Praying for Henry

Henry is in the black top-hat

Tomorrow Henry is having his big surgery. Early in the morning. He's only a week into this journey, this picture taken right before Thanksgiving at the fifth grade program. Henry is the son of Kate and Matt. Henry is in Mr. Highum's fifth grade class with Mary at Deerwood. Henry sings in the children's choir at Easter Church.

Henry is a child of God, who happens to have just found out he that he has a brain tumor.

Everything looks very good on paper, so the doctor says. Still there is no simple brain tumor. You can read Matt's entries to the caring bridge site. http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/henryfranken.

I don't think much learning will be getting done at Deerwood tomorrow, and I don't think Easter folks will be able to focus on anything much more than the continuous prayer that started less than a week ago.

Never was there a kid more loved, and lifted in prayer than Henry Franken is right now.

Lord,
Be with Henry tomorrow. Be with Kate and Matt and the grandparents. Be with the children and teachers of Deerwood. Be with my friend Pastor Kris. Be with the doctor who knows the intricacies of the human brain more than we can even imagine. Be with every nurse. Send your angels to surround the entire hospital, to guard everyone there. Lord, we need 100% here. One hundred percent success. We ask for a clean removal of that which does not belong in that precious perfect kid. We know that Henry is your child, but he's also the child of Kate and Matt and the child of Deerwood and the child of Easter. We want our kid to get on with his life. Hear the prayers of us all. We love you Lord.
Amen.

Thanksgiving People

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, LIGHTS!

Hmmm. 

Taking pictures and eating a cheeseburger. Happy husband. 

Cold, cold cabin. 

The Thanksgiving holiday always makes me think about the past. All the Thanksgivings.

Growing up--and I've told this story before--Thanksgiving was a Stephens holiday. We would always track a couple hours across Iowa farmland to the Ainsworth area, whether it was to Grandpa Gene and Ethel's foursquare on the edge of town, or to Dale and Maureen's or to Jim and Peg's. The farm houses were always cold compared to our town house. It was I imagine the wind more than the frame or structure of the home. I do remember being pulled behind a tractor on a sled. Most years there was already snow. And the boys going out hunting. And football. And cats. I sought out whatever cats were to be found. There was a toy barn and all the fix'ns in the basement. And dominos. It all depended upon who's house we were at. It was also the turning point to Christmas. On the way home we were finally allowed to sing Christmas carols. There was no sirius radio, nor tape deck, nor Cd player nor all Christmas all the time radio station. We sang. In the cold car with cold feet. My sister and I.

In college it was never so predictable. One Dean year, down to New Orleans and crawfish and the famous cajun "when yo barefoot and pregnant with three young'ns at yo feet you be eat'n whats put on yo plate" quote. Complete with figs. The next year, after we broke up. . . his two air force buddies drove me all the way up 35 to Iowa with a 12 pack of Mountain Dew and four tanks of gas. American heroes. Broken heart. Being home. Grace.

The years with my friend Ginny in her big fancy Austin house, she was married. We sang around the piano and drank too much and talked about Jesus. She died of cancer a couple years after she sang at our wedding.

There were five years of Lost Wolf gigs, mostly around Houston, on Thanksgiving night, complete with saw dust and ropers. Those years I spent with Casey and left in the afternoon for the gig. Lonesome late night drives. Breaking out the Christmas music as tradition allowed. By now, I had a CD player in my car and a handful of Christmas titles.

Since kids, Thanksgiving has become a Kotrba holiday. It started with the trips to Nisswa. Another cold drafty cabin. By now I have invested in wool socks. Cooking dinner on a cabin stove. Fireplaces that kickback a little smoke. Nursing babies and potty training and packing bins and bins of toy trains and blocks because that just the kind a panicked parents we were--with DVD players that hooked on the back of car seats.

We didn't know that fourteen years later we would own the place.

When Bill's folks got their Deerwood cabin, we came there. Ann and Dave, well, all eight of us would find a corner to sleep there, mostly kids on an air mattress in our room. They snore and snort and wake up at ungodly hours of the morning and watch Christmas DVDs a little too loud in the living room under blankets. Always perfect turkey and stuffing. And sweet potatoes. Diane and needlepoint. More years of wooden trains and puzzles and legos, because four days took a lot of toys in those days. Fast forward to a teenager sleeping till nine and asking Siri where James Bond is playing. Packing is easier now--just a phone and headphones. We can still count on Mary to pack a couple bins of dolls and crafts. Always a puzzle to drive you crazy and keep you up too late. Something to put your mind on before the Christmas rush.

Friday night in Nisswa is a special time. A unique small town gathering with a big chamber of commerce that puts on a lively festival, complete with the lights countdown, santa on the firetruck, reindeer, shopping and punctuated with fireworks. Only in Minnesota do we stand out in ten degrees and watch fireworks. This year they were set to music piped throughout the "downtown." It's as old fashioned as it gets in 2015. Live nativity. Carolers. Always a craft in the pioneer village school house. Always something with beads or peanut butter. It's a good home away from home. Hot cocoa and cheeseburgers and kettle corn and fudge. It's a worthy tradition.

As worthy as growing up shopping with my mom, my sister and my grandma in downtown Davenport. It wasn't called black Friday back then. There were storefront displays with movable carolers. Bishops buffet with french silk pie and ham and french fries and balloons with little cardboard feet. As worthy as Petersons departments store, where I set out with a $20 bill to complete my entire Christmas shopping list. We will meet at the aquarium in children's shoes. I'm on my own for the morning. At eight years old. My mother will be late and I will wait alone with the fish because there is no cell phone to text her. After lunch I'll walk a couple stores down to the office supply store and get my dad a fancy pen. We will rush home to see Rudolph on the actual TV once an actual year.

I do miss the Stephens' Thanksgiving. This year there was a trip to the Ainsworth cemetery, to say some goodbyes to cousin Stacey there with Grandpa Gene and Ethel and my dad. I missed that. We can't do it all.

We are Thanksgiving people. Times change. Kids grow. Grownups get older. Traditions morph.
Sometimes you bake the sweet potatoes instead of making the casserole. All the sudden you add creamed spinach. These Thanksgivings and their photos mark time. We take one year at a time and treasure each one. I'm thankful for it.

Well, it's 9:35 and my kids are up and in-laws and even Bill. Real time is interrupting my trip down memory lane and I suppose I should be there for this actual morning. Time to put the fix'ns on the lefse for Mary. Time to make breakfast around the puzzle on the worktable. Time to insist the kids have a tall glass of milk with the chocolate pop tart. Time to plan the trip to Christmas point with Mary and Diane. Time for the boys to get ready for James Bond. Without Ann and Dave, I don't think we are gonna finish the puzzle this year, and I'll have to live with that. There are crafts to do and real new memories to be made.

I'm thankful for it all.  . .
Happy Thanksgiving.

Calibrating Our Compass

Book One Graduation Recital Treats!  

Hello friends. I miss writing here.

Compassion. Patience.

Things have been crazy to the point of crazy here.

I got the call from a parent. A parent I love and trust.

I hurt some feelings.

When someone tells you that you hurt her feelings you don't get to say, no I didn't.

God bless those people in our lives who help us return to our better selves. They calibrate our compass.

Every single time you think you are going to play hard ball with a student--get them in line--with your system--it always, always, always backfires.

Every time sarcasm creeps in it always, always, always backfires.

There is always, always, always something going on that we don't know about. Always. Some people just have it harder. Some kids. We don't always get to know why.

Changing the subject, kinda. Another teenager who isn't practicing. Why? If they love the piece and love playing the piano why wouldn't they want to dig in and do the work? I don't know. I actually didn't yell. . . or even get negative. . . because you know. . . we don't know what's under that tip, under that dark water. But I was frustrated.

Stages of learning a piece: I love this piece, I've always wanted to play this. Hmmm, it's kinda hard. Hmmmm, it's really hard. I'm really awful. I'm REALLY awful. Hmmm, it's starting to come together a little. . . . hey. . . I LOVE THIS PIECE.

What are they gonna look back and remember? I guess I want him to look back and remember a teacher who sat there and practiced with him when he didn't have the motivation to do it himself. I want him to remember that we took something hard and made it easy. That someone had the patience to break it down and work it out and not give up.

Someone didn't let him get stuck in the I'm awful stage.

Changing the subject, kinda. Mary and I go round and round about her STUFF and getting out of the door on time. . . to anywhere. . . all the time.

I'm sure she feels like I'm frustrated with her much of the time. I'm am frustrated.

But I had to remind her, I mean ME. These are not matters of the heart. Her heart is as pure as the driven snow. She thinks about other people. She just has a lot of stuff. And. . .she just has a lot to say, when I have a lot on my mind.

These are matters of habit. Putting things away. Getting ready, including shoes and trinkets and books, before we disappear into a corner reading. These are matters of self discipline, which are habits we develop.

I don't love you less in the epicenter of the storm in your room. I want to hear what you have to say. It's just that you can't talk and remember your safety patrol belt and your snack and your homework while you tell me that fabulous story.

We used to tell Calvin, "minimize that, we will click on it again in the car."
What's her equivalent? She does better with love.

Don't we all.

Compassion. Patience.
Calibrating our compass.
Again. And again. And again.

God bless the people know the song in our heart and sing it back to us when we have forgotten the words.

Amen.

Our Greatest Responsibility

Sometimes when things get stressful you have to draw up some new pre-twinkle flash cards

There is always a lot going on. In the world, in our neighborhoods, and in our families. I now have three kids within one degree of separation from me who have been shot. One lived. I'm a white upperclass suburban piano teacher. I'm a conservative who is just about to go door to door and take away the guns from the idiots. I'm not sure who is an idiot and who isn't. . . but. . . I guess that's part of the deal.

We've been working super hard on the November Suzuki Association of Minnesota Fall workshop.  It's gonna be great but we have to get the news out there and get people to actually sign up!  

Sometimes you just nag, nag, nag because people in your own house leave SO MUCH STUFF everywhere. 

Tra la la. 

I brought St. Francis in from the garden and put him on the staircase. I'm reading a book about him, and here is a great quote:

Fear, constriction, and resentment are seen by spiritual teachers to be an inherent blindness that must be overcome. Those emotions cannot get you anywhere, certainly not anywhere good. Thus all mystics (St. Francis) are positive people--or they are not mystics! Their spiritual warfare is precisely the work of recognizing and then handing over all of their inner negativity and fear to God. The great paradox here is that such a victory is a total gift from God and yet somehow you must want it very much.  Page 9, Eager to Love, The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi, by Richard Rohr. 

He goes on to reference Philippians 2, verses 12 through 16 which I'll let you look up if the spirit moves you.  

This is the biggest deal. To turn over negativity at every moment, every day. That is our warfare. At least it's mine. I'm guessing it's also for teachers, parents and everyone else. We have to develop the conscious habit of being positive. And recommit again and again and again. We have to practice being positive. We must want it very much. 

It just always catches me off guard, like when the driver behind me is flailing her arms in anger because I didn't turn fast enough. It takes constant practice to create calm.  

I tell parents, don't let practice be negative for more than a day. Reflect and change things up. It's our responsibility.  

It's not just a stifling or denial of human nature, there is plenty of real bad stuff out there and our kids and students are gonna do plenty of truly annoying things. We have to correct the behavior. We just have a responsibility to our people to do this in a positive way. 

I return to that mantra. Correct the behavior, correct the behavior, correct the behavior.  Don't get swallowed up in negativity and project the end of the world onto your daughters inability to tidy her room or your student's complete lack of practice or the helplessness of whatever is on the news.  

Work out your positivity with fear and trembling. This is our work. This is our responsibility. 

This may be our greatest responsibility. To remain positive again and again and again. Moment by moment, breath by breath. 

No one ever practiced because they got yelled at. Nobody ever gained a spark of joy tidying their things without a hopeful process. No one ever signed up for a workshop because the committee got cross. And I don't have a cute little answer for the gun control.  How do you teach a nation that their lives and the lives of others are sacred, it's not a game to play. One kid at a time, sweet Jesus. 

What the heck, I'm gonna close with that scripture anyway. . . 

"Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain." Philippians 2:12-16. 

We must want it very much. I think that is enough for now. 

Powers of Observation

On this fall walk the sights and sounds and smells were so delicious. How much we learn from the observations of our senses. A picture is worth 1,000 words. Listening to a passage just one time clarifies confusion. One of the tenants of our Suzuki programs is to learn using our senses.  

At the individual level, this means we try to use fewer words while we work with young children. We try to demonstrate and allow them to learn with their ears and their eyes and with gentle touch.

At the studio level, we can also learn using our senses. This happens best by observing the lessons of other families.

I don't ever ask students if it's okay for families to observe their child's lesson. It's just a given that folks will be coming and going. Observation is a big part of a thriving studio. Children see the lessons of their peers and instantaneously understand the big picture. This is how we bow, this is how the teacher greets me, this is how the lesson goes, this is how she borrows my hand, these are the games we play and the fun we have, while getting down to business.

Parents learn from observation as well. Guess what, my child is not the only one who ever did something flakey during a lesson. Kids are kids and they have great days and not so great days. Your child is not the perfect child and you are not the perfect parent.  But you are the perfect parent for your child.  Parents hear upcoming pieces and get a glance into the details and processes that are yet to come.

I have several families who started lessons this summer and fall. They are doing their required observations.

I'm going to go out on a limb and expand this requirement. I'm going to ask each student and family in my entire studio to observe the lesson of at least one other student each semester. It makes the most sense to observe someone at your age and skill level or a slightly older wiser student. I'll be handing out the updated weekly schedule and parents can shoot me a text when they are coming to observe,  just in case there is a special circumstance that day, or one of the children is ill or absent.

Observing also expands the joy of community in our circle. Parents say good job to other kids or little words like, "hey, you have really added some dynamics to that Sonatina since group lesson." Maybe even just noticing that you lost a tooth.

Kids will earn a Kotr-buck for their effort--and parents will continue to grow and understand--watching someone else's lesson costs you nothing and you gain so much--just using the power of observation.

Almost as Good as a Wild Turkey

Sometimes you get wild turkeys and sometimes you get a silly song.

Yesterday Mary got out of the car singing, which is not unusual. But, the little guys in my brain started perking up because there was familiarity I couldn't put my finger on. One more phrase and I was singing along and I knew all the words. The little guys were simultaneously furiously going through the file cabinets behind my eyebrows looking for the sheet music or something to turn the light on.

And all at once I heard my Dad's voice coming out of that little blond haired girl's mouth.

Barbershop.

Quartet.

Competition.

It was a song from my Dad's barbershop quartet days. Yes, there is a sub-culture of barbershop quartet competitors. And my Dad belonged. And as Dr. Suzuki reminds us--we learn the language we grow up with.

Okay, it was like a DNA thing.

And it was such a damn happy song. . . I had to keep singing along.

Hey Look Me Over

For Stacey

Yesterday was my sister's birthday, and we lost our cousin, Stacey.

Indulge me to imagine my Grandpa Gene greeting her with a big hand shake that turns to a hug carrying a huge bag of animal crackers, and Grandma Ethel waiting with scissors to give her a heavenly haircut. They'll put on a pot of coffee and start the eternal catching up at the kitchen table.

My Dad will take a break from singing and turkey hunting to tease her and he'll come up with some off color pun about the volatility of pancreases. They don't make'm like they used to--or something to make you look down and shake your head.

There's no fixing this for those that remain. But I do believe that Stacey's life here is but a speck on her canvas. Knowing her, and her heart, she will make sure that everyone down here that loves her is well taken care of.

I'm gonna be watching for the turkeys today. And I know that everything will be okay.