Category: Takes a Village

Posted in Fragile Life, Insight, Takes a Village, Teens, Tweens, Wisdom of Youth

On hating our young

Posted on by Kelly (of rituals)

While our 17-year-old set out to march, my husband and I opted for our regular Saturday morning practice on the mat, surprised and touched to find our longtime teacher speaking to the day’s events, not just at the opening of class but into the practice, naming the young voices he admired so much–Emma Gonzales and David Hogg–and choking up as he talked about the Stoneman Douglass Ice Hockey team, so that I when I found myself, supine, in Baddha Konasana–hips and heart wide open–tears slid down & around my cheeks, and into my hair, and onto my mat, without thought, without attachment or emotion, and continued as I came into a twist, and later, off the mat, and into the day, I was struck again, as I was on Valentines Day, at how precious the sight of each and every teenager, and I understood that it is not only our relationship with masculinity and guns that will be transformed but our hatred of our young as they come of age.

 

Posted in Borrowed Voices, Fragile Life, Mother to Crone, Takes a Village

guns & the mouth of babes

Posted on by Kelly (of rituals)

I wake in the night thinking about 17 lives, and I say to myself:

This is good, this waking.

My heart has not grown numb or too defeated.

It will continue to voice:

NO.

NO MORE!

I wake in the morning, my heart aching, but I can’t remember why.

Am I sad about something? Worried? Is it something I ate?

Later, I come across my sister’s post about her pillow talk with my 5-year-old nephew…

…How did a guy with a gun even get in a school?

…When I go in in the morning, the door is just open, would a guy come in the morning?

…What are the new rules?

Posted in School, Takes a Village

Orange, Chocolate-Chip Scones~the preservation of democracy

Posted on by Kelly (of rituals)

School budgets–at the heart–of community…

Kelly (of rituals)'s avatarThis Vermont Life

Wednesday mornings at the old Sweeties Market Wednesday mornings at the old Sweeties Market

A rainy Wednesday in March brings to mind the memory of orange, chocolate-chip scones.

This would be just the day to sit a spell at the counter at Sweeties on Route 9 in Marlboro–sipping a latte, taking in the aroma of bacon, the morning conversations, the ebb and flow of townspeople and tourists beginning their day

Sweeties has been closed now for a handful of years and we’ve all grown accustomed to having to leave town for gas or a six-pack, but the absence lingers like a loved one, and sometimes rises like an ache, particularly in wintry months or on rainy days like today.

“After the General Store, comes the Post Office,” says a neighbor. “Then the school.”

Marlboro School was at the center of last week’s Pre-Town Meeting  in response to Act 46 which seeks to consolidate school governance.

“Forced, short-sighted…

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