the power of friends

i was a greeter at church yesterday, the first time i had ever done anything like that, and i enjoyed it. it forced me to introduce myself to people i don't know and to be a bit jolly. i also got to talk to some of the people i sort of know, and one of them ended up sitting with me during church, which was nice, as i was alone.

sammy's sermon was the second one in a series called "THE POWER OF LOVE" and this week he concentrated on friendships. i have had a lot of reason to be thinking about that from numerous angles.

i am not much on making new friends, and probably it is because when i have done that in recent years, i always get burned. it is hard for me to fathom sometimes that there are levels in friendships and most definitely walls that can't be crossed. most of the new friends i have made have been through austin's baseball teams. many of these people have been around for years, and you get used to them and sort of close because you are spending so much time together. but there are dynamics that are sometimes weird and a lot of dangers.

austin's recent fight with chris is one example. chris' mother, gwen, and i are friends (or were) above and beyond the boys, who really don't like each other. i have always realized how gwen was about chris and i respected that, along with her prejudices and fears about a lot of things that i found in some cases amusing. i think she sort of tolerates me, or likes me in certain situations. we had gotten to be pretty good friends, doing stuff together, and i miss her. i know how she is, and i always found that there were just some things that weren't going to change and it was who she is. that is basically one of the things sammy was talking about yesterday. he said that a friend accepts you for who you are and doesn't spend all of her time trying to fix you to be the way she wants you to be. i don't think i ever did that with gwen. despite differences, i like her.

yesterday, for the first time since the boy's fight, i saw her at a baseball game. i waved at her and she ignored me and walked right past me. austin was with me and said "gee, that was cold." it was and it sort of made me very sad. it isn't like i didn't expect it, but i didn't expect that. in any case, that seems to be what is going to be happening for awhile. i am sure at some point we will speak, but it never should have gotten to this point. however, i always knew the one verboten subject was anything having to do with chris' or his behavior. hence, i have let all of this stuff slide for years. but when this fight occured, it couldn't go any further. i asked to have a conference with them at school to discuss it, but it never materialized. austin said that they did come to school for a conference, but i don't know about what or why. i was pretty vocal with austin's teachers via email about my displeasure with the whole setup, and i am still discouraged with the behavior of the adults in this whole mess. you would think the way everyone has done things that this fight was between frazier and ali or mike tyson. never have i seen such petty behavior and "involvement" amongst adults, and i admit to being in it somewhat at the beginning. i have been waiting for things to die on this one, but i keeps lingering. why?

i did get what i perceived as the cold shoulder from some individuals yesterday, and i am not looking forward to what i have to deal with once this middle school baseball season starts.

the big question is why i should even care. i am not mad. i am just discouraged with the way people act. austin saw this first hand yesterday and it made him mad. i don't try and shield him, and i will answer his questions. it also might be good for him to see that adults make mistakes and have a variety of reasons for their behaviors.

we went through the drive thru at burger king after this happened, and i opened up the door and picked up 24 cents in change....angel pennies? i guess i just need to let it go, as it really is out of my hands, and i believe that things happen for a reason.

people make me tired. ducks and cats are easy...

of ducks and fish and life...

the duck dynamics on the pond have changed, and it is interesting. once again, i am struck by how much this situation reflects on real life around me.

first, the ducks are a little more domesticated. they are now sleeping in the yard by the shed and come out when i call them. i have been feeding them bread and the deer corn. i cannot tell who is eating up all of this corn, but i am thinking the deer are making midnight runs. the ducks are chowing down, but won't get any closer to me than about 5 or 6 feet. that's fine. they aren't meant to be pets.

the ducks usually travel in a herd and they fly and wander around the neighborhood. sometimes big austin is not with them. recently i came home and big austin was standing in the backyard quacking miserably, as the other 3 were gone. it was sort of sad! he didn't want any food, only the others. in the morning they were all 4 sunning on the berm. all quackers happy...:)

socially, a few things have changed as well. big austin and mike swim together, and big austin has taking to chasing chris duck, who is still hanging with girl, who doesn't seem interested in any of them. she does her own thing, the others follow her. the boy ducks are fighting more. big austin really goes after chris duck, which is pretty funny. they got into it saturday in the backyard, and when they finished squawking and pecking, they all just sort of relaxed and stood around and groomed themselves! i guess this is more or less how middleschoolers do things...the girl is the center, the boys argue and fight and preen in front of them, then they go and do what they want.

sometimes the ducks are off visiting other places when i come out in the afternoon, so i still go down on the berm and throw bread to the fish. that is interesting, as there are probably 20 or more brim that will come almost up to the shore to feed. they will jump out of the water, and i think they can see me on the shore, for when i move, they scurry away. they return when i stop walking and start throwing the bread! i find this fun, as i have never really seen fish up close like that before, and i find it sort of comforting.

yesterday i worked on the fountain/pond i built in the front yard. i needed to clean it out, replace the plastic tubing on the fountain and generally clean up. i cut all the ornamental grasses back and then refilled the pond. the ducks came wandering up, and before i could get the pond filled, mike was in the pond, ass up! this was a hoot! john, the little 2 year-old next door, and i fed them birdseed out of my feeders and they quacked and kept coming back and forth until dusk. they seemed to take turns diving into the little pond, although god knows what they thought they would find in there! i had dipped all of the muck out, and put my horsetails and bonsai grasses back in and turned up the speed on the water. it is now louder, and certainly more entertaining with mallards swimming in it. imagine a bathtub with ducks...

duck and boy update

my austin is finally out of ISS and seems to be doing ok. somehow the school mediation thing seems to be dragging on, much to my chagrin. i would like to have this chapter over and done with. however, the mediation between austin and chris has not happened yet and seems to be in a stall mode despite my attempts to get it done.

the 4 ducks are still on the pond and have become more animated and interesting. they now come up in the yard and before i went out there yesterday, they were all squatted down by the willow tree just hanging out. i have fed them deer corn as well as the bread and they seem to look forward to it. the social structure, however, has had some changes made.

big austin is chasing mike back, but he and mike still seem to hang together in the pond. chris duck is still all over girl duck, but i am seeing a lot of slinking necks and yapping and spitting at each other. girl duck seems to be the focal point of everything fight oriented. i guess it it mating season. now big austin and mike are chasing chris duck too, so i guess girl duck is fair game, sort of. chris duck seems to be the most interested, and rarely leaves her side, as if he has to guard her from the other two. neither mike or big austin seem to be overly interested in girl duck, but they are still there.

just like life, the social dynamics change as life goes on.

a drive in the sunshine on a nice day

i went to the V.S.T.E. conference in roanoke sunday, monday and tuesday and stayed with my old friends tom and cindy. the conference is rotated between roanoke and virginia beach, so i get to stay with tom and cindy every other year. this year they had added an addition on to their house, which was fabulous! we had a great time catching up, and i am always reminded that when i am with them, i am relaxed. that doesn't seem to happen everywhere unfortunately. i actually did sleep for the two nights i was there.

the conference was ok, nothing special. i gave my presentation to a grand total of 4 people, which didn't seem like it was worth it, but maybe it was. at least those 4 really must have been interested. i packed up and left around noon and decided to take the back roads home instead of the dreaded interstate.

i listened to several cd's from church on the way back, and i decided in appomattox to get off and take the 2 lanes home. it was a cool, crisp day, with a lot of wind, but things were bright and clean and i appreciated where i was and what i was doing. i was reminded how many times i took this route 30 years ago when i came home for weekends from college, and how much the road has changed. only once did i do the back route from appomattox. usually we just went to amelia and my parents came up to pam's house and picked me up. this time i was actually traversing the road and looking at things.

i went past the historical park where the civil war ended and made a mental note that it might be the place to visit with austin, maybe over spring break. i also noticed that there were still places where there is nothing but trees and fields, with few inhabitants. it is still hilly up there, and i enjoyed the sense of being "rural" and then slowly reemerging back into the hub-bub of richmond. i wasn't in a hurry, and that was the best part of it. i didn't feel like i had to be anywhere, and somehow being on the interstate subconciously i think makes you feel that you need to get home quick.

i was ready to be home when i got there, but i went outside and fed my ducks and sort of walked around with my ipod stuck in my ears listening to more of the church music. i have tried to keep this feeling going over the last couple of days, which is to say that i have continued to listen to the music and take my walks with the ducks and just sit outside when i can. i like the calm. being back in school has made me aggitated, and i don't much like that at all.

it goes to show, i guess, that you can carve out a little peace and sunshine when you think about it. everyone should try and capture those little moments when you can.

big austin...a duck, and a boy

one of the librarians at school gave me her collection of frozen bread because she knew i had ducks out on the pond. i spent an hour or so processing the bread into small enough pieces that the 3 males and one female duck could at least have a small feast on occasion. some of these pieces of bread probably were excavated from an egyptian crypt, as they were hard enough to kill someone if you threw it at them. as it was, when i tossed a couple of these grenades into the pond, they floated around for a long, long time, and 3 of the ducks wouldn't even give these bullets a try...but one did, the duck i now call "big austin."

i had a lot of things to think about as i sat there on my bench on the berm. there has been a lot of drama in this house for months, most of it centered in some way around austin. bebo has broken up with jacquie and it has been ugly. austin, unfortunately, has been affected by all of the goings on in that area, and i have had to spend time trying to make it ok for him. i fell in the street about a month ago when walking, and that has set off a flare with my fibromyalgia. that has resulted in my not sleeping for about 3 weeks now, along with the other symptoms of pain, fibro fog, and IBS. that affects austin, as i am too exhausted to be able to do all the things i want or need to do. then austin himself got into a fight at school 2 weeks ago, resulting in a suspension of 10 days from the premises.

it was the fight and the circumstances i was thinking about as i sat by the pond with my bag of duck bullets. i was noticing the way the ducks were interacting with each other and saw a parallel to my life, and most especially, to austin's.

the three mallard males are quite lovely, with their teal colored heads and beautiful feathers. two of the males stayed in a group with the lone female, but one of the males, the biggest one, was by himself, sailing on the periphery of the other three.

when i threw out the first of the duck bombs, the larger one sailed over immediately to get the bread. the others were a little slower to come and there was plenty of bread. however, one of the smaller mail ducks sailed immediately over the the big one and started pecking and chasing him. the big duck moved away. the little duck didn't immediately go for the food. in fact, he didn't seem all that interested in it. the girl duck was eating and seemed to be oblivious to it all. the big duck sailed around sort of nonchalantly and then sailed back slowly. i threw bread to him and to the others. everyone had bread. but the little duck who was attacking seemed determined to make sure that the big duck was not a part of the party. and then i laughed.

i named the big duck "big austin" because he reminds me so much of my austin. what was happening to him was the same as austin. big austin was most interested in food; in fact, he was the only one attempting to try and eat the cement like golf balls of bread that i was throwing in the pond. my austin will eat anything and mostly doesn't care if the others around him tease him over the food quantities or types of food he eats. the little, mean duck reminds me of his tormenter at school, chris, who stays in the background and then either "pecks" himself or sends another "duck" (boy duck #2) to do the pecking. the girl duck is pretty oblivious to the goings on's of the fighting dufus ducks. big austin doesn't fight with the little ducks. he just sails away for awhile and then comes back. he doesn't exactly try and join the group, but he is definitely not a part of the inner circle. he follows them, but sometimes he just ignores them and does his thing. he was the first up on the bank to get the good duck bread, and of course, the others came up and pecked him. he hung around on the fringes and i threw him stuff for him, but the other 2 brat boys wouldn't let him too close. he was tolerated, but not welcomed.

this is how my austin is with kids. it makes me a lot sad. he is bigger, and not accepted 100 percent. however, he, like big austin, seems to be able to sail away on his own and recover. he comes back, but seems to know he will be pecked if he gets too close. sometimes he does deliberately get close, full well knowing that he is being annoying and he will cause a problems. however, he knows that the pond does not belong to just these other 3 ducks. big austin swims around on his own, he climbs out and walks around, and he is the prettiest and most graceful of the 4 ducks. you get the feeling that he doesn't know this, which is part of what makes you like him best of all.

i have a lot to think and smile about when i visit big austin and the rest of the ducks with my big bag of bread.

Unitown

a couple of weeks ago i left the safe harbor of school and home and ventured to the 4H camp at jamestown, va for 4 days of what i thought would be just a little diversity training with the kids. boy, was i wrong...actually, i think i knew what was coming, and that was why i was so apprehensive about it...but nonetheless...

Unitown is a program sponsored by the national council of christians and jews and is designed to make people in all sorts of situations aware of the diversity around us in terms of race, gender, sexual orientation, body image, etc. it is a very skillfully set up program, and i would say it is akin in idea and thought to going to boot camp. basically, you are broken down and then you are brought back up. and when you are back up, you aren't the same, period.

i wasn't expecting that little change at the ripe old age of 49. i figured there wasn't much left in these areas for me to mine; my job was to facilitate that change for younger people. wrong. there were 39 students of all races, background, and abilities, all chosen for their leadership qualities, be it already displayed or potential. about a third of the students were black, and the rest were from varying religious and socio-economic backgrounds. some were discipline problems, some had learning difficulties, some were quiet, some were loud and out there. regardless, at the end of 4 days, they were all one.

there were 10 teachers, and we were the perfect mix. we, too, have bonded, and we are now trying to help these 39 kids go back into the mainstream of 1,500 students to facilitate the idea that we can all get along, and we all need to be more sensitive to the kinds of things we say and do that can be divisive and hurtful. these 39 are having a tough time. so are we teachers. not only are we helping the kids, but we are challenged with the job of also delivering this message to our colleagues. the kids' jobs are to do what we call an "ouch and educate" which means that you point out what the person has done that has hurt/bothered you, and then you "educate" them as to why and what you hope they will do in the future. the kids are doing this, but the "ouches" are mostly coming from the teachers. We had a meeting with our principal on wednesday, and he had already dealt with 3 incidents that day alone. pretty remarkable.

people came back from unitown changed. two of the boys broke up with their girlfriends. one of the teachers broke up with hers as well. we have gathered together to talk to each other about the formidable task of educating our peers. we have gathered to discuss the action plans we are implementing in our school. the rest of the kids in school are curious about what we are doing, and the 39 delegates are keeping contact with each other and with the staff faciliatators. we have become a small family in a sea of turmoil. it is disconcerting, yet gratifying. i am still processing the whole thing, and will write about it more as i think of things.