just a little story.

it happened today. i went out into the world...met dozens of people, some of them actually grown...i was held all day in the bosom of a completely unfamiliar situation...and yet it felt almost as natural as breathing.

i keep catching myself releasing these great breaths of relief. after a school year that has seemed just so hard, this day makes me want to grin.

there's not any one amazing piece. (except God.)

after lunch, when i'd been watching for a few hours and started interacting more with the class, those kindergarteners got all wide-eyed. "how do you know my name?" i heard over and over. ummm...because i listen and watch and remember. and because each of the twenty is so unique and (something i never could truly say even at the end of my experience in preschool) completely captivating to me.

but i just told the kids, with a teasing little look, "because i'm smart." you know, building a reputation.

so there are the kids, and the fact that i really do totally love them after being so taken aback in preschool. and there is the school community. and there is God, with me.

too bad i have to wait two and a half weeks to go back? (not really. i have to do a lot of other classwork before then. but oh, does this add some positive incentive.)

bits & pieces.

yesterday i walked about twenty feet off of our driveway to the edge of the woods and laid in one spot taking pictures - first on my stomach, and then on my back. sometimes i think limiting the scope of my view by staying in one place makes me see more vividly and find more meaningful details among the random bits and pieces.

my life is all bits and pieces at the moment. i'm still working on finding the important details. :)

i have student teaching coming up, and then job applications and interviews after that, and then life as a working girl. for now, though, all these things are still in the distance. i can do a few things in preparation, but mostly i just have to wait until the time comes.

"so do not worry or be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have worries and anxieties of its own."

i'm limiting my view here. staying in the now, holding on to just the pieces that belong to today. there really aren't many, compared to what will be. but for today, this is enough.

a friend here, a bibliographical list of children's literature there. listening to the stories of those around me. telling my own. sharing, working alongside my family. sending an email, searching a database.

letting the other bits rest. finding beauty in the pieces that are now.

{p.s. this set of pictures, especially this one, is really making me want to bake and - more to the point - ice a cake. and for a thanks-very-much-but-i'd-rather-have-pie girl, that's saying something. just a little more specific bit of random for you. xo}

the art.

a few days ago i sat in front of a fire and did art with a friend and i realized...i have come to express myself freely this way. i have gotten past doing it the "right" way and making it look the way even i expect it to, and it flows now as a natural extension of me into acrylic or watercolor or fabric or even cut paper snowflakes or medallions. when i sanded a piece of scrap wood from the garage smooth a few weeks ago and added a yellow background and the abstract that grew from my vision of a bouquet of ranunculus, twisted in an eyelet and hung it on my wall all in about thirty minutes...and then stood back and just grinned at it foolishly...well, i knew i was in love.

the art is pieces of me.

wild sky::a silhouette.