Posted by Xine at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: 2010 Winter Games , British Columbia , Erick McCormack , Kim Cattrall , Michael J. Fox , Ryan Reynolds , Sarah McLachlan , Steve Nash , YouTube

Our chicken is in Junior Kindergarten and brought home her first report card. She didn’t tell us of course, we found it on the floor, just outside the main bathroom. It’s clear EM had other things on her mind.

It’s not so much a report card, as a report folder. Parents are asked to return the signed report cover to school.

The school’s motto is: do your best through truth and courage. And, for a quick moment, our heart’s raced as we opened the front cover. We stared at the report card and read the comments aloud. Dev raced to call his mom. I’m now online.

• We learned that EM enjoys songs, stories and presentations.
• She can accurately describe how her pupil works, can follow directions in French and is a risk-taker in Mandarin (!)
• She is learning to sing in tune and keep a steady beat.

And on one occasion, informed her teacher Miss V: I can balance on one foot, and I am balanced because I eat all my vegetables. I am good at making the number four and want to get better at riding bikes.

Her favourite senses are smell and taste: I liked smelling and tasting because I liked making applesauce and tasting sweet things, but I don’t like tasting walls.

Our home may be filled with crayons, markers and sparkles; she’s attended art classes at the Victoria Art Gallery since she was 18 mos old. And we have had, on more than one occasion, a lengthy discussion about drawing on walls - but in class we learn that she rarely participates in craft sessions, responding with a polite “no thank you.”

The report card gives us a glimpse into our daughter’s world. This green folder, casually strewn on the floor, marks the beginning of her academic struggles and triumphs.

EM is now fast asleep. I am typing in the dark and reveling in the wonder of it all.

Posted by Xine at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: chicken , parenting , report card , school

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

Posted by Xine at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: Autumn , Death , Mary Oliver , Poetry