Interlochen Memories - Old and New

The music drifts on the breeze, from under the great awning.

The experience:  magical and familiar all at once.

The flags flutter, the sun glows and reflects on the water,

And I sit, and listen, tearing up.  Why?

 

When I peek, I see my son – my growing-too-big-for-his-mother baby –
Onstage with 200 other musicians.
It amazes me that he is part of something so beautiful,
Something I also participated in, taking pride in what could be accomplished,
And I remember:

 

Music on the breeze, white dresses and red scarves flowing in the wind,

Rooftop dances, Sunday evening concerts,

Morning swims in a chilly lake, Evening sunsets with campfires.

Friends – lyrical dancers and crazy, zany cabin mates –

Hanging out in the cabin, hanging out on main campus – laughter!

Trumpet calls – morning and night – standing on tennis courts in pajamas, calling me home.

 

For it is home.  How?  Twenty-five weeks of my life and this is home?

Yes.  I dream of it, I remember it, I visit it in my mind when life gets hectic,

When life gets rough.
And now, my son gets to experience it.  I see him smile, I see him glow with happiness,
I see him with new friends, and old, sharing this magical experience,
And he is happy, as I was, as I am.

 Oh, sound the call…

Anxiety

It's August, a month I dread every year.  It means that I have a month left of the happiest time of the year.  Everything comes to an end on August 31^st, which means one thing:  change.  If there is something I really hate, it's CHANGE!!!  Change causes me to have extreme anxiety, and anxiety is a lot of work.  By the end of the month, it will take everything I've got not to have complete melt-down panic attacks.

Change #1:  the season and its weather – I love warmth and heat.  Here in the northern United States, it seems like we have ten months a year of cold, and two of warmth.  Right now the sun shines bright and powerful, the trees and grass are green, the flowers bloom, the bugs and birds are prolific, and the lakes even warm up to the point where they're not painful to get into and swim around.  Yet…already the leaves are beginning to look old, wilted, and some are even turning brown.  The birds are singing less, getting ready to prepare for winter, building up body weight for journeys, building winter environments for those that stay.  I've had to replant my planters with late-summer, early fall plants, and the nights are cooler, making the lakes cold, too.  All signs of change.

Change #2:  my home life.  Right now I get to pretend that I'm a stay-at-home mom and spend my days with my children.  When they were little, we spent all day together:  kiddie pools, popsicles, bike rides, trips to the zoos and museums.  Now that they're older (pre-teen and full-blown teen), we're not together quite as much (hanging with mom all day is just not cool!), yet we're still together quite a bit.  At the end of the month, full-time mom job will be over as we all head back to school, and then the crazy schedule will commence.  Don't get me wrong, summer has had its moment of crazy:  between baseball, 4-H, summer bands, Fine Arts camp, and now high school band camp, life has been busy.  But we've also been able to squeeze in trips to the pools and lakes, bike rides, shopping trips, and picnics.  Back-to-school seems to mean an end to the fun stuff.

Change #3:  back to work.  Let me clarify – I LOVE my job!  I'm a teacher and I love planning, curriculum, creation of activities that will hopefully help my students be creative, explore, have fun, and learn.  Yet, it also causes me complete anxiety.  A whole new batch of student names to learn (I'm notoriously bad with names); a whole new batch of teenagers judging my every move; new demands from administrators, adding on to the old demands (they never seem to go away anymore, they just keep building on); time constraints:  how do I take new, rigorous curriculum meant for 90-minute blocks, and integrate it with current required writing programs, project based learning, and technology – all within 55 minutes; and of course, papers:  papers, papers, and more papers.  Always the bazillion papers to grade, which means trying to balance being a teacher, mom, and wife, every evening and weekend for ten months a year. 

I've already started waking up early.  Half of June and all of July, I get a peaceful eight hours of sleep per night.  Around August 1^st, this usually drops to seven, and by mid-August, I'm down to six hours.  I wake up with my mind whirling, trying to make sure I don't lose track of something.  (By the way, I'm bad-mom and already dropped the ball on what has to be done for my high-schooler to try out for the soccer team when he gets back from band camp.)  And all of this worrying really stems from one desire:  life to be happy and healthy for my whole family.  Will we all come out of this unscathed?  Will my children grow up and remember wonderful years with their mom, family, and friends, or will I be absent from their memory pictures?

Anxiety, anxiety, anxiety…

I Blew It!

Today I was reminded of a conundrum I face living here in a progressive, liberal community that offers many free services: homelessness.  At every exit in the area stands a person or two, signs facing oncoming traffic. 

"Veteran.  Homeless. Please Help." 

"Down and Out.  Homeless.  Anything Will Help."

My favorite, "Single Mother with Cancer.  Please Help." (Please tell me you hear my sarcasm.)

I sit in my car, with my cell phone, bags of groceries, and I feel guilty.  Have I given in to this guilt?  Sure!  I even gave one guy $20.00 to go buy food; then I watched him pocket it and stand there to beg some more.

The local authorities have put out the word:  there are many who beg on the corners of this city who are not homeless.  In fact, they've made such a business out of begging that they have apartments, paid for by Joe Public.  We do have a huge homeless population, but there are services available all over the place:  from free beds, to free food, to plain old shelter from a cold or rainy day.  Many groups are dedicated to offering free employment training and services, healthcare, and steps off the street.  Many who are homeless are chronically so, mostly because they do not want to be confined.  They don't want to be put inside, trapped by society and by their own minds.  They face issues such as drugs, manic depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia that compound the problem of homelessness. 

So I ignore my guilt, keep my hands on the wheel, and avert my eyes.

And then today…

Coming out of church, a beautiful service focusing on planting seeds of faith in humanity, a man stands at the gate, sign in hand:  "Homeless.  Anything Will Help.  God Bless."

And I feel anger.  How dare he?  How dare he come here to beg, when I donate at this same place with groceries, goods, and money to help local groups that can help him?  How dare he throw in my face that these organizations don't solve the problem?  How dare he make me feel guilt for my comfortable life?  "Uncool," I say to my child next to me, "He should go to the center down the road where they can help him without him putting young children at risk."  And part of me feels this is justified.  Not only is this a church, but it's a school, and in today's world we have to be ultra-vigilant about who is near our children.  But the other part of me knows how wrong I am.

How dare I?  How dare I ignore him?  Why don't I take the time to get to know his story?  Why don't I stop and talk to him?  He is a human being?  Maybe if I met him down the road I could buy him a meal.  Maybe if I knew his story, I could help him find some real help. 

I missed the lesson of the day: plant the seeds and allow them to grow.  Instead, I stunted the growth.  I showed my son the wrong lesson.  I had the chance to teach him compassion and caring, and I blew it.  (At least I realized it soon enough to tell him I blew it, and explain why.)

Since I can't go back, I only hope that another person was better than I today.  I hope that next time I step up and become a better member of my community – my human community.