Book talks

I've enjoyed just being a teacher on this trip.  I've always been a special ed teacher at home and not considered on the same level as regular classroom teachers.  I like that all 13 of us teachers are just teachers of students.  There is no difference---We all just teach.  We are from all levels from high school to elementary, and all subject matter.  We all love to read and I've read some great books.  The first one is Savannah Blues--just light chic-lit---Another is Same kind of different as me.  It's a true story about Ron Hall and Denver Jones fromFtl Worth TX.  It's a story about how one woman can make big changes in the world.   The one I'm reading now is On the Divinity of Second Chances by Kaya McLaren .  It's all about how we deserve a second and maybe more chance when we make mistakes in life.  It's fiction.  I want to read to you a quote from the book today that made me cry.  It touched me and made me miss my family that I try to be the trunk of the tree for.  "Being inside the tree house while little branches blow around me reminds me of being in the safety of a mother's womb, in the womb of a dancing woman.  The tree strikes me as so feminine, the curves of her trunk, her delicate branches, and her leaves like a wild hat or a feather boa or precious jewels.  Or maybe this beautiful woman tree is cradling me in her arms.  I see myself in the woman tree.  I see within the tree, my family tree,each strong branch a child, and myself, the trunk, holding everyone up.  In the youthful leaves that tremble with the slightest wind, I see my children, vulnerable to the world and always reacting to it.  In the leaves, I come to see the chaos of my children's lives as natural.  I am the trunk, where people cut hearts like the painful experiences of motherhood, that eventually come to appear as beautiful.  I am what anchors my family in the wind, in the chaos, I cannot still my children, but I can anchor them.  The bark on the young branches is thin and vulnerable, whereas the bark on the trunk is strong.  Deep cracks in the bark, the woman tree's stretch marks and wrinkles, give it texture and beauty.  I feel the lines in my own face with my fingertips and think of that beautiful bark.  Silvery LIchen grows on the bark of the tree, like the silver that creeps into my hair.              I really liked that.  I might be a little sappy today, but I'm tired and its less than a week until I'm home and I'm turning 52 tomorrow.    I love you all.