Veterans Village 2017

It is a strange Christmas, my first one without Abuelo, the first one being no one's granddaughter.  There are no small children around, and things are almost excruciatingly quiet.
That is OK, I'll take it; I kinda hated chasing toddlers around anyway.

This year my parents asked for us to give things in their name instead of giving them gifts.

Because I was born partially disobedient, I sent them books (thank you Amazon Prime) but I also bought things for the veterans at Veterans Village in their name to add to the pile of donations from my students, former student-veterans, and a few angels out there who know who you are.

Mom and Dad, you sent 5 warm fuzzy blankets, 6 large soft towels, and 6 pairs of slippers to the Veterans. Oh and something else, but I'll get to to that in a minute.

Students from AMH2020 and my WOH class brought donations from December 1 - 8 that filled my office at TCC.

On December 20 (the day after my birthday, which starts the official "holidays") I moved all the stuff from my office to my house. This involved  a lot of going up and down stairs at work (until I remembered I could load the elevator) and concentrating really super hard on not getting locked out of 1) my car 2) the building and 3) my office.  

After THAT, I had to carry all the stuff into my house to be sorted out and counted.  

This is my fifth holiday season with the veterans and I have learned to not let people adopt particular veterans because some people get left out. I have learned to not bring wrapped gifts, and I have learned to make sure each veteran gets approximately the same gift(s).  

Yes, Zack asked if he could have a blanket and we had a quick discussion about the karma surrounding that kind of choice.  

After that, he joined me in stacking and counting and rolling.

I learned (from experience) to sort the shoes and clearly label them by size.  

 This year I wanted to do something new,  something that would represent how my parents always go a little bit extra, so I made gift bags for each veteran.  They are always asking for razors, so I gave them 2-3 triple bladed razors, a bunch of chocolate, and a few rocks and shells.

 This isn't the first time I've brought shells and rocks and asked questions like "how fast can a dead snail run" so don't worry about the veterans thinking they got coal in their stockings.

 Here is the story that explains rocks and shells:

http://www.melissapedia.com/2017/12/how-high-can-rocks-fly-part-1.html
http://www.melissapedia.com/2017/12/how-high-can-rocks-fly-part-2-do-http://www.melissapedia.com/2017/12/how-high-can-rocks-fly-part-3-how-fast.html

Anyway, I enjoyed this immensely.

After all that, I added a giftbag to every towel and tied a cute bow around the towel too because I'm representing my mom and while I tend to race through things, she always takes the extra time to make sure things are "nice."

After that, I  loaded up my car and headed out to meet other people from the TCC community (you know who you are!!) to give the veterans warm holiday food, plenty of sweets, and our wishes that the New Year will bring blessings, wisdom and happiness. 

B: Tally Rocks has taught me to find beauty and happiness in things other than people and social media.

AMH2020 student*

“We need more kindness, more compassion, more joy, more laughter. I definitely want to contribute to that.”- Ellen DeGeneres. This quote quiet honestly explains my motives as a human being. This world is filled with such negativity and bad juju that I just want to be able to give someone a reason to smile and be positive. I know I cannot throw a rock at someone and give them good juju, but I can paint them with positivity and happiness (although it would be nice to throw them at some people). 😊

            Tally Rocks is a group that started on Facebook. This group of people would paint rocks, some so amazing and beautiful I have no idea why they would take so long to paint a rock they are going to give away and some that you knew were going to be given away in heartbeat because the lack of an ability to be artsy (me). This group was created to spread happiness and to get people out and experiencing all the beautiful parks that are in Tallahassee and South Georgia. The purpose of Tally Rocks is to paint a rock or rocks anyway you want with something positive or that makes you happy. Once your down you take it to one of the many parks or anywhere honestly, I have seen a lot at Starbucks and Publix. When you find one you are supposed to take a picture of it and post it on Facebook, so the painter can see who found it and then you are to re hide it for someone else to find. It’s like a never-ending scavenger hunt. I LOVE IT!!

            I started doing Tally Rocks back over the summer, I work for a summer camp at a middle school that is right next to the greenway. As a craft we had the kids paint there own “masterpieces”, many just had rapper names like “lil boat” written on them. Afterwards we went for a walk to go hide the rocks. Majority of them ended up in the lake trying to and I quote’ “knock the gators out, Go Noles!” The others were hidden but everyone was happy and had a great time, no once was there fighting, or on their cellphones, all the kids were happy and enjoying the nature and fresh air, not the nasty gym air. I also would look for rocks after work with my best friend and her younger brothers before she left me to go to Gainesville for school (not cool). I have continued to participate to this day.

          Once I was told we had this project and the requirement I knew exactly what I wanted to do it on, Tally Rocks. The thing I love most about this is that it relates to my deepest value, happiness. We only have one chance to live this life we were given, and I think it is terrible to live it in sadness, fear, and negativity. Who wants to die sad and having done nothing that makes them or others truly happy? Happiness isn’t something that is hard to obtain, if can be something as little as listening to your favorite song or reading a funny quote or meme. The best thing about happiness is that once it starts it spreads like wild fire. Its like a drug, once you feel the endorphins in your body and the serotonin begins rushing into your brain creating happy thoughts, you never want to be without that feeling. I firmly believe that happiness is the key to living a good life. Through these rocks, I can give someone that ray or sunshine on a gloomy day. The person can stop see the creation and feel at least a small bit of enjoyment.

            All my life I have wanted to do something good for my community when I grew up. I also knew it wanted to involve helping the younger generations that would be walking in my footsteps. Thought it has changed from being a teacher, (No way in hell I could handle that) I still want to work with children. I have chosen to become a speech pathologist because not only am I able to help someone, I am able to help children better their language skills that will shape them for the rest of their lives. Seeing my best friend’s younger brothers’ excitement about participating in this experience brought so much love and joy into my heart.

            I started out painting the rocks by myself, but I began to feel as though I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. I didn’t have others around me this time to share in the excitement like I did over summer. I decide to call up my best friend and as if her brothers would be interested in painting rocks with me. The next day my phone was blowing up with text from the boys asking when we were going to paint. Later that day, I brought all the supplies over and we began to paint. Not even 3 minutes later, the only house was filled with middle schoolers who had come to paint the rocks with us. I can honestly say it was a well spend 2 hours. (This photo was before the avalanche of children arrived).

         

After the rocks dried for about a week, we took them to the park and spread them around. Everyone wanted to find the best hiding space for there rock. Some put them in plan sight like on the running trail or on a post while other hide them in more difficult places, like in between 2 wedges of the bridge or in a hole of a tree branch. We spent a good 3 hours out at the greenway
hiding these rocks. We even found a few of our own that we later re-hid at another park.

I believe that this experience will help the community by bringing people together to show everyone that there is happiness to be found in everything. No matter how small. I know that Tally Rocks has taught me to find beauty and happiness in things other than people and social media.

How High Can Rocks Fly: Part 3: How fast can dead snails run?

I will forever remember finding a particular envelope the week after Christmas while sorting through odds and ends and putting away decorations and writing syllabi.

I thought the paper envelope was filled with some sort  of fragrance beads, so I got a glass bowl, opened the envelope and shook them out. A bunch of yellow beads fell out, accompanied by about 50 tiny assorted seashells mixed in with tiny beads.

 I spent the better part of the afternoon admiring each one of them and then placing them in to a spiral pattern in the bowl.  I loved each of them.

The seashells tell a story about creatures effortlessly – almost helplessly -- creating beautifully perfect geometric art that they leave as their gift. 

These creatures did not have the choices of  being kind and helpful – or did they? Am I underestimating them? -- but still they found a way to be generous.

 I suddenly want to know more about the communities of whatever these are but oh wait. I am dumbstruck. Entirely.

  I am a grown human being and I do not know what to call the creature that lived and died and created seashells.

Are they snails? I’m thinking snails are land things. 

Snails are like Gary on Spongebob.  Wait, is Spongebob really under the sea? Is Gary a native underwater sea snail  or is he from above the water like Sandy the Squirrel and does that explain why Gary meows?  I want to look this up but stay on track.

The creatures that made these seashells can’t be “snails” and I’m stumped but motivated to get through this and find the right word so I can finish writing this and finally grade.

 I think of typing in “What died to become a seashell?”  or “How are seashells made?”  but I think google would laugh at me. 

Of course I know how seashells are made.

They are made by math, by the golden spiral and by the Pythagorean swirly square root thing.

Each sea shell is  made by a divine creature that instinctively grew at exactly the right speed; they could not go faster or slower, they could not grow into a shape any different than the one they were intended to become.  

I can’t imagine they were aware of their shells, but then I can also imagine an entire show based on snails having shell envy and some snails getting plastic shell surgery to look more like a conch. 

I finally did search “how are seashells made” and have an answer that is boring and ugh.  The smug top sentence for any big search should be disregarded. 

 Then I switched to google image search and got this treasure for you. You’re welcome.

At least now I have an answer.

A variety of sea creatures leave their shells.  They have all sorts of names. Mollusks and clams and oysters and guess what?  As the narrator I get to make choices and for this story we are going to call them sea snails, and leave their names a mystery that died when their entire family-village perished in whatever catastrophic event that caused all these shells to be seeking refuge halfway around the world from their home.

How do I know they are from far away? The tag on the bag of shells read “Made in the Philippines.” Of course I read it, I look for hints and clues everywhere, all the time.

It did not mention whether the contents were food or could be given to children – do they care if anyone is harmed? -- but I bless their hearts anyway, because that’s the right thing to do.

The Philippines are pretty far away from Tallahassee, an unimaginable distance to be covered by any snail, much less a dead one.

That’s right. I now realize my question is really “How fast can a dead snail run?” and the answer has been answered by every single one of these shells.

 It moved as quickly as it needed to in order to go where it was intended to go, and the universe did the rest of the work.

--------

*On exam day I will have enough rocks and stones so that each of you can pick two shells and two stones; one of each to keep, and one of each to give away. 

How High Can Rocks Fly: Part 2: Do not give rocks to children.

I have to answer the question I don’t know how to ask before I can write something I want to give my students before they take their final exams. 

 For years now, ever since at least 2010 when we lost two people in one class, I have given my students lucky rocks at the end of the semester as tangible evidence of my gratitude for our time together and my good wishes for their future.

 We usually begin Final Exam day with stories and rocks (and for a bit there was a picture thing and once or twice I wore my Harry Potter-looking Ph.D. stuff), but that always left out the student who tiptoed in 3 minutes late, or the students who were so genuinely wrapped up in memorizing the parts of the Treaty of Paris (1898) they were unable to listen.  I don't blame them.

I would not want any student to feel left out, so this year I will give them something to read (this).

One of the reasons I love rocks is they remind me that I have a choice in what I keep and what I leave behind.   

I hope that you all take pieces of this class with you, the good parts, the parts that meant something to you.

 If there were times in the semester when you felt frustrated at me or disappointed in yourself, I hope you choose to put that rock down.

One of the things that makes us human is our ability to question things and to invent stories.  Rocks cannot tell you about the 1968 election and connect it to both the Nixon Doctrine and Watergate. 

No matter how hard they try, rocks can’t tell stories.  Rocks have other uses.

Do rocks worry about being useful? Successful? Important?  Lost? 

Would worrying help the rocks get to where they are destined to go?  

Can rocks fly?  Did this rock come from outer space?  Was it part of a meteor once? 

I do not know. 

I did read once that humans are made of stardust. Stardust pulsing though our veins, connecting us to things that have been and will become. Perfectly amazing. 

https://www.space.com/35276-humans-made-of-stardust-galaxy-life-elements.html

I don’t know how high these rocks can fly, but your rock has flown from where it was and then will end up exactly where it is intended to be, at exactly the speed it needed to go.

There. Question answered.

Now something else.  When I bought the rocks there was tag on the bag with was a notice smaller than a fortune cookie that read, “Not for children under 14. Not for food.”

I shook my head.

Who needs to be told that????

What horrible person would be giving rocks to kids? Or think rocks are food?  

Still, there must be a reason for them to have taken the resources to have printed and affixed those particular rules to these rather rock-like rocks. 

I choose to practice radical acceptance, so I’m going to practice believing that those two rules are crucial.  

Rule #1: Do not give rocks to children.

Whoa. YES! Best rule ever. Brilliant. Profound, even.

If you give a child a rock, they might cry.   They were hoping for maybe candy or your Netflix password or to use your wireless headphones. 

You can’t always tell if someone is a child or not based on their age, but you will definitely know if a person is ready to believe rocks are magic and that you are offering them treasure.   

If they don’t want your treasure, leave them to the universe to learn what they need to learn on their wisdom path today.

Rule #2: Rocks are not for food.  

Yeah. Right! Anyone who has heard the fable about stone soup knows that rocks can be the key ingredient in making a community feast. 

I am aware that more than one hundred students are  waiting for me to finish writing this and post exam grades, so for expediency sake, here is a recap of the story à

http://www.dltk-teach.com/fables/stonesoup/mtale.htm

Our service projects this semester have been our stone soup.  Each student has chosen to use their talents to contribute to a greater mission resulting in something bigger and more awesome than we each could have made on our own.

But OK. Still.  I had agreed to agreeing to the two rules and I’m breaking my rule to follow the rules.

 Good thing I don’t have an editor to answer to. Good thing I don’t have to worry about getting a grade on this essay.  

Rocks are not for food. This is probably the stupidest rule ever.  

If we are at the point where people are eating so many rocks that there are rock shortages and rock overdoses lets reconvene and figure out what bad choices lead our society down that to that path.  Was it Yalta? Was it Perestroika? Can it be connected in any way to blaming Mexico for forcing us to join WW1?

Wait, I am still not agreeing.

Radical acceptance might be against my nature, so I have to practice harder than other people. Here we go.

Do not eat rocks. Be careful what you ingest, be careful that it isn’t toxic or harmful.  Practice kindness to yourself, you are treasure.

 Do not feed rocks to people. Do not feed anything harmful to other people. They, also, are treasure.

 Wish for yourself health and protection; offer the same wish for everyone else.   

Now I see it.

The people who bagged these rocks took the time to wish their rocks would do no harm.

Bless their hearts.

I’m almost ready to finish this story and grade that stack of exams that looms next to me on my desk, but not until I answer the question I’m still figuring out how to ask.

(continued)

(there are only 3 parts, then I really really have to grade.....)