November 7th, 2008

I’m sorry I haven’t written here. There was dentist and elections and various and sundry schedule cluttered things, but mostly I’ve been mad busy the last week being a sub assistant in one of the Montessori primary classrooms at my daughter’s school. It has been way cool. Kids are amazing. Montessori is amazing. Going into a classroom and leaving everything at the door for four hours to spend time with children who live completely in the now is TOTALLY amazing (and exhausting). I’m all like ‘woo moveable alphabet, woo north america map, woo number rods, woo button frame’. Also, there’s now a button on my arm. Push it and I say,”Choose a work.” The button on the other arm, when pushed, makes me say,”Walking feet, please.”

It’s absorbing and interesting, but it doesn’t leave much energy for writing. If I decide to go do the training (and I’m still thinking elementary, actually…sweet as the primary kids are, cool as their lessons are, I still had to change two diapers this week and I strongly prefer my students potty-trained –not that I minded it in the short term, with a finite deadline), I don’t think I’ll also be writing. I’m ok with that, essentially. I like kids and I like Montessori better than I like writing. Huh. That seems all turned around crazy because I was pretty sure writing was the thing I liked best in the world. And I was pretty sure I tolerated kids but didn’t really love them, or have any interest in being with them every day. And maybe I still love writing in its own way, but this writing career thing is really unsatisfying and burdensome and not what I’m after, I don’t believe. Like even if I ever ‘made’ it (of itself a statistical unlikelihood) to be a recognizable name that regularly sold stories and maybe even a novel…that doesn’t seem like a gratifying achievement…it’s not something I’m longing for. Whereas there’s at least one rewarding moment to be had EVERY single day in a classroom. There’s disappointments, but there’s no shortage of joy and positive reinforcement either. Writing (the business side anyways, with the submitting and the rejection and the submitting again) is 98% disappointment and 2% joy. It doesn’t seem crazy to want the thing that gives daily joy, does it? I mean I totally feel like a quitter, even just thinking about giving up on the writing thing, but really, what was the point of the experiment if I can’t except a failed outcome? I’ll have to think about all this some more. Huh. I usually think things out first and THEN post them, instead of thinking out loud on the page. This was supposed to be quickie update post, not a muse about life and writing post. It has been a long week if I’ll just spill my guts unpremeditated like that.

Right well, what I really wanted to post about is how Montessori is so coooooool, and I’m more convinced than ever that it was (and is) totally the right thing for my kid, and I want to learn all about it and maybe even teach it to other kids someday. That is all, good night.

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