gettin' older, gettin' off the floor: Montessori teachers arise!

(In response to a Montessori teacher's concern about getting up off the floor, an age-related difficulty for we who used to sit cross-legged in circle...)

I don't know why your post makes me smile. I mean, I've known all along this was gonna happen--it was pretty clear when my old man was gettin' older. I like walking and, I'll be frank here (sorry, Frank), I put on headphones, step up the treadmill, and play Donna Summer, disco gold.

Ah: why I smiled: here we all are, oh me oh my, gettin' older, but I see it, hey, we're in the best situation there is-- anybody wanna stay lively, getcher self in with children. Gettin' sleep is a problem, always too much to think about or be doing -- hah: a little story, a true story, a story that happened to me just last night.

I'm in class, room-assistant/art teacher in the summer program, with a new guy, who's the lead teacher this summer; lots of here-this-week, gone-next kids, not necessarily Montessori kids, and then some who're enrolled first time in the fall.

It's morning, but it's late. There're three little girls running, chasing around the far perimeter of the room. I don't want to get up off the floor to deal with the situation; it's really not 'my job' to handle classroom situations. And, it means I have to get up and I'm really comfortable lying down. I am lying down. I am in my bed and I am lying down. I really am. In the moments of falling asleep last night, I dreamed about being in class, and finally woke myself out of it. I don't have to get up at all. Just fell asleep again until Time to Feed the Cat Now! around 5 a.m.

Never getting enough sleep aside, I've been concerned about maintaining my energy and mobility, too, and I suspect we have an edge over many of our parents' generation, in that many our age began to be concerned far younger than our elders. When I hit forty, I was concerned. (Now I'm concerned because "forty" seems both middle-aged and young to me...). I began and continue taking steps to eat healthily and exercise and all that good stuff 'cause while it took a long, long time to get here --sixty years-- I'm mostly happy now. And I will do what I can to keep this going.

So I'll be on the floor with a lot of 3-6yr old friends, or on a stool sometimes, once again this fall, (oh! what an ending--) clapping my hands 'cause I'm happy and I know it.


Sorry to be so cheerful. Must be one day short of summer program's end. Yup; got away with it.
best wishes,
Matt

Pot-bellied Guy

(Poetry Is Such A)

Poetry is such a

waste of time.

-You-

read it, and

thank you,

very much, another

petunia in the onions;

that, metaphor in a

tv-viewers' world.

Poetry can't save tv:

tv disdains the poetic,

or gives it awards

but never reruns.

Poetry, poetry's

trees falling to

deaf ears,

to hack a phrase.

And then, as if without regard to scheme

or form, all rhyme these days: just stuff of song,

as rythym is,

and all this time

you've read these lines--

all this time

you've read these lines,

I've just been writing

the words I've been given.

I suppose I made them up.

It's true I wrote them down:

poetry is such a

waste of time. Poetry sells

if it's set to song--there's poetry

that can support you. I've been

self-supporting for years and for years

I've been supporting poetry and

never

once has

poetry supported me. What about you?

Will you support me? You

support poetry-- thank you for reading

this far. But why have you? Poetry

is such a waste of time! There is

curiosity--

the lottery

of discovery:

a few, right words that change

or explain the world,

or march like a voice inside one's head,

one's own voice, as said

by another; or a phrase, just one,

worth stealing. There’s entertainment--

whatever value juggling

words brings; those clever things,

just agreed-upon sounds,

afflicted with change,

hep through chic, hip, cool,

groovy, and excellent, and

random.

There is connection:

hearing words in

listeners’ indrawn breaths,

listeners breathing in

recognition, creating an illusion

of unification, a misrepresentation

that helps us.

Has this helped? Or is it true, too, for you,

poetry is such.

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