Our Year in Bits and Pieces

The BU is almost a year old! Twelve months of recipes, antics, activities, and churning, newspaper-lined, twisting, twelve-speed, relentless, loud, paint-splattered learning. Learning is more than a school activity, it's an approach to life that never gives up. It's your little way of saying that no matter what comes your way, you will gain something from it. Life becomes a job never finished. If you're like me, you find that rewarding.

In moments like this, I look back on the last little chunk of time and admire how all of the little pieces fit together. Sometimes a few events just seem to flow into each other and, in a moment of reflection, the thing as a whole seems more significant.*

*Here's where some exercise their spiritual side, and find answers in religion or philosophy. We are not officially guided by any belief system, as a family. Each of the students of the BU is free to decide which truths ring truest to them as they grow up.

I'll start with the movie, Wasteland.  It's on Netflix's Instant Watch list. It's not rated. I'd recommend an adult watch it before deciding whether a kid they're in charge of should watch it. It is an uplifting documentary, but the people it follows are living hard lives, and their stories can get gritty.

In it, artist Vik Muniz brings change into the lives of Brazilian dump dwellers, called catadores. Inspired and aided by these people who make their living sorting recyclable materials, he uses his talent to earn money for them, while shining a light on the dignity with which they face each day. He photographs portraits of catadores; images made from the recyclable materials they gather.

 He then sells photographs of these portraits and returns the money to the catadores, along with their own copy of the portrait. This film left lingering notions, in my head, of moving things around, collecting many small simple things into one larger effort. A good idea and a bit of art can go a long way toward making the world a better place.

Not long after that, Japan was hit with an extremely destructive tsunami, and endured weeks of radiation contamination, and looming threat of nuclear disaster. The news was heart-breaking  and my thoughts were often with the people there. An organization called Students Rebuild announced an art project for the people of the world. Paper cranes: fold 'em, send 'em.  Take your sadness, your empathy, your healing, your compassion, your hope and your love and make it into creased little bits of paper and mail them in. Each crane brings them a couple of dollars in donation money, and will be used in an art installation.  Henry and I each made one and mailed them.

We meant to make many more, and did make a few more, but only two actually got mailed before the cut-off date. Just two little cranes, carrying all of our best wishes for the people affected by the disaster.

People everywhere, mostly children, made and sent cranes to Students Rebuild. They received millions of cranes. Then, you guessed it, Vik Muniz got involved!

Using his trademark style, he arranged the cranes into this image, photographed it, and copies of the poster earn more money to help finance the reconstruction efforts.

 His involvement with this project reignited my desire to find more little things to do, either as a gesture, a lesson, a solution to a problem, or all three.

Which brings me to Kiva. Kiva is an organized database of microlenders and their potential borrowers. Somebody with relatively little money ($25 plus a few bucks in fees) can pick a person, read their business plan, and help finance it. All the little bits of money come together to make a real boost in the dreams of someone out there. I decided we'd start cashing in our cans and saving the odd nickel and penny we see here and there, and bring it all together.

 I made this chart to keep track of each dollar we stored in a tin bucket on a high shelf.

It was tempting not to take a five dollar bill and throw it in the jar, just to speed things along. I really wanted to get to that $25 mark by Christmas, but I stayed patient and we gathered the money slowly. Up until a few weeks ago, we were holding steady at $20.  Then, one day, Henry tried on a coat I bought him at a thrift store, put his hand in the pocket and pulled out a five dollar bill. Try that with your "new" "clothes"! We added the money to the jar, deposited it in the bank, and picked our borrower. Good luck Etienne!

And let's not forget our Puppy Adventures, which are mostly over now.

Right before Thanksgiving, with a huge storm blowing, a pregnant young dog found herself suddenly without a home. Our local shelter picked her up and issued a request on Facebook, looking for someone who would foster her through her pregnancy and the weaning of her puppies. It would be a commitment of attention and care for several months. I talked it over with the family and we contacted the shelter.

 She arrived the next day. We named her Holly, and she proceeded to charm our family and fill our Christmas with eight beautiful puppies.For a month, she was in charge of them. After that, she started to feed them less and seem less interested in them. We had hoped she might stay with us, but being in a house with puppies she was no longer feeding seemed to make her restless. We tried hard to make it work, but Holly needed to move on. She went back to the shelter, and has been adopted by a lady in a nearby town. We'll always love her and think of her.

The puppies stayed here,

and grew up so that they could move on to new homes of their own.

When you tell people you're hosting a litter of puppies, people always say, "What a great learning opportunity for the kids! It will be so good for them to be around a litter of puppies!" That's very true, like a lot of things people always say. The puppies also learned a lot, from Mae.

They learned songs. They learned that the little one is the one who makes you wish you never even heard of being picked up. They learned to wun, and wun and wun. In Puppy School, Headmistress Mae ruled with a chubby iron fist, and all puppies did frolic with a diligent pursuit of excellence.

Holly and her puppies brought us innumerable lessons of immeasurable worth. A pregnant dog is science in action. The older two boys collaborated on a paper, outlining the needs of a pregnant dog, complete with correct terminology. They felt Holly's belly, as puppies squirmed and kicked inside of her, giggling with anticipation. We can't wait for you to get here puppies! and the puppies say, "Oh kids, you have no idea how much we can't wait to play with you too." They lived up to that promise. Once they were able, they gave each kid a lesson.

When Holly did go into labor, we gave her space, but Henry watched over my shoulder as one of her puppies slid into the world and drew its first breath. It takes a lot for a modern hip teenage boy to stare agape and whisper "Wow", but that moment did it. When they were bigger and more playful, they taught Thomas a thing or two about being energetic and exuberant, two things he wrote the proverbial book on.

George.

George is a unique kid. He's very smart, and deeply sweet, but he doesn't talk much. As someone who spends a lot of time with kids, I can tell he's not like his older brothers were at this age (6).  I know I could train him to behave more like some people expect him to act, but his marvelous little personality makes me think. Maybe there's not that much around him that makes him feel the way we think we feel about everything. Maybe he knows his family loves him, and that's good. He doesn't need to think about whether he loves us back. He's looking for something more interesting to do.

Enter: the puppies. From the second they arrived, the puppies have been interesting to George. He was always near when we got them out to hold them, and despite the fact that they were wiggly and sometimes scratchy or bitey he kept coming back for more. He loves them. He said so.

As they grew, he was allowed to pick them up and carry them more. He did, and cuddled them for naps, wrote their names, read to them, proclaimed his love for them, talked to them and talked to us about them. He also counted them, and learned to tell which gender they were.

One day, when I was reading in a chair, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked back to see George, smiling at me. I scooped him up onto my lap, hugged him, and thought about how that had never happened before. I believe those puppies inspired him to feel affectionate. They motivated him to keep hugging and holding in spite of their weird wiggling spontaneity. Once he enjoyed sharing warmth with something he loved, he brought that discovery to me, because he loves me and he knows I love him. It was an unforseen benefit to bringing together some of life's little misfits and cast-aways, cleaning up after them, and hoping for the best.

Speaking of unforseen benefits, when I read that Facebook notice, asking for a home for Holly and her puppies, I never could have guessed it would make this friend from forever ago and far away come all the way out here to visit us and take one of the puppies home!

Do you see the icing in this photo? Because it was on the cake. Pure extra fun, hanging out, visiting the dump, and chowing down at the Chalet. It was a big deal for Leah to come to Oregon, she has a family at home in New Mexico. Still, she seemed to agree with me, that Holly was special, and that her first born girl, Judy, might be worth the trip.

We are puppy sisters, because one of the other daughters of Holly is staying here at the BU. We're calling her Zelda and she's a student for life, right here where she was born.

 She fits in well with our family of humans, dogs, cats and pig. We're keeping her away from the chickens for now.

It might be a little late for this confession, but I kind of have no idea what I'm doing here. I didn't decide to pull my kids out of school and start a blog and watch a movie and do some origami and cash in some cans and take in a pregnant dog and call all of it a school year. That would have been crazy. Yet, that's what ended up happening. I liked it and intend to keep it up.

Whatever you want to call it, there's something that compels each of us to see our lives the way we do and make the choices we make. And, though events that unfold don't seem to have our constant happiness in mind, each tiny moment is a whole new chance at life; like a little piece of paper, a discarded aluminum can, or a silly puppy. What you do with these little bits and pieces makes a big difference.