i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart) E.E. Cummings The Friday night recital has more people than usual, the perfect confluence of no other scheduled events and the novel introduction of clever advertising by an enterprising strings teacher. So we know who’s playing tonight, and the many of us too weary to…
Tag: Black Forest Academy
Do It Yourself
“What are you supposed to be?” Everyone, Fall Party 2012 Emily and I walk back to school Friday night, partially costumed as our respective favorite things. That’s the theme of this year’s High School Fall Party: Our Favorite Things. All students and staff have been instructed to dress up as… essentially anything. Anything that we…
In the Dorm
It’s quiet when they leave. When supper was finished, the younger boys washed the dishes and mopped the floor, while the older ones packed and I baked banana cake. Then, an hour later, we piled down the stairs and out to the parking lot, where we waved goodbye, Sound of Music style, to the seniors….
A New Year: Reading and Recommending
You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. II Corinthians 3:2 (English Standard Version) It’s like a high school version of Laura Numeroff’s If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. “If you teach all the eleventh graders English–and both they and you do a reasonably good job, and…
This I Believe 2012: Seasons
I’ve shared with some of you in the past that my students start each year with their own statements of belief, in the form of a “This I Believe” essay, modeled on the National Public Radio segment of the same title. With the start of school three days away, here’s a look into my teacher…
Moving In
We didn’t always live on Mango Street. Before that we lived on Loomis on the third floor, and before that we lived on Keeler. Before Keeler it was Paulina, and before that I can’t remember. But what I remember most is moving a lot. Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street We finish just before lunchtime, then prepare plates…
Of Graduation, Extravagant Gifts
Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21 (italics mine) “I think, I think, we can keep it under an hour. It’ll be tricky,…
A Junior Farewell
I’ve loved this year. I spent today, the last day of classes at BFA, as I’ve spent many days with this year’s group of students, sitting on the grass by the river, talking about books. Thankful tonight for the blessing of working with these students I so deeply admire and will miss dearly. In lieu of…
The Runaway Bunny
“I will become a little sailboat, and I will sail away from you.” “If you become a sailboat and sail away from me,” said his mother, “I will become the wind…” The Runaway Bunny, Margaret Wise Brown “Am I late?” she breathes as she whirls into the room, a hurricane of red hair with bags–school,…
On Messes
Living in this beautiful mess is who we are. From “All I Am,” by Most People I’ve never loved messes. Not that I’m compulsively neat, of course. I have my blind spots, like everyone–mugs that sit on the counter longer than they should, that piece of paper still on the floor of my room, which is…
The Way Home 