Pea Pods

sitting in my big love cushioned sofa chair
pondering what these next four weeks will toss to me
and remembeing what the last four years have blessed me with.

i'd have to say, Kutztown, and fellow fellowers around my fellowship,
im rather pleased with how my time here has been
and how it's being, and will be, and will have been, and never could have been and all that other stuff..

you think when you're pea pod in size
"dah, i'll never get to college"
and here we sit, in this love cushioned sofa chair
thinking on the last four years
realizing it's got to be all packed away in four weeks.

i never actually came to believe until now that
we made it.
here we are, and we actually made it.

im a bigger pea pod now,
possibly even a little wiser than i was four years ago, though
i couldnt even tell you half the professors i had last semester.

how is it:
in the moment, the trees around you seem to be going so slow, they're almost going backwards
then you look at the clock,
and you realize, you're actually moving so fast you didn't even see you were moving in the first place,
and now it's half past your bed time.

here we are.
we made it.
a handful of season of people always circling around me
and though im not complaining, because each spiral of personality had its time and place;
four years worth of people seasons.

here we are.
maybe we're all sitting on our own love cushions tonight
separate, but  tip toeing with the clock that wants to race us.
we made it.
somehow...but we did.

Wheels

Teaching on a cart will without a doubt never be perceived of as the “fun” job, but for me, I am trying to tell myself otherwise. Since my last placement, as well as this placement, I have proven to myself that I am in fact capable of teaching no matter where I am. Just like I tell my kiddos every day that they are capable, I too am the same. Would I crave my own classroom with windows covered in student artwork, with personalized cubbies and references to artists in past history to display around my room? Of course my reply is yes. But, when life hands you a cart, you need to push it full of paints (and of course a water bucket).

My students not only have a little more respect for me because they know what I do is a little tedious, but they know I am that passionate that I’d go distances to spread the knowledge for and with them.

Art-on- a-cart has taught me important organization, how to stay on your toes when something goes awry (it almost always does), and how to make the most out of the little you have. My lessons have taken a turn; once teaching from the bold and the beautiful, using gallons of paint, and varieties of papers and techniques, and now to the limited supply of what’s left after two years from an art storage closet. As a practicing art teacher, I have grown both frustrated at times, however more so eager to learn more in lieu of my kids.

 I always tell my students that art isn’t just about paint and cutting. It’s about problem solving and how to fix something if it’s broken. Well, my classroom is broken. How will I fix it? How will I spread the wealth that the creative right brain in each and every one of us has to offer? How can I communicate through color what words won’t ever express on a page? I never thought I’d have to face obstacles such as these, but thank you God for pulling me not only around the hurdles, but also completely through them. I learn something new every day, and I have a squeaky cart to thank for that one.