I have a letter stored away somewhere that I sent home from my first band camp many, many years ago.  In this letter I talked about how much I hated camp and couldn’t wait to leave.  It was hot, the inside of my knees were raw (think Adidas tennis shoes and ankle knee step), I was sunburned, tired and everything hurt.  My bottom teeth had made a permanent indentation where I had to play my clarinet and my cheeks hurt from all that playing. Here was this man who was making us do all this marching around in the rain in mud and on hot asphalt and I was over it.  Until the end of the week.  That’s when I figured out that I had found someone who was teaching me how strong I could be and how, when working together, a group of people could make something amazing.

So how did that experience prepare me for something as insane as this pandemic?  Well, let’s start from the beginning.  My high school was 10th-12th grade, so I joined as a sophomore.  All sophomores had to wear beanies, every day, all day, at camp.  I’m pretty sure someone would call that hazing now.  I hated them.  They were made of red felt and had a large white “L” on the front for “Lafayette”.  The red dye ran in my hair when I would sweat or it rained.  I was constantly losing the bobby pins that held it on my head.  Seniors gave me a hard time.  But I wore it.  I’m sure there was a purpose in wearing those things, maybe it helped my director keep track of the newbies while working with 120 kids. I’m getting to my point, I promise.

Today as I went to the drug store, I wore my face covering and gloves.  I hate it. It looks stupid.  I feel fine.  I’m only going in for a few minutes.  I can’t wear my earrings. But I wore them.  Sometimes we have to do these things because it’s not about me, it’s because there are others to think about.  Just like when I wore that silly beanie, I’m wearing the mask because I’m being asked to.  I’m staying at home like I’m being asked to as well.  We were told by our director that we were to rest after lunch.  Not go out and mess around, not go swimming, but rest.  Hated it, but in hindsight it made sense.  We were working hard.  I remember teaching a camp once where a group of kids decided to not follow the directions and take no-doze so that they could party all night and do camp during the day.  You can imagine how that worked out.  Sometimes the people in charge actually have a clue as to what you need to do in order to survive an experience and because we live in a collaborative society, much like that marching band, it’s important that we get over ourselves.  Listening to my director was smart because he had our best interests at heart and we were more productive because of it.

The reason my marching band experience worked for me was because I trusted my director.  He wasn’t perfect – nobody is, but he demonstrated that he cared about us, he remained consistent and he had high expectations for everyone which resulted in success.  I may have had butterflies when I went out on the field but I wasn’t scared – I was prepared. Being prepared gives you hope and takes away that fear.  That’s when you can let go and just do what you’re supposed to do.  When something doesn’t go exactly the way you expect, like when I stepped on my shoelace on the first beat of a cadence, stepped out of my shoe and marched the entire show in cold mud in my sock, you keep trudging on. It’s not what you expected, it may be nasty, but you’re responsible for doing your job well, not for yourself, but for others to be successful.  That’s what we’re expected to do now.  It’s not what we were expecting, but the show, or life, must go on, improvising where necessary so that others do well.

Trust is the key here.  I wonder if there is so much fear now because we don’t have anyone to trust?  Who do we trust?  Who do we believe?  Do we believe in science?  Do we trust our faith?  Can we do both? When we lack true leadership, someone who will walk beside us through this learning curve like a great teacher, it opens up our hearts and minds to fear.  Fear is powerful and will keep us from persevering.  The great thing about being a part of a great marching band with a great leader is that those lessons you learn from all the hard work, the sweat and the tears, having to start from scratch and doing it over again, is that you figure out you can apply what you’ve learned to just about anything.

Now, I can only speak from my perspective but I can tell you I’m not afraid.  Not really.  Oh sure, I get frustrated and angry and impatient, but I have not been afraid.  Because time and experience have taught me that God is there and He’s in control.  I have someone I can really trust.  Just like my band director, I have someone that I know has my best interests at heart, someone who knows what is going to happen and what I need.  And because I have attained success with God in the past, because I have persevered through difficult times with God, I know that whatever happens, I’m in good hands.

I’m sure there are other great analogies and stories out there that you pull your strength from.  But for me, it’s three years of pushing myself further than I ever dreamed, physically, mentally and emotionally with a person I completely trusted to prepare me for just about anything.  It’s what I learned from being a part of marching band.

 

I was standing on the patio, practicing social distancing when he walked out and said hi.   He made a move to come give me a hug and then he stopped, with a sad look in his eyes, silently asking me for permission, knowing that he had been told that hugging right now may not be safe.  And then, without a word, he ran over and we gave each other a big bear hug.  Yes, we knew it was something we probably shouldn’t have done, but when you have a grandson and grandma who haven’t hugged each other in a month, well something else takes over.

As soon as the little one gave me a hug, the older one did too.  I think I had been ok before that, my logical side taking over, knowing that we could see each other on FaceTime and that would have to be it.  But it was the day before Easter and when Doug asked if we should take them Easter baskets, I said of course!  So we made our dash into the store, picked out what we wanted very quickly and I left the store while he paid. Their house is just down the street from us, so we called ahead, fully intending to just drop them off and go.

Our son was grilling dinner for the family outside so we pulled into the driveway and set the baskets down outside in the shade at a safe distance.  Then the boys came out.  I just don’t think I realized how much I missed them.  Now, for all of you grandparents reading this, it’s not that I didn’t miss them, but I’m really good at distancing myself emotionally when I need to and this seemed like one of those times.  A necessary and perhaps selfish safety mechanism for me I think.  So, knowing how good I am at this emotional distancing, I thought I was ok.  Maybe not.

So this happened Saturday.  Yesterday was Tuesday.  Last night was when I cried.  Cried for the time I was missing to do things I wanted to do and see things I wanted to see and hug people I wanted to hug.  There was guilt and sadness and anger and all of those emotions I’m so good at hiding if I need to.  The simple act of getting in the car and going to the store or going out and grabbing a burger or calling the kids and saying, “hey, what are you doing right now” and having a meal together has been taken away.  I had taken for granted those times when you just assume you’ll be together as a family for holiday meals, birthdays and school concerts.   Guilt because I know there are others who have it so much worse than I do.  But it still doesn’t stop the sadness.

I always say perception is reality.  Hardship looks different for everyone depending on where we are in our journey.  What I have to deal with right now isn’t really hard.  I have a roof over my head, food on my table, a paycheck coming in and my family is healthy. I see some making fun of celebrities who are sad in their mansions with their swimming pools, but it doesn’t mean that these people aren’t legitimately sad about something.  They too have to distance from family and friends and just because they have a nice place to quarantine doesn’t mean they don’t miss their kids and/or grandkids.  They’re just like me in a different zip code.

We all just miss people.  We miss hugs,  kisses, handholding and kind, reassuring touches from family and friends.  No matter who or where we are, or whatever our circumstances, this is the thing that connects all of us right now.  We need to believe that the opportunity for a hug is coming back soon.  And in the meantime, we might get lucky enough to get a quick little hug from someone we love.

 

Ah, the beloved faculty meeting.  Those meetings that usually happen at the most inconvenient time or when we are the most exhausted.  The meetings that lure us in with food so we can become docile and just nod “uh huh”.  I’ll be honest, most faculty meetings address what the majority of educators in the building teach – and that would NOT be music.  Which means I can approach the meeting in one of two ways:

1.  Cross my arms, try to look half-way pleasant while inwardly rolling my eyes OR
2.  Listen and see where I can pick up SOMETHING that I can learn from and/or utilize.

I will admit that my go-to is #1, but most times, if I’m open to it, I CAN learn something that addresses what I do or what I believe and it makes me think.  I think about how that one thing can change how I look at my students or address how I think about my teaching.  And THIS, my friends, is what we can learn about life from a faculty meeting.

There are a lot of thoughtful articles and blogs flying around the interwebs right now, mostly about our current isolation situation and how we go forward from here.  Invariably someone will throw in something considered “political”, whether it’s for or against the President, how inept Congress is (I think we can all come to consensus there) or something about the media and “fake news”, which is kind of an oxymoron, but that’s another blog for another day.  And again, I can approach these articles/blogs one of two ways:

1.  Cross my arms, try to look half-way pleasant (or not) while inwardly rolling my eyes OR
2.  Listen and see where I can pick up SOMETHING that I can learn from and/or utilize.

So, I read this great little blog/article this morning, and MOST of it was something that made me think in a positive way.  When this whole thing is over, regardless of whether it feels like it’s going to end or not, will we look at life, our lifestyle, our relationships, how we spend our time, differently?  At some point the writer felt the need to say something that I didn’t agree with and personally had no use for,  but I could certainly glean something else from this article and if asked what I thought, could find a point of consensus.

Here’s the point gang.  If we don’t learn how to listen to everything so we can glean those great nuggets of gold in a civil way, and come to consensus, we have learned NOTHING from our time alone the last several weeks.  Because just like our favorite faculty meeting, life does not happen in isolation.  You are working with people and some of them are in charge of running the meeting. We have the choice to listen and get angry or listen and learn something that will help us.  We don’t have to agree with everything to agree with something.  Where we get into trouble as a culture is when we feel like we have to agree with everything in order to come to consensus, consensus meaning, what can I live with.  It’s not perfect, it doesn’t check off all the boxes but what can I live with or learn from it?

I don’t have to be compliant or complacent and I don’t have to agree with everything, but I can try to learn something from everything, whether it’s positive or negative.  See, faculty meetings CAN serve a real purpose! Thank goodness for faculty meetings!

My grandma, my dad’s mom, was the perfect grandma.  While I didn’t get to see her often, to the point where I was always a little uncomfortable, (interpret as introvert), she was always so kind to me.  My vision of her in my head is always the same, she always seemed like this jolly, German, haus frau.  She danced and sang, told stories and let me eat whatever I wanted- the perfect grandma.

I found a picture of her the other day, holding me right after I was born, and as I looked at her, I realized she was probably three years younger than I am now.  My first reaction was, wow, I look so much younger than she did at my age!  I’ll let you decide – it could all be in my head.  Anyway, as I looked at her and the aging on her face, I began to think of what she had been through during her life and I was a little ashamed.  The truth is, not to use what may be an overused word, I am privileged.

My grandma was born in 1903.  When I think of world events that happened during her lifetime, it’s a little overwhelming.  We talk about how tough older generations were but they had to be.  She was a first generation American on her father’s side, age 11 at the beginning of WWI.  She married at age 19, three years after her husband returned from the war, and was a mother two years later.  Her father died and her second son was born the next year.  Six years later, a little over a year after the stock market crash, son #3 was born.  Three boys just like me!

Then disaster. My grandfather passed away at the age of 42, leaving my grandmother during the Great Depression with three boys, ages 2, 8 and 10.  Dependent on donated food and other things, she survived this as a single mom for two years before she remarried.  All three sons joined the military around WWII and two graduated from college.  Her youngest died in a car accident around the age of 34 and she eventually divorced her second husband.  Her life ended with Alzheimer’s. It was a hard life, full of real hardship and deep sorrow, and yet rather than be bitter, she found joy in her family, grandchildren and in her faith.

It seems that most people try to up each other on how hard their lives are or have been.  Look, everyone has some kind of difficulty or sadness in their lives, whether real or perceived, but sometimes we really need to try to step into someone else’s shoes.  Honestly, I’m a pretty big weenie butt.  While my life has had some bumps, some big and some small, compared to my grandmother, my life has been pretty good.  Have I reflected that privilege or luck or whatever you want to call it in the way I live my life?

All this leading to what we’re dealing with now.  How hard is this really?  For some of us, life is a bit of a challenge, boring at times but not life threatening.  We’ll make it.  But the degree of difficulty grows for those couples who have kids and have to work from home. Or maybe they’re one of those essential workers and face the threat of the virus entering their world.  Maybe they have lived alone but had a social life and now they are literally isolated and dealing with silence day in and day out.  Maybe they’re homeless. Maybe they have a loved one who is sick or they themselves are sick.  Maybe someone they loved has died.  Do you see where I’m going?

How privileged are we?  Some of us are REALLY privileged – very fortunate.  And through all of this, regardless of our circumstances, have we found some joy and kept our faith like my grandmother did? Pretty sure I won’t ever look at this picture the same way again.

 

 

This morning my husband made a video.  This is not so unusual because he makes videos for a lot of things, but this morning he decided to make a video with his crazy quarantine beard and his hair turning to wings over his ears, going into a short soliloquy about how he was able to melt an ice cube with his mind.  Forty people have “liked” this crazy thing.  It’s making people laugh which is a good thing, but just how bored do you have to be to start making silly videos of yourself doing anything and everything and sharing them on social media?

Well, we’ve been bored enough to start a podcast and people are bored enough apparently to actually listen to it.  People are listening to two 60 year old music teachers talk to each other about whatever they decide they want to talk about for 20 minutes.  Almost 50 people voted on what they thought we should name it. It’s a crazy world we live in for sure.  The fact that we’re keeping track of numbers is just another sign that we’ve lost it.

People are dressing up or arranging cold cuts to look like famous paintings, creating obstacle courses in their homes for their toddlers, cleaning out closets, and rearranging t-shirt drawers.  I saw people putting before and after shots of how they cleaned the tracks for their sliding doors on social media.

We’re all sharing pictures from our Zoom meetings, virtual choirs and playing every silly game that pops up on Facebook.  Everyone from CEOs to college students are joining in, asking people to describe them with a particular letter and then assigning them a letter to begin the game again.  I was tempted to play but I don’t have that much time.

When I watch the news I see horrible things happening, I see newscasters and doctors talking about armeggedon and government officials giving lock down orders.  And my reality is that I get to experience the luxury of having a full pantry and freezer, the ability to work from home, and not being alone, despite being stuck in one space.  It’s like I’m watching other people experience a horror movie in another world.  It’s real but it doesn’t feel real.

So all I can really complain about is that I’m bored.  Sometimes bored to the point of tears. Maybe I just need to work to be more creative, but so far I’m healthy, I can watch spring arrive from my balcony and I can continue to watch my husband make silly videos and laugh at him.  How bored are you?

 

First World Problems.  Yesterday I almost kicked into real life, not virtual teacher mode as two 20-somethings proceeded to have a long, LOUD argument complete with F-bombs outside on their balcony.  At one point I heard the young man yell (really, who DOES this kind of thing in public?) “I’m stuck in this @#% box!” I actually considered blowing my recess whistle and telling these two to take it inside.  What are they going to do from there, cough on me?  Anyway, I have to admit I understood what he was talking about as I have probably spent 7-9 hours per day on the computer this week, in my apartment, working on something or another.  Tonight is the usual Friday crash, but it’s a deep crash, on the verge of saying “I’ve had enough” mixed with a little “but this won’t last forever”.   It certainly feels like it will.

First World Problems.  I’m not on the front line of this insanity, unless you believe education right now is insanity.  Well, maybe it is.  We’ve taken a career, a calling, a passion that involves face to face relationship building so that other human beings get  excited about learning and we’ve shoved it all into this cold, metal tablet we call a computer. Sure, we can see their little smiling faces if we Zoom or Googleclassroom or some such nonsense, but they’re not coming in and heading straight for a hug or telling me all about their new pet or that they’ve lost a tooth.  In fact, as a specialist, I’m not necessarily considered a classroom teachers, so isolation is a real thing.  I have not seen any of my kids for weeks and quite frankly I’m afraid that if and when I do, I’ll just sit and cry.  It’s easy to hold it in when you don’t actually see them.

First World Problems.  Over the past nearly 30 years, I’ve been a fairly successful teacher.  I get standards and assessment, curriculum and essential learning outcomes, pacing and behavior management, as long as I’m in front of or in amongst  a classroom of kids.  For the last three weeks, mainly because I’m not technologically savvy, I have spent twice the time I normally would in learning and planning to teach in a new frontier.  I’m having to trouble shoot things without the proper terminology because my musical vocabulary now comes in second to my tech vocabulary.  If I had wanted to be the computer teacher, I wouldn’t have failed computer science in 1976.  That is not an exaggeration, by the way.

My colleagues are the best.  Seriously the best.  Everyone is kicking in and helping each other and showing much grace.  At least in front of each other.  I can’t speak for how it goes behind closed doors and they have a chance to vent. I’ve recently been hired to do a different job this next school year and while I felt like there would be some transition going from one position to another, right now there is more of a melding so that I feel like I’m doing two things at once – taking care of my current responsibilities with students while looking to the future needs of other teachers.  While I love a challenge and finding ways to fix things, that feels like all I do.  When someone asks how I’m doing I say, “good – how are you?”.  They say good, we smile and we go on but we’re both exhausted.  Not in the same way our courageous health care workers are exhausted, but in a way that we’re writing the job description as we go and that’s if it doesn’t change the next day.

People are depending on us.  Students are depending on us for continuity.  They won’t say it but it throws a lot of them off when they don’t have that routine they’re used to.  Just about every student has their favorite teacher or teachers.  I did.  And it makes a difference when you don’t get to see them.  Our parents are depending on us.  They have jobs to do too, most of them from home.  They need us to make their children’s work achievable and realistic so that they can get their work done.  Our teachers who are teaching AND taking care of their own families are heroes.  I don’t have any children at home anymore and I’m dying.  I can’t imagine what it would be like to have my own kids at home AND try to teach other people’s children too.  But if you ask them how they’re doing, I’m pretty sure they would suck it up, smile and say “Good.  I’m doing good”.

Maybe it’s just me but we’re not good.  We’re hanging on, but we’re not good.  Yes, I’ve seen all the memes about those who suffered through other events and I agree with them.  For so many of us it’s an inconvenience.  Oh wow, we have to stay in our homes.  I never imagined it would be this hard.  I’m grateful that I still have a job to do, I’m beyond grateful but I just never saw myself as someone who sees kids through a screen.  I’ve been fighting screens for kids for years and here I am, making kids use screens to learn.

Maybe this will bring a whole new appreciation for something other than screens when this is over.  Maybe when this is over we’ll understand and appreciate what feeling “good” really means and mean it when we say it.

 

 

Tonight I write a love letter to my family built by time and music.  I get that social media is just that – social media.  But sometimes it provides blessings through your words and today I was definitely blessed by those words.

I was struck by just how diverse this family is, how they are literally scattered around the country and around the world.  Twenty eight states were represented, from New York to California and everything in between, and the countries of Korea and Latvia where two former student teachers are working.  Somehow or another, we are connected by music, whether we have performed or studied music together,  or you are one of my colleagues, students, teachers or precious family.

I was also made very aware that my successes are not my own but a culmination of those  relationships and some hard work.  I’m a true believer in it’s not what you know but who you know.  I’m grateful for the things you have taught me, have shared with me and have brought to my attention.  I’m grateful for the opportunity to watch and learn from you.  I’ve seen your work ethic, your kindness to others, how you collaborate with one another, and your belief in servanthood and I’m working to emulate those things.

Encouragement is powerful and without the encouragement of family and friends I would never be where I am nor have the experiences I have had.  Maybe in the scheme of things, what I do isn’t all that important, but it has provided satisfaction and a sense of purpose.  Many years ago, I read The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren and I found myself overwhelmed by the idea of finding my purpose.  What was I meant to do in this life?  How could I make a real difference in the my life and the lives of others?  I’ve discovered this does not happen overnight.  Nothing that is worth anything does.  But with patience, perseverance, and encouragement from your family, by blood or otherwise, your purpose can be found.

Making yourself accountable to others helps in this journey to finding your purpose through setting goals.  Sharing your dreams and plans with great colleagues, friends and family can open those doors you’ve been dreaming about because again, it’s not always what you know, but who you know.  Surrounding yourself with people who also dream and set goals, those who understand the process and are willing to help you through it is essential to helping you achieve your dreams.  And at the root of it all, God, who knows the plans he has for me.  I’m learning to trust in Him for my purpose.

And so I am achieving my dreams, living new experiences and learning new things, even at my age, and it continues to give my life purpose.  Words are important to me and I can’t thank you enough for your words of kindness and encouragement today. Family can mean many things and I count you all as my family.

In like a lion, out like a lamb.  The beginning of the month was the usual crazy.  Rehearsals, judging, an advocacy trip to the capitol, starting quarter grades and impatiently waiting for spring break to begin.  Fast forward to March 31 where I have sat in a chair most of the day today looking at a computer screen.  I feel like I’ve worked all day but  I’m not really sure how much I’ve actually accomplished.  Before I would teach or watch my student teacher teach and I could SEE that things were happening.  My poor student teacher was all of a sudden just done, but fortunately the state and the university have worked it out where she can be certified.

In the meantime I sit and look at a screen.  At the dining table when I can’t use the office.  Because my husband is also working from home and seems to be doing a lot of recording lately so I’ve been relegated to the dining room. I have discovered that the new dining room chairs are VERY comfy for long periods of time.  Good to know.  I guess.

I’ll be honest and say I haven’t been out.  Well, I have been out in the car a couple of times but that’s it.  It’s easy for me to just sit and hard for me to get motivated to do those healthy things like walking.  It has been beautiful outside the last few days and the doors  and windows have been wide open.  The sun has been shining, the birds have been singing, the trees are budding and I feel like I can’t leave the apartment.  My husband on the other hand is always looking for reasons to go out.  I’m not crazy about it but he is the  social person and he’s loosing his mind.  I may also be losing it but it’s by retreating into myself.  I’m pretty sure that zoom meetings are saving my life right now because I have to interact with others.

I ponder about a lot of diverse things right now.  I feel like there has been a lot of death in the last several months, and not by way of the virus.  Maybe it’s just my age but I sometimes wonder if they didn’t pass away when they did to miss this craziness.  Silly, right?  Maybe a blessing if they did?  I think about how this year is not ending the way my friends who are retiring thought it would.  I think about not being able to say a proper goodbye to my kids, how I have boxes of things from my classroom stacked in storage and in our home office.  Change is hard enough but without a proper transition and closure it just makes it worse.

Tomorrow begins another month.  We just found out that we’re out until at least May 6.  March has gone out like a lamb in terms of the quiet forced upon our classrooms, but we’re going to have to be lions to survive this.  We need to keep fighting through the isolation, the depression, the loss of so many things.  We need to all remember that a lot of us have probably gone through worse and that while there are many uncertainties right now, this will eventually end and give us a chance to rebuild, perhaps in a way we’ve never built before.  As teachers who expect our students to follow directions, now it’s time for all of us to do the same.  Then perhaps the end of April we’l be able to go out, not like a lamb, but with the lamb.

 

17 Days.  A lot can happen in 17 days.  When I wrote my first corona virus blog 17 days ago, I talked about how far away all of this seemed.  It was affecting people across the ocean, not really here.  I was literally in the middle of spring break when my supervisor called and said we needed to think about teaching online.  Ok.

17 days later, this has become a reality.  Teachers and administrators across the country are scrambling, kids are out of school indefinitely and in some cases, won’t be back this semester.  Some states have stopped teaching all together, mainly due to the fact that they can’t provide the same educational experience for everyone the same way virtually. There are those students without computers or internet.  Or a home.  There are students without food.  Students now stuck in abusive homes 24/7.  Students not being loved.  Things that brick and mortar schools were providing.  Somehow, the education part doesn’t seem so important anymore and we’re seeing just how much schools provide their students besides a great education.

I read a post from a friend this morning, who spoke of the things his parents taught him growing up, a mixture of the traditional – math, grammar, reading, writing, chemistry, history, and the not so traditional – working with tools, building and fixing things.  These were taught in the home.  I remember my dad teaching me music, science, grammar, spelling and so much more.  It was those conversations about those subjects that got me excited about learning and what brings back memories today of sitting at the kitchen table learning these things.  There were those silly frustrating corrections of course.  It was “idea” not “ideal” and “may I”, not “can I”.  I frustrate my students with that now.  Parents are going to teach.  It just may not look like what some of us in education have been scripted to teach. 

I wonder if, as educators, we’re not trying to recreate our brick and mortar virtually?  Not my district, but I’ve heard stories of students and teachers being expected to actually have “classes” for the full school day while sitting at a computer.  Or teachers expected to obtain child care for their own children (really?  During a pandemic?) while they “teach” online.  I mean, teachers are the greatest, the most flexible, the most “everything”, but to learn a completely different delivery system of teaching, especially those of us who have been teaching awhile, this is not something that happens overnight.  Or in 17 days.

So, what happens if kids don’t attend school for a semester, in the educational sense?  Well, they won’t be stressing about testing or grades.  They may get a lot of unstructured play outside since there are no organized sports teams right now.  They may get to eat and work and play games with family.  They’ll do little art projects with chalk on the sidewalk, and cut out paper hearts to display on the windows of their home.  They’ll listen to and sing with their favorite artists in their rooms.  They’ll FaceTime with friends.

While it’s hard, we can reschedule things like sports, and graduation and prom celebrations and end of year events.  Just imagine how good it’s going to be when this is over.  Maybe we’ll  have rearranged our priorities a bit.  And when we do open the doors to our schools again, I hope there’s a new appreciation of all the things schools and the adults who work there do for the kids of this country and why it’s so important that we do this face to face.  Technology is a great tool, but I think we’re all finding out that there’s nothing like a smile and a hug from your favorite teacher.  Here’s hoping it’s not another 17 days.

 

 

I was standing by an open window on the top floor of a large red brick building.  There was no glass in the window, and it was as though the building was in the process of construction or destruction.  As I looked across a courtyard of some kind, I saw the chimney on the wall across from me began to crumble and fall apart.  Piece by piece I watched the bricks fall to the ground and the mortar between the bricks turn to dust.  The floor beneath my feet began to shake slightly….

And then I woke up.  I wasn’t the least bit scared.  I could vividly recall my dream and even tonight, a couple of days later, the dream is still in my mind in colorful detail.  As is usual for me, when a dream is that vivid, I get on line, out of curiosity, just to see just how this might be interpreted.

To dream of a building collapsing represents feeling that a situation in your life is coming to an end on it’s own. A situation is “falling apart.” An unstoppable loss. It may also reflect feelings about the ending of a situation being inevitable. How high you are in the building indicates a rising level of understanding, awareness or success.

Well, the word “success” always piques my interest, but I think I like the words understanding and awareness even better.  As a young woman, I don’t think I had a true awareness of my own potential, I was afraid of everything and dependent on others for my happiness.  I very seldom stepped out on my own to say or do anything I believed in.  Aging, for me, has been a blessing as I become more aware of who I am and my place in the universe.  And one way or another, things are changing.  Perhaps not the way I envisioned, but there’s nothing I can do at this point.  It is truly unstoppable.

To dream of seeing a building collapse represents outdated ideas, perspectives, or situations. Ideas or beliefs that are no longer powerful. An accumulation of pressure, stress, or opposition that’s too much to continue with certain situations or beliefs.

There are certainly places and situations in my life where pressure of one type or another has become too much.  As I’ve grown as a person, my ideas and perspectives have changed drastically, I think for the better, perhaps not outdated, but needing refreshing, and those ideas have changed my trajectory, perhaps taking me to places that don’t have the same type of stressors. I don’t think my dream was foreshadowing of things yet to come, but things that are already in process.  Perhaps my lack of fear came from the realization that this change in me is where I’m supposed to be.

Some of you may not believe in this whole dream interpretation thing, but I like to think that God has a way of speaking to us in our dreams, and IF we’re paying attention, we can learn things about ourselves and perhaps where He sees our path going.  God spoke to many people through dreams in the Bible, the good, the bad and the ugly, and even provided those who could interpret dreams.  Why wouldn’t it be possible for God to still speak to us in our dreams?

A crumbling building.  Maybe it was just something I ate like Ebeneezer Scrooge or something I saw on TV somewhere and my subconscious just brought it forward for some arbitrary reason.  Or maybe it was something God wanted me to know; that the crumbling building is ok, that I’m at a level in my life where I can handle it and that things are going to move forward.  Successfully.  It’s reassuring to know that no matter what is happening in and around our lives, God. Is. In. Control.

Sweet dreams my friends.