Lovely Summer

I {obviously} haven't been able to find the words to bring to this space. I've been lingering, limbo-ing, searching, working, and praying for my path to unfold. As I work with this guidance as it helps me find the way, some pushes in the wrong direction have actually made things much clearer. (Accepting a job I thought I really really wanted, then crying for 24 hours straight before declining the job...) After a melodramatic day I discovered a job posting for a part time teaching assistant at a Montessori inspired school. More specifically a small scale day care center for 2 year olds with a backyard garden, chickens, and art projects galore. Although my inquiries have not borne fruit, similar job postings have popped up on craigslist and I am determined to find the training to support my new goals!

My favorite job in college was at the First English Lutheran Child Day Care Center. The hardest part for me was understanding their policy of not drawing "with" the children, because they then want/need you to replicate your "better" drawing for them over and over again. The one time I did break the rules, I immediately regretted it after drawing about 14 angels. The best part of working with children is imagination. We would spend hours constructing adventure tales, usually based around toys or objects in the garden or play area. Tigers would fly across oceans, Dump trucks would make best friends with race cars in desert sand dunes and everyone would share, develop and make an epic tale. Together.

Learning about the Montessori and other play-based education methods has reignited a passion for the welfare of America's children. Naturally I am concerned for all the children of the world, but my work is here, in America (where I am legally bound to pay student loans for a long, long time...) and I really feel that there is a change sweeping our culture, a realization that allowing children to discover rather than conform is the healthiest way to create kind, well adapted adults to lead this country out of its abscess of the myriad chronic health problems we face.

Clearly I am not spending the same hours on the internet, reading your stories, sharing beautiful images. But since I am living life much more fully, I will try my best to document the highlights, and share my reflections on the low times.