well, that depends

I was playing battleship with one of the kids before school the other day when A., who has a slight lisp of an R to a W, came up to me and asked,

Miss Molly, was yesterday the future?

Woah. Granted, I was slightly distracted by trying to win battleship, but I was pretty sure I heard her right. These kids, unknowingly, ask some seriously deep questions and I thought this one was a doozy. Was yesterday the future? Sometimes I completely believe my dreams are real life. I gave a rote answer, but wondered what she meant exactly. How she saw it.

Me: Um, no. Yesterday was the past, today is the present and tomorrow is the future.

A: no, um, what?! she looked at me like i was crazy, then asked me again, no, Miss Molly, was yesterday the field trip?


Oh. Right. The Field Trip. When you're six, time holds no real meaning. If you can't tell time by looking at a clock, why do you need to even remember what day it is? I guess I went a little deep there. But these kids do keep me on my toes!

reception chilly

***

Every day at school, we do Calender.
Every day at school, we record the weather.
And every day since school started, we've dropped a little yellow bead into the cup marked "sunny".
And with each yellow bead that's dropped, and each 'yea!' i silently call out, I dread the coming cold.

I can see it each evening, as I walk home from work, the thick marine layer: F-O-G coming over the hills. Nobody does fog like San Francisco does fog. Where once was a clear and warm day, it's suddenly thick and instantly cold.

And I HATE being cold.

And, yet, I have varying degrees of what cold is.

1. top down, heat on
2. down comforter, windows open
3. fuzzy wool hat, big thick sweater, jeans and flip flops


My mom would argue that it's why I should never move back to NYC. She can't understand how I could possibly want to live through another real winter.
NYC winters never bothered me. NYC has winter/cold, but it's so vibrantly hot otherwise that it melts the snow from the ground up.

Maybe if it actually snowed here and became a true winter, I could handle it a bit more. I'm not a big one for rain, rain, rain...and that's a-coming any day now, any day. Cold rain.
Oh, san francisco winter, be kind, be short.

***

it kills me that i don't remember from where i got this picture. i wrote myself a note that says 'the kate you know', but i've googled that and it ain't from any of those things. dangit!

Friends of Friends

There's a group called Friends of the SF Library and they host a huge-mongous book sale once a year. It's one of the juicier events for me. Tables and tables and tables stacked high with books. Old, new, unopened, throughly used, you name it, it's there. Since one of my greatest loves is walking the aisles in a public library, looking at the spine of each and every book, deciding on it's beauty and picking it out...
....this breakdown from the shelves is like looking in the vault, or the dumpster (depending on your kind of diving) of your favorite old library.
I've gone to a few years now and I'm still super impressed. It's basically run by these fabulous, old-school volunteers. The women and men that were probably your Health Ed or History teacher 20 years ago. They're so into it and it all feels so neighborhood-ly. Everyone seems to know someone there, we're all having a civilized glass of wine and browsing books. We're also filling our carts higher than our heads with these gorgeous paper pages...
I get lost in the romance of being in a warehouse of real, live books. It smells like books. For as far as the eye can see, it's books. People are communing with books. Slowly turning the pages of each book they pick up. Watching people get deep into a book, a few minutes later snap to and look around: How long have I been standing here reading? I better get this book.

I picked up books mostly in the reference section this year. And then, of course, that Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening now resides in my home library, as well.
It's awesome.

Sanskrit has ninety-six words for love; ancient Persian has eighty, Greek three, and English only one

Lately, all the kids have been talking about relationships. I'm not sure where they get their information from though...some of it is right, like when I heard this conversation:

L: I'm gonna be in love and get married!

D: Me too!

J: Me too! I'm gonna marry my MOM!

D., very solemnly, leaned across the table, and whispered in a low voice: You can't marry someone you're related to.

Well, that was a shock for J! She had to search her brain for someone else to think about now...

And some of it is downright strange. This morning, O. came over to Miss P. crying his little heart out saying that H. said she and another little boy couldn't be his friend anymore. When we finally got down to brass tacks, she and this other little boy came over "to tell the truth", and it turned out they'd said something a little bit different.

O., crying, crying, crying...: H. and D. said they won't be my friends!

H: That's not what I said!

D: Let me be honest here, we were all arguing who H. has a crush on and then we said she should really decide for herself and she decided it was me.

H: But I said O. is still my best friend! It's just that I have a crush on D.

O:, still crying, crying, crying: But I want her to have a crush on ME, too!

So, Miss P. implored H. couldn't she have a crush on both of them?
Miss P.: You love both your parents, don't you?

By this time, the entire class was listening in and either snickering at the word "crush" and that H. was actually admitting one, or they were in awe that O. was crying so hard over the lack of one.

H: Yes, but it's really hard to love four people all at the same time!

Eventually H. felt forced to tell the boys she had crushes on both of them (which, we all know, she doesn't) and I was left reflecting on the possible difficulties of loving more than one person at a time. I wondered if, as a kid, I had thought that was impossible? I know it's taken me years to get over the idea that if someone I loved loved someone else, as well as me, that not enough was left over for me! And we had a student last year who felt the same way (he told us that his mom loved his little brother, so she couldn't possibly love him enough, too!) and he took it out on everyone else. That was rough to watch. Worse still, I never felt we had the right words to sooth him.... you just can't convince someone of how much they're loved if they don't believe it themselves.

An Extra Hour of Halloween This Year

The other day at school, a mom told me that a "Halloween Fairy" comes to their house. On October 31st, after all the trick-or-treating has come to a close, with a bag full of candy sitting in front of her, the kid painstakingly chooses 3 pieces of candy to keep. After that, the fairy comes and takes the rest of it away.

Ouch.

Growing up, Halloween was a time to get as much candy as possible in as short amount of time as possible and make it last as long as possible. I so clearly remember, after a long night of committed hill climbing and achy "doorbell-finger", my siblings and I would sit down on the living room floor, dump out the loot from our pillowcases and start sorting.
We couldn't get enough candy. We sorted by types, by styles, by labels, groupings that piled higher and higher. Then, we counted how much we each had. Bragging about the higher numbers and wondering where we could hide it this year so no one could steal it. And then, the trading started: Brachs for Whoppers. Snickers for Almond Joys. Baby Ruth for Whatchamacallits.

If anyone had even hinted at the idea that someone might come in the night and take all but a few pieces of this hard-earned cache in front of our hungry eyes and turning stomachs, well, we probably would have thrown ourselves on the top of the pile and cried.
Halloween is a strange thing as an adult. Unless you work at a place that encourages it, dressing up is not usually an option & gathering candy, door to door, is mostly unheard of. Luckily, I do work in a place that encourages it & I have a niece that trick-or-treats, so going door to door falls on my list of things to do!The fact that no one knew what I was this year didn't dampen my spirit one bit. At school, the kids knew & Miss P. and I knew what we were after... even if people did think she was a telescope and they told me I shoulda had an "E. Coli" sign around my neck.
We laughed ourselves silly.

And I finished off my Halloween with helping myself to my nieces pillowcase of candy.

Halloweeeeeeeeeeeen Returns

Why did the bacteria cross the playground?

To get to the other slide.

I haven't been into Halloween for years. But when you're teaching 1st Grade, it's like a national holiday. It's almost as big (for some it's bigger) than Christmas or even summer vacation. It's the dressing up, it's the pretending to be someone/thing else. All kids, and some adults, like to dress up. Doing it in public: Even Better!

Last year, our class was studying Caterpillars & Butterflies. Miss P and I talked about it for a long time and finally came up with: Me, Caterpillar and Miss P, Lepidopterist. It was a real kick and the kids are still talking about it. So, this year, we're studying 'health' in a pretty huge-umbrella sort of way. Specifically, we've been studying bacteria and germs and this past week we grew a whole bunch of bacteria in a petri dish. If goobery things made me queasy before, this experiment made me never want to touch the pencil sharpener again.

So, after much talk and 'yes' to this idea and then 'maybe' and then 'no' to that idea... we finally came up with a solution: Me, germ on a microscope slide and Miss P, a microscope. Genius. Or, so we think so far... it'll be interesting to see how it all fares out on the big day.

First, I drew it out:
My intention was to be a big, huge, round, green germ, a cocci to be precise. But, when I showed it to Miss P, she reminded me if I wanted the little hairs (pili: cilia that enable pathogenic bacteria to attach to the body and cause disease) and a rudder/tail (flagellum: a structure used for locomotion), I couldn't be a cocci. I had no intention of trying to figure out how to be a spirilla (a twisting costume?! come on!), so I went with bascilli. That way I could sew little hairs on AND have some long yarn coming down the back of me.
I got myself some used green clothing and started cutting yarn and cutting holes, tying the little hairs in place. The flagellum leaves a bit to be desired...but, since I'll have a long "glass" microscope slide attached to my back, it's all I could do.
With a little bit of here and there, some cardboard, tinfoil and saran wrap a microscope slide was built!
Tomorrow I'll figure out how to actually attach it to me for the Halloween Parade around school grounds. For now, I'm just happy I've got a wacky costume all lined up.

A great bumper sticker:

"Support bacteria; it is the only culture we have left."

inked

I usually let the pollyanna "elated" feeling drive me these days. I feel like i've come a long way in how I react to "upheaval". Think: super silver lining. I owe RK a huge shout out for helping me to find this headspace. I've worked at it by myself for a long time, but him having my back, over and over, really friggin helps.
I've also resorted to tattooing these things onto my body.

The first one was a mantra my mom and dad had been urging on me for years & RK reiterates:

Seeing it in black ink, engraved, on my arm seriously helps.

But, apparently it wasn't enough. On my return from NYC this summer, I walked straight over to the tatoo artist and asked for another.
This past summer in NY, I finally realized that I'd wasted a lot of time wishing for something other than what was right in front of me. It's made my days a lot brighter, the moments a lot stronger.
I think I'm finally getting it.

Thought Problem

How strange would it be if you met yourself on the street?

How strange if you liked yourself,

took yourself in your arms, married your own self,

propagated by techniques known only to you,

and then populated the world? Replicas of you are everywhere.

Some are Arabs. Some are Jews. Some live in yurts. It is

an abomination, but better that your

sweet and scrupulously neat self

emerges at many points on the earth to watch the horned moon rise

than all those dolts out there,

turning into pillars of salt wherever we look.

If we have to have people, let them be you,

spritzing your geraniums, driving yourself to the haberdashery,

killing your supper with a blowgun.

Yes, only in the forest do you feel at peace,

up in the branches and down in the terrific gorges,

but you've seen through everything else.

You've fled in terror across the frozen lake,

you've found yourself in the sand, the palace,

the prison, the dockside states;

and long ago, on this same planet, you came home

to an empty house, poured a Scotch-and-soda,

and sat in a recliner in the unlit rumpus room,

puzzled at what became of you.

--Veijay Seshadri, The New Yorker

I purposely don't watch the news. I don't have a TV and I don't tune into the radio, other than an infrequent moment in someone's car and NPR is on. I find the news utterly depressing and local news is the absolute worse. But it's hard to block out things that your fellow workers or friends decided they have to share with you: The story about the three teenage boys who were ticked off at another boy who owed them $40... they doused him with alcohol and set him on fire. The girl that's been kidnapped in Oakland, or the elderly woman who's been shot by accident while walking down the street.

And then, it comes in even closer, though admittedly less severe, to my world, at work: The two little girls who fancy themselves and repeatedly tell another little girl that she's not as good as them. The boy who threatens under his breath to another boy that he'll never be his friend and wishes he would disappear forever.

It breaks my heart, it makes my head heavy and my eyes fill with tears. I wonder why we can't all be good to each other. I wonder why it brings pleasure to one to hurt another. I live in agony over the way we are ruining each other, day after day, with our thoughtless, cruel and downright deadly behaviors towards one another. I don't know what to do about it. Whenever I hear another horrible story, I feel stuck, I question the point of all this and then, I usually cry. Which doesn't help anything, actually. This society we live in, this place that keeps growing huge horns and horrible warts, I don't think can sustain for long in it's never-ending search for fame, money and getting to "the top". How do these people even know where "the top" is?! And don't they see all the people they're walking over to get there?

I know, in my near future, I will find a way to give back that hopefully will settle my heart-hurt just a little bit. Do something in my little corner of the world, that I hope resonates beyond this...

The Choices We Make

Whenever a new year of my students meet RK for the first time, they always kinda gasp,
You're married to him?!
yes, i explain, remember when you asked me if i had a 'husband' and i said yes? remember?

This time when he walked in for the first time, Miss P. introduced him as Mr. Molly

It's just that they're seeing it, for real, for the first time. Kids believe what you tell them and then they forget all about it. Not always, and not all stuff, but stuff like your married teacher who just seems like an entity unto herself, trust me, that's forgettable.

It always reminds me of the story my mom told me from when she was a Kindergarten teacher. It was lunch time and mom decided to stay in the classroom and eat her sandwich in peace. One of the kids ran into the classroom to grab a jacket and looked at the teacher with wide eyes,

"You eat, Miss Carey?!"

So, when RK, the real thing you'd only sorta wondered about for a minute or less, the husband, came into our 1st grade room the other day, all heads were turned and there were lots of questions.

Right after the Q & A session, I turned to leave and heard a little taunting session start to burbling up from E. It cracked me up the way he sing-sang,

"you have a crush on him, you have a crush on him"

and pointed at RK. I turned around, and all the other kids thought ooooooohhhh, E. is gonna get it for teasing! (which is a fairly mortal sin at our school) and I said, in my most giddy voice,

"You are so right, E. I really, really do!"

and I put my hand over my heart and swooned to great effect. The rest of the kids lost it and I peeked out at E.'s response and, I swear, he had a fake scowl on his face, his arms crossed over his chest, you could almost hear the 'harrummphh!' in his throat, but with a tiny smile at the edge of his lips.

When we got out to the hallway, the level of modeling that had just gone on struck me pretty hard.

A little later, when RK was setting up the projector for me, M. looked at him but asked me,

"what does he do?"

which prompted me to ask the three girls that were left in the room what they think they'll do when they grow up.
G. answered,

"ah artist..."

and when D. started in on her answer of,

"ah scientist that... "

G. interrupted her and added,

"but not just any artist. Ah sculptor."

Oh, okay,
D. started up again,

"ah scientist that mixes together acid and (something else weird) and sees what happens."

Then I turned to M. who said, in a very calm voice,

"I want to be ah scientist....ah artist... and, I was gonna say spy, but that's boring."

"Boring?!" I asked, shocked, "What's boring about being a spy? That's super exciting...I would think you'd love that, M!"

"Nah, she says, then you can't tell anyone what you do."

What a good point.

One of the best moments of that day was having RK stand near me while I wrote on the board and talked to the kids and did what I do as a teacher. Someone outside the teacher world saw it, and it became real.

OPS was OTH...

or, that's what I'd write if i was very good text-er, or twittered, or felt remotely part of the being-out-there world that exists, but jeeze-louise, Open Studios was off the hook! Crazy busy, good, fun, overwhelming (bring me a thesaurus!).

So blown away was I that, when the first night was over, I got home, sat down on the edge of the tub, put my head in my hands, and cried.

The most common question asked of me: where do you get all this stuff?

Sometimes, it felt (in a good way) like being asked a fairly personal question.
'Cuz the truth is, 'where do you get all this stuff?' is such a general, innocuous question. I prefer to think they're asking, 'who the hell are you?!' but in a really polite, culturally-popular way. Sometimes I answer, 'everywhere you can think of' and, sometimes, I can see it in their eyes, they want more and I answer, 'ha! gads! you wanna see something amazing i just found?!' and I pull out the latest great-find. And, if I think they're really, really into it, well, we usually both end up talking about our good finds over the years.

I started to think about all the people, all the strange, interesting, wacky, wonderful, full-of-it and super humble, curious and cute people, that I've met through Open Studios. And that thought blossomed into how many people I meet or interact with in any given week.... but then I stuck with just this past weekend of Open Studios, and realized that generates a pretty big swath in itself. I had so many conversations with so many people, I talked myself hoarse.

I talked to one woman about 1,000 different things we'd made with all the crazy things we'd found on the street; another guy about how much he loved his typewriter, the way I love mine; I finally met an artist who did the Residency at the dump (something I aspire to in a huge way) and he told me all about the heaven that I've always imagined it to be; I met a couple who had seen my work in my old studio and knew they'd found me when they saw my new work on the walls--"I can see you in your work, I knew we'd found you..."; had a fun back and forth with a guy who I gave cards to and he brought me two old, used books the next day; I had one woman come back for the second time that first night and sit me down, asking me all these "deeply personal" questions she had after looking at my work and my studio (i told her there's not many things that are that personal to me). That was interesting & challenging, in a very important way, to say the least. With that woman, and another wanting to take photos of me alongside the wall of work, it felt like one big, ridiculous, personal validation.

Sure I started off the weekend in tears, but I ended it ready to do it all over again!
Strange maybe, but these are the only pictures I took for the entire three, long, people-filled days.

Open Studios

oh little house in the clouds, how i miss you. not a day goes by without me wishing i could just put down all the stories that are filtering through my day, through my brain... but, in the meantime, i must do this big open studios this weekend and have work filling the walls and brimming with goodness.

if you're in town, stop by for a drink on friday night, or a coffee on saturday morning...
i'm at 2345 harrison street, studio 227 (thats right, just like jackee)

Makeover

Every once in awhile, you end up doing something you hadn't planned on at all. Not something like going to a party where you don't know anyone, or falling off your bike at a stop sign...but something that sorta comes out of the blue, dangles over your head and at the last minute, you decide to reach up and grab it. This is my studio move. I'd been at my previous studio for about three years. Back then, it was a huge decision to even get a studio and when I did... I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Turns out, once I got a full-time teaching gig, I spent less and less time in the studio and more and more time dreaming about it again. I ended up getting a studio mate, who was one of the first artists I'd truly admired when I moved to SF, and it made the studio a bit more reasonable. But, eventually, it was clear I was never there, he was always there, and it started to seem like it was time for me to pack up my things and give up the ghost. Maybe I wasn't cut out for a studio. But I hung on in the hope.

So, this summer, when a friend called and said a single, tiny studio had become available in her building, I had a think about it, let it dangle overhead and then I leaped. It's tiny, tiny but I thought about how I work and I work tiny, tiny. Even when I had the big, huge studio, I still gathered all my things around me and worked in a one foot circled space. I would make this work. Besides being tiny, there were a few other barriers that I had to overcome to make this a workable space for my overly-aesthetic obsessiveness.
There was a white board in the room that I knew I couldn't live with and would be one of the first things that had to go.
There's a low hanging fluorescent light that I'll never use (i can't stand overhead lighting!) and a huge square fan that was going to prove to be a problem. And then, this big, blue wall. UGH! I knew this little 10x10 space was in for a huge makeover before I could even move in my huge amount of stuff!

On the bright side, the space had super tall ceilings that seemed to go on forever, nice wood floors, a big window that let natural light stream in, my own little door to close behind me and potential, lots and lots of potential. If I couldn't make a 10x10 space work, well, I would insult the very New Yorker in me!

So, I packed up my old studio, which was sad, but liberating:



and moved it all over to the new studio
and i'm finally ALL MOVED IN! just in time...

DNA can hurt

We play a lot of tag at school and the kids really go for it. Flying through the air, O. took a fall on the gravel yard. He wasn't hurt bad, but he brought the tears for effect, and I felt for him. We all need a little attention when our hands hit gravel. It stings like crazy. So, the two of us walked to the refrigerator together to get an ice pack. It takes a little time to get it all together, the ice pack, the towel, and I like to keep them talking so they can't cry and talk at the same time.

Me: So, which part hurts, O?

O: This part (pointing to the tips of his fingers), this part hurts the most.

Me: So, it's your fingertips that hurt, rather than the palm of your hands?

O: No, no, this part, this part (again, pointing to the tips of his fingers)

Me: Yeah, I get it, that's called your fingertip or the tips of your fingers. That's the part that hurts, right?

O: No, Miss Molly, this part...the part that has the little lines that tell you who you are?!

Me: You mean your fingerprints?

O: Yeah, (crying now) my fingerprints really hurt.

little lady's out to give!
check it out at bonbon.

two greats

imagine one day struck out of your life,
and think how different its course would have been.
pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chair of iron or gold,
of thorns and flowers,
that would never have bound you,
but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.

--charles dickens

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy,
a quickening that is translated through you into action,
and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique.
And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.
The world will not have it.
It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable
nor how it compares with other expressions.
It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly,
to keep the channel open.

--martha graham

images

musicality

dude, remember when we fell in love with David Gray, his voice, his music?
and then Pete Yorn?
And then Damien Rice? and after that it was Fiona Apple? and when we couldn't get over how much we loved Magnetic Fields? And you know how all of these stick with us?
dude, I've got a new one for the collection:


you can finally let go of that rick astley fan club membership.

fleas = heaven

I think I hit up at least six different flea markets on my summer travels. I could go to a flea market or estate sale every day and never tire of them. I've been asked if I know what I'm going to do with something when I buy it, especially when I buy in quantity (which I learned, thankfully, from my sister-- buy all of it!), but the fact is... even if I think I know at the time, it rarely ends up becoming that.

8mm IDEAS, small works of wonder

I'm really so excited to get 8mmideas running into the new year, with all new styles and all new sentiments. I so rarely show-off what I'm doing because I've always sort of believed, if someone's into it, they'll find it. But, having just spent the day telling my friend, M., that the only way she's going to succeed is if she puts it out there all the time...well, I guess my hypocrisy got the best of me. I rarely ever put it out there. I have a really difficult time telling new people I meet about my card bizness. I don't even have business cards! I've still, after five years of making artwork and having multiple solo shows, never called myself an 'artist'. I'm totally comfortable with the fact that I like what I make, feel it's totally unique, I create cards that could fit any occasion, I create artwork that's like no other, yet, I'm totally uncomfortable with actually telling anyone about it. M. & I just spent the day discussing so many people we know who are so totally confident with what they do: and they succeed at it. So, while this may not happen again for awhile, I thought I'd give a taste... just see what happens when you put it out there...

I'm forever telling friends that I miss them. I figured this said it once and for all



Who doesn't need a pick-me-up? Or, for someone that's always your cheerleader, you can cheer them right back!



inspired by my friend, D., who loves herself some animals

cohesive

I'm not much of group person. I like groups okay, but I was never really a person who had a "group" of friends. I had lots of different friends, that belonged to lots of other groups. But mostly, I had individual friends that I hung out with alone or I'd hang out with individuals from various groups and sometimes bring those said individuals, strangers to one another, together to see what would happen.


I think I'm quite intimidated by groups of friends: People that have been in each others lives, dated one another, told each other all their most sordid secrets, disappointed each other, been there for one another...

At my age, even if you wanted to, you can't exactly join a group of friends. They're settled. They have their thing. You're never really gonna break into that world completely.

I suppose I've thought of my family as a 'group' that I'm a part of. I think, when we're all together, we've often been described as a 'gang'. And, maybe that's also part of the reason for my lack of other-group status: I do belong to one, it started at birth. Hard to top that.
And, when I looked up the word "group" in the dictionary, it said a group could be "two or more people"... which made me realize that RK and I classify as a "group", too. So, I'm really already part of two groups.

I've always known it, but feel like, as an adult, I can actually say it: I really, really like being alone. Not lonely. Of course not. Everyone knows those are actually two different things. But I really enjoy being on my own. I find myself quite good company.

Sometimes I drive my own self crazy,
but I think that can happen to the best of our selves.



images from here

Schooooools IN!

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. A new beginning, a new year, a new class, and a whole new set of strange and wonderful stories to keep track of. My co-teacher this year, the one and only Miss P., and I spent all last week coming up with fantabulous plans that will morph into grand realities once the final piece is placed: the kids! One of the greatest things I've learned from Miss P. is that no matter what we'd "planned" to do, to 'go with the flow' is where the juiciest nuggets come from.

September Mornings (almost)

whether one is heading back to public school or private school, there are always good mantra's to remember.