i cannot stop eating peaches. my weeks are marked with trips to the outdoor farmers' markets. sat at phs, tuesday at villa, thursday in south pas. i test everything with satisfaction, tomatoes like plums, apple, nectarine, but with extra care... the white peaches. i buy the biggest and sweetest ones i can find. i like them a bit crisp, firm. i chill them in the fridge and eat them before bed. sometimes in bed with a book. then i get up and slice another. i think once i ate three. pure sweet happiness.


on one of several walks to somewhere today... i imagined a huge tree in my new classroom. out of butcher paper and green leafy tissue, i want to build a growing tree. to hang words of fruit on it. vocabulary that rises out of our creativity. we have so much space to move now. the room holds no desks or chairs, only wall to wall carpet and cabinets for instruments. my goal in the next three days is to welcome these children to a place of magic and imagination. i am jumpy with energy about how much this will change my teaching. i am overwhelmed with the amount of diecutting and visuals i need to make. i'm bursting with love for my profession, for schools that care about education, and for classroom teachers that volunteer to stay after school and help me, after they have barely set up their own classrooms. we will write grants for instruments together, and hope for enough.

i love creating happy space. space for shaking and twisting, hopping and spinning, bending and stretching. i love space.

it is all different now, this life. my life. i have more than moved. and most of it i cannot explain.

a precious three year old friend asked me recently what fruit is made of. i struggled to answer him. it's not made, it's grown, i tried. it grows on trees. it didn't compute. but what is it made of. sugar? starch? i don't know. it's just grown.

how does the spirit move? how does He change me? how do things open, finally become ripe? where does the smell come from? the smell of grapes ready on the vine? the smell of strawberries washed and glistening?

i cannot explain most of it. but i know there are peaches hanging heavy with flavor. this tree is full of life. there is space to grow.