Posted in Fragile Life

Fragile Spring

Posted on by Kelly (of rituals)

a child, the age my own, lost her life this spring on the rural highway around the corner from where we just built our first home…
each morning when my son rides the yellow bus to school, he passes the spot where eight-year old Kayla was killed…
they played basketball together in the league this past winter…

the fragility of life is so palpable in the face of tragedy that it surprises me how permanent it can feel most of the time…
each day i think about how our lives would be changed if we lost a child…
each time i get into the car, my mind is on that beautiful field beside which those two cars collided on a perfectly clear Monday afternoon…

i slow down on the highway when i pass there, in reverence for what was lost …
“why do people leave flowers?”  my sons ask after we bring a handful of daisies and pussy willows…
“i don’t know really, “  i tell them  “it’s kind of an unspoken tradition…  honoring the person who died...”
i answer as much for them as for myself….

perhaps we leave flowers on the road to create beauty out of anguish, to make holy that place where suffering took place…
each day another plant or cross or bouquet appears;  this morning a  pink plastic flamingo…  maybe that little girl loved flamingos…  pink was probably her favorite color

i wish i could pour flowers from my heart onto that hill, creating a shrine to grief…

i think about route 9…  it’s such an every day part of our lives…  we spend so much time driving on it without the awareness that in just one moment, a truck could cross the road and make that trip to town anything but mundane…

a young woman from the college lost her life to it this winter on Hogback; and the year before, a gracious friend lost her life to its curves and beauty near the Adam’s Crossroads;  the driver of the truck that killed young Kayla also lost his life, at the age of 24

perhaps I’m more consumed than others to death by automobile- given that as a child i lost my grandmother in that way…
she was only in her fifties when she and her three best friends were killed on a bridge outside Philadelphia… they were on their way to a golf match…  four gals out for the day…  the truck driver who smashed into them never saw their broken down car that his sixteen wheeler drove the length of a football field across the great expanse of that bridge, finally landing on top for them…

as truck drivers surprisingly can do, he walked away unhurt…   I’ll never forget his name “Steven Nosel, age 32” …  i read it in the newspaper over and over again…
he had gotten lost that day outside the city and hadn’t meant to be on that bridge…  he must be in his sixties now

I’ve always wondered and worried how he survived that afternoon, the bright sun blinding his view…  rocking my world forever…

just recently I’ve begun looking for him… I’m not entirely sure why…
but like the flowers left on the roadside where a loved one has died-  i want to create something of beauty out of our suffering…

Posted in Fragile Life, Insight, Milestone Moments, My own childhood, School, Wisdom of Youth

Eternal Spring… Kindergarten Moments

Posted on by Kelly (of rituals)
open clip art.com

At the end of the first stellar week of spring, I stood at the easel in the kindergarten among a group of prolific artists while a breeze blew in through the greenhouse door.

Across the room, Ellen was swarmed by writers, who were penciling letters to send through our own post office, while the remainder of the children were enraptured in the building corner.

“I’m having a kindergarten moment,”  I whispered to our intern from the college who was painting beside me.

“Well, that makes sense, you’re in the kindergarten,” she teased.

I loved this young woman for the lightness she brought to my days, reminding me of my own college years.

“Yes, but I’m really feeling the kindergarten-ness of it all,” I  said, unable to capture what it meant to be absorbed in the hollow sound of blocks, the smell of tempura paint and warm air, and earnest spirit of first time writers.

Later, during recess, I stood for a long time in the bright sun of the open field before heading down the hill into the coolness of the woods. There I found small pockets of children tucked into their own worlds of tree and rock, mud and stream.

Gaugin, detail, visipix.com

As I approached, they looked up like deer; but then went on with their play as if I was of no relevance.

In one woodland home, a small girl swept the floor with a pine-fashioned broom; and I found myself crossing over into my own childhood.

…There in the dusty field of a Colorado playground, I used the tip of my shoe to draw the outline of a house, in the frontier world of Laura Ingalls Wilder…

It was only a moment, but it was enough to remind me of the magic of childhood. I tread gently through the woods this day, so as not to disturb the children’s reverie, and so that I too might take a drink from their eternal spring.

Kelly Salasin, March 2006

Posted in Milestone Moments, School, Takes a Village

Tribute to a School

Posted on by Kelly (of rituals)

When you have a brand new baby
and your mom dies during your first-born’s first-week of kindergarten
you never forget the steady presence of
Ellen
and gratitude swells  your heart forever.

And when that same kindergartener moves to first grade,
you thank HIS lucky stars, it’s
Judy
because no matter how distracted he is
she will find a way to love him.

And when the classrooms change and
Jodi
becomes his teacher for the 4th year in a row
it’s no matter-
for with her, his thirst for learning is unquenchable.

And though, like most parents, you fear the demands of
David
you watch your son take charge
of himself and his work
with a glad heart
–and yours tugs when it’s time for him to leave this room;
though he, surprisingly, is
ready…

Ready and eager to move closer to the doors
that lead out of Marlboro Elementary School…

And there,
like a butterfly
transforms from a child to young man
with
confidence & VOICE
so that you hardly think on teachers anymore
because with their art & skill, the learning has become his.

Rachel & Tim
could be the names of any of the souls
who have traveled the months or years
or even a lifetime on the path of learning–
like the preschool faces of Timmy & Zoe and Ferne

And you can’t help but flash on all those
named and unnamed–
board members and budget voters and volunteers;
parents & friends; coaches & subs…
ALL those who have caressed his movement
along the learning way
like the tiny cilia moving an egg
toward its fullest
EXPRESSION~

Mr. H, a lifeline, since day one
and Charlene’s music & dancing, from age 2
and Lauren with her smile
and there’s Pedro & Pam
David Tasgal & Ann
Nurses Susan & Whitney
Cindy to Wendy to Trowell to Chris
Wayne to Tim
Connie to Craig to Francie
Johnnie and Kirsten
Joanne to Janie & Christine

and ALL
the precious classroom assistants
who made it possible for a kid who preferred blocks until age 7
to learn to read
in HIS own time
so that now we must rip the books from his hands
to remind him to eat and to do chores and to talk
when once—TALKING– was all he did!

And was it poor Judy? or Jodi?
who gave the month of March over
to reading and no other pursuit (including homework!)
so that the words he once put OUT
FINALLY began to POUR in

And soon his classroom became
Cape Cod & New York
Costa Rica & DC
and marches on Capitols
lining up for rallies
door to door for a President

Leading to this moment where we find him
STANDING TALL
READY to VAULT
through the
EXIT of “old” MES
under the careFULL gaze of Gail

And home he’ll come
one last time
through yellow doors
delivered safely
once by Laura, forever by Gail
and seamlessly on toward Jackie.

I know now that it takes
a VILLAGE
to raise a child.

I’m so glad
that I chose
YOURS!

In gratitude for Lloyd’s 12 years of education in Marlboro, Vermont with special mention to Paul Redmond at Meetinghouse School where it all began!