Blog Archives
Cultivating Joy
Especially Now
On the beautiful first of May, I visited one of our elementary schools. I wasn’t quite sure just what was happening as I walked to the front door. The kids spilled all over the grass and along the curb in front of the school with their lunch trays. There was a lot of noise, and it wasn’t just cheerful shouting. Every car and each huge dump truck driving by was honking. As I walked into the building, I heard a young voice say, “Isn’t this great? We’ve had 7 honks already today!” The eighth beeped as my feet crossed the threshold.
This scene is so striking. Kids being kids on a warm day when winter’s grip is finally letting go. We know our kids’ brains are rewiring when many hours are spent in front of screens. Our school guidance counselors, nurses, student services, and social workers are engaging with students, parents, and teaching staff every single day as we all navigate anxieties and the unknowns of our time. Administrators, as far as I can tell, and the Buildings and Grounds crews, are spinning along with everyone as they navigate the needs of all of us. Meanwhile, kids find glee when the dump truck drivers honk their horns.
Field trips, step up days, theater productions, athletic events are all happening this month. Schools are planting their gardens. This is a great time to volunteer at your local school as gardens need tending. Being outside together, learning how a tiny seed emerges to become a carrot, or a leaf of lettuce are lessons in real time and the slow pace of growing.
The scene of kids sprawled on the lawn, waving back to neighbors and dump truck drivers is one of absolute abandonment to the moment of beeping and waving and cheering. A sudden burst of joy. To cultivate joy is to plant the seeds of community.
Especially now — when our social fabric is fraying and tearing. May you make some unpredictable joy.
A Promise: Daffodils will be here soon
Although we don’t get official recognition, April is Vermont’s Month of Mud. After a cold and fabulous season for snow sports, mud is for everyone. The most philosophical among us could write a sonnet or song. You may already be humming Vermont singer-songwriter Noah Kahan’s ‘Stick Season’ as you read along.
As the sun shines longer each day, mud and sticks start transforming from inert to active; growing begins in earnest. The Vermont landscape kind of forces us to be resilient, to adapt to the conditions out our door. May this be a natural dose of courage—to climb the muddy hill to home.
I’m concerned about the impact these tumultuous times are having on our students, our teachers, all our parents, administrators, staff, and all our community members. How might we be kind and more careful as we navigate the political and social wild weather ahead together?
“The Declaration of Independence was written with a feather,” Dean Young reminds us in his poem “Belief in Magic.” I see the fragility of democracy in this line as well as the amazing strength of a quill. What bird contributed to our founding guardrails? Goose, swan, crow, owl, hawk, turkey, or eagle? I read that Thomas Jefferson raised special geese to keep him in writing implements.
Some of you may know the children’s books by Laura Numeroff: If You Give a Moose a Muffin, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. These books offer an important observation about learning — one thing leads to another as curiosity and passion inspire. The nib of a goose feather wrote a document full of dreams of what could be — a nation, no less. A promise so many of us still seek. These times offer an invitation to be our best creative selves as we respond to all that is happening in the nation and our communities.
The daffodils are emerging slowly, surely. May their fragility and strength remind us—we are in this together and our courage emerges when we find what connects us. In Dean Young’s poem there is another line, “I believe reality is approximately 65% if.” If we realize there are so many more ways in which we are similar, we’ll emerge with the daffodils, strong and bright, as we meet what’s ahead.
As you know, Justice is just us.
vermilyanotes 