10 Saturday Jun 2017
Posted in Educating Julia, Growing a Daughter
Julia graduated from eighth grade on Wednesday and had a pretty wonderful day. She picked out her dress and the blue rose for her hair. She is a kid who loves dressing up and here was an occasion. She was even willing to pose for numerous mother pictures. The bus ladies were effusive with the compliments. These two women who drive and help out on the special ed bus greet her every morning and appear to love her chatter. Julia entertains them every morning. Continue reading
12 Friday May 2017
Posted in Pondering Quietly
Two deaths. One the wife of friend; the other the mother of a friend no longer. The first was a sound shake. A woman who was ill and being treated, who was expected to survive, to be healed. An unexpected death even though there was probably some scientific percentage that she would not survive. Like David. Twenty percent of those with heart transplant don’t survive. And we never considered for a moment that to be David.
We are all always part of the percentage. Continue reading
08 Wednesday Feb 2017
Posted in Growing a Daughter, Travels with a Daughter
I broke my wrist on Sunday. Of course it was my left wrist, my dominant hand. Aside from the pain and the splint and the doc appointments and the craziness of trying to figure out how to hook a bra, button up jeans and open pill bottles with one hand, there’s a steep learning curve of another kind going on and I have to grudgingly admit, I’m grateful for it.
For my birthday. I gave myself two presents–a creative workshop taught by a poet friend of mine called Spirit and Shadow. Her provocative questions are stirring my soul and disturbing my sleep. The other is an online course called Awakening Joy. Taught by James Baraz, it is a mindfulness class. This week we are put the intention of joy/happiness /contentment into the center of your life. Continue reading
04 Wednesday Jan 2017
Posted in Growing a Daughter, Travels with a Daughter
Coming home from New Years visiting of friends and feeling the contentment of both journey and home. Needing a few quiet day to settle and catch up. Needing to make and put into practice some of the new year’s resolutions. Needing to organize to send out holiday cards-more on that later. Needing to figure out just how to plunge into the new year. Then again, the plunge has happened. Umm, am I already behind? Continue reading
30 Wednesday Nov 2016
Posted in Journaling My Days, Travels with a Daughter
Bryant Park at noon.
Back from a week of NYC travel. A different kind of holiday, a different kind of time spent in NYC.
We usually spend Thanksgiving with old friends in a country setting but that didn’t work for us this year and so, Julia and I were in NYC, actually Kew Gardens, Queens, with Cheshire. The time was notable because we spent more time in her apartment than we have in the past and did not do any visiting of family or friends. Continue reading
23 Wednesday Nov 2016
Posted in Growing a Daughter
On Saturday, Julia and I went to our second Zentangle class at FUS. The instructor, who encourages Julia, instructed most of us at a comfortable speed. Julia drew three times the amount that the rest of us did, adding detail, changing patterns, making mistakes and altering her spaces on the little tiles. Her tile is the one in the middle.
Last Wednesday, we had a parent-teacher conference. Julia conducted the conference, reading her notes on how she had done the preceding quarter and what she intended to do this next quarter. She has made the honor roll last quarter of 7th grade and this first of 8th grade, and she is proud of herself. She entered middle school not caring in the least about grades or tests or comparing herself to anyone. Her grades are scaled, she is not really compete with her typical classmates, but for me, she competes with the girl who started 6th grade and I see how far she has come.
Continue reading
21 Friday Nov 2014
Posted in Growing a Daughter
Did grandpa love me? Was grandpa excited when I came home? Did grandpa scoop me up when I was a little baby? Did I have a dress on when I met grandpa? He did think I was cute? My grandpa would never abandon me. My grandpa is handsome.
During breakfast, I was checking Facebook and Julia spied a picture of her grandfather, David’s father, that one of her cousins posted on Veterans Day. It unleashed a torrent of questions and ideas that must have been bottled up for sometime.
It was a candid picture of Bob Schanker during his air force days. A half smile, jaunty tilt of the head and obviously happy. He was a navigator during the Second World War and, if his stories were to be believed, he lived some of the best years of his life during that time. He thrived in the company of men from all over the country. He explored outside of his Jersey roots. He was no longer under his mother’s thumb. He saw a little action — I’m not sure how much. Most of his time was spent state side, first learning and honing his skills, and later teaching those navigators who came in behind him. Much later, he would become a favorite and beloved high school business teacher and so I do not doubt that his gifts were put to good use in the service. There are many pictures of the girls and/or women he met during his service time. He had no special girl at home, at least the way he told it, and so flirted and socialized (and took pictures) as he moved from base to base.
