Tuesday Road Trip

On top of Yosemite Falls. Miles' 4th grade class trip.

Tomorrow morning (Tuesday) at 6:30 AM I will be piling into a van with one of my favorite mothers and a group of 5th grade boys. Bleary eyed but excited, we will head off to Monterey on my son Miles' 5th grade class trip. We will visit two missions, a couple of museums, historical buildings, Dennis the Menace Park and  the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We will eat cold cereal, peanut butter sandwiches with little bags of chips, and spaghetti. We will sing "Ghost Riders In the Sky" and "The Rattlin' Bog" around the campfire and climb into our sleeping bags sticky with marshmallows. There will not be a lot of sleeping. But there will be a lot of energy and enthusiasm. These are certain to be contagious.

I am tired now. And will be even more tired in the morning. But I will fall asleep tonight grateful that I have three days to learn and explore with my son, grateful to his teacher for working like a dog to pull this trip together, grateful for the terrific group of parents I get to spend the next three days with, and grateful that Miles attends a school that places a high value on community, exploration, curiosity, and good old fashioned fun. 

A Small Heaven

I've been craving more time in my week to write. But I have a full life and a chronic time management disability, so writing more than my morning twenty minute journal entry does not happen with the regularity I had hoped for. I think about writing every day. And I have a long list of ideas. What I don't have are hours in the day that are not filled with other stuff.

Last Sunday at the Unitarian Society of SB annual book sale I came across a slim volume by Jane Ranney Rzepka called, A Small Heaven. It's a meditation manual, which means it is made up of short writings meant to be read and mulled over. Well, I was immediately drawn into this book. Jane Ranney Rzepka writes about ordinary, everyday experiences like funny questions her kids ask, the time she got locked in her attic, a trip to the zoo, a comment from a shoe salesman. She is a master of drawing meaning from these small stories, finding a kernel of wisdom or magic in an ordinary day. This is what I have been aspiring to do in my other blog http://www.perfectlyordinary-charla.blogspot.com/ , the one I never seem to have time to post on because of the afore mentioned full life and poor time management skills.

Did I mention that the writings in A Small Heaven are short? Most are only three or four paragraphs long. Hmm, I wondered, could I write three or four paragraphs once a week about the stuff of day to day life? Could I manage my time just the teensiest bit to make room for a short reflection on something small like a funny comment by my son, a walk with my dog or, I don't know, finding a slim volume of inspirational writing at a used book sale? 

I don't know. Let's see.