Growing Versions

Christmas culture is full of miniatures.  Mini villages lit from within, mini skates hanging from the tree, mini tree cookies, gigantic snowflakes, but mini Jesus and his family and all his visitors, mini booze bottles made of chocolate and a mini town under glass that fills with snow when you shake it. While these things are shrunken, the feelings are exaggerated, the memories over sized, the rifts magnified, the love enormous, the shopping is excessive and we eat bigger plates full of bigger portions, and we drink more out of  fuller glasses. It is sometimes hard to feel like the right size at this time of year.

I went window shopping with various groupings of my family this weekend. When I go shopping in the mall, I buy what I have to get, or am swindled into getting, and get out as fast as possible. Window shopping is different. It is meant to be enjoyed leisurely. There is no personal cost to staying a minute longer in front of a beautiful display. No burden is levied like there is when I brave a mall. Window shopping with a family member or friend helps you figure out what your loved ones find wonderful. It is window shopping, and stoop shopping and sidewalk shopping all at the same time. I noticed all kinds of buildings and doorways along the way that I normally march past. Window shopping is a slowing down activity.  It is a window of time that helps us see each other and the city in new ways.

Dr. Vandana Shiva came to visit our city a couple of years ago. I remembered her visit when I heard her speak about the Paris climate talks on the radio the other day. It goes without saying that she was incredibly inspiring. She opened her speech by saying something like, (I am paraphrasing): "The sign up there says I am going to talk about all kinds of thing under the sun...food security, poverty, sustainability...(meaningful pause, I was waiting for her to self-deprecate and say something like, "that's a tall order"...but, no, she said)  "good thing everything is connected". Her full-hearted belief in her own message inspired in me a confidence that even I could do something to improve the world. One thing she talked about was, her book Soil Builders.  She talked about farming with reverence, that making soil a nourishing place for food and plants  and diversity to flouirsh is noble and is a vital role that cannot be diminished or d...

  There are years that ask questions and years that answer.                                      - Zora Neale Hurston

I've been learning about math all over again thanks to the updates in the math curriculum in the intervening years between my childhood and theirs. It is more understandable and they are less freaked out than I was.  I credit it with an emphasis throughout the curriculum on identifying patterns and with encouraging the kids to interpret every number in words, pictures, equations so that kids can understand the number and its relationship to others from many different angles. We were taught to show our work, but not taught how to show our work. Showing your work helps show how you got to the final answer. I am beginning to feel like this blog is me showing my work.  It is me showing me my work.  It is not going to lead a final "answer", but it is showing incremental steps towards something,  I am looking forward to where the breadcrumbs will eventually lead.