I have discovered that it is easier to release butterflies than it is to release 'stuff'.  I am going to blame it on Michael.  I usually do.  Just kidding, Mike!  Mike skyped this morning - and as always, we had a great chat.  He asked if the dining room table was clean.  It was.  Last week, I turned the computer screen to show him that I had just a little square carved out so that Dad had a place to eat his breakfast.  This morning, when Mike asked, the table was beautifully clean.  It was simply providing a home to my beautiful Simon Pearce bowl and a set of candles......and then, it was time for Mike to hit the hay and time for me to keep working.  The table is not so pretty now.  Dad may well have to eat his breakfast standing up.  I kept getting distracted - and that makes me work slower, and slower, and slower.  Good books and the pool kept calling my name.  My pet butterfly kept wanting to play.  I have a chipmunk that terrorizes the butterfly and he - or she - needs me to provide release from the screen room.  It is so much easier to release that butterfly than some of the things that I have come across.  Michael, you will be happy to know that the Cuisinart has come back inside.  It is just too hard to part with that.  Then I keep finding the damn pictures.  We must have taken thousands - no, tens of thousands of pictures in our life time....and I must have kept them all. 

We have had many conversations about the old kitchen.  It has been gone for so long that I am not sure if any of you really remember it.  It used to be in the area where my computer is now - in that entry way sort of dumping ground................It was what used to be known as a galley kitchen and on my thinnest day, I could hardly turn around in it without bumping some part of my body.  Low and behold, I came across two pictures today.  The first looks like it was a Christmas Dinner.  There are several clues......Kate is wearing her Christmas nightgown.....I am wondering why we had her sitting over there?  Perhaps she was wearing a load in her pants as well?  I can also tell from the placemats - but it was before the Christmas dishes, because those are our wedding dishes. Speaking of those, they have all been moved to underneath the dry sink.  Now I will have room in the kitchen cupboard for the Cuisinart Coffee Pot...and the new blender and food chopper.  :)  Anyway, I digress.  If you look to the right of Kate, there are the stairs.  If you look to the left of Kate, there is the breakfast bar.  We used to have stools......I wonder if we will find them when we go up into the attic.  If we do, we can sell those suckers at the yard sale.  Just behind the bar and to the left is where the sink was and the refrigerator was around the corner to the right.  How many of you remember that.

The next picture that I found that showed that kitchen was of the cake I made for Mike's third birthday.  I think we sold all those cake pans at the last yard sale.  We had tons of them.  You guys would always pour through the Wilton catalog and pick out what you wanted for your cake.  If I ever get carpal tunnel, it is because of those cakes!

 You can see the edge of the sink and there was a window right above the sink.  That window looked out into the little entry way with a door that went out onto the cement porch.  When we moved the kitchen, they knocked that wall out and put that closet - otherwise know as my other dumping ground in there.  Do any of you remember that? Not the fact that the closet is a dumping ground - but when the window was there.  One of the reasons that I am really confused about Kate being over there is that area had carpet.  The dining room was just as it is today - except we have had it sanded down.  The carpet was always orange and brown - what was I thinking of - but one year I dropped a roasting pan full of ham and ham juice as I attempted to take it out of the oven - and needless to say, after all the bad language stopped, we had to replace the carpet.  So, I am still wondering if you remember that kitchen.

Then I came across the picture of me and the parrot.  I wish I could find the one of him on my shoulder...quite often biting my ear and pooping down my back at the same time.  When he was not biting me, he was swearing.......that is probably why I look like I am in a state of shock.

 I really love this one.  You can see Betty and Junie King's house.  I am sure that Betty had just raked those leaves and you both decided to help her. 

I know that you guys will not remember this picture.  It was taken a long time ago - before you were even a twinke in your father's eye - and I do not know why I can not make the underlining on this go away.  This was taken - I believe - at Anna Mae's.  I have my right arm on my cousin Chris Balch and my left arm on Suzie Cray Durham.  Chris would be the daughter of Harry and Ruth Balch.  Ruth was Tookie's sister....sort of like the Fatta, Gribs, Blammie discussions that we have at Sunday dinners.  Oh yes, John is probably the only one who will remember Suzie's mother.  She was my cousin Bubba.  :)I know that you guys will not remember this picture.  It was taken a long time ago - before you were even a twinke in your father's eye - and I do not know why I can not make the underlining on this go away.  This was taken - I believe - at Anna Mae's.  I have my right arm on my cousin Chris Balch and my left arm on Suzie Cray Durham.  Chris would be the daughter of Harry and Ruth Balch.  Ruth was Tookie's sister....sort of like the Fatta, Gribs, Blammie discussions that we have at Sunday dinners.  Oh yes, John is probably the only one who will remember Suzie's mother.  She was my cousin Bubba.  :)


 We were always big on holidays.  We were decorating the tree on Steuben Street.  Dad is on the ladder and I think that is Mamie hanging the eggs....I don't think I would have been wearing a hat.  As your grandfather always told me:  "There is no sense covering an empty bucket."

Last but not least, a couple of paragraphs ago I talked about a twinkle in your father's eye...I have no idea when this picture was taken, but I am betting it was when I told him that we were expecting one of you.  Please note - that is all his junk on the table.


I will try to be less distracted tomorrow.


Love you all.

Telescopic Memories

Wow, before I started typing, I was not sure if telescopic was really a word.  It is!   The last couple of days have been filled with telescopic memories……….and it all started with the telescope.  John had one – once upon a time.  For years he has been asking if we have come across it.  We had not.  Kate has decided to have a yard sale.  She is coming home over the 4^th to manage it.  She has her dad organizing the hardware – tables, tents, wires to hang things on, and God only knows what else.

I have told her that I would go through all the closets and cupboards and pull out stuff that I do not want any more.  That is easier said than done.  First of all, where did all those extra cupboards and closets come from.  Were they there when we bought this house?  I don’t THINK so!  Secondly, where did all the stuff come from that is in them?   Who would have bought ALL those bedspreads and matching curtains? 

And she criticizes the way I dress?

It is distracting work.  I keep coming across things.  They are only things – but they are distracting.  There are the pictures from so long ago.  I cannot part with them – can I?  There are the drawings that the kids made.  There is the yarn design that John created.  It is a sailboat.  There is his entire Eagle Scout Project – from scratch to finish.  I cannot part with that.

We were not able to fool John with Santa - but Mike was enthralled - he never knew that it was his nana.

Life was so much easier when we kept them inside the fence.

There are books that belong to Michael.  His reading tastes were – and are - way beyond me, but I cannot part with them.  There is his framed picture of the Boston Garden and several hockey shirts……I sure wish I could have found them in time for sports day at Maple Avenue.  There is the army bear that he loved so much.  I think we sent the hockey bear to Lou – we may have to hand deliver the soldier bear.

I found the pumpkin Halloween Costume that we had made for Kate.  I cannot put that on a table to sell for a quarter – can I?  There is the baby duck hooded blanket – that certainly cannot go.  You see, don’t you, it is very distracting work.

It is the one on the right I do not think I can part with.

This one comes through on the worst of days - you can even break open a K-cup.  Trust me, I have done it!

Then there is the coffee pot.  David and I are disagreeing about the coffee pots.  I am disagreeing with myself about the coffee pots.  And no, no one needs to tell me that the person who bought the 17 coffee pots is the same person who bought all those bedspreads and matching curtains.  BUT!!!!!!!   I cannot get rid of the French Press.  When all the others are on strike, I can make that one work…..right?  I have no problem letting the Black and Decker model go.  As for the four Mr. Coffee’s, I will carry them out to the tables myself.  As for the three Gevalia Models with accompanying cups and carafes, no skin off my teeth.  I cannot part with the Kureig – even though  it seems to be leaking – nor can I part with the travel model Kureig that I just bought this week.  I might need it when I travel.  It is the Cuisinart one that is causing me grief.  I take it out - I bring it back.  I have lost track of home many times I have changed my mind.  It is out at the moment, but I think it is going to have to come back in.

So, you get my point, right?  This is distracting work.  This afternoon, I decided to tear apart one of my closets.  I was doing fine until I came across a dress that I came across last year when Kate was home.  I love that dress.  It is a size 14.  She suggested that it was time to get rid of it.  I was furious.  I love that dress and I might get into it again someday.  You have to know Kate to appreciate Kate.  She gave me THAT look and said:  “Really?  Really, Mom?  Even if you got into it again, don’t you think you are a little old for it?”  That dress stayed in the closet then – but I think it is time for it to go now.  It is a lovely denim sailor dress with a little bow at the base of the neckline.  If I could find the little bow shoes that used to go with it – I would keep it, for sure!  MMMM - I think the shoes got buried in the time capsule at CES many moons ago.  I probably should have put the dress there as well.

Some of the things that I have come across distract me for long periods of time.  One of them was the martini shaker that Michael gave me for Christmas one year.  I made very good use of that shaker.  It is a good one, because it is still as shiny as the day he gave it to me.  I looked at it standing in a cupboard next to a beautiful blue martini glass.  I had two of them made while visiting in Sedona many years ago.  For years, I carried those two glasses wherever we went on vacation.  Sadly, one of them did not survive a trip.  The remaining one stands next to the shaker each reflecting off the other.  There is no way that I can let them go.

Last, but not least, I came across the cup.  Ahhhhhh – the cup.  I bet no one in the world has a cup like this.  It has been around for years.  My sister Peggy received it as a present at a bowling banquet in the early 1970’s.  One Christmas, John wanted to give me a present.  Peggy and Mamie helped him wrap the cup in a beautifully decorated package.  He presented it proudly.  I opened it and managed to display delight – all the while wondering why the hell I was getting a pewter cup with my sister’s initials engraved upon it.  Each year, I opened a beautifully wrapped package with what appeared to be another cup.  Each year, I would express complete and utter surprise at the beauty of the cup.  The three sisters smiled.  When John was about ten, he asked the question of the ages.  ‘Why did I never use those cups?’  In that moment, I – not the true owner of the cup –  and not the instigator behind the ploy - had to explain that there was really only one cup – that he had been wrapping the same cup for all those years.  I think it was worse than the days we told him about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy – all rolled into one.  I am not sure that he laughs about it yet.  Well, we don't laugh about it much - he probably does not even remember! 

However, he will be delighted to discover that the telescope has been found.  We will hand deliver that as well.

Anyone want to estimate how much stuff I will really be willing to part with?

Lou, I'll talk, you listen!

Lou - write down what I say.

Okay, Mana, but don't talk so fast.

Apples, Miracles, and Stretching the Truth

Apples, Miracles, and Stretching the Truth

I cannot believe that the school year has ended.  There were so many highs and some lows as well.  There are many things that I will miss.  Because the work that we do is always about the children, they are on the top of my list.

I will, of course, miss the adults as well.  It has been a good run.  I have felt very good about some of the things that we have done – and not so good about some others.  Then – there are some things that I have mixed feelings about.  One of those is the Crystal Apple.

The Crystal Apple is one of the things that caused me stress at the beginning of the year.  We had a visitor to the staff and he presented us with the apple.  I had invited him in to speak to the group – which was a violation of policy.  I think we were the only school that he visited and we had no further contact with him, but he left the apple behind.  I could not let that beautiful symbol of educational excellence go unnoticed.  I found a way to present it to one of our many deserving staff members at that meeting.  It worked its way through several staff members through the course of the year.  I felt good about that.  I felt good about it because it required us to stop and think about the way our staff goes above and beyond on a regular basis.  I felt good about it because it required us to focus on the positive.  I did not feel so good about it because it did not get to everyone………….I guess that is what created the mixed feelings.  I was glad that I had shared the apple, but I was sad that it did not finish the journey.   Everyone at Maple Avenue deserves to be noticed for the positive work that they do.  So I thought and I thought.  I watched the positive things that people were doing – not to receive the apple – just because positive people do positive things. 

I thought of ways to get an apple to everyone.  I thought about real apples – but they would be gone in a few bites.  I saw pencils with apples on them – but they would be used up.  I found apple stickers – but they would quickly wear away.  The message of the crystal apple is not something that any of us wants to disappear. 

I was sitting in my living room one day looking through a catalog and suddenly I knew how I was going to share my metaphorical apple with each of you.  I found small red apples that were just right to become a final ‘rock for your pocket’.  Each of you is so deserving of being noticed for the good that you do.  Little did I know that Miss Annette would present me with the real crystal apple at our last staff meeting.  It might not have made the full journey, but it had come back to its starting place.

So the story that I told you at lunch on Tuesday – it was about the apple.  It was about miracles.  I simply stretched the truth.  You were right.  You know me so well.  You KNEW that I did not drop the apple.    I did smile though, when some of you thought that perhaps I really had, and that my magical box held shards and slivers of the original apple.  It would have been a miracle if I HAD dropped the apple and all of those smaller apples were born.  But that was not the miraculous part of the story.  Each of you is the miracle.  Each of you is the star that is found inside every apple that you cut open.  Each of you has the power of the apple seed – plant it, care for it and keep it alive.  Each of you goes above and beyond to make Maple Avenue the special place that it is.  I am so proud to have been part of that for the past five years.

I am going to focus on the three most important rocks that I have given you in our time together.  The first was the red wagon.  Never forget the message of that symbol.  Some days, it is really hard to pull that damn wagon.  Remember that the load is lighter when you pull together.  The second was the small pewter heart.  That was to remind you that you are the heart and soul of Maple Avenue.  Lastly, there is the apple.  It has long been a celebratory symbol for quality educators – and that is what you are.

I am going to leave you with a parting quote.  It is my last favor of you – and I know I have asked many.  “The sign of a true leader is not what they do when they are with you, but rather what you do when they are not with you.”  Only you can make me a true leader.  I have great faith that you will.  Thank you for that and for all that you have done for me and with me over the last five years.

In my family, we never say good- bye.  We say:  “Love you and see you soon.”

Rainbows, Sunsets, Lilacs, Butterflies, and Geese

It was a wonderful weekend at beautiful Lake Willoughby.  The weather was perfect.  I have tons of pictures that I will post tonight - but at the moment, I have to do some catching up on schoolwork.  I will not be able to say that much longer.

It was a weekend of ah-ha moments.  If you live near me, you know that we have had a series of days with downpours - and yet, the sun would be out.  Many of us have found each other looking for rainbows - but I, for one, never saw one.  Not until we drove through horrendous storms on the way to Westmore.  As we parked the car and I took my first look across the lake, what do you think was waiting for me? As the rainbow disappeared, a beautiful night sky began to appear.  As we finally decided it was time to unlock the cottage door, I got this beautiful scent.........I could not see anything, because by that time it was pitch dark.  When we got up in the morning, we found beautiful lilacs - at least I think they were lilacs, but the scent was different than any I have come across before.  I kept finding them all across the property and taking pictures.  Ours are long gone and we missed most of them while we were in Florida - so I truly enjoyed these.

As I was sitting and reading a book that I could not put down, I came across these words:  "In a long life there are thirty or thirty-five thousand days to be got through, but only a few dozen that really matter, BIG DAYS, when Something Momentous Happens.  The rest - the vast majority, tens of thousands of days - seem unremarkable, repetitive, even monotonous.  We glide through them and then instantly forget them.  We tend not to think about this arithmetic when we look back on our lives.  We remember the handful of Big Days and throw away the rest.  We organize our lives into tidy little stories, but our lives are mostly made up of ordinary, forgettable days."

As I read these words, I thought about the total number of days listed as being a long life.  I guess I had never thought about it that way before.  I probably will not think about it that way again.  What I will think about is that no day should be assigned to the category of unremarkable, repetitive, or monotonous.  I refuse to think that way.  I could consider this weekend to be three of those days - I did nothing that I have not done before - but each time, it is different - each time it is special.

This time, I got to see a rainbow, smell the lilacs, read a good book, watch geese fly over me in a beautiful blue sky, (and if they went, this time they missed me) and show Grandpa Davignon a picture of his newest great grandchild.  How could any of that be considered unremarkable? 

My favorite line in the paragraph that I stole from the book was the last line...and The End is never the end.

Faces

So, it has been a long and busy week.  I have been thinking about faces.  Faces in general and some specific faces.  Those who work with me know that I was brought to tears on Wednesday night when one young man presented his third grade animal project.  As always, I know the face and I know the story behind the face.  I know what a huge triumph that moment was for that young man, for his family, and for his entire school community.

Tonight, I had the pleasure of staying late again.  I got to hear the 4th and 5th grade Band and Chorus perform.  I saw all of those beautiful faces.....and again, there is a story behind them all.  But when the young boy played the solo, I thought my heart would stop.

Driving down Route 12, I continued to think about all the faces that I have come to know and love over the past five years.  Faces I would never have met if I did not see a small ad for an administrative opening in Claremont five years ago.  My friend Cory tells me that she thinks blogging is bringing out the poetic side of me.  Perhaps that is so.  I think that it is the beloved faces that started me thinking about blogging that is bringing out that side of me.

I arrived home to find another beloved face.  Baby Mana at bath time.  I am looking at that beautiful face and that posed fist.  I am imagining what she is thinking:  "Louis, I don't care if they do call you the king.  Just remember, I am the BOSS!"  

To all of you who are among my beloved faces..........thank you for being there.

Through the years, we will have these moments to remember.  Remember that old song?  I do!  It is one of my favorites.  There is one line that goes 'though quiet nights and quiet days, have found us gone our separate ways - through the years, we will have these moments to remember.

Tonight is one of those nights that I will  always remember.  It was one of those moments in time when you simply stop -  and remember - and understand how very blessed you have been.  Thank you for giving me that opportunity.

It was a night of memories - and of connections.  People who recognized each other from other times and other places and for some reason or other - on that night - were in the same place at the same time.  There were people who had worked with me in other places, there were people who grew up in my home town, there were people who recognized each other as being hospital roommates.  There were people who had relatives who worked with me in other places.  There were people who were simply connected.  We all know that it is all about being connected.  A special connection was the presence of a present student and two former students (and four of the cutest pre- schoolers I have ever seen) - that IS what it is all about.

As I looked around the room I saw so many faces that I have come to know and love.  To have Howard Smith in that group was such a joy for me.  If each of you close your eyes for a moment and think about someone who has touched you in a way that has been life changing - you can see that person as though it was yesterday.  When I think about the good things that have happened to me - Howard Smith is at the top of my list.  Who knows what he saw when he hired me back in 1969.  Who knows why he chose to coach me, mentor me, lead me, push me and model for me.  I don't know why - but I am glad that he did.  I am always surprised when he wonders why I continue to be grateful.  Go figure!

It was so important for me to have each of you stand and tell my "home" family who you are and for me to give a bit of information about why you are so important to me - each in your own way.  If you stop and think about it, I  have spent more time with my Maple family over the past five years than I have spent with my Walpole family.  Of course you live closer to me that my Walpole family.  I am glad that you got to know each other - if only for a short time. 

For Kate to drive that far to spend a couple of hours with her old mother was greatly appreciated.  I am very envious of her though.  She will be getting to see the Japanese Contingent before David and I do.  But I will probably get to see John and Emily before she does.  See, I always have to have the last word - right Kate?  She is on her way back to Connecticut and will have a long day of professional development tomorrow.  I know that she understands the feelings that were present tonight.  I know that she understands the importance of relationships that form - or do not form -  in a school community.

To have my sister there was a blessing.  I learned a great deal from her through the years.  I watched her step into the head of the family role after my dad died.  I was 11 and my mom was almost 60.  It was hard to deal with an 11 year old when your other two children were grown an out of school.  I watched her work her way up in the banking world where she was told that she would have to work for less pay because she was not a male and males were the sole support of their families.  She did not understand that,  since she was supporting her family.   She quietly, but effectively taught them the error of their ways.  

Above all, I was very grateful that you were there - each and every one of you.  You have become very important to me.  I am sincerely grateful for the time that I have had with you - to make new connections.  New connections that have become very important to me.

So, as I sit in my beautiful new PTO rocking chair with the carefully etched Maple leaf on it, I will look out at my newest connection - my Japanese Maple tree.  I will think of all of you and the kindness that you have bestowed on me.  For that, each of you will always be a rock in my pocket and a joy in my heart.

...we will have these moments to remember.

Thank you - and God Bless,

Cathie