88 keys

Piano: A musical instrument in which felt-covered hammers, operated from a keyboard, strike the metal strings. (courtesy dictionary.com)

It sounds so simple, yet for me, my piano is a lifetime of memories and at times, a best friend.

In second grade, I rode in a borrowed pickup truck with my Dad and one of his friends up winding Route 60 from Marietta to New Lexington.  Someone was giving away a piano, and apparently, I wanted to play.  I don't remember the request, but I remember the trip, for on the return trip the piano started sliding off the tailgate and we had to pull over to secure it.  My Dad told that story over and over.

The old Everett piano-- one of my best friends in life.

We lived then on 8th Street beside a hollow in a rented brick house.  I soon started piano lessons with Mrs. Stout, who lived a few blocks away, next to Mound Cemetery.  My sister took lessons from my Aunt Kathareen but apparently that didn't go very well, according to my Dad, and so I started lessons with Mrs. Stout.  I believe I was a fairly unremarkable piano student though I did enjoy playing, until about 6th or 7th grade.  One summer, I decided that the old, used Everett console with dark wood already nicked with time, was my new best friend.

I played and played, for hours on end.  Our family situation was extremely volatile and very unconventional for the 1950's and 60's.  My friends had fathers who worked and mothers who stayed home and baked cookies and cleaned house.  My father was totally disabled Marine who went in on Day 1 of Iwo Jima and could not work.  He was and always will be my hero. My mother was a secretary and registrar for the Washington County Health Department.

My father fought the Battle of Iwo for the rest of his life with various addictions and mental health issues and my mother never truly coped with his problems.  My sister was six years older, and I always felt very different from my friends and very alone at times.

That piano became my solace and my friend, and gave me companionship and also an opportunity to excel at something.

Soon after I started taking the piano seriously, Mrs. Stout became too ill and elderly to continue to teach and so I started lessons with Aunt Kathareen.  This time, it went very well for me and my family.

I continued lessons with her until I graduated from high school, and we were both nervous every year about the recitals as I did not want to let her down and she didn't want me to either.  But we were both perfectionists who got along great.

I got to know my Dad's oldest sister well and admired her talent at the piano and organ.  She was the organist at the First Presbyterian Church for over 50 years and she also gave me organ lessons on a magnificent pipe organ at the church for two years.  I loved taking lessons from Aunt Kathareen and every time I still play some of the sonatinas and sonatas I learned from her I think of sitting beside her on the piano bench at the baby grand in her basement.

My Dad loved listening to me play, as did my Grandmother, and at times I can still see their faces as I played their favorite songs for them.  My grandmother had me play for her church circle at her home and so I became adept at Baptist hymns.  My Dad loved anything I played, but when I found his favorite song was Fascination I learned to play it for him, and we danced to that song as the Dad-bride dance at my wedding.  If I want to feel close to him I sit down at the old Everett and play Fascination.

For a while I was separated from my dear piano as I went off to college at The Ohio State University and then lived in an apartment before I got married to my husband Jeff.  But the piano played a part in our courtship. When I started bringing him home, we would invariably end up sitting on the piano bench together.  I would play classical and pop songs to him, singing the words of "I Can't Help Falling in Love With You" to him.

He loved it, and so did I.  He once told me he had never met anyone who could play and sing the piano.  We were young and in love, and the piano made us closer still.  That song has remained our song, having it played at our wedding, and we still dance to it in the kitchen.  But it all started at that old piano.  And yes, I still play that same arrangement for him on the same piano and on the same piano bench.

As soon as we were married and built our first home the piano left Marietta and we have all been together ever since.  I discovered plastic labels under the bench that my niece Lisa and her friend Kathy had decorated as children.

Through the years I have sometimes still played extensively and some years have barely had time to touch the keys.  But the piano always patiently waited for me to return, and I always did.

When my daughter was a baby, I would sit her on my lap and watch her little fingers strain to press hard enough to make noise. I was delighted when she enjoyed it.  She took piano lessons in elementary school and also practiced on it as I did.  She then switched to flute and on to mellophone and was a proud member of The Ohio State University Marching Band.  I am proud that the old piano provided some of the musical foundation for her also.

The old Everett has moved two more times and now rests in our den.  It needs tuned and has two keys that need glued but emits the same feeling for me as when I was a child.  Now  a retired high school principal, I find I have more time to sit down with my old friend.

Have I really played you since I was 7 years old?  Through good times and bad?  You have been my friend for the bulk of my life, and I still cherish taking even 5 or 10 minutes to play some of the same songs I have for years.  I love the connection with classical music the most, for in playing Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and Dvorak, I feel not only linked with my piano but with eternity, and with all of those who have played these songs before me.

And today, the old Everett is still welcoming a new generation of our family to its 88 keys, our granddaughter Marisol.  Marisol sits on my lap and puts her tiny fingers on its keys. In just two weeks or so she has gone from not being able to make a noise to pounding it out with feeling!. She especially enjoys the low octaves, stretching her little arms all the way down to the lowest key.  Why?  Because it is there.  And then her face emits the brightest and best smile ever.  Just like her mother.  And just like I still do in my heart.

Marisol and I at the old piano.

88 keys.  Yes, it is a musical instrument with 88 keys.  But for me, the 88 keys hold my heart, my deepest emotions, love, and a lifetime of memories.

Family lullabies, family legacies

Our new granddaughter makes life better in so many ways, whether it is her hearing a bird's song for the first time or gazing quizzically at a white tail deer eating the end of the squirrel feeder's ears of corn.  Life is new and fresh again every day.

It is also a return to yesteryear.  She enjoys some of her mother's same toys saved with hope and prayer for then an unknown grandchild.  Marisol, as did her mother, enjoys the blocks that her father lovingly crafted and painted for her, as well as the wooden shape puzzles he also sawed and sanded.

And me? I hold her on my lap as her tiny fingers play the same piano keys I did, and her mother did, as children. One of our family legacies, that piano made the trip to my childhood home in the back of an old pickup truck, down State Route 60 from New Lexington to Marietta.  The price was right --free--for a poor family with a daughter eager to learn to play.

In addition, each day, Marisol and I sit in the very old wooden rocker that belonged to my grandmother's cousin whom we knew as cousin Jane.  Jane lived in a rather dilapidated apartment building close to the river at the corner of Second and Green Streets.  I was never sure of Jane's age, though she was older than my grandmother, who was born in 1888.

As we sit and rock, the old chair, a family hand-me-down with well-worn arm rests, provides the perfect setting for rocking Marisol to sleep with the two family lullabies I learned somehow, at some time from my family.  Two of our best family legacies.

The first is one I remember my Dad singing, the only time I remember him singing anything.  I sang it to our baby daughter daily, and I do the same to Marisol.

"You're the end of the rainbow, 

The star on the tree,

The Easter bunny,

To your Mommy and me,

You're sugar and spice,

And everything nice,

You're your Daddy's little girl."

I change the parental references but other than that sing the same tune.  It is special to me, as it not only reminds me of my father, but of singing it to our daughter.  Hopefully it will continue in our family, and in the hopes and dreams of future generations.

The other is one that I remember my Mom singing to my nieces and nephews, her grandchildren.  I remember asking her about its origin.  She explained that it came from the hills, and she remembers the older people in her family singing it to all the babies in her family.  All of her family grew up on Archer's Fork off Rt 26 in southeastern Ohio,  

It goes this way:

"Rock a bye, don't you cry,

Daddy's gone a-hunting,

Up on the hill, beside the mill,

To get his baby's bunting."

Even typing the words of these lullabies floods my brain with smells and sights of a time far away.  Sitting in the old rocker singing these family songs, I sometimes try to imagine all of the new babies, born in earlier days when life was simpler, being lulled to sleep.

Collicky babies, smiling babies, grabbing for the hair and necks of their mamas and grandmothers, until finally closing their eyes to the tunes of their families.

The lullabies of generations. Family legacies.

For their gifts from God.

Can we go home again?

You can't go home again.  We have all heard that phrase.  And for those of us whose parents are no longer alive it sometimes rings as loud as a fire alarm and as bright as a spotlight on a dark night.

On Thursday my daughter, now almost 30, and I took one of our many return trips to Marietta, OH, my hometown.

The place where I have memories of every stage of my life.  Born in Marietta, living first in a small white clapboard house across the street from Mound Cemetery, one of the most historical cemeteries in the United States.

You see, Marietta is a proud small river town with one of the richest histories of any other USA small town.  It was the first established settlement in the Northwest Territory, established in 1788.

In this month's issue, Smithsonian magazine ranks America's Best Small Towns, the Greatest Little Places to Visit This Year, and Marietta is listed 6th.

Highlights that the magazine lists include the watching the coal barges still passing through on the river, the Sternwheeler races in September, and the 19th century working dams and locks that open while riders take pleasure cruises on the Valley Gem, a historic sternwheeler.  The downtown is marked by historic buildings with unique shops such as Twisted Sisters, a West Side completely restored that can be accessed by an old railroad trestle crossing the Muskingum River and now a footbridge to yesterday, and a Sweet Corn festival in July.

Situated in the unglaciated part of Ohio, Marietta is built on a series of hills that only locals are comfortable navigating, with narrow streets, frequent road closings due to hill slippages, and sweeping overlooks of both the Ohio and Muskingum River Valleys.

For for me, the 130 miles to Marietta via I-270 to I-70 East. I-70 East to I-77 South, to Exit 1, Marietta, is a trip from a busy and sometimes stressful lifestyle as a high school principal to my childhood, my memories, and a piece of me that no one else knows.

By Zanesville, the world starts to change.  And by Cambridge the stress starts to leave my shoulders.  By Dexter City, the hills become so familiar and by Lower Salem I know we are only six miles from the exit.

I make the right turn on to Exit 1, merge onto Pike Street, and my head floods with memories.  Past my Dad's VFW where he went to "sign the book" every day.  Pike turns into Greene Street and rather than turn down 7th Street to my parents home, or former home, Jennifer and I head to the Hotel Lafayette, one of America's finest and oldest hotels.  I surprise her with the Captain's Room, the largest room in the hotel, with a wraparound balcony that overlooks the Ohio River dramatically, just a few steps from the levee.

In this present Marietta, Jennifer and I visit all of our favorite restaurants and shops, the Coca-Cola Museum and old diner on the West Side, with the jukebox where 25 cents still gets you two plays and one of the few places real Broughton's ice cream is still served.  Teri Ann's boutique also beckons  on Front Street and we slowly make our way into all of the quaint shops in buildings that date to the late 1800's and early 1900's.

When we enter Schafer's Leather, open since 1867, I am surprisingly greeted by Becky, one of my high school classmates, and we catch up where locals still buy cowboy boots and pick up repaired ones.

Time to walk along the levee, where my Dad's voice laughingly echoes in my head every time with "When you are down by the river, drop in."  He always loved the irony in the advertising slogan of the Lafayette.

Time for the tough part of the trip, a visit to Mound Cemetery, yes, that first cemetery I lived across from as a toddler, now the site of Mom and Dad's resting place.  We carefully remove the now red and brown grave blanket and brush the dead leaves from the grave stone. I remember all of the times I had walked downtown to visit my mother in her job at the Washington County Health Department from home, walking past the beautiful cemetery with the large conical Moundbuilders Indian Mound in the center, and never dreaming that now, every trip to Marietta would include a visit to place where it is now their final rest.

The cemetery, rimmed by uneven brick streets, is also unique in that many founders of Marietta and former Revolutionary War Soldiers are buried here with a map of the cemetery indicating their names and locations.  But for me, the names are the names of my classmates and friends' families. Col William Stacy, Col Buell, Rufus Putnam, Whipple, Bartlett, may be the names on the historic grave markers from the 1700's, but the last names are those the rolls of Washington Elementary School, Marietta Junior High and Marietta High School.  I recall being in their homes, working with them at the Marietta Pool, and being in English class with them.

From the cemetery, we park at the corner of 7th and Wooster Streets, my home, or what I will always consider my home.  The current owners have left it unchanged now for the past 12 years, the last time my parents lived there, and I am conflicted on whether that is good or bad.

The positive is that it floods our thoughts with so many good memories. My Dad warming up my car in the driveway for me during high school, building the garage door himself, and building the deck with my husband when we were first married.  His squirrel feeder that so delighted him is now broken but still there and the eagle is still above the front door.  For so long his proud Marine 4th Division insignia was still on the garage door window.  It is eerie and beckoning to us as if to say, come in. Mom will be in the kitchen and Dad will be in his chair in the living room, and they will be so thrilled to see us.

But that quickly fades, as the sun does on a cloudy day, and we disappointedly pull away from the curb, knowing that Mom and Dad no longer wait at the window, looking forward to our visit, ready to call my sister and nieces and nephews to get the entire family together as only the bedlam of family time can cause.

Trips to Marietta are still special, for every trip with my daughter is special.  Just as she was a little girl, and now a young woman, I am still seeing Marietta through her eyes, and she has always loved these trips, and so have I.

Can we go home again?  Yes.  Of course we can.  But it is different.  The sights, sounds, and smells of Marietta in many ways are the same.  Sun glistening off the river while small waves lap on the old brick levee.

In the middle of the night, as we slept in the Captain's Room, the night was split by a sound only those who live on the river know, the blaring whistle from the Pilot's house of a barge, rounding the curve at the mouth of the Muskingum as the barge slowly traverses toward the Williamstown Bridge.

At our home on 7th Street, as I lay in my bed, we were often lucky enough to hear those loud whistles as the Delta Queen, the Mississippi Queen, and the American Queen would announce to  the entire town that they were docking at the levee. The calliope and Dixieland band played River Boat favorites, and we would rush downtown to the levee to see the travelers disembark and gaze in awe at the magnificence of these Mark Twain era paddle boats

In the Hotel Lafayette this trip, as the barge continues to blast its large whistle to warn all other river travelers, I wake again, and for a short time, I am home.  On the river.  Where I belong, and where generations of my family have lived, and will live always in my mind.

And miles to go before I sleep

On the way to pick up my husband today from his work, I drove through a driving snow squall.  Didn't spring officially start on March 20?  After one of the coldest and snowiest winters in Central Ohio history, I could hardly believe it.

Dark clouds loomed on the horizon, and I became nervous because I rarely drive the 40 miles to my husband's work.  He had given me specific landmarks to see in the last two miles to get ready to make the right turn, and blowing snow obliterated my view of anything beyond the berm.

White-knuckled I slowed to 35 MPH to go the last mile and finally spot the barely visible Rt. 347 sign to take me to TRC Dr.  I breathed a huge sigh of relief as I entered the gates of his work to pick him up for his doctor's appointment.

Once we drove about 10 miles to the east, the snow dissipated to a few blowing flurries and we made it back the 40 miles still on time for the appointment.  I kept thinking that this was no weather for spring break, how tired we all were of the white stuff and the cold that came with it.  Even 50 degrees would seem like summer at this point, and I wanted to be done with snow and winter.

Until we arrived back home, opened the back drapes and gasped.  There it was, the beautiful winter wonderland that always takes our breath away all winter long.  Undisturbed and unfettered snow, coating our yard and the woods behind it.  Stunningly beautiful as afternoon sunlight reflected in glittering snowflakes.

We just stared.  Soon a Cooper's hawk came swooping in, balancing on a branch and frightening the squirrels and songbirds away, only visible because of the snowfall.  All winter we have enjoyed a family of five deer who venture into our woods, bedding down sometimes and browsing on the ends of small branches.  Without the snow that fills our woods, the deer would go unseen, camouflaged as nature intended.

And suddenly in my mind our daughter Jennifer is a small child again, and we are gazing at a different woods with snow. The words of the Robert Frost poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" starts spilling out from our mouths as my husband stares at us, grinning as always.  I have always loved poetry, and so does Jennifer, and we recited many poems orally rotating lines from one to the other, mother to daughter, and back again.

This poem was one of our winter favorites, and we recited it often.  Tonight it came off my lips, and although the little girl is grown and has a home of her own, I can still see her smiling face and hear her little voice as the snow falls.

And now today's snow is no longer an unwanted visitor, but a warm recollection of the past.

How lucky we are to live in Ohio, where the change of the seasons reminds of the seasons of our lives with our loved ones, just as the poem paints a picture of scenes and voices from the past.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

The luck of the Irish

How do you celebrate St. Patrick's Day?  Do you ignore the holiday altogether?  Wear a little green on March 17?  Go all out because you are Irish and wear a kelly green T-shirt, shamrock socks, a shamrock tattoo on your face, and green antenna shamrocks on top of your head.

You mean you've never seen anyone go all out for St. Patrick's Day?  Well, if you live in Dublin, OH you see it  all over town, especially today!

Today is Dublin's St. Patrick's Day parade, and it seems the entire city is green!  We have lived in Dublin for about 29 years and look forward to the pre-parade pancake breakfast and parade every year.

The parade starts at 11 AM but people start setting out chairs to claim spots by 8 AM.  We found a great spot near the pre-parade performance stage and set out our 4 Buckeye chairs.

At the breakfast, Irish music plays in the background, the Sells Middle School cafeteria is teaming with all things green, and the local Lion's Club sells raffle tickets, 20 for $10.

But the main draw?  The opportunity to eat green pancakes with green syrup!

After the savory and fun breakfast we go out to the main street, stroll through some of the quaint downtown stores, like the genuine Irish store Ha'Penny, before making our way to the stage area to listen to the Hooligans, a fun Irish band who play crowd Celtic favorites such as Danny Boy to pass the time waiting for the parade to start.

Soon, we hear the police car sirens to kick off the parade, make our way to our parade seats and settle in for 90 minutes of marching bands, tiny majorettes, police motorcycles, fire trucks and politicians, as many parades have.

But this is a St. Patrick's Day parade, and so we also look forward to seeing green, green and more GREEN.  What makes this parade special?

Giant Shamrock balloons! And . . .

Irish Wolfhounds

and . . .

giant stilt walkers with Shamrock pants and green banners!

Yes--

in Dublin, Ohio we LOVE St. Patrick's Day!!

Still looking down; still finding rainbows

As some of you know, my husband has undergone two detached retina surgeries in the last month.  As part of each surgery, a gas bubble was inserted in the his eye, and the recovery regimen requires that he looks down for 45 minutes out of every hour.

While after the first surgery, he did not have to sleep looking down, because of the difficulty and size of the gas bubble after the second surgery, he has also had to sleep looking directly down for the last 10 days.  If you have ever tried sleeping looking directly down, you will see the obvious difficulty.

In an earlier blog, I noted the irony of Charlie Chaplain's quote, "You will never find rainbows if you are looking down" while noting the many rainbows we have found in this difficult month with the kindnesses of so many friends, neighbors, co-workers and even complete strangers.

One of my co-workers and good friends, Bob, came over to the house to put together a medical ergonomic chair that we rented after the second surgery.  Jeff desperately needed assistance in holding his head downward without continuing to strain the muscles in his neck and back. What a rainbow this chair has been!

While it looks awkward, this chair has enabled him to come downstairs and watch TV.  As he looks down, a double mirror on the small desk below his eyes reflects the TV image perfectly up to his eyes.  I asked him what career invents such a wondrous device.  He can also put his Sports Illustrated or other magazine on the desk while the padded face holder carefully cradles and securely holds his face downward in the correct angle so that the gas bubble in his eye floats up to smooth out his retina.  (We hope). Ingenious.

Yes, Bob created a rainbow of this wondrous chair, as did our neighbor Mike. Mike saw me struggling to shovel our fresh 5" snowfall and came across the street with his huge snowblower to finish our driveway.  Thank goodness Mike moved to Ohio from Minnesota!

And the rainbows continued all week.  My special education department filled bags of my favorite snack foods such as cranberrry drinks, pistachios, dark chocolate, apples, oranges, bananas and mixed nuts snack mix. So so thoughtful.  Even more, they also filled a card with gift cards from a number of our favorite restaurants including Rusty Bucket and Max and Erma's.    Every intervention specialist, parapro, and related arts teacher had signed this card, including even those who are not even in our building full-time.  An avalanche of rainbows!!

More cards came from Jeff's work, and numerous text messages containing prayer messages and prayer chains flooded in this week.  My secretary and her husband delivered two full dinners from Olive Garden, and Girl Scout cookies Thin Mints were donated and placed on my desk.  Our athletic trainer even delivered a special angled pillow to a school in which I had a meeting so that I could take it home to Jeff to improve his likelihood of sleep.  (And yes, it has helped!)

It is hard to put into words what all this has meant to us.  After about 23 consecutive days of Jeff spending hours on end looking downward, without being able to drive or work and after two retinal detachment surgeries, our lives have largely revolved around surgical appointments, eye drops four times per day, and restless attempts at sleeping.

Can you find rainbows looking down?  You bet you can.  Williams Wordsworth wrote, "My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky."  Every single one of these kindnesses have made our hearts leap up too!

And to my dear sweet husband, who reads every one of my blogs (yes-- even using the double mirror or by looking straight downwards), I end with what I hope is a rainbow of my own:

As Anne Bradstreet wrote in her poem To my dear and loving husband, "If ever two were one, then surely we." We recited this quote at our wedding ceremony, and it is still true today. You have always been my pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Country Roads, Take Me Home . . .

It always fascinates me when I ride in a friend's or colleague's car to what the radio is tuned.  If it's talk radio on any subject, I can't wait to reach our mutual destination.  Hip Hop? Please let me out at the next intersection.  Heavy metal?  The ride is already too long.  Classic Rock and Roll? Now we are getting somewhere.  Country? We are kindred spirits-- take the long road there and back. 

I grew up in Marietta where there for my Dad there were only two kinds of music-- Country AND Western.  Car rides along Route 7's curvy journey following the banks of the Ohio featured Johnny Cash, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Flatt and Scruggs, Willie Nelson, Connie Smith, Loretta Lynn, Hank Williams and Patsy Cline. 

I have to admit that although I am a diehard country fan today, especially of Toby Keith, Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood, Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert, Garth Brooks, George Jones and King George Strait, I was not always thrilled listening to purely country and western with my Dad, especially as a teenager.  It was the age of the Beatles and Rolling Stones and rock and roll was here to stay, much to my Dad's chagrin.  He didn't think they could sing "a lick" and he particularly didn't like the length of their hair and how they dressed.  Not surprising for a WWII Marine who went in on Day 1 of Iwo Jima.

To him, country singers were real men, not like the sissies with long hair, and he was a man's man.

And so I grew up listening to his favorites, and I have to admit, I remember his laughter when he would share with me another great country hit that had just been released, such as "I've Got the Hungries for your Love, and I'm Waitin' in your Welfare Line."  Or how about "I've Got Tears in my Ears from Lying on my Back at Night Crying over You."  I was drawn to country and western then because I loved spending time with Dad, especially on "flood" days.  I never remember having a "snow" day in Marietta, but every spring, especially before the lock systems were put on the rivers, both the Muskingum and Ohio would override their banks, closing school.  

Dad would turn up such a George Jones "He Stopped Loving Her Today" and drive me all over town so I could see all of the flooding.  Half of the downtown would be underwater and people in row boats would be cruising down Front and Green Streets, trying to get in and out of the storefronts and upstairs apartments.  We would navigate up the narrow street to Harmar Hill and Lookout Point and see miles of town underwater, both on the West Side and Downtown, out on the Pike and out towards Devola.  It happened every spring, and though the songs changed each year, the country music themes of love done wrong, drinking beer, pickup trucks, trains and Mama fit the melancholy and gray landscape.

Dad is gone, and so are the mammoth floods, but the themes of country music remain.  George Strait still sings  "It's not the Breath you Take, but the Moments that take your Breath Away," and Garth croons "Friends in Low Places."  Toby sings "Wayman's Song" in honor of his best friend who died and Carrie pledges "I Will See You Again."

I listen to country because for me the ballads are poetry, with the universal themes of love, life and death, just as the country and western of the past, and with the hayseed humor of HeeHaw and today's "Here's a Quarter, Dial Someone Who Cares."

And yes, I admit it.  I love country, I listen to country and I blare country continuously in my car, torturing my passengers just assuredly as when I am a passenger in a car with talk radio.

More importantly, I have turned into my Dad, even tormenting my family in car rides, just as my father did, even my wonderful son-in-law Ryan, who with no country knowledge or background, politely smiles when I turn to him at a traffic light and shout to the back seat, "Hey Ryan, I know you know this one . . .join in on "You don't have to call me Darlin', Darlin-- . . ." or "Country Roads, Take Me Home.

Perhaps, one day those rides will bring memories of me, just as I have of my Dad, and for me, that's what country music does, it takes me home.

You'll never find rainbows if you are looking down, or will you?

"You'll never find rainbows if you're looking down." I love this quote from Charlie Chaplin.  But today, this past week, and in the past two weeks, I have found a different meaning to these words.

Why? My husband is an automotive research engineer and I am a high school principal.  Some days we see some of each others, and others, hardly any. But at 36 years of marriage, we have fulfilling lives and careers and each exercise regularly.  We are still madly in love,  love our family,  and by all undeniably  external indicators, young for our age, in body, mind and spirit.

And then two weeks ago, without warning, in one day, the retina in my husband's right eye, detached, a large tear.  Emergency surgery was scheduled for the next day, and our difficult odyssey began.

Do you know what the recovery regimen after detached retina surgery is?  Certainly we didn't know, and really hadn't even thought about it.  That is the way life is.  One minute we are sailing with positive momentum, certainly grateful and appreciative for our love, family and life, and the other we are drawn into the medical world of unknown ailments, where surgery is performed through a microscope trying to reattach something so delicate and small that it is difficult to conceive.  Its importance-- consequential.  What is the price of sight?

After detached retina surgery, the patient must spend at least 45 minutes of every hour looking down, with only a respite sleeping at night.  Imagine.  My husband spent virtually every waking hour looking down for about 10 days.  In the surgery, the physician repairs the tear with laser surgery and inserts a gas bubble in the eye.  The patient must look down in order to have the gas bubble rise to repair the retina.  Who ever thought of that idea-- whoever it is surely owns his/her own Caribbean island, right? Torturous but certainly worth it to make this surgery successful, for a lack of success means compromised vision.

The surgery was on Valentine's Day and for 10 days he was home most of the time, looking down, not being able to drive or go to work.  We eagerly looked forward to last Monday's appointment to release him back to driving and work.  We had followed every doctor's order; surely success and freedom, a return to normalcy, was imminent.

But right when the surgeon took a look we both knew something was wrong.  Instead of experiencing elation and freedom, we were told fluid was still present, meaning either a hole had been missed in the surgery, or another tear had developed.  We were stunned.  Disappointment would be a euphemism.  After three more appointments last week and having him lie on his side to see if the liquid would cease, we received the devastating news that he must again have emergency eye surgery.  Anticipated elation to nightmare.

With every surgery comes the increased chance of compromised, damaged vision.  How can this be happening?  And so, since Thursday, my dear sweet husband has been sentenced to looking down, but this time it is even worse.  A bigger bubble and a serious second surgery now requires him to look down virtually 24/7 for another 10 days, even while sleeping at night.  Another 10 long days to see if this surgery is successful.  He is eating looking down, sleeping face down, listening to music face down, trying to read face down, with extremely swollen eyes, puffy face, eye discomfort, minute after minute, hour after hour, day in and day out.

Our new existence is tortuous for both of us.  He is sentenced to another 10 days in the house; I worry and come home to fix lunch and put eyedrops in four times a day.  No meals out, no social life, an eerily quiet existence as he often naps, still recuperating from the arduous surgery. Our previous normalcy seems distant.

 But with every storm comes the possibility of a rainbow. How can we see rainbows if we are looking down?  The rainbows are the prayers and positive thoughts of our friends and family.  The rainbows are the home-baked breakfast loaves of bread, the made-from-scratch bean dip, and the humorous and uplifting greeting cards left mysteriously on my desk and chair.

The rainbows are having my daughter Jennifer and her husband Ryan come and visit us Friday, Saturday and again tonight, just spending time as a family.  The rainbows are the gift cards for restaurants, symbols of hope for the future, one given by my entire World Language Department and another by my administrative team.  Rainbows of texts from old friends wanting updates and rainbows are prayer chairs.  Rainbows of homemade chicken noodle soup and deciding to have blueberry waffles for a Sunday lunch.  When and why did we ever get too busy for this scrumptious treat?

And so, in these difficult days of my husband looking down, I find myself longing to see his beautiful hazel eyes, unbruised and unswollen.  To me, that would be a rainbow. And just to correct Charlie Chaplain,  you really CAN find rainbows if you are looking down, thanks to love, good friends, and family.

If we are not busy being born, we are busy dying.

To paraphrase Bob Dylan, if we are not busy being born, we are busy dying.  Today I start blogging for the first time, and I believe part of the reason is that I hope I am being born every day by discovering new and wondrous things in life.

I started on this blogging journey at the encouragement mostly of my daughter and as part of my journey into the world of Twitter since last fall.  As a high school principal, I had been seeking an opportunity to better communicate with my learning community as well as connect positively to the greater community I serve and so I established a school Twitter and Facebook presence.  I was truly amazed how quickly our friends and followers embraced us and I truly enjoyed in particular recognizing our students and families through real time photos and their participation in athletic events, plays, concerts etc.

These tweets and posts led me to wanting to establish my own personal learning network and so I entered the world of Twitter.  I did not know what to expect but admit that Twitter is one of the best professional development choices I have made.  I truly love it for all of the reasons many of you do, and I also believe it has made me a better principal.  In the end, I do not believe that as principals we can continue to ask staff to move forward in technology and face the changes in accountability if we are not willing to do the same ourselves.

And so, now why start a blog?

1. I believe very strongly that principals and educators need to lead with empathy and enthusiasm for learning and for life.  We need to be the harbingers of ongoing hope and optimism.  After reading many tweets, blogs, and articles, it is easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of research and writing that clearly puts the burden for educational success and student achievement on us.  By blogging I hope to find a deeper connection with exemplary educators and gain exposure to your ideas and insights in leading.

2. Yesterday my daughter, also an educator and a National Writing Project consultant, helped me set up this blog.  She is a blogger and I have been mesmerized by her writing, her insights and the connections she has made with other educators.  After spending the morning with her about setting up this blog, I saw in her eyes all that is best about young educators today--bright and deeply committed to changing the lives of her ELL students. And I am amazed by her technology skills.  How did she ever learn all this, I ask her.  And she just grins and shakes her head without a answer.  And that is the difference between her generation of educators and mine.  She doesn't know how she learned it because she LIVES it.  I have to LEARN it.  Her whole life is different because she and her husband naturally use technology.  More importantly, she teaches differently and utilizes technology naturally in her classroom to improve her students' achievement, especially in literacy.  This year she taught her students how to blog and connect with the real world through writing and reading blogs in the Slice of Life project.  People from all over the world commented on their writing and reading and the world is their audience.  They grew immensely and I hope to experience what they did.

In the short hours we spent together in learning about blogging, I learned the importance of choosing the right background colors from her (Mom-- I have read that dark backgrounds and light print are more effective for blogs--the colors we chose are the Jerome school colors), widgets (she started losing me here, believe me) and the importance of choosing the right name for my blog. (Mom-- the name of your blog should reflect what you really believe about education or why you are blogging, but it can't be so long).  This led to a philosophical discussion with her on my core beliefs of education-- it was truly meaningful to be able to discuss this with her from one generation of an educator to another and from mom to daughter.

My title-- Every Student, Every Day is from my heart and reflects what I believe education, especially high school education, is and should be.  We work every day at getting better at this at Jerome, for it depends on every person in our building, secretary, custodian, teacher, administrator, and/or counselor to focus on changing the life of an individual student every day in some way, making a substantial personal connection.  Yes, our focus is academics but changing lives is our business, for the decisions we make daily and the decisions we help students make truly can and do affect the people they become and the learners they become after high school.  And the world needs good people and good learners.

3. I hope to blog to have my colleagues and other educators, perhaps even my students and parents, get to know me better.  Relationships are so important in education today and we can better build trust when we all know each other better.

4. I also hope to be a resource for other high school principals, particularly in collaboratively and interdependently working and sharing with them our ideas in Professional Learning Community work.  I have been significantly impacted by hearing Rick DuFour early in my admin career as an assistant principal and knew after that first meeting at the Franklin County ESC Principal Academy that PLC work is the work that high schools needed to be doing.  Having been a high school admin for 14 years now and principal now for 8 years in a new high school (this year we celebrate our 10th anniversary), PLC work has become my passion and guiding light in improving and creating a high school committed to student learning every day.  I am eager to learn from each of you who also have this same passion.

And so, I end my very first blog post.  I will be interested in what my daughter thinks (Mom-- it may be a little long :)) and I am interested in what you think.  I know that learning is living and that living is learning.  I strive to be born every day in learning. I know that every day as a high school principal and a high school educator is a challenge but one worth taking, for it is these wonderful students and colleagues that change my life for the better every day.  I also know that I hope to get better every day, and with your help, ideas, input and feedback, I hope to achieve that goal, as a person and as a principal.

With Celtic Pride,
Cathy