Last week the 4th grade went on their yearly outdoor ed trip. We always go to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore for two and a half days of learning about the environment, having fun, and growing in sometimes surprising ways. The Environmental Learning Center is wonderful - great staff, wonderful food, lovely, clean cabins, and a great program. We spend nearly the whole time there outdoors, learning about the different ecosystems (it's more than piles of sand!), how the land was used over time, and the environmental problems facing the area today.
Like many camps, meals are served family style in the dining hall. Kids take turns being "hoppers" (serving food) and weather reporters. The Learning Center staff makes weather reporting fun by letting the kids do a little skits, with costumes! It's usually pretty funny. At our last dinner in the lodge, the weather reporters gave their weather update on temperature, wind speed, barometric readings, cloud cover and type, and then the naturalist yelled, "Time to conga!" Music came on and everybody joined in the conga line, snaking around the tables! Kids and adults were dancing and laughing. It lasted only a couple of minutes, then everyone, still smiling and laughing, went back to their tables to finish cleaning up.
A great way to end dinnertime and a perfect moment of uncomplicated happiness.
I must have been thinking about how easy it is now to see movies. You don't need to go to the theater, you don't even have to buy or rent a DVD. You can access an awful lot of movies from your home. And my adult children do just that.
These thoughts led me to thinking about the way it was in the past. You know, when I walked 4 miles to school, uphill both ways, in the snow. No, not that past, the past I actually lived. In the real past, in my family, going to the movies was a special occasion. I can remember the first movie my mother took my sister and me to; it was The Shaggy Dog, which I think starred Fred MacMurray. That was followed by more Disney movies - Flubber, The Parent Trap, and Old Yeller. My little brother's first movie was The Music Man. He sat on the edge of his seat with huge round eyes the whole movie.
Then there was the Sunday night TV show, the Wonderful World of Disney, which often showed Disney movies, usually broken into parts shown over two or three weeks. Mostly, these were really good stories, fun to watch.
All these movies stayed with us, my brother, sister, and me. We talked about them, sometimes acted out parts. They weren't the best movies ever made, but they were certainly a lot of fun.
I am both a 4th grade teacher and a musician. I went to music school before returning to earn an elementary education degree. I still play (French horn) in three community groups and now and then for other occasions. This past Sunday was a special day in my musical life. The concert band that both my husband and I play in had its last concert of the year and our daughter, who also plays horn, and I were featured on a solo.
The road to this solo performance was winding and full of roadblocks.
Every fall, any band member who is interested can audition for a chance to play a solo with the band. Generally two or three players are chosen. The first couple of years it was all woodwind players and I thought the brass really needed to be represented. However, I didn't want to play a solo by myself. So, I asked one of the other horn players if he wanted to audition with me on a concerto for two horns. He said sure. He also felt that we needed to give the woodwind players some friendly competition. We planned to work on it over the summer. Well, it seemed we were never in town at the same time. Fall came and he said he just didn't have time to learn the part, which was quite challenging. End of story, I thought.
I was telling my daughter Jamie what happened and she said, "I could do it with you." Well, she's not a member of the band. She's a busy graduate student. She doesn't live with us. But she already knew one of the parts. So I said I would ask the conductor if we could audition even though she isn't in the band. Much to my surprise he said yes. She did fill in at one concert, so he said that was close enough.
The next challenge for me was that the part Jamie already knew was the part that I had planned to play. So I needed to learn the other part, which is very high, requiring strong muscles to repeatedly hit notes at the top of the horn range. Like training for a marathon, say, this required a lot of practice time to build up the endurance.
This "double concerto" for two horns was written by Antonio Rosetti, a contemporary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Rosetti was German, despite his name, which he changed, probably because Italian musicians were paid more than Germans in the 18th century. He was a court musician in one of the many small courts in what is now Germany. He had two outstanding horn players in his orchestra, for whom he wrote at least 17 concertos, plus 6 double concertos. His music is rarely played today.
We auditioned last September and were one of three soloists chosen. Our concert was the May performance.
Next roadblock: The Band music is rental only. The school district that sponsors our band ordered the music. Through some miscommunication somewhere, the wrong concerto arrived. It was only 4 weeks before the concert. The conductor told me he thought it was not possible to return the parts and get the correct music in time to prepare it for the concert. End of story, I thought.
But no, my husband was determined that we would play. He called the rental company and explained the problem so persuasively that the correct music arrived at our house two days later! We had two rehearsals with the band and then it was time for the concert.
People are surprised that I get nervous when performing, but it's true. This time, though, it was such a joy to play this charming little piece with Jamie, that my mind was only on the music and the pleasure of playing. A perfect performance? No, but I think we communicated the spirit of the piece.
Seize the moment! So many roadblocks along the way and this may very well be the only time that Jamie and I solo together in public. It's a great memory to have.
Actually, I don't think the poem is maudlin, I wanted to take the challenge to be a teacher who writes poetry, given in the throwback post from Two Writing Teachers. I followed the general plan for starting with a word of the day, finding synonyms and then synonyms of synonyms.
Maudlin
Tearfully charming,
Mawkish weeping,
Dreamy howling.
A comic mourner
In a funereal scene
from Charles Dickens.
Lachrymosa
Tall black hat,
Downcast eyes.
Dies Irae
The undertaker's mute
Pacing behind
Tenderly, professionally tearful.
Requiem
Maybe the poem should speak for itself, but I'm going to talk about it anyway. I tried to pair unexpected synonyms - some of the synonyms and definitions were at odds with each. This led me to thoughts of the undertaker's mute, the hired mourner who walked behind the hearse in Victorian England. Oliver Twist was a mute for a short time in Dickens' novel, a pale, sad little boy dressed in mourning. One of the synonyms was lachrymose, which I discovered means weeping. That word took me to the Requiem mass. The Lachrymosa is part of the Dies Irae, so that became part of the poem, too.
Though I have written poetry in the past, I have fallen out of the habit. This was an enjoyable challenge that should lead to more poetry on my part.
I decided to write this post in the middle of the night. I was awake, wishing I was asleep.
I don't really know why I can't sleep through the night sometimes. Maybe there's some noise that wakes me, maybe it's something I ate, maybe it's the end of the school year anxiety, but it's been happening regularly lately.
The first doctor that I told about my sleep problems gave me a prescription for Sonata. Such a nice, musical name. He said, "You'll love this. You'll think nothing is happening for 20 minutes, then the next thing you know, you're waking up in the morning." It did work like that for awhile, though it always made me a little nervous. Then I took it and it didn't work. If you don't fall asleep after taking Sonata, you can have hallucinations! Not fun at all. That was it for Sonata.
Years later with a different doctor, I got a discussion on "sleep hygiene." If you can't sleep, don't stay in bed, get up and do something boring for awhile and then go back to bed. Dark room, don't read in bed, etc. Doesn't work for me. I also tried natural remedies - melatonin and calming herbs. I'm still awake. And being awake, I start thinking of all the things I should or could be doing.
My teaching partner said I should put a notebook and pencil beside my bed. "If you're going to do lesson planning in the middle of the night, you might as well write it down so you don't forget it."
This is a pretty good representation of what it's like to be laying awake, not being able to sleep:
That is The Nightmare Song from the operetta Iolanthe by Gilbert and Sullivan, performed by Dave Ross. It's a patter song and the lyrics go by pretty quickly, so here are the words:
When you're lying awake, with a dismal headache,
And repose is taboo'd by anxiety,
I conceive you can use any language you choose
To indulge in without impropriety.
For your brain is on fire, the bedcothes conspire
Of usual slumber to plunder you.
First your counterpane goes and uncovers your toes,
And your sheet slips demurely from under you.
Then the blanketing tickles, your feel like mixed pickles,
So terribly sharp is the pricking.
And you're hot and you're cross and you tumble and toss,
Til there's nothing twixt you and the ticking.
Then the bedclothes all creep to the ground in a heap,
And you pick 'em all up in a tangle.
Next your pillow resigns and politely declines
To remain at it usual angle.
When you get some repose in the form of a doze
With hot eyeball and head ever aching,
Your slumbering teems with sucn horrible dreams
That you'd very much better be waking.
You awake with a shudder, despairing...
You're a regular wreck,
With a crick in your neck,
And no wonder you snore,
For your head's on the floor.
And you're needles and pins
Form your soles to your shins,
And your flesh a acreep
For your left leg's asleep.
And you've cramp in your toes
And a fly on your nose,
And some fluff on your lung,
And a feverish tongue,
And a thirst that's intense,
And a general sense
That you haven't bee sleeping in clover.
But the darkness has passed, and it's daylight at last!
The night has been long, ditto , ditto my song,
And thank good ness they're both of them over!
I love Gilbert and Sullivan!
What I have been working on lately is getting some exercise, mostly walking and a little yoga. I think this makes me more relaxed and tired, so hopefully I will fall asleep and stay asleep. It is also essential for me to avoid looking a screen too close to when I want to sleep, because the light in my face disrupts the melatonin that should move me into sleep mode. So no computers or Kindle before bed. I have to say that the experience of not sleeping makes me appreciate those nights when I sleep soundly until morning. What a great feeling!
This week I am feeling grateful. Last week one of my colleagues, who is also my friend, was taking his daughter on a college visit out of state. They were in a horrible car accident on Wednesday. The driver behind them didn't slow down in a construction zone and plowed into the back of their car, pushing them into the car in front of them. My friend was airlifted out to the hospital. His daughter was banged up, but had no serious injuries, though I'm sure it was pretty terrifying for her.
My friend is married to my teaching partner, who got the call at school from the hospital. She dropped everything and headed for the airport.
He was in the ICU with multiple injuries for a couple of days, and then was released from the hospital and flew home on Saturday, amazingly. He is now recovering at home, and will probably be there for a few weeks. He's been sending cheerful emails, including mentioning that he'd always wondered what it would be like to be airlifted, and now he knows!
My teaching partner sent a photo of the car, which had been towed away. It looked more like a ball of metal than a car.
It's a reminder when terrible things happen - a reminder of how important our friends are to us, and how much we care. It's also a reminder that life can change in an instant.
So I am very grateful that my friends are back with us.
I thought I was the only person who disliked The Giving Tree, but it turns out there are others who had the same response to the book that I did!
Grammarly's post on April 1 titled "The 5 Best Children's Books of All Time." The list includes Charlotte's Web, The Giving Tree, Oh, The Places You'll Go, The Giver, and Where the Wild Things Are. I disagreed with several of the books on the list. But, lists of favorites or bests are very subjective. Lists like this are a starting place for discussion.
I hated The Giving Tree the first time I read it and have not changed my opinion. I know dozens of people who love it and find it inspiring, but I see it as the boy talking everything, including, finally, the tree's life. The boy gives nothing. I have kept my opinion mostly to myself, until now. Several readers made similar comments, saying, for example, it "should be renamed The Taking Tree."
I love Dr. Seuss, but Oh, the Places You'll Go is not one of my favorites. I love Horton Hears a Who, The Sneetches, and especially Green Eggs and Ham. I haven't read The Giver and though I like Charlotte's Web and Where the Wild Things Are, they don't touch me the way other books have.
So what would I put on the 5 Best Children's Books of All Time list? The Wind in the Willows is perhaps my absolute favorite children's book. I didn't read it until I was an adult, but the story of the friendship and gentle adventures combined with the luminous language is the best, in my opinion. I also loved Kidnapped and The Jungle Book, for the adventurous stories. A Wrinkle in Time and the Narnia books are also up there on my list.
I was so fortunate to have an uncle who loved books and gave me a book every year for my birthday. Because of him I read some more offbeat novels that I wouldn't have found without him. He gave me The Return of the Twelves by Pauline Clarke, which led me to the Brontes and more wonderful novels. He also gave me The Outsiders when it first came out, and an oddball novel by Jules Verne that is printed sideways on the page. I owe him at least for some of my love of reading.
