doing the math
Ilya is in the second grade. He holds up two marker-smudged fingers and waves them in the air while i fiddle with the strap on my guitar. "Two more days," he tells me in his thick Russian accent. "Two more days of rain".
I don't know how to cope with four days in a row of rain any more than they do. Two more days of rain, 7 more weeks of school, 34 more school days until summer vacation. We sit inside and sweat through the humidity of our classrooms, eyelids drooping with the darkness of the clouds. We are all waiting for summer with an ever-increasing urgency, and i don't know what will happen if it doesn't come soon.
In the mean time, I'm noticing that we are more and more familiar to each other. They call my guitar by name ("Lola") and tell me about new baby brothers being born. They tell me stories of shiny-eyed bravery, the adventures leading up to all their scraped knees and broken bones.
If there is one thing that will save the first- and second-grade classes this year it will be a tattered old book of circle-song-games called "Jump Jim Joe". The magic we've seen these past few weeks has been almost effortless, and they turn circles inside of circles, leaders charging ahead with paper crowns and magic wands and moving with purpose, all of them singing with gusto. They change partners and jump in time and tap their toes and take theirs bows, finding new partners in the few bars in between, greeting with smiles and giggles and shouts and squeals and sometimes the din of joy mixed with pure chaos is so much that we have to play the sit-down-stand-up game just to start together again. If i could take them to a real contra-dance i would-- for now, we've got a new community dance starting up and down the hall every 42 minutes.
and in the mean time i am praying for patience, and down-time, and sunshine.
I don't know how to cope with four days in a row of rain any more than they do. Two more days of rain, 7 more weeks of school, 34 more school days until summer vacation. We sit inside and sweat through the humidity of our classrooms, eyelids drooping with the darkness of the clouds. We are all waiting for summer with an ever-increasing urgency, and i don't know what will happen if it doesn't come soon.
In the mean time, I'm noticing that we are more and more familiar to each other. They call my guitar by name ("Lola") and tell me about new baby brothers being born. They tell me stories of shiny-eyed bravery, the adventures leading up to all their scraped knees and broken bones.
If there is one thing that will save the first- and second-grade classes this year it will be a tattered old book of circle-song-games called "Jump Jim Joe". The magic we've seen these past few weeks has been almost effortless, and they turn circles inside of circles, leaders charging ahead with paper crowns and magic wands and moving with purpose, all of them singing with gusto. They change partners and jump in time and tap their toes and take theirs bows, finding new partners in the few bars in between, greeting with smiles and giggles and shouts and squeals and sometimes the din of joy mixed with pure chaos is so much that we have to play the sit-down-stand-up game just to start together again. If i could take them to a real contra-dance i would-- for now, we've got a new community dance starting up and down the hall every 42 minutes.
and in the mean time i am praying for patience, and down-time, and sunshine.