KEEP CALM AND... that's all, just keep calm

It started in the 4th grade. So very long ago and yet I remember it as if it were yesterday. The details are etched in my mind.

The two story red brick school house had been built two generation before I first entered the massive double doors. The ceilings in our little classroom were easily 12 feet tall perhaps higher. The windows neared that height and had white blinds that the teacher would adjust with a large wooden pole with a hook on the end.  

Each season our teacher would scotch tape our artistic creations to the windows for the outside world to see; our paper autumn leaves, our intricate snowflakes, and most certainly our lacy edged hearts for Valentine’s Day. The lights above hung down from poles in the ceiling to a more appropriate height and were white glass.  The chalk boards on the wall were black with the alphabet marching across the top in perfect form.  

The portrait of George Washington hung prominently in the center of the wall above the chalkboard, in an oval frame that was allowed to tilt out a bit at the top from the wall so that he was looking down on us from his great height.

  

The desks were of the type that are considered antique now.  Five perfect rows with five perfect desks on each row.  The desks were attached to sleigh-like runners which were attached to the floor; the back of one seat formed the desk of the one behind it and so on down the row. Dark wood with ornate black metal sides.  The desk itself had an indentation for a pencil and a cut out hole for an ink bottle - although some brilliant person had invented the ballpoint pen so we would not be using the ink wells but ironically we were not allowed to use the ballpoint pens either; just pencils that we would sharpen at the community sharpener at the back of the room.

I had two 4th grade teachers.  First, Mrs. Birch, a distant relative and also the school principal - a true gem to be sure, kind and gentle and inspiring. She read to us from “Little House on the Prairie” and I listened with fascination, she always stopped at a cliff hanger so that we were eager to have her pick it up again the next day.  For Show and Tell one day I brought my collection of Indian arrowheads that I had found while climbing among the rocks by the shores near our cabin home each summer.  I had them in an envelope in my pocket.  During recess I entered into the duel jump ropes of double-dutch and the envelope fell to the ground and I quickly retrieved it and tucked it back into my pocket. During Sharing Time I told about the arrowheads made of obsidian and opened my envelope to reveal a handful of broken rocks.  I blinked very hard to hold back the tears and then to make matters worse, no one believed that they had actually been real Indian arrowheads…no one but dear Mrs. Birch.  

While Mrs. Birch performed her principal duties, each day, Mrs. Hazley took her place. Mrs. Hazley was fat and frumpy and she had a mole on her chin with a single long hair in the middle of it. She had black hair streaked with gray and she was grumpy…that’s right, frumpy AND grumpy.  She didn’t read to us, we had to read to ourselves in total silence so as not to disturb her. 

The first week of class and during reading time, a boy started a note that was passed secretly from one desk to the other and to the other and then reaching me, I read it to myself…”When the clock strikes 2 – drop your pencils!”  and I passed it on.

There were a few nervous giggles from girls and lots of clock watching as Mrs. Hazley sat at her desk. Was she asleep?  Possibly.  

At the stroke of 2 every pencil in the class dropped to the floor followed by triumphant laughter.

Mrs. Hazley’s chair legs screeched as she pushed back and stood up.  She leaned on her desk and narrowed her eyes looking at each one of us.  

“Who started this?” She demanded waving her ruler.  

Dead silence. 

“I’ll ask this just one more time…WHO STARTED THIS?”   

A boy, the instigator, slowly raised his hand to face level. 

"Come here” she bellowed and he did. 

“Hold out your hand!” she demanded and he did. She raised her ruler and WHACK!!  He didn’t cry, he just lowered his hand and walked back to his seat, turned and glared right back at her until his eyes couldn’t carry her angry stare any longer and he lowered his head to see the welt growing on his hand. 

She carried that ruler the rest of the year and swore if anyone dropped their pencil they would get the same punishment.  She walked up and down the aisles as we wrote and I held my pencil so tightly that the beautiful cursive I’d learned in 3^rd grade became strained and ugly…which it remains to this day.

The school caught on fire that year.  As we stood out in the play yard well away from danger we could see the smoke rise and the firefighters running in and out and around.  I realized how much I loved that old school, Mrs. Hazley and all and didn’t want to lose it.  Remarkably, only the girls’ bathroom was damaged and the only fatality was the goldfish that lived in a bowl in that bathroom.  We were able to return inside and continue our day, the smoke smell lingered for weeks in the rooms and on our coats that were hanging in the cloakrooms.

Many years later I decided to take a calligraphy class to see if I could improve my terrible penmanship.  I loved the artistic curls and swirls of the letters, they were enticing and beautiful to see. The first day of class we were taught to write a simple lower case "a".  Our instruction was to do page after page of them.  Acclimating to a metal pen and dipping the tip into the ink bottle was the first challenge.  Hmmm kind of how it would have been in elementary school if we'd been allowed to use pens with ink wells in those darling wooden desks I mused.  

But then, oh how I struggled!  The beautiful lines and swerves just didn't flow from my pen onto the paper.  Over and over and over again I wrote "a" "a" "a" but nothing looked right, in fact it was wrong, so very wrong that the teacher came by and said "Oh my!"  A kindly assessment of my failure I thought.  

He said "Your problem is obvious, you're holding your pen to tight!  You're not going to drop it for heaven's sake, relax, lighten up and let the letters flow"

So I thought I'd give it a try.  I put the pen down, I took a deep breath, I relaxed my shoulders, relaxed my whole body, relaxed my mind. I picked up the pen and dipped it in the ink and holding it lightly in my hand I gently touched the paper with a gentle curving motion to my hand, the way my high school choir director moved his directing hands to elicit soft flowing stanzas of dreamlike songs from his choir. I drew the curves of the letter ever so calmly and there it was, on a practice sheet filled with cross outs and pathetically tight attempts... a beautiful, peaceful, perfect "a".  And then page after page of them, and then on to the "b"s and then the "c"s and I was mastering the art of "calm".  It was a beautiful thing.

Emotional chaos hit like a horrific storm when Dale's funeral was over, the loved ones went home to mourn their loss and recoup their own personal lives, the well wishers moved on and the beautiful flowers began to wilt.  Like harboring an internal ongoing tornado or vibration I prayed and prayed for calm. I awoke one morning with a start, had I actually been asleep!  That was new...but I was aware that I had been dreaming of a time when I was in Odense, Denmark walking along a beautiful river when an elegant white swan with outstretched angel-like wings silently came into sight and glided onto the water, gracefully adjusted her wings in the manner of a prima ballerina and sat calmly on the water.  I was entranced when I saw it and felt a great calm in the memory of the experience. That day I painted this swan and I have had a copy of it on my desk ever since. It calms me, it's an icon that reminds me that in every situation if I adjust to a calm inner self, I can move through any storm.

I remember reading a quote by Rudy Giuliani:  "Whenever you get into a jam, whenever you get into a crisis or an emergency, become the calmest person in the room and you'll be able to figure your way out of it.'

I also remember my kind old grandfather teaching me as a little girl that if I wanted to ride the darling tan and cream colored pony in his pasture that I needed to hold some oats in my open hand and be calm and confident and it would come to me, if I was fearful it would back off.  

So it appears that for many years I have been learning that with calm I can create beauty, with calm I can overcome my fears and frustrations, with calm I relax into the arms of the Savior who will never let me go and with that calm I will be able to reach my goals regardless of the trials or bumps in the road that seem to crop up daily. Oh the power of Calm!

 

WRITING ASSIGNMENT #6

SCHOOL DAYS - KINDERGARTEN THROUGH 6TH GRADE

Here are a few sample questions, but feel free to just start at Kindergarten and work you way through to 6^th grade using your memories as your guide.

Do you remember your first day of school?

Who took you?

What did you wear?

What did you do?

How did you feel?

What were the names of the schools that you attended

How did you get to school?

How far was it from home?

What time did  it start, end?

Can you describe your classrooms, your desk, your pencils and paper etc

Any special school friends?

Any problems?

How did you handle or solve those problems?

What was your playground like?

What games did you play?  Were you good at them?

What were your teachers names?

Give your impression of them, and a description from your point of view at the time

TO this day, do you remember something they taught and said that had an influence on you?