Crunchy, slushy, puddles, mean one thing, the melt is on. Time to get out your rubber boots and run mad through the streets. Celebrate the fall of all the snow castles, celebrate the coming of the sidewalks and streets from their 5 month slumber. Today is 6C, and the world is waking.
The snow is disappearing fast, along with the rest of my snowboard season. But who could be sad when the sun is out and warm breezes dance through the streets?
CRUNCH
This morning's walk to my car was treacherous. The path beside my house is a mixture of hard and soft snow. One step, sturdy, another step, and my foot sinks down till I'm knee deep in snow. Pull my leg out, shake the snow off. Step, safe, another step, still okay, slowly, slowly. The fun thing is you really never know. The caution that you take in your stride never occurs in other seasons. During the summer, you never think about walking, you simply walk. But on the cusp between, where nothing is what it appears to be, things like balance, weight distribution, distance, and foot placement, are continually evaluated and reevaluated.
But that is outside, and I am back in the stale air of my office. My supervisor (who sits directly across from me), continues to cough in my face. Between her and the stinky man beside me, my lungs have assumed the fetal position. But today promises to be a good day (that's right, I asked), and I have to go to Suzukawa Elementary school this afternoon. My last class with them for this school year. Which means, GAME DAY!!! I have it all planned to play a round of pantyhose golf, find your shoe, the Harry Potter game, along with singing the Hokey Pokey, and London Bridge. Ahhh English class. In a school that only has 16 students ranging from grade 1 to grade 6, 4 teachers, a vice principal, a principal, and a maintenance man, classes are not like normal classes. But the students are gentle farm kids, and the school stands as a monument of better times. The hallway has an old musty smell and you know the walls have been hearing the laughter of children for at least 50 years.
Today's schedule has me leaving for the school at 11:50am, arriving at noon. Eating school lunch with the students and staff (in a room with two long tables and a gas stove in the corner for heat). Then after lunch, everyone helps clean the school (the students are assigned different rooms for sweeping and cleaning chalkboards as well as wiping off desks). Playtime follows. Everyone will race to the gym for the Suzukawa circus. Students in Japan are taught to ride unicycles in elementary school as part of their gym curriculum.
Sliding open the gym doors (because all the doors in the school slide to each side rather than open forward or back), means revealing unicycle acts, a solo basketball game, ping pong, badminton, wall climbing, and mayhem. All the safety alarms in my head go off as I see students fall off their unicyle, land on the hard gym floor, and slide into other students. But the teachers watching are always in a zen monk state, they have found their happy places and it isn't in that gym. The students just brush themselves off and keep playing, and I think had this same situation taken place in North America, there would be parents up in arms about the lack of safety and teacher control in their child's play time. And I have to wonder if worrying about our children's safety and putting tighter controls on their play truly protects them from harm or does it just take away from kids being kids?
The snow is disappearing fast, along with the rest of my snowboard season. But who could be sad when the sun is out and warm breezes dance through the streets?
CRUNCH
This morning's walk to my car was treacherous. The path beside my house is a mixture of hard and soft snow. One step, sturdy, another step, and my foot sinks down till I'm knee deep in snow. Pull my leg out, shake the snow off. Step, safe, another step, still okay, slowly, slowly. The fun thing is you really never know. The caution that you take in your stride never occurs in other seasons. During the summer, you never think about walking, you simply walk. But on the cusp between, where nothing is what it appears to be, things like balance, weight distribution, distance, and foot placement, are continually evaluated and reevaluated.
But that is outside, and I am back in the stale air of my office. My supervisor (who sits directly across from me), continues to cough in my face. Between her and the stinky man beside me, my lungs have assumed the fetal position. But today promises to be a good day (that's right, I asked), and I have to go to Suzukawa Elementary school this afternoon. My last class with them for this school year. Which means, GAME DAY!!! I have it all planned to play a round of pantyhose golf, find your shoe, the Harry Potter game, along with singing the Hokey Pokey, and London Bridge. Ahhh English class. In a school that only has 16 students ranging from grade 1 to grade 6, 4 teachers, a vice principal, a principal, and a maintenance man, classes are not like normal classes. But the students are gentle farm kids, and the school stands as a monument of better times. The hallway has an old musty smell and you know the walls have been hearing the laughter of children for at least 50 years.
Today's schedule has me leaving for the school at 11:50am, arriving at noon. Eating school lunch with the students and staff (in a room with two long tables and a gas stove in the corner for heat). Then after lunch, everyone helps clean the school (the students are assigned different rooms for sweeping and cleaning chalkboards as well as wiping off desks). Playtime follows. Everyone will race to the gym for the Suzukawa circus. Students in Japan are taught to ride unicycles in elementary school as part of their gym curriculum.
Sliding open the gym doors (because all the doors in the school slide to each side rather than open forward or back), means revealing unicycle acts, a solo basketball game, ping pong, badminton, wall climbing, and mayhem. All the safety alarms in my head go off as I see students fall off their unicyle, land on the hard gym floor, and slide into other students. But the teachers watching are always in a zen monk state, they have found their happy places and it isn't in that gym. The students just brush themselves off and keep playing, and I think had this same situation taken place in North America, there would be parents up in arms about the lack of safety and teacher control in their child's play time. And I have to wonder if worrying about our children's safety and putting tighter controls on their play truly protects them from harm or does it just take away from kids being kids?
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