The quilt I made on Beyonce's birthday

I overheard that Beyonce turned 33 today, one of the little quilt squares the radio handed me this morning as I was rushing out the door. Every day I make a quilt from these handouts: worn bits of fabric, the crusts of bread cut from sandwiches, sneezes and spilled popcorn and half-comprehended news bulletins from the radio. I thread them clumsily together throughout the day, grabbing a moment to stitch and form a seam, fumbling through the hallways of academic buildings as the threads come unspooled.

I will try to wind them around the spool later as I sit by the beds of my children; I am held a willing hostage to the Frozen soundtrack, which we cannot let go of--the irony.

I try to add the moment this morning where I stood outside of my son's classroom, a spectator to him calling his sister, already at the other end of the hall. I grab the square where she turned on her heels and came back and hugged her little brother. Where we could have had loose ends, a gaping hole in the quilt where the hallway meltdown ripped apart our efforts to all have a good morning, our girl busted out one important stitch.

I will patch the part later where our boy told me my stomach was the size of a chicken. I will try not allow that patch to call too much attention to itself, as did our boy when he told me over frozen yogurt, "Well, your tummy IS really BIG." I will remember how I accepted his apology, just as the other quilt squares will absorb this unwieldy one into the whole.

This is the quilt I will wrap myself in at the end of the day, pondering what Beyonce will do as she begins this new year of life. What kind of silks and imported fibers will she have to work with for her own quilt; how will the couture fitting go and will she wear it better than anyone else?

I am the only one who will see my quilt, who will know the places where I pricked myself trying to bridge all the scattered pieces. I will run my hand over its ripples and edges and shoddy patchwork and I will call it significant, real, mine, beautiful.

P.S. Happy Birthday, Bey.

McRevelation

It came to me when I was chopping green beans tonight, what it all meant, as all shattering revelations do. As I beheaded and befooted the beans, I realized where I went wrong. I had to get up a little earlier than usual to get the kizzle off to school so that I could meet the new freshmen in our department and venture on our community service. It's a campus tradition that before classes begin, the first year students gather and do a morning service project together at a local agency. We were told we were headed to Ronald McDonald house (love) and that we would be helping with a mailing.

We were off to a winning start as my children were still pro-hugging in hallways with their mom as I dropped them off at school. Also on the positive list are the new crop of students sent to our department, especially as this crop of students seems gregarious and sort of undaunted about the extroversion inflicted upon them during orientation.

Still, I have to say that I sort of felt, I don't know, like I was doing this really huge sacrifice today. That I was Giving Up All the Gold that is Kendra's morning that could be better spent writing syllabi, or better yet, adding crap to her Target Cartwheel app. Instead I had to shepherd some people born in the late '90s WHO PROBABLY DON'T EVEN KNOW ABOUT DOING THE CARLTON, to a place I'd never been, to do work that I was not all that dazzled about doing, probably while making small talk which it is well documented I am allergic to, all morning long. Sigh.

We got to Ronnie McD and the plans to have us help with the mailing were diverted to having our team of 14 clean the place. It was a lot of the blind leading--oh where is the Swiffer, what's a Swiffer?--the blind. It went by quickly and then we were helping with the mailing and blah blah blah everybody got that feelgood feeling, I'm sure of it.

Before we left, we got a tour of the facilities and our tourguide was explaining why the CEO of their location has a heart for the Ronnie McD House ministry. Because her baby died from leukemia at age 9, and there was no Ronnie McD house in Chattanooga, so their family had to go to Memphis for her to receive treatment. So she became the first paid employee of the House when it was founded in 'nooga. Then, as we were about to get our bags and depart, I looked up and noticed the schedule on the wall of where the parents who are staying at the House were that day. They were all at the NICU across the street.

But I still didn't get it.

I got a call when I returned to campus and I had to quick high-tail it over to my office to talk with a parent about her daughter's schedule. I was hot and cranky and underfed and irritated that I couldn't get to the Dollar Store with much time before I had to pick up the kizzle again from school. Gahhhh, I'm such a bondservant of the people today.

It was only when I was chopping the green beans, over and over and over and over, my littles eating yogurt and watching some McDonald's commercial on the tablet that the light in my McNugget-sized brain flashed on.

***

Today was about taking care of other people's children, namely my students, so that some other parents of sick children whose prayers are probably prayed with wringing hands and breathed through desperate sighs, could take care of their children hooked up to wires, bleeping monitors, oxygen. All the while some of the most dedicated teachers the world over were busy taking care of my children.

***

My faith is so small as I tread water in a pool that is not so deep, where I regard small ripples as great waves. I know others may think me naive to believe in this God who cares about my hang-ups and first world problems. I have experienced an awesome, majestic mercy, though, and am trusting that what I know to believe as true will be enough to help me get out out of my own way. I don't want to just tread this same water. My goal is to be back on shore....

Real talk about school drop-off/pick-up

You may be among the blessed whose school districts use a big yellow bus system whereby you are spared the pleasures of pick-up/drop-off. Or maybe you homeschool and lead us all to wonder why we are not doing the same. The school system where our children are enrolled does not have a busing system. The schools are located in rural-burbia where children do not typically walk or bike but rather climb into oversized sport utility vehicles with 2-3 cute dogs wagging their tongues out the window and are transported everywhere. I seriously wonder sometimes if this is what my forbearers dreamed about when coming to America. Lo, let us mount a sea voyage to the new world, they said, a twinkle in their eye, where we will enjoy a famine-less potato crop and our children will never need to exercise because we will drive them everywhere! 

But that is neither here nor there.

My point is that there is a long long queue of minivans and big SUVs parked outside our kids' school every morning and every afternoon and it is a scary scene if you don't know what to expect. Here's the reveal:

The first rule of drop-off/pick-up is to you never mess with the flow of traffic. Trust, you do want to be that person who is trying to do creative maneuvers into the school driveway. You remember that part from "Mr. Mom." Enter from the South, exit to the North.  You want to be in the correct lane and not have to depart from it or you will suffer sinister glares from fellow parents and you will sleep with one eye open lest they send gremlins up your shower drain at night for trying to pull a three-lane sweep just to get to the clutch parking spot. Also, don't be that guy who is sitting in the pick-up lane totally unawares of others trying to advance because he is sweeping like woah in Candy Crush. Fear the gremlins, bro.

The second thing you need to know about drop-off/pick-up is that you need to keep your eyes on the prize. If you have to go into the school building (true fear) as we do because of legal stipulations for signing kids in/out, you are going to have to watch out for the landmines. You are basically going to have to storm the beaches of Normandy to retrieve your kid. Everywhere, there will be social explosions. The mom whose name you can never remember. The dad who always wants to have a Big Long Conversation about the new math. The school  librarian who got a super cute new haircut and you just need to let her know. You have got to avoid all this, fair voyager, or else you will never make it to the end of this Super Mario level and rescue the princess. I mean, haha, pick-up/drop-off is not a video game! That would be insanity if I thought of it as a game. I meant, you need to put on the tunnel vision blinders so you can get to your child(ren) and take him/her/them home or chauffeur them to any number of organized activities and suffer more helicopter parenting. I mean, enjoy watching your kid kick the ball into the goal.

Then there is the matter of all the tiny student people who are slugging backpacks that are so large they have a Pizza Hut inside of them. Do not trip on them in the hallway. Try to dodge them at all costs. They will flatten you.

Let us also discuss the dress code of drop-off/pick-up. We live in the South where wearing sweatpants in public is the equivalent of announcing, I  have just gotten out of jail and this is all I was given to wear. Regardless of your incarceration status, if you are a female in the South, you must look fresh, have your "hair fixed" and have a handbag that matches your ensemble if you are venturing out. I am a daughter of the MidWest, so this all is against my constitution. Ergo, I am not always befitting of Haute Drop-off. If I am not teaching on a particular day, I am reliably going hard with my yoga attire, as if I have just gone to yoga or am headed there now. En route to bringing my children home, I will wave at the yoga studio like we are old friends, when the daughter of the MidWest in me knows the truth. And so, probably, do you.

I know there will come a day all too soon that this pick-up/drop-off madness will cease and I will hear the door slam to my child running out to hop into a friend's car and I will wonder if my child will die in a car accident or be prosecuted for wearing sweatpants in public. A part of me will long for the days when I was the chief executive of transportation operations. After that panicky prayer is uttered, I will probably go find my kid's lunch on the counter and turn around and bring it to her in school where I will wait in the endless queue of parents dropping off their kid at school.