friday quotation

There's this beautiful expression in Navajo that people use to greet one another.  It's Yá'át'ééh, meaning "hello" but really it is an expression of love and kindness upon greeting someone.  It embodies the notion of bringing things together and preserving harmony.  I also heard it described as meaning "it is good" or "it is well".  I love the symbolism and the depth of meaning behind each Navajo word.  Words that sometimes describe the sound that something makes.  Words that tell more of a story than simply what the word is.  Such a lovely, complex, lyrical, beautiful language...

up on the roof

I never know what to expect when I hop in a suburban (well, two suburbans) with students and two colleagues and head out on a Jr. Experience adventure.  It is never what I imagine, quite frankly.  But sometimes, when I'm lucky, it is more cup-filling than cup-draining.  Such was the case this year in New Mexico.  A wonderful group of students who inspired me to be bold and adventurous and hard-working.  Two colleagues with whom I worked beautifully as a team.  And three homes that are truly better, more comfortable places for the work that we did.  Trips to canyons.  Quiet mornings spent watching the sun rise from my bed and then coffee enjoyed in the crisp air of the 6:00 a.m. hour.  Evenings with a moon that grew to be full while we were in Tohatchi.  And days in the brutal sun doing work that made me forget that I was hot or perhaps not wearing enough sunscreen.  I was very much in the moment.  Which is very much my work of the summer.  To be present.  With people.  With myself.  With my surroundings.
I will write much more, but I had to start with my rooftop experience.  At Rose's house, one of our tasks was to repair (well, replace) the roof.  The students were not allowed up there so mostly it was Daric, DJ, and John up on the roof.  But for a little while I got to climb up to the rooftop with them.  To pull up nails.  To help lay shingles.  Or, as they laughed, to bring the wind to the roof.  The wind was a blessing and a curse in New Mexico, and even more so on the roof.  It brought movement to the otherwise stagnant heat...but it also blew sand into our eyes and noses (and really everywhere!).  And when you were on the roof, it threatened to blow you off.  Or at least to blow your hardhat off of your head if you didn't hold on to it.  And it was in one of those great gusts that I felt it - the feeling of being present.  With every fiber of my being clinging to the roof in an effort not to tumble to the ground below I got it.  My mind, my body, my thoughts, they had to be there.  Not on the dinner that we were having that night or the meeting we would have after dinner or the guest speaker or my 'to do' list back at home.  No.  I could only be there.  Bracing myself against the wind.  Protecting my hardhat from sailing across the air waves.  And staying in the moment.  It was so liberating.  So freeing.  So calming - even with the wind blowing through my ears as if it was a freight train passing through my head.  Such a good reminder of how to be.  Present.

friday quotation

Here's to doing the impossible.

I'm willing to give it a try. 

free libraries

I saw my first free library on a walk with a friend a few months ago.  I had to stop and look.  And ask about it.  She told me all about it and the said that there had been an article in the Statesman about these libraries.  Such a neat idea!  But I had not seen any in my neighborhood yet...and I've been walking a lot these days.  (More on that and the GCC Challenge later!)  Well, just the other day I varied my route a little and lo and behold, a free library!

I didn't look at the selection too carefully but it made me grin from ear to ear to see such an expression of  community building in my neighborhood.  Maybe next time I'll carry a book with me and see if there's one I want to borrow.