Saturday, May 12, 2012

Buckets on Their Heads


Sometimes things aren’t what they seem. And sometimes they are exactly what they seem, which can be even weirder.

One afternoon, as I walked toward the school building where I taught, I passed two of my 4-year-old students on the playground. Both boys had buckets on their heads. Reflexively, I said, “Nice hats.”

They both looked at me as if I were completely insane. “These aren’t hats, silly!” one cried. “We just put buckets on our heads!”

“Oh, of course! Now I get it!”

A big part of childhood play is transforming objects through imagination. A chair is the seat of a space shuttle, a blanket over a table makes a fort, a blade of grass becomes a diamond ring. So naturally, a bucket can be a hat.

Or not.

In the adult world, it can be hard to accept that things are just what they seem. I have wasted a lot of time trying to come up with logical explanations for the inexplicable.

When people and institutions don’t make sense, I look for some piece, some person, some rationale or missing fact that will put it all in place. But by the time I arrive at that point, scratching the surface yields more questions (like, “How can this possibly be?”). The more I learn, the more apparent it becomes that the whole thing is deeply, pervasively illogical.

And the more that happens, the more I ruminate, coming up with creative, wild hypotheses that might make great plots for HBO dramas, but are probably too far-fetched even for that.

“Maybe some years ago, Person A saved the organization by secretly contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars and that’s why….”

“Maybe Person B knows where Person C’s skeletons are buried and that would explain...”

Surely it can’t be that people are actually dishonest, greedy, power-mad, crazy or willfully ignorant. Surely institutions don’t cover up dysfunction with more dysfunction until the whole thing is one big façade. Surely things are just as we learned in school – do your best, get straight A’s, tell the truth, and everything else falls into place.

Life is fair, right?

So people who get D’s don’t make honor roll. People who lie get punished for it. People who don’t know anything about, say, Art Education don’t become Directors of Art Education at Art Schools. Places that are going under financially don’t insist on repeating the same patterns that got them there, with a little more navel-gazing.

Unfortunately, when things seem dysfunctional through and through, in every way, it’s often because they are. No amount of thinking will come up with a reasonable explanation. As my wiser sister told me once, when I was in full rumination mode, “You’re trying to make sense of something that just doesn’t make any sense. We want to make sense of things so we can understand them, but some things just don’t make sense.”

Sometimes it’s hard to accept that senseless things are just what they seem.

Sometimes it’s mind-boggling to find that they really are not complicated, or accidental, or unclear.

Sometimes people with buckets on their heads are just people with buckets on their heads.

All you can do is accept it, smile, and move on. 

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Can a Night Owl Become an Early Bird?

Why is this person smiling?
I need my sleep more than I need food. (Just ask my sisters.) I don't understand people who say, "Too much sleep makes me feel groggy." What is this "too much sleep" of which they speak? I could easily sleep for 12 hours and wake up feeling great! Eight hours is my absolute minimum.

The problem is, ever since my days as a young Disco Queen, I've gravitated toward staying up late. My glamorous restaurant work schedule got me home at 2:00 am, too. So if I don't set my alarm for a while, I easily slip into vampire mode.

I haven't set my alarm for a while.

In two and a half weeks, I have to get up at 5:30 to arrive somewhere by 7:30, all bright and functional. Lately, I've been getting to sleep between midnight and 1:00 am and getting up around 9:00. So I figure I have two options.

Option #1: Try to get to sleep early the night before. Read a boring book, drink three mugs of Sleepytime tea, try NOT to take one of my husband's Ambiens because they leave me groggy for hours into the next day.... Then at 1:30 am, in total frustration that I can't sleep, take one of my husband's Ambiens and be groggy well into the afternoon the next day.

Option #2: Aim to sleep and wake up 15 minutes earlier each day until the dreaded 5:30 wake-up-perky day.

I'm going to try Option #2. As they say in Sci-fi movies, "It's so crazy, it just might work!!"

Maybe.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

How my brain works.

1. I think I'd like to go back to Switzerland to finish my credential.
2. Even with the scholarship, I can't justify the expenses for travel and living there.
3. Hey, maybe I could get a Fulbright to go there!
4. Oh, Switzerland is the one country that only funds people 35 and younger.
5. Hey, maybe I could get a Fulbright to another country, study there, and then take a train to Geneva for part of the time!
6. Oh, the other Fulbrights require a doctorate degree.
7. Hey, maybe I should get a doctorate degree!
8. Oh yeah, I can't get a Ph.D. in Music Ed. without a Masters in Ed., and mine's in performance.
9. Hey, maybe I could take the additional coursework for a Music Ed. degree, and then go for a Ph.D.!
10. Oh, I also need state teaching certification.
11. Hey, here's a program where I could get a Masters plus certification in only 10 months!
12. Oh, but it costs $20k plus it's full time, so I couldn't work.
13. Hey, maybe I could look into those teacher residencies again, where you can get certified while teaching and earning a salary!
14. But I don't want to go back to square one of music teaching; I'd rather learn something new in that case.
15. Hey, maybe I could get certified in Early Childhood Ed. and then I could create a new way to merge music and movement with math and language arts!
16. Oh, I'd have to have more general subjects in my college transcripts to get into Early Childhood Ed.
17. Hey, maybe I could take some general classes at the community college and then go into Early Childhood Ed!
18. That'd take years, though.
19. Hey, I can get certified in music through the residency program and then as soon as I complete it, take the Praxis exam for Early Childhood, and teach that instead!
20. But then I wouldn't have had any teacher-training or practice in general Early Childhood Ed, because it would all have been in music.
21. Hey, maybe I could take some classes in Early Childhood Ed. to learn more about approaches to reading and math and then create my brilliant music and movement approach to them.
22. Or, I could go to Switzerland and finish my credential.....

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Samplers: What little girls did 200 years ago...

Seen yesterday at an antiques shop in Queenstown: two early 19th-century samplers. These were something of a rite of passage for girls. They were a way to practice stitching skills and to produce an ornamental work of art, as well. 

Both of these showed the tiniest little stitches and knots imaginable!


This one says (I think):

Jesus permit thy gracious name to stand
As the first efforts of an infant’s hand
And while her fingers o’er this canvas move
Engage her tender heart to seek thy love
With thy dear children let her share a part
And write thy name thyself upon her heart.
Eliza Record
Aged 10 1826


Even harder to read, I believe the words here are:

Art has Taught my Fingers skill
To write without pen ink or Quill

This is my Needle Work to shew
When I was Young what I could do
And by my Marking you may see
What care my Parents took of me.
Harriott Whitchorn
11 Years of Age
November 8, 1803

Can you imagine the lives of the little girls who spent so many hours doing this work? I wonder what thoughts went through the minds as they so painstakingly placed each little stitch. It was all preparation for a life of domesticity. 

So here's one thing they probably weren't thinking about: what they wanted to be when they grew up.