Unwrapping Saturday's messages

On Friday a package from Atlanta filled our mailbox. Jeanne, my first cousin David's wife, culled her earring collection of pairs that she no longer wears. She wrote brief recollections on sticky notes and bundled them with the earrings in rolls of bubble wrap. What a treasure trove of memories and beauty.

Jeanne wrote that many of these pairs are "too dangly" for her: Our tall friend Betsy can carry off big hats and huge earrings with great style. Sometimes Dave will look at one and say, "You have on Betsy's earrings." He's always right. Some of these are "Betsy earrings."  And now they will dangle from the ears of another tall, long-necked woman.

From among the many pairs in the package, I chose these dainty amethyst earrings to wear first. Don't seem to wear gold- or fake gold- anymore, though I liked the little amethyst drops for quite awhile, wrote Jeanne. They matched the shirt and scarf I'd donned to head out for a Saturday of tutoring a student and his mom in math, wandering about Old Town Alexandria, and meeting a long-lost friend to see the movie Contagion.

Contagion raises the spectre of a viral pandemic and the race to find a cure. It reminds us of the unseen germs that lurk on every surface we touch. Lying on their bubble wrap, these purple stones look pure and pristine. But if someone in a shop or in a movie theater were to cough or sneeze on them, and I touched them and then my lips, they might become the vector for a disease.

Watching this movie with my friend Marilyn was especially poignant, since she works for our government, trying to protect our food supply. As she wrote this morning, The heroes in "Contagion" are the hard-working government employees. We are taken for granted so often and frequently treated as if we are expendable and overcompensated, particularly in the current political theater. In this movie, it's clear why we are paid what we are paid. We are highly trained and dedicated to the American people.

If we cut funding for the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Center for Disease Control, how will we be prepared to meet new health threats? State agencies have already cut their health department budgets.

Most memorable line from Contagion: Don't touch your face. One way to safeguard your health. An easy one, for a first step.  

Bison Bone Earrings

For years, a family raised bison just down the road from the cabin where we spend our summers near Sigel, PA. We'd drop by their roadside stand every summer and buy some bison burgers. A few summers ago, one of their daughters began to make and sell earrings that she made from bison bone. I bought this pair which I wore today for our afternoon tipi project in Third Grade.

As often happens, I could be posting photos of my students' work. But I left school focused on many things, none of which was pictures to post on my blog. This afternoon, each of my students traced, cut and decorated a mini-tipi cloth. Many of them are quite extraordinary, like this image that I found at the website of the National Museum of the American Indian.

The children studied sheets of pictographs carefully, chosing symbols to draw on their tipis. Some told stories with a series of pictographs. Some created a pattern of images.

This afternoon, we finished cutting the poles, measuring the base so that we can space the poles evenly, and decorating the tipi covers. Next Friday, we will assemble the tipis and add features so that our models can stand together and resemble a Plains Indian village.

I've found that many children don't engage in the sort of self-constructed imaginative play that filled many hours in my childhood and in the lives of my own children. As we build these homes, make people to live in them, and add fire circles, sleeping robes, baskets and drying skins and whatever else the children choose, many of my students discover the joy of creating a play world without store-bought plastic parts. Many teachers do not have the flexibility to offer their students opportunities like these, since their time is focused on preparing for a standards of learning test. I firmly believe that my students gain more from creating than they would from two more hours of worksheets.

The buffalo no longer roam on that hillside near our cabin in PA. We miss them. I'm glad I bought these earrings as a memento of that family enterprise.

"You're wearing bison bones in your ears, really?"

"Really."

Inspiring Books from Amsterdam's Spui Boekenmarkt

Today, as my students began to write in their marbled composition books, I wore my book earrings. I think I plucked one from my ear about 30 times today to give someone a closer look.

"Are there real pages in those books?"

"Can you really write in them?"

My reply? "I could write, but I'm worried that I'll ruin them. I don't think I can write both small enough and neatly enough. I write in bigger notebooks."

I bought these books earrings in Amsterdam in the summer of 2008 when we wandered through the Spui book market, a lane of shelves and boxes and tables of books under canvas tents-- A glorious wander for a book lover. Since I didn't want to load my luggage with weight, this tiny pair of books made the perfect souvenir of my wander through Amsterdam.

This pair may well be my very favorite: real marbled paper covers; blank pages calling for words and images to fill them; I'd like to think they were made by a local craftsperson, but I imagine that's a fantasy. I looked online and found many pairs of handmade book earrings. But I've never seen others as perfect as this pair I bought in Amsterdam.

My Bison Trifecta

Today, on my 5th day of school, we read about bison and took notes as part of our research about the people who once roamed the Great Plains. In the midst of Social Studies, my student Rose looked up at my earrings and whispered, "Oh my gosh! Your earrings are bison and they're nickels! Math, Social Studies, and writing, all in one pair of earrings!"

She's right. This pair is sort of a trifecta for me. Nickels for math on the 5th day of school. Bison for research about the Plains Indians. And we're researching about animals in preparation for writing about them.

I bought this pair at the Delaplane Strawberry Festival from the artisan who carved the metal away with his jigsaw. I love them. Buffalo nickels were only minted from 1913 to 1938. I can remember spending them as a child, although most of my nickels wore the face of Thomas Jefferson. Buffalo nickels are a real connection to America's past, honoring a traditional lifestyle that is lost. I treasure these earrings.

Dragonflies of summer

Dragonflies. In summer, I greet them each day as I paddle upstream and down. My friend Ardyce often joins me in her yellow boat, a true joy of summer: time to float and chat. My daughter Kathe made this pair of earrings for me, in the blues I love.

My 3rd graders are researching animals, and preparing to write about them in a variety of genres. In addition to non-fiction, they will write poetry and personal narratives; they will imagine themselves as animals, and share what they imagine.

Here is my dragonfly poem, which hangs on the wall:
                           June 20

For me, summer began  at 2:11 PM today.

School closed two weeks ago.

Summer’s solstice has come and gone.

Days have begun to shorten.

So why today? Because of an annual sign:

As I paddled my kayak upstream,

I spied a flash of iridescent green

In flight.

Above the tip of my blue boat

She hovers,

Dips, and alights,

Wings spread.

Now I see all four:

Glittering narrow webs of black thread,

Opening from

A thin gray-green stem.

I gaze into her bulbous eyes,

Reflective like sunglasses,

And wonder how I must look

In her 10,000 lenses.

I blink and she is gone,

My harbinger of summer.

I paddle on, smiling.

Summer began today.

I left that world a month ago to return home for the school year. This writing project creates a bridge for me from summer to fall.  

Domino earrings, 1+2=3

I've known since started this project on 1/1/11 that I could wear these earrings today, for my 3rd day of school.

All morning, children eyed my ears, saying things like,

• "I like your earrings."
• "Why are you wearing dominoes on your ears?"
• "Why do you have two different dominoes?"

I inevitably asked them to guess why I wore these earrings today.

"3 is your favorite number?" (That's true, it is. I was born on the 3rd of July; I have 3 children; and I teach 3rd grade.)
"We got one dollar on the first day of school, two dollars on the second day, and three dollars today. Just like your earrings. One plus two plus three. That's six dollars, just like the six dots on your earrings." (Wow. That's true, too.)
"Both sides make 3, and it's the 3rd day of school." (Short and sweet. And true.)

I haven't told this class about my earring blog, and how I'm wearing a different pair of earrings each day for a whole year. But I think that discussion is coming soon. They're hooked on my earrings already.

Twin Tower Earrings for 9/11

I woke up this morning to the sounds of people on TV sharing their memories of September 11, 2001. I knew I wanted to make a pair of tall, thin earrings: elevens, twin towers, for today. I sat and watched and listened for a while, fixed breakfast and watched some more. Then I set about some Sunday chores.

As I swept and dusted, cleaned the kichen, and did some laundry, I listened to the New York memorial service at the site where the Twin Towers once stood. The litany of names, punctuated with moving stories of loss. The Bible readings, including President Obama reading Psalm 46:

Therefore, we will not fear, even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.

Someone read a beautiful passage from Paul, about the wish of those who die that the living shall live life to the fullest, rather than mourn. Andrew Cuomo read from FDR's Four Freedoms speech. Governor Pataki read a Billy Collins poem. James Taylor sang Close Your Eyes:

I can sing this song, and you can sing this song when I'm gone.

Paul Simon sang The Sounds of Silence.

... a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

I took a break from cleaning to make my earrings. Tall, thin, twin towers like those that glimmered in the sunlight just 10 years ago.