alabaster time...

It was late last night when I slung my house key around my neck and went biking, still later when I went walking and still later when I watered all the new plants that I put out on the week end.

I love late spring nights. My house is still full of family so I waited til the quiet sounds of sleeping began to lul the house at white picket gardens to rest.

The streets were quiet...just a few lights on here and there and the scent of spring lilacs was so pungeant that a few times I just stopped to twirl and take it all in.

Nights walks help clear my head..so much in there theses days..personal, professional. I didn't realize my thoughts were so transparent until my neighbor, Amy, brought me a bouquet of roses this morning...you look for forlorn, she said.

But the day has started..off with 300 kids to the Wizards Baseball game...then to Indy for a performance and dinner with a friend.

Amy, is you are reading my blog, I love the roses.

I'll close with a part of a poem from Emily Dickinson,

How lonesome the Wind must feel Nghts
When people have put out the Lights
And everthing that has a Inn
Closes the shutter and goes in.

late afternoon hours....

I am sitting in my classroom at the end of a long day...with more yet to come. I am lucky enough to have windows that open..so the breeze stirs the costume I have hanging up on the windowsill...this week a cowboy..last week a lady in waiting.

The sounds of softball practice echo in over the music on my CD player. Schools are lovely at the end of a day...reflecting on their work...my work. My room is always messy, even when I stay late to clean, you just wouldn't know it by the next day. It is full of books and music and forms and talent show papers and posters..we had a party for a student teacher after school in my room so there are crumbs from the chocolate cake.

Tonight is our Writer's Workshop taught with my friend and colleague, Kathy. We both love writing and teach it differently...but a nice blend. We are hoping for a good turn out on our last night.

My board is littered with vocabulary words from the fourth grade. Words such as enraptured, frail, celestial, azure. One of my fourth grade students, Jacob, wrote the word perpetual. Then he came up to see me..."Ms. Homan-Saylor...look at this word. P E R P E T U A L..never ending, very frequent. Just like writing is to us!"

Yes, I say, never ending, just like writing. It makes me smile to know that he understands. That is enough for me.