with things rather than see them for what they are- a collection of memories and moments, days and hours, that, when strung all together, equal one giant collage that is the essence of ourselves.
We overlook this simple picture in favor of physical pictures: photographs, dishes and carpets, knick-knacks and collectors editions. We rank the success of our life based on how many boxes we fill with meaningless junk. And at the end of the day, when our so-called lives are packed away and labeled for shipping, the only truth that remains lies in the single word- FRAGILE- written on so many of these boxes. Life is indeed fragile, though it does not break when a boxes of photo frames falls over and it does not shatter when a crystal glass slips out of a hand, even if that glass was a gift from a grandmother or those photos treasured pictures of the past.
I am glad that my so-called life fits in only five boxes. I am contented with my life as it is- I have no real complaints and, all in all, nothing is lacking. I don't need 15 more boxes to feel that my life is well lived. I am thankful for my five and the fact that they have shown me how simple it is to appreciate what you cannot put into a box.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Sing in me, Muse...
Currently, my kids are reading Homer's "The Odyssey". It amazes me how much what we read resembles real life. I tell my kids that the word Odyssey means "a journey", and here I am on my own wild and bumpy journey. Odysseus faces monsters like Scylla, a 6 headed beast with bite, while I feel like I'm being ripped into 6 pieces sometimes by all of the work I have to do or places I have to be. It's not necessarily a bad ripping- I love being busy, love having work to do and places to be. This is all just very different from what I imagined it would be. They (being the lovely ed department) never tell you exactly how hard life is going to be, or how much you will have to do. Ignorantly, we as college students believe that life will get easier because we won't have classes to attend or homework to do, but we are still in class all day, and instead of doing homework, we are grading it.
Odysseus also finds himself facing Polyphemus, the cyclops with a bad attitude, and every day I find myself facing teachers or administrators or students who seem to have only one focus, and that focus cannot be changed. I stand in awe at those people who are ingrained in their ways, refusing to change despite the fact that an obvious change is necessary. They seem to literally only have one eye, and since they are so bent on looking at one thing, they have no other means to see a second or third option which is available.
There are, to my chagrin, one too many Circes at my school as well- women (and men) who are sorcerers or enchantresses, wooing people under their spell and spending all of their energy pulling people to "their side". They are absorbed in the politics or gossip of the school, and they seek to suck in everyone else around them or else condemn them as nothing more than pigs (if you haven't read "The Odyssey," please pardon my excessive references).
Speaking of gossip, enter in Charybdis, the eternal whirlpool of death, ever sucking people in to her bottomless pit. The students gossip, teachers gossip, administrators gossip. I admit to falling prey to the gravity of the gossip pool myself, and it really is incredibly difficult to pull one's self out once pulled in.
I could carry on with references to the cannibals or the lotus-eaters (which, by the way, I explained to my kids as being the same as today's stoners. They definitely got THAT reference), but I shall desist and spare you all a brutal monologue.
I shall say this- life is a journey full of lessons learned, and we all must face bumps in the road or storms on the sea. I sometimes feel as if I am constantly facing trials, but then, I do tend to place myself in these situations. After all, I moved here with little more than a car full of semi-important junk and a head full of hopes. I wish I had been better prepared, but looking back, I can't imagine how I would have known that I was lacking information or that I wasn't fully ready for life as an adult. Hopefully my adventures and mis-adventures will not be the stuff of epic poetry, but rather a story to tell to others to spare them some troubles (and inspire some laughter).
Odysseus also finds himself facing Polyphemus, the cyclops with a bad attitude, and every day I find myself facing teachers or administrators or students who seem to have only one focus, and that focus cannot be changed. I stand in awe at those people who are ingrained in their ways, refusing to change despite the fact that an obvious change is necessary. They seem to literally only have one eye, and since they are so bent on looking at one thing, they have no other means to see a second or third option which is available.
There are, to my chagrin, one too many Circes at my school as well- women (and men) who are sorcerers or enchantresses, wooing people under their spell and spending all of their energy pulling people to "their side". They are absorbed in the politics or gossip of the school, and they seek to suck in everyone else around them or else condemn them as nothing more than pigs (if you haven't read "The Odyssey," please pardon my excessive references).
Speaking of gossip, enter in Charybdis, the eternal whirlpool of death, ever sucking people in to her bottomless pit. The students gossip, teachers gossip, administrators gossip. I admit to falling prey to the gravity of the gossip pool myself, and it really is incredibly difficult to pull one's self out once pulled in.
I could carry on with references to the cannibals or the lotus-eaters (which, by the way, I explained to my kids as being the same as today's stoners. They definitely got THAT reference), but I shall desist and spare you all a brutal monologue.
I shall say this- life is a journey full of lessons learned, and we all must face bumps in the road or storms on the sea. I sometimes feel as if I am constantly facing trials, but then, I do tend to place myself in these situations. After all, I moved here with little more than a car full of semi-important junk and a head full of hopes. I wish I had been better prepared, but looking back, I can't imagine how I would have known that I was lacking information or that I wasn't fully ready for life as an adult. Hopefully my adventures and mis-adventures will not be the stuff of epic poetry, but rather a story to tell to others to spare them some troubles (and inspire some laughter).
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
So I keep forgetting....
I keep forgetting to update this. It's not that it isn't important (it is), but the last couple of times I've tried to log on, my computer went all wonky and kicked me off. So not fun.
It's November now (in case you missed that)!!!!!! We just finished out Gothic Lit/Poe unit and had a test today. I love the look of scared children in the morning... ahhhh smell the fear. And they were afraid. Very. And why shouldn't they be? After all, we've been on this for a month with repeated practice and discussion and quizzes. So, no excuses, I say!
Now, we're taking a breather for some descriptive writing, then jumping into... wait for it... The Odyssey!!! I did this last year with my kids and had a pretty good time, so I'm expecting some fairly good results this time. Oh, and I already conveniently have all my notes/papers/tests/EVERYTHING from last year, so, uh, win for me!
As for the world outside of school, I have been sucked into a group of people courtesy of Ty Flom, our neighborhood instructional coach who also happens to be one of the few 30 and under non-married people in the school. His girlfriend, Adrienne, is an amazing person, and so I've met a bunch of her friends and have now become one of the group as well. We went to a Halloween party on Saturday night (pic below), and get together for dinner every Monday. It's a nice change of pace, and I really enjoy it. On Sunday, I went trick-or-treating with Candy, Ronnie, Paul, and Cadence. Paul was a fireman, CayCay a princess (AURORA!!!). And me? Well, I started out believing I was Peter Pan, but apparently I also looked like an elf, leprechaun, plant thing.... I haven't done that in years, and it was nice to go from door to door and beg for free food. :0)
(The person next to me here is Whitney- she was Ginger Spice from the Spice Girls, and a bunch of our friends completed the group as Sporty, Baby, Scary, and Posh.)
It's November now (in case you missed that)!!!!!! We just finished out Gothic Lit/Poe unit and had a test today. I love the look of scared children in the morning... ahhhh smell the fear. And they were afraid. Very. And why shouldn't they be? After all, we've been on this for a month with repeated practice and discussion and quizzes. So, no excuses, I say!
Now, we're taking a breather for some descriptive writing, then jumping into... wait for it... The Odyssey!!! I did this last year with my kids and had a pretty good time, so I'm expecting some fairly good results this time. Oh, and I already conveniently have all my notes/papers/tests/EVERYTHING from last year, so, uh, win for me!
As for the world outside of school, I have been sucked into a group of people courtesy of Ty Flom, our neighborhood instructional coach who also happens to be one of the few 30 and under non-married people in the school. His girlfriend, Adrienne, is an amazing person, and so I've met a bunch of her friends and have now become one of the group as well. We went to a Halloween party on Saturday night (pic below), and get together for dinner every Monday. It's a nice change of pace, and I really enjoy it. On Sunday, I went trick-or-treating with Candy, Ronnie, Paul, and Cadence. Paul was a fireman, CayCay a princess (AURORA!!!). And me? Well, I started out believing I was Peter Pan, but apparently I also looked like an elf, leprechaun, plant thing.... I haven't done that in years, and it was nice to go from door to door and beg for free food. :0)
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