Coincidence

 Many, many years ago, when I was living in Cleveland, I was spending time in the basement practice rooms at school, as one did for hours each day.  During breaks, friends may congregate for a few minutes to chat.  This was not scheduled, but more of an organic process.

Once during one of these breaks, I somehow got to thinking about one of my childhood piano teachers in Texas with whom I studied for a year or two.  She was in graduate school at the time, and lived in a little apartment on the crest of a hill.  We'd park on the street, and then walk on a perpendicular sidewalk past front doors to hers little home.  Her tiny living room contained a small sofa and a grand piano.  Just past this, there was what one of my husband's aunts refers to as a "one butt kitchen", and then there was the teacher's small bedroom.  By walking through said bedroom, one could access the bathroom.  In addition to going back there to access the facilities,  I was sometimes sent in to the bedroom during my brother's lesson, as our teacher had a weighted-key electric keyboard which could be used with headphones.  This was because she wanted me to practice while waiting for my turn.  

Each teacher has their own peculiarities.  This teacher stood out to me for the following two reasons...

First off, she felt that young children were not ready to play music by the greatest composers (something a previous long-term teacher had made a point of having us do with the point of elevating our minds), but should play "student" music until a stage of greater maturity.   As a result, the curriculum got easier, and we were also introduced to a small series of graded piano books called Bastien's Pop, Rock, and Blues.  These particular  books were simple and fun.

The second peculiarity had to do with how she annotated our scores.  Rather than marking with the sacred pencil (so annotations could be erased or changed as ideas developed or progress was made), she marked boldly in colored Magic Marker.  It was a different color each week, and she made use of a specific non-standard term, FLIP, which was frequently written on the page.  By FLIP, it was meant to suddenly move the hand to a new part of the keyboard, without creeping or reaching.

...As it happened at this particular practice break with friends in Ohio I seem to have mentioned the frustration at having my scores decorated in a rainbow of Magic Marker, and one of the friends from the West Coast mentioned he'd had a piano teacher do the same.  So then I mentioned the FLIP annotation, and he confirmed that his teacher had written the same.  So he said to me, was your piano teacher Dr. Elizabeth so-and-so?  And I said, well, my teacher was Betsy so-and-so, although she was only in the process of becoming Dr. when I studied with her.  This seemed to surreal to be true, so we emailed our respective parents.  Indeed, after my teacher had finished her graduate work, she had moved out to Oregon, and had taught students there.

So, I who grew up in Texas (and was in Ohio majoring in violin performance) and this friend who grew up in Oregon (and was in Ohio majoring in cello performance) shared a childhood piano teacher!  

And you may as well know that in after years, I married that friend.  It was Jared. 

4A

When I was a toddler, my grandmother and her three sisters purchased a piece of land in the Texas Hill Country, and they had a large log cabin put in.  The land was a long, narrow rectangle; the largest bit was flat and atop a hill, adjoining the paved country road.  Then there was a wooded hillside which descended to a small, flat meadow, and there was another short, steep, rocky hill which dove right down to the Blanco River, lined with river cypress and tiny bivalve shells half buried in sand.  On either side of the long, narrow rectangle there were other plots of similar dimension with the same terrain.   These plots were all separated by a string of barbed wire on weathered, wooden posts - a common way to divy up pastures in ranch land.  (I was taught to carefully touch the wire with the back of my hand first to confirm it was not accidentally or purposefully electrified before touching with the inside of my hand.)  The four sisters had a painfully-spikey-in-bare-feet, crushed grey gravel track put in from the cattle guard at the top of the property down to the two-car garage.  The garage was separated from the house by a handsome Y-shaped wooden walkway over a shallow depression, which was semi-landscaped, mostly with rocks.   Rocks are family heirlooms in this clan.  Each rock has a story - where it was found,  what shape the collector loved about it, its color. Moving house involves moving treasured rocks.

The garage wasn't much used for cars.  One unfinished interior wall had every sort of tool you might need hung on it - rakes, hedge clippers, screw drivers, hand saws, etc.  There were also the river shoes belonging to all the regular adult visitors and a compressor for pumping up the huge pile of inner tubes stored in the back corner.  The items on the wall were precisely arranged, and a pair of 4x6 color photos mounted there were useful for referencing exactly where to return a borrowed tool.  Woe to the individual who did not promptly return the item to its designated mount.  

Along the back wall were a fridge and counter with a sink.  Here, some of the men folk stored coke bottles or beer (for those who were Methodist or Presbyterian, rather than Baptist), not approved for taking up space in the kitchen fridge.  The sink was mostly used for cleaning fish - there were several of the men, including my own grandfather who would take turns passing a quiet afternoon in a folding lawn chair on a shaded strip of river bank, supplied with a 5 gallon bucket of water for storing catches, a tackle box, a fishing rod, and a can of beverage. On hot days the shade of the garage, with doors open for breeze, was a place for some of the men folk to get away and set up lawn chairs on the cool, smooth, polished cement floor. 

In addition to the riding mower, one other vehicle was eventually added to the garage collection.  This was a little, gas-powered four wheeler.  Kids were allowed to ride this with adult permission and supervision.  It was red.  The gas pedal was a small lever on the right handle, depressed by the thumb.  On one of my first outings, I pushed it a wee bit too hard; the machine lurched forward and slammed into the fridge at the back of the garage, leaving a very small dent.  I was terrified by my lack of control, and my father was concerned that one of the great aunties would have a fit over the small scratch.  The vehicle, though it was fun, was not purchased to amuse the small fry, but to aid some of the older, less mobile family members in traversing the rugged terrain.

The four sisters, of the maiden name Alexander (hence the moniker/brand of 4 A), had grown up on ranches, but in their adult lives were domesticated to houses in towns and cities.  Once they built 4 A, they spent a weekend each month together out in the hardscrabble landscape of their origin.  They were, eldest to youngest: Julia Mae, Roberta, Emalu, and Seleta, all born in the 1910s and '20s.  Their brother Rufus and his family were occasional visitors to 4 A, but he was not a part-owner, and I have the vague whispered sense he felt his sisters too much of busy bodies and needed some space from them.  

On the designated visit weekends, the sisters and their husbands would start pouring in around Thursday and Friday, and some would last until Monday or Tuesday.  Children and grandchildren would show up after work on Friday night, or on Saturday morning, sometimes for the day, or sometimes spending the night. Between these four sisters there were six adult children, several of whom married; some of the single ones brought a beau over from time to time.  There were eventually seven grandchildren, of whom I was the eldest.  Unless, of course, some of Rufus's family showed up.  His two children had produced three grandchildren,  who were between three years and two weeks older than I.  Various other more distant relatives might visit from time to time - cousins of the four sisters, or nieces and nephews of my grandfather who had married into this big mess.  Sometimes, one of us might bring along a friend, though I am not sure that such interlopers fit as well into the schemes of the elders.

The most distinguished visitor, who was generally a regular while he was alive, and who had his own bedroom, was Dad.  That is to say, the four sisters' dad, known to friends and extended relatives as Frank, but called Dad by all three generations of his descendants.  I have fond memories of Dad, born in 1888.  A patient, good humored man, he was happy to repeat old stories, and he played dominoes at his table every day.  I learned dominoes there, and Dad also patiently taught me to play Connect Four, the vertical, three-dimensional version of tic-tac-toe.

The log cabin was quite spectacularly comfortable,  though certainly not frilly.  It had two stories, with part of the living area that tall, overlooked by a loft, all with windows opening out over the giant deck to the wooded downhill.  The natural stone fireplace was filled up with a roaring fire on cold evenings, and the stones would get so hot; there was a stack of cushions sewn by one of the sisters to keep the fire-sitters bottoms from scalding. The living area was open to the dining area under the loft.  Depending on the number of diners and the weather, the three daily meals would be taken at the three small tables (with straglers eating in the living room), or in fine weather, eating would often happen on the giant wrap-around deck on the hillside, a wooden picnic table and built-in benches along the edge providing seating.  There was a reasonable sized kitchen,  presided over by Uncle Ken, the husband of Seleta.   His day job was to cook for the giant First Baptist Church in Houston, so he knew how to feed comfort food to a crowd.  The 4 A kitchen had no dishwasher, so after each meal a small team was required to volunteer to wash the copious pile of dishes, dry them, and put them away in the specific spots where they each lived.  Between the kitchen and dining areas was a long, wide counter, used to serve meals buffet style. 

Each sister had her own bedroom, as did Dad.  In order to accommodate extras, the living room sofas (some of which folded out) became sleep spaces, the loft sofa folded out, and a closet in the downstairs contained a couple of folding beds on wheels.  My own grandfather used one of these, sleeping in the kitchen near the refrigerator,  as he was a life-long diabetic and would occasionally have to take some juice or whatnot in the night to keep himself in balance.

My grandmother's bedroom was on the ground floor, right across from Dad's.  She had an antique double bed, a small sleeper sofa, and an antique folding cot, so our family of five could squeeze in there for the night.  She also had a toy bin, which was the special province of my siblings and me, but of course,  it was to be shared with the second cousins or any other visiting children.

All four sisters were enamored of antiques and frequented country flea markets in search of pretty, old things.  Each Spring, the four of them went out on a Spring Fling for several days, where they galavanted around the small towns of the countryside,  buying antiques.  (They were out on one of these Flings, when my grandfather, home alone, died after a heart attack.)  4 A, or as it was also called, the Riverplace, was tastefully decorated with many of these finds, in addition to the old family items already in circulation. Notable to me was an ancient player piano, not in working order, which adorned the wall near the front door.  

While being at the Riverplace was a pleasant way to pass time, getting there, for me, was not.  It involved lots of twisty country roads, two lanes at best.  The trip was shorter if the low water crossing on the Blanco was passable, longer if the water was high and we had to go around (phone calls discussing the river situation were common in the days before a trip).  And for me, as for my mom, winding roads meant motion sickness.  My mom could solve this by being the driver. I just had to sit in the back and do my best....

While my great aunts had many wonderful abilities when it came to house keeping, doing things decently and in order on a schedule, having a place for each thing, and tasteful decorating (all skills I did not seem to inherit), I don't remember any of them being the sort of stereotypical, warm grandmotherly types.  I was vaguely afraid of all of them, and specifically afraid of one of them whose particular housekeeping tendencies made any children or untidy folk steer clear.  For many years I had trouble telling which one was which, as I had difficulty remembering faces, although I learned the most particular housekeeper some years ahead of the others.  

The great uncles, as a whole, were more laid back, although I did find it necessary to sneak carefully past one great uncle most of the time.  He loved to give unexpected bear hugs and to tickle children, both of which made me quite frightened and uncomfortable. Uncle Armin, I came to appreciate over time, as he grew up speaking German; it was a dialect spoken by immigrant families in the US with a decidedly American accent.  Here my fascination with linguistics, and German in particular,  made me turn an ear in his direction, listening for any foreign words and constructions sprinkled into his speech. 

Gatherings at 4 A were scheduled every month or so, and I have fond memories of the Thanksgiving gathering.  The amount of food produced by this multi-generational grouping was phenomenal,  and any holiday favorite you could think of was there.  My favorite was pecan pie.  One of my mom's bachelor cousins cared a lot about football, so he spent much of the day up in the loft in front of the medium-sized TV hidden seay on a cabinet, watching all the games.  A few other relatives would pop in and out, and a small chorus of voices would denote good or bads plays for those downstairs,  whether they cared or not.  Sometimes the bachelor cousin would shout down scores to people downstairs who wanted to keep track but were otherwise occupied. 

The Christmas gathering would be on a day which was not actually Christmas.   In addition to the roaring fire and the unbelievable spread of food (my favorite being Graham crackers topped with chopped almonds, drizzled with a melted butter-sugar combination, which hardened), there was a giant Hill Country Christmas tree.  It would be something like ten or fifteen feet tall, and not the sort of lush evergreen that people who live near the northern forests expect.  This was a more rustic and arid affair, and just as beautiful.   It was tastefully decorated with white lights and ornaments, many of them handmade.  There was a gift exchange, which was worked out some weeks in advance.  Gifts weren't anything fancy, and each adult drew the name of another adult.  Each kid got one present, too.  People liked when my mom's cousin-in-law drew their name, as she was apt to give a tin of her homemade chocolate-covered pretzels.  There was usually some hymn singing in parts, all from memory.  Despite growing up in what we might consider Second or Third World circumstances (agricultural work, wells, out houses, no electricity, primitive medical care), all the sisters had music lessons and sang in church.  They all attended college as well.

There was always a gathering the day before Easter, too, though many fewer folks spent the night, as Sunday church events were a priority back home.  Once all the kids had arrived, one of the great aunts or uncles would announce that the Easter Bunny had been spotted, so we all had to stay in and close the window shades.  No one actually believed in the Easter Bunny, of course, but the elders went around hiding things in the underbrush before sending us out with baskets to hunt.  Eyes were kept open for snakes, though.

In the Summer, there would be occasional all-family float trips on Saturday afternoon.  These were a mix of fun and uncomfortable. The anticipation was very exciting. However, getting so many people dressed in river clothes and shoes, matched up with the correct size of inner tube, all the inner tubes inflated and hauled down through the prickles to the river, was a mammoth task.  Despite the heat, the water felt cold, and I, for one, was slow to acclimate.  Then, one had to worry about water moccasins and leeches.  Some of the water was very slow and hard to paddle through. Some places, you could get stuck on a little island or a rock or a tree branch.  Some bits of rapids were frighteningly fast and one was liable to bruise one's rear end or shins on the rocks. Taking out at the low water crossing was dangerous where you had to avoid the spill over spot, and you would be shivering as you tried to reacclimate to the heat.  Then this huge mass of people had to get through the showers without outpacing the hot water heater and dress in clothes again.

Nonetheless, the river felt like the most magical spot on the property.  As Anne of Green Gables often exclaims: There is so much scope for imagination!  Every hollow and rock was its own place.  Tiny bivalve shells lay along the bank.  So many species of plants made for a whole magical country.  

Out back of the garage was a wire laundry line for hanging out of wet things.  The ground beneath was rocky and prickly,  most especially thanks to prickly pear cactus.  There was once when I was foolishly out there in bare feet, and I wound up stepping in the cactus and taking several tiny thorns home in my foot.  Having them extracted was excruciating. 

Despite the need to carefully avoid various scary old people, there were often other kids to play with, and when there weren't, there was plenty of room to find a quiet place.  One visit there was a hammock hung in the woods on the hill and I found it a wonderful reading spot.  When we felt adventurous,  we could climb under the deck and find new ways up.  Another time, I made a sort of imaginary play house in the upper field inside a ring of prickly trees.

In the lot just upstream from 4 A, there was a very old house.  It was a dogtrot, low ceiled and with a covered front porch.   I imagine it may have been as old as the 1860s, but I could be wrong and it may have been as new as the 1930s.  I don't know that I was ever in it more than once, briefly, but regardless, proximity to old things was a good education.  There was also a chicken coop and old barn alongside.

At the end of each visit, my parents went in to put money in the "kitty".  I never learned what vessel this was, but I did spy a handwritten list of contribution amounts for food and utilities in the kitchen, based on number of people and length of stay.  Everything was well organized and there was no room for squabbles along these lines.

As the four sisters and their spouses became older, upkeep of the Riverplace became more difficult, and after a serious family meeting of adults, it was decided there was nothing for it but to sell.  In the after years, the older generation has passed away one by one, and there has not been such a convenient or regular meeting place since.  I have seen extended family members only occasionally, and there is nothing similar in the younger generations, as my mother is an only child. I have no aunts, uncles, or first cousins to create this same brace of people for the 21st century.  My children, at least, are close to their own grandparents and my two siblings, and this is wonderful.

Jane Eyre

 In college I became more cognizant of a personality trait I had carried all of my remembered life.  Through chance, or fate, I wound up with a lovely set of friends from school who attended a nearby Baptist church, and I joined them there as a novice.  It was in that evangelical hall of spiritual instruction that I learned a name for this irksome trait of mine which had so long plagued me: "fear of man".  This fear, I could not shake.  For most of my life, although I was not always well attuned to others intentions or meanings,  I had been very attuned to emotional energy, particularly of anyone even slightly older than me, and thus higher up in the authority stratum.  I was used to monitoring this energy and rating it in black and white terms: good energy or bad energy.  This monitoring and evaluation  was more unconscious than intentional. I was often unaware that I was choosing words and actions which would keep the balance of that energy on the positive side, and thus keep me out of "trouble."  Even the smallest bit of trouble and discord has always been very painful to me, and unknowingly, I have spent huge amounts of energy avoiding that pain. Where this seemed problematic to me, when I discovered this "fear of man", is that it often led me to be untruthful, partially truthful, or sometimes downright sneaky, in an effort to keep others happy.  And this... seemed manipulative.   I was, by contrast, attracted, to people who were genuine and unphased by status.  Was that my natural bent, corrupted by this fleshly sin?  Or was it something foreign to me by nature that I may one day hope to attain?

With many more years of reflection and reading, it seems clear to me that at some point, my very sensitive soul discovered, through unconscious trial and error, that such reactions on my part (and reactions they were - for despite enormous amounts of planning and mustering of courage, I could rarely bypass this habit) - had once upon a time been a way that seemed to keep me safe.  Now, they were no longer a choice and  often were far from the best course of action.  I am sure that living things are hard-wired for self-protection and  preservation first of all, and these priorities must be cared for before the more altruistic qualities can be truly nurtured.  As a result,  I spent a lot of effort doing things "for" others, but only some was altruistic; much was driven by the more basic desire to remain safe and on an even keel...

But this is about the book Jane Eyre.  I just finished my first time through on audio, read by the incredibly talented actress Thandiwe Newton.  Jane, although fictional, must be, in some way, based upon the thoughts of the author and people she knew.  Jane has no hint of bending her will, thoughts, and actions, to keep others at bay.  Her clarity regarding her own feelings and thoughts she uses as signals in choosing, moment by moment,  the best course of action, informed by truth and ultimate good.  I wish I had so much clarity and indeed, simplicity, in choosing words and actions with true intent.  Jane is not deferential or meek unless she chooses to follow such a course.  She is a keen student of the people around her;  she is kind when kindness is called for; passionate and angry, coupled with self-control, when there is injustice or untruth.  She is sometimes rather odd to others around her, but her mind is on full display under Charlotte's pen, and I find her rather fascinating.  

I do wish I had read and loved her long before.  Her deep wisdom and convictions and spirituality,  while Christian, don't follow the pack, and I feel I could have drawn a lot of insight and courage from her literary friendship for some of the internal challenges I worked through (not often very well) in my teens and twenties. 

Actually, I had briefly tried to read her once before.   Somewhere between seventh and ninth grades, a now forgotten compatriot extolled upon the novel and convinced me I should read it.  I got hung up on the detailed description of the draperies in the first chapter and put it down.  What I now regard as Jane's keen powers of observation and interpretation,  I once found too dusty, dull, and hard to comprehend.  I was at a place in life where I wanted action.  (I did not do all of the required reading for my ninth grade fantasy/science fiction literature class, because I could not motivate myself to read much of things which did not interest me, but I did manage to read all of the required Stephen King novel Firestarter in far less than the allotted time. It was a real page turner of the horror genre, and I did not sleep well for a few weeks.  As I grow older, I have developed the self-control to put down such terror-inducing books, because I know how badly I am affected by them.  However, at that age, the dopamine hit made continued reading truly unavoidable. )  

The most recent,  and successful, attempt at Jane Eyre came about as follows:  Last school year, in the winter, we were given a large TV by one of my students, who was upgrading.   We hung it over the glass cabinet in the living room, and began using it as a way of keeping the peace and providing some family education during our late-night dinners.  On our weekly Tuesday library visits, I would pick up documentaries and dramatizations which looked promising.   One week I took a BBC dramatization of the lives of the Bronte sisters off the shelf, and we enjoyed watching it.  This led to interest in their writings, so we ordered film versions of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre from other branches, as they were available.   We sort of made it through Wuthering Heights, but found it, at least in this film version, too dark, scary, and pointless.  Jane Eyre was dramatic,  but interesting.

Some months later on an internet forum I was following, a person commented on how much they liked Jane Eyre and related to the character,  which again piqued my interest.  So I finally gave it a go as an audio book. 

Written in a largely pre-industrial era, I was constantly impressed by Jane's connections to nature.   Daily weather was well observed and accounted for, as were the varying amounts of light afforded by sun, moon, and stars.  Whereas we (well, not I at the moment) are used to four-seasons heating and cooling via thermostat, the auto with heating and cooling parked in the garage for conveyance,  and indoor destinations of all sorts, again on that thermostat, we hardly notice the import of the weather. With electric lights everywhere we turn, we rarely notice sunrise or sunset, except as a tourist attraction,  and we rarely see moon and stars for all the light pollution,  much less use them to navigate by in the dark hours.  I am struck at how far removed even I am from the life of our planet. 

In an era of mass-produced goods for consumption and entertainment,  I was struck by the simple and pleasant ways people spent their time outside of work.  Conversation and silence, often mixed, filled the quiet hours.  So many times Jane related conversations where two or five or ten or fifteen minutes elapsed before a reply was made.  It sounded thoughtful and magical.   Perhaps some day I will try to experience such conversation.

...I no longer think of "fear of man" in those negative theological terms I first learned in that pragmatic Baptist institution.  When I notice it in myself, I see it for what it is - the confusion of a small child who does not know that disagreement is a part of all healthy relationships, and who is trying to hide from the inevitable by becoming a nobody-clone of everyone.  It *may* have been a functional piece of body armor to a small person who found other persons inscrutable and confusing, but it is no longer a piece of armor that serves me well.  Besides, I have now gone truly pacifist- not the pacifism of pacifying others for self, but the pacifism of desiring to creating true harmony by weaving together disparate parts and moving ever closer to the truth, rooting out falsehood.  This doesn't mean the old habit is gone - so very far from it.  But now I recognize and name it, and occasionally strategize to meet it head on.  And I do not deplore myself for weakness.  Rather I realize I am running a faulty operating system and make moves to debug.  The stranglehold of the beast has loosened ever so slightly.

The final paragraphs of Jane Eyre convey the after-story of her cousin, gone to India as a missionary.   The account terminates with the closing words of John's Revelation which brought an unexpected tear to my eye:
"Even so, come Lord Jesus..."

Kindergarten

 I shall now endeavor to compile my memories of Kindergarten,  as I am inspired by attending for the second time.  Lazarus is enrolled in a forest preschool two mornings a week for his Kindergarten year, and I am there at the park to support him, as he is not ready for a full drop-off situation.  I am so thankful that we have good options besides public school; it would not be a safe or comfortable space for him at this point. 

To be sure, I was predisposed to play-based Kindergarten anyway, and the beautiful German word lingers in my mind, designating a place for children to enjoy frolicking and observing the world, in a garden.  If I recall correctly, Kindergarten was not a required part of the public schools when my mom was growing up, and she attended a preschool program at a nearby church that year.  For my own part, I was sent to a little Waldorf Kindergarten which may be my happiest school memory.  In addition, I eschew the academicization of toddlerhood, trusting the science and the philosophies and educational traditions which state that young children learn best through self-directed play in a rich environment; natural wonder, interest, and curiosity are to be preserved, as they are the best qualities in receiving an education; and the academics can be added later and more compactly to equal or better result.  My own limited experience bears this out.

Anne, of course, was sent to a three-afternoons-a-week forest program for her Kindergarten year.  She and I loved that program, and I had very much planned to send the younger two to the same program as their Kindergarten years arrived. However, this year's scheduling and finances caused us to look elsewhere, and while I don't love Lazzie's school quite as much as I did Anne's - it's a little more proscribed and less open-ended,  they have welcomed him with open arms, and are happy to have me there as support as often and as much as he needs.

My own Kindergarten memories follow...

The class met on the small property of the Quaker Meeting House.  The actual meeting house was in one oblong building, fronting a street. There was also an oblong, fenced yard alongside it with beautiful trees around a long picnic table where we took our lunch on pleasant days. There was a second oblong building where we spent our inside time.   The door into this classroom was centered on the long side of the wall, opening from the fenced yard.  At the far right of the big main room, there was a partition to a small room where we had cubbies for our coats and our nap things.  At the far left, behind the wall of the main room, there was a bathroom and a closet used by the teachers.  The classroom side of this wall was lined with a kitchen.   We would put our lunch boxes in the fridge upon arrival, and we would each wash our own dishes in the sink after morning snack time, the eating of which was often accompanied by real beeswax candles on the child-sized tables.  The main room had tables and little chairs, a cozy reading area with pillows and a rocking chair, a costume box, and along the wall, a fold-down shelf on which we frequently did watercolor.  We all had brought old button up shirts of our fathers' to use as painting smocks. 

On the far side of the classroom building was a second fenced yard, this one a play yard.  I don't precisely remember all the acoutrements, but I do recall a sandbox with digging toys, a long climbing structure,  and a teeter totter.  There was also a hose, which we were allowed to run into the sandbox to make rivers and lakes.  

We had two teachers, and in my mind's eye I can see one of them from various angles, minus, of course her face (as alluded to in the previous piece regarding fourth grade.) She was tall, or at least seemed so to my just-turned-five perspective.   She wore wide, long skirts and Birkenstock sandals, with socks, when the weather required.  This style of footwear has become more prevalent as American clothing choices have tipped on average towards comfort, but at the time, it definitely exuded a hippie vibe.  She had very long, wild, curly hair - brown mixed with grey, and it was always loose and taking up a lot of space.  Her build was sturdy and round- the perfect matronly person. Come to think of it, when I imagine Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, she looks suspiciously like that teacher (again without a distinct face - I do not really see faces in their entirety in my mind's eye, even now.  If I try to focus in on one, it is as if I am looking through a peephole with an ever-shifting view : if one feature become clear, the rest retreat into fuzz.) I remember our teacher being kind and resonable, but also I felt a gulf between us in terms of authority; she was an adult,  and I was, of course, not afforded the same privilege and understanding, though I often felt more at home in adult company than in children's.) I do not recall her name anymore, but I remember my mom telling me she lived in the row of rental duplexes behind the elementary school, near my friend Margie's family, who was in the left side of one.  All those back yards backed up to a prickly, rocky, wooded cliff leading down to a large, rushing creek, which was, in that day, more of a river.  Now it is water-free, like an ancient streambed on Mars, except that it becomes a muddy and dangerous flood when the rain comes fast and hard for days on end.

The other I teacher I cannot recall at all, except that I think she was younger than the first.  Did we even have a second teacher?  I think we must have, based on the number of small people milling about.

Two children I can remember from the class.   One was Una.  She had her dark, straight hair in a bob and acquired a brand new baby brother during the year.  I was envious of that new baby, although I had already acquired my second new baby sibling two months before the start of school.  That baby was old news though, by the time Una's new family member arrived.  Una seemed somehow glamorous and floated effortlessly in a higher social stratum.

The other was a girl named Erin, whose house I frequented.  She was tall and had long, slightly wavy, mousy blond hair, which was always a bit messy.  She had younger twin brothers named Derek and Chad, and I could never tell which was which; I spent time pondering how their family could so easily and correctly identify them.  I remember riding home with her family from school in their little two-door car.  The front seats would fold forward so that you could climb into the back, as my dad's little mustard-yellow car did.  We fit all five of us in, as car seats were not used past babyhood, and the lack of airbags meant kids could sit up front.  Erin's mom would have the windows down for air conditioning, and I remember panicking and feeling Iike I was going to suffocate.  (I spent many years of my life feeling strong aversion to, and even fear of, wind, even into my 20s on occasion.)  Erin lived in a little, plain house which had once been a duplex.  I remember a shaded backyard full of scrubby juniper and a hammock in the semi-enclosed carport , and that Erin was allowed to wear Jellies, footwear deemed too fragile and perhaps unsanitary to spend money on at my house.  Erin's mother fed us a meal once which seemed rather exotic, as it wasn't in our household repertoire.  She topped halves of English muffins with jarred tomato sauce and sprinkles of shredded cheese.  These went into the toaster oven, and voila - miniature pizzas!  I was stunned when I pondered Erin's birthdate: January 1, 1980.  I realized that if she had been born one day earlier, it would have been a different decade,  a time assigned to the remote and unfathomable past, though not the more comfortably familiar ancient past of the 1800s and earlier.  It did not occur to me for several years, that given the school cut-off date of very late August or perhaps September 1st, approximately one third of my classmates should have been born in 1979.  As a child I was very cognizant of age, and was, as a rule, quite intimidated by those any older than me.  This only started to subside in my 30s.

...My  teachers once informed my mother about my exemplary behaivior at recess in the play yard, which tidbit was passed along to me.  I was apparently very judiciously careful to spend time with each group and each activity - I did not just play with a favorite.  They were apparently impressed that I played with each group of children equally. I was honestly surprised to hear this feedback. I don't think I was aware that I was carefully honoring time with everyone.  In retrospect,  perhaps every activity looked fun, and I was trying not to miss out.  I am also sure that I did not specially belong to any of the groups, as I was somewhat unmoored socially; perhaps I felt the need to move along now and then so as not to overstay my welcome where I did not fit.  However, I have always had very strong felt empathy, not always as a child for mysterious and seemingly all-wise other people (especially adults,) but absolutely for animals and inanimate objects.  It is possible that this sensitivity did drive me to divide up my recess activies with a sense of justice.  Self-awareness was not a strength of mine in childhood, or much of my adult life, either.

...One day at snack time, a suddenly terrible smell filled the room.  It seems our teacher with the wild, wonderful hair had leaned too far across a table in aid of another child, and some of her hair was singed in the flame of a beeswax candle.  She quickly smothered the flame and opened the windows,  but that odor still lingers in my nostrils to this day.

We made such wonderful crafts in that room.  I have already alluded to the water color.  We were given large, sturdy round brushes with wooden handles and thick paper with rounded edges.  We painted from our imaginations, just enjoying the feeling of the materials and watching the pale blobs of color spread with the water.  We also made things with colorful wool yarn, felt, popsicle sticks, and twigs from outside.  I still have a simple, small, sewn elf finger puppet, a woven dream-catcher, and a yarn-wrapped bundle of twigs from those days.  We were sometimes shown specific techniques, but we were not set out to follow the plans for some specific,  developmentally-odd proscribed finished product, as seems popular in many preschools of today.  Our own creativity and enjoyment were our guides.

Once or twice we took a field trip to sit quietly and reverently in the Meeting House, for the purpose of learning about what members did there.  Being a weekly attendee at the Presbyterian Church, I was quite surprised to lean that the Quakers had no clergy and sat quietly in the round,  speaking only as the Spirit lead them.

I remember one lunch at the picnic table out of doors on a pleasant, but chilly day when a leaf slid off a tree and into someone's thermos of soup.  The someone was disgusted, but the teacher pointed out that the floating leaf was a bay leaf, the sort often used to flavor a pot of soup.  I was, and remain, unsure of this plant identification: the leaf did not look entirely like the dried bay leaves in the tiny glass jar in the kitchen at home, and I had the vague sense that all spices were grown somewhere else, far, far away.

During the year, we all celebrated our birthdays at school.  Mine was in the summer break, so it was arranged that I would celebrate some random date in the spring.  There was a special process.  The birthday child picked two helpers.  All three dressed up in these amazing silver and gold capes and crowns, sewn by my mother for the class.  The three would then go out to the yard while preparations were made.  Upon the return, there were candles, and a gift in the story time circle.  I don't recall, but think that we had a special treat to eat, as well.  Unless my memory fails me, Erin and Una were my two helpers.

After our daily lunch, we had a nap time.  We each had two blankets brought from home: one to lie on and one to cover us, as well as a pillow.  Both my blankets were made by my family and involved hippos.  We had assigned spots, and mine was in the back corner near the cupboard.   The lights were dimmed, and we were not to talk.  Some days I slept; some days I did not.  I always was drowsy when at the end we were roused to meet our parents.  One child who was assigned to nap near me (I no longer remember who), often initiated conversation.  I had been carefully taught to respond to people talking to me, so as often as not, I was the one the teacher asked to stop conversing.  I sometimes felt the injustice of the situation as I was required by the rules of decorum to return verbal queries, and I was often chastised by my teachers to stop talking.  (I may have started some of the conversations on my own accord, although that seems somewhat less likely, as I was wont to follow the rules as I understood them. I tried very hard to do everything in my power to stay in everyone else's good graces, whether it was ultimately beneficial or not- a habit which is hard to shake, even now.)  Once I got into quite a whispered argument with my naptime interlocutor about the color of my thick, knitted tights.  She insisted they were black; I tried to explain they were navy, and that navy and black were from fundamentally different color groups, to no avail.

For most of my childhood (and indeed some of my adulthood), I drank very little water, and avoided using the bathroom anywhere but home.  And even there, I did not usually recognize the signals until it was almost too late, or perhaps I ignored them for not wishing the deal with the interruption and all the unpleasant and multitudinous tasks associated with a visit to the bathroom.  I have a stark memory of a day at Kindergarten where I suddenly realized that Nature was calling NOW; I was dressed in a beautiful plaid creation of my mother's tireless sewing skill.  This was a woven cotton jumpsuit in the deep blues and greens, short on the legs, with a sash of the same material, a small split collar, and probably twelve tiny oval buttons down the back, fastened in delicate button holes.  I danced in utter misery with such anxious haste in front of my teacher while she carefully undid the miniature buttons.  After I finished in the loo, my teacher patiently buttoned me back into my precious and formidable straight jacket, while suggesting I wear something else in the future.  I felt helpless at the recommendation, as I was not in charge of choosing my daily school wardrobe, and it would never have occured to me that I could be.  Had I been given such authority, I would have, undoubtedly,  appeared a fantastical vagabond with accidental dreadlocks. 

The first through sixth or eighth grades of that Waldorf school all met in another building some miles distant.  Another rental, it had some sort of historical significance.  When I visited once with my mother, I recall only an elderly canon out front with an explanatory brass plaque.  I do not know the specific reasons that my school career did not continue in that building, but I can imagine a lot of possibilities from the experience of responsibilities incurred in my 43rd year.

I stayed home from school entirely the following year; my mother felt that I awoke each morning with so many creative ideas and plans, that I needed space to just be... and brain to practice the piano without the exhaustion of attending school each day.  I am sure my mother could not have been more right.  After a year's hiatus, I went to first grade in a different situation.