holla holla hey

Good morning from the east coast,
I have been burrowed into the world of newjob and settinguptheclassroom for days now (weeks?), but I feel like emergence is coming soon. More or less. There are still things, still lists, but not quite so harrowing in their must-get-it-done-immediately!ness. I'll have to develop a repertoire of kitten-herding skills, for instance, that can only be honed through practice, trial and error. I must compile a stack of music-to-play that mostly veers away from kids-singing-kids-music because that seems a quick road to mental snapping. Oh, and lesson plans. Must corral the bits and pieces of I-think-I-want-do-this and I-vaguely-envision-that and tighten it all up.

But it'll happen.

I had a thought about stories the other day that perhaps you'd enjoy. And probably this is a human thing, not just a penelope thing, but maybe it falls into the Venn diagram middle-space of personal and universal experience. I love stories. Have always loved them. But do I/we love stories to the point of fault? In terms of narrative thread, we almost set ourselves up, through that love of stories, to expect an endpoint to all our narrative threads. And I know, how obvious - life, while made up of our stories, is not a storybook or even a series of them. Our narrative threads are much messier, frayed, knotted and twisty-turny. Which is part of their beauty, but also, should we not be continually mindful, a good way to set ourselves up for that constant sense of disappointment and frustration when our stories fail to end and end neatly. For instance, say I'm working on patience, or cultivating a sense of joy. (Of course I would pick something abstract, but any goal-or-problem-type *thing* could be substituted in.) And I, through whatever means, land on some sort of mental secret or key to attaining said goal or solving said problem. And my mind tries to squeeze it all  into a story paradigm, wherein I had that moment of recognition or realization or epiphany, and from that day forward, that particular goal was achieved or problem was solved. I guess that would be the old living happily ever after trap, even if one doesn't actually expect it to be so pretty or pat or whatever. It could be more disheveled, this journey and conclusion, but I think our minds still want to squeeze into a storyline wherein we no longer have to worry about this particular thing.

Except that never happens.

I have to cut myself off - ohmygosh, ironically? - and return to blogland later. Today is Open House part two, for the littlest classroom (not mine, but my presence is still required) and then some errand running that most unfortunately includes procuring 5 tons of mulch. And then, I hope, some canned salsa making. And oh, preparing for the first day of school tomorrow.

Love to YOU who must write me back now,
pen