The Pink House

The Justin Smith Morrill Homestead...my new home away from home!  This place is a little slice of heaven...I think I've almost figured out all of my dream jobs at this point and am well on my way to making a living doing the things I love.  I adore dressing up and curating a Victorian Gothic mansion/museum, it's the most ME thing that I've done so far.  Yesterday it rained, making this place dark, scary and full of spooky noises, but today, the sun shines brightly, gardeners putter on the flower beds, the brook is splashing along outside my windows and the ghosts have melted away.  Earlier, in the cool morning air, I walked the grounds, raised the flags and unlocked the barns.  I took the back path down to the ice house, so I could pass the waterfall and the millstone.  The stone bridge was a bit slippery from moss and mist so I placed my buttoned boots carefully and kept my hand on the keys in my apron pocket.  Lifting my skirts clear of damp ferns, I sniffed the herbs in the garden and felt beyond calm and healthy and content.  I felt like I could finally slow down, take my time.  Listen and look and appreciate.  Every once in a while something falls into place that makes me know, despite the hardships and rush-around from job to job, and daily struggle to make ends meet, that I'm headed in the right direction.  Right now, I'm just about perfectly happy.  Life is good.

All In A Day's Work

If every day was like yesterday, I'd be putting in a 75 hour work week!  Subbed at the school all day, as usual, but then headed to the museum to put in a few more hours, helping to open it up and clean the artifacts, then buzzed back to take pictures of the darling middle schoolers before their semi-formal.  They were so excited and adorable, I thought I'd post a few shots.  

Mother's Day

Dear Mom, thanks for passing down your joy of reading, your inability to hold more than three sips of beer, and your pretty legs. Thanks for all the hugs and the teary talks. Thanks for sneaking into my apartment and doing my laundry yesterday. Thanks for loving me unconditionally and being the one who, our whole lives, did all the behind-the-scenes dirty work, uncomplaining and unrecognized.   Thanks for being so tidy that it offset Dad's slob genes and we girls turned out somewhere in the middle.  Thanks for your weird meals that you apologized for before we even tasted them.  Thanks for holding us close when we were sick and teaching us that kindness matters most of all in life.  Thank you for encouraging us to write and draw and dance and sing and create and for letting us have swings in the house when we were little.  Thanks for taking in your adult daughter and getting her through the roughest time of her life, even when I don't thank you nearly enough for what you do. Thank you for helping me raise my kids and loving them just as much as you loved us. Thanks for calling me your "Emmalou" and "Piglet" and "Butchina" and for being the best mom on earth.  I love you more than I can say.  -Emily    

Rough Winds Do Shake The Darling Buds Of May...

Chilly Day

Today I went to Franconia to celebrate the life of a friend's baby brother.  As I sort through all the losses I can remember, I don't think I've ever been to a memorial service for someone younger than myself.  Chelone was only 29.  We stood there, hundreds of us, in the alternating hail and sunshine and remembered an amazing person.

Dance Fever

I love my job! Even though I'm sore, bruised and battered from two weeks of Swing dancing all day long, this morning one little boy came up to me, grinning, and said: "I hated dancing before, I wanted to stay home sick the first day, and now I LOVE it!" ...my heart almost burst! Kids are dancing in the hallways, kids are practicing at recess, kids are sneaking back to the gym to watch, kids are humming as they walk from class to class, teachers are jumping in to volunteer when we have uneven numbers, the older students are helping the younger ones. I am so, so, so proud of them. It doesn't get better than this. I could fly today.

Boys are learning to treat girls with respect, and vise versa, to trust one another, to work together, to feel and see an accomplishment that is just plain cool.  I watched several kids who were not friends before this class, dance in a steamy sugar house the other night, laughing, choreographing, radio static not deterring them in the least.

What's so particularly gratifying is: everything will be different for some of them now.  I know that dancing changed my life.  And I see that same look on plenty of faces...that look like a whole new world has opened up, one where they suddenly discovered they can do things they never thought they could.  An open-mindedness to try things that they thought they would hate.  It was so powerful to me that when I left the other day, after watching a formerly sulky kid trying out a new lift on his partner and they they stopped to work out the logistics before doing it again...and again...and again, until they had it perfect and then excitedly called me to come see, after having this sort of thing happen a dozen other times, in the parking lot later, I put my head down on the steering wheel and cried for a minute, great welling up of relief and gratitude towards life and love and opportunity.

It's like holding the most wonderful gift and being able to hand it over to unsuspecting recipients, like a sweepstakes, or a newborn baby.  So thankful to be able to give such a gift, it's a thousand times better than being the Good Humor Man!  I feel like I'm passing out happiness.  Best feeling in the world.  Parents have told me their kids are dancing while brushing their teeth, are swinging their little brother around, are moving the furniture out of the way to show off their moves.

This morning the 8th grade did a final Swing demo in front of the whole school during an assembly, and the cheers were deafening.  They worked incredibly hard and did an amazing job.  More sappy tears on my part as I watched from the side.  I am so lucky.  So lucky.  

School Rules

(Do I look like a 5th grade teacher?  Didn't think so.)

Over the last couple years, I've found myself having to be a jack of all trades.  (And master of very few!)  I've been a journalist, dance instructor, photographer, ghost writer, publicist, nanny, producer and now I've been working as a substitute teacher for the last couple weeks, and will continue on through the remainder of the school year.  I worked at the school about 14 years ago and despised it, dreaded every day, but my job description was very different then...I'm enjoying it immensely these days.  Today I took the place of the combined 3rd/4th/5th grade teacher, a huge class which seemed daunting to me ahead of time, despite knowing most of the kids.  I needn't have worried, they were mostly all sweet and helpful.  Admittedly I stumbled a bit in math class...it's pretty humbling to realize even elementary math is tricky for me, if only momentarily.  Math was never my strong suit!  Everything else though, I aced.

First thing, I checked the chore chart and asked the little girl responsible to feed the fish...but she came back to report one was laying on the bottom, lifeless.  Well, that kept everyone rather distracted all morning.  Some kids claimed it was stunned but still alive, (they'd seen it twitch!!!) some insisted the bubbler was making it move and it was absolutely DEAD.  One created an elaborate paper coffin while she was supposed to be doing a worksheet.  Finally when they had gone to snack, I had the janitor remove it so we could get back to business!  RIP, 20 cent Neon Tetra!

At circle time, the kids got to talk about what they did over the weekend.  Then they asked me about MY weekend.  Unfortunately, I had attended my grandmother's funeral on Sunday, which really, was a nice day, all things considered...wonderful to have many happy memories shared and to see my family, BUT add that to the dead fish incident, and the classroom conversation was immediately returned to death.  Egads!

I got a small thrill from standing at the front of the room writing things on the white board and sternly stopping two small boys from wresting over a marker.  It reminded me of all the days playing school with my sisters as a child.  I, of course, was ALWAYS the teacher, being the eldest - a born leader and general Bossy Johnson.  I got to assign a writing project of my own choosing and was delighted that the class seemed to enjoy the topic.  The smell of erasers and paste and industrial paper towels was pretty darn nostalgic.  And harking back to my juvenile days, I secretly snickered to myself every time I had to walk down the hall and see a half finished bulletin board with only: "HOW CHICKS DEVELOP" written at the top.

Anyhow, I made it.  Made it through a jammed printer, a dead fish, a mysterious math class, and a kid who refused to read a paragraph about Dung Beetles out loud.  Do I want to go back to college and become a teacher full-time?  Nope.  I'd rather do this and keep loving it.  A new, fresh thing every day.  Nice to see my own boys as they come and go, nice to get hugs from random kids, nice to laugh with other adults at lunch.  Utterly exhausting, but still, satisfying.  Tomorrow's another day, I wonder who I'll be next?