Life changes so fast some years. Right now there is no pattern. It makes me a little nuts, but it's good - destructive patterns shifting. Bob is working like crazy pitching and planning to sell belongings we don't need, and he seems happy, up energy, full of plans and ideas for the first time in a few years. I don't think I understood how much school was dragging hime down, even before this year. He is also excited to have gotten a part time (just three hours a week) job tutoring highschool math for a private tutoring service. He's excited to see how he likes it (starts tomorrow) because one option for semi retirement, which would even keep his pension would be a part time math tutoring position for the school district. They have a few with benefits even.
I just love seeing him happy, didn';t realized I had given up on hope of happiness and energy for him, thought it would just be one foot in front of theother at best. I am so relieved.

I've been absent from this blog way too long, so caught up in the activities of my life, flooded with change. I hate it that I stop writing when I have the most to write, but sometimes I do. This fall has been hard. Bob's Austin teaching job didn't work out, way too stressful. I was truly afraid the job would kill him, because he wants so much to make a difference, to teach if he is trying to teach, and it wasn't happening. The kids weren't learning, and also were running amok, literally running, jumping, wrestling, punching, shouting, throwing paper air planes at him. All the wild behavior I think he could have kept working on changing if learning had been happening, but it just wasn't. I'm glad he chose to leave, but the process was hard, the stress he went through to get to the decision point and the uncertainty about walking away from steady work. When he started teaching, we thought he'd do it five to seven years, and this was year eight, so I guess that dream lasted as long as we initially thought it would, though I had forgotten that until recently. Right now Bob is happy, has several possibilities for part time employment, is going to the gym regularly and working on a novel idea that I even get to help with. I love seeing him looking ahead without worrying about being behind at school. It's a big change for all of us, and I'm working on focusing on its positive aspects.

Life feels very hard and scary right now, and yet I see so much beauty in the middle of the struggle. Liam thrives like a young tree. He can use a rolling pin properly, and, with instruction, make children's scissors cut. He shouldn't be able to do these things, but he can. KK thrives, and continues to be excited about arts high school next year. At the moment Chris and Ruth are laughing out in the living room as they paint minis (little statues) for Chris' gaming (Battle Tech) convention this weekend. This hobby has brought him great pleasure over the years and it's fun to watch him get excited about it. However, Bob continues to be anxious and exhausted and in great conflict around his job. We are all scared about money. In San Antonio, Danny is very sick with a high fever - and that worries me. I don't like being away from my loves especially when times are hard.

There is so much harshness in the world. It scares me, the terrible pain the kids in Bob's class turn into disrespect which hurts Bob and wakes him at three in the morning with pounding heart. At least he has the grace and kindness not to pass the harshness along. K.K. cried Thursday night about a bully at school. the annoying, persistent, demoralizing kind. Apparently the kids who are not in Pre AP classes tend to behave badly at school, ioncluding unkindly to others. Teachers in K.K.'s school have great curriculum, but it doesn't seem to be changing the flow of behavior. Yesterday at the park with Liam there was a little boy, about five, who greeted us with a sem-iautomatic toy weapon. He kept saying "Watch out there." and firing at us. We ignored him. But when Liam tripped the boy asked if he was OK in a perfectly sweet tone - like the violent acting out was completely apart from his ordinary way of being and he didn't even know it - scary to me. I know kids play guns, cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians whether they have toy guns or not, but the odd thing about this was his involving strangers as victims, not inviting us to play, just shooting at us. I also see the economic differences so harsh in our community, so many having terrible struggles just for necessities and a small number hip deep in luxurious choices. I've spent most of my life on the luck side of the line, but that doesn't make the presence of the line, and what seems to be an intensification, any more right. This is one of those mornings when "Life is hard." hits me straiht between the eyes and "Life is good." is a truth I reach for. I don't have to reach very far. Liam just brought me a home baked cookie.

I am thinking about work - life work at the moment. I am so fortunate to have life work I love, can do, and that people are willing to pay me for. I heard today on the radio that first time unemployment claims are up again big time this month. I grew up on stories of the Great Depression and nobody is saying these times are as hard s those, but I see so many competent people, friends, family, clients all, looking hard in vain for work of any kind. It's scary. And I see Bob struggling in a difficult, stressful classroom, his hard won second career dream not nurturing him at this time. It's sad. I watch K.K. looking at future work, considering different dance related paths, and my hope for her and all other young people is to be able to find the kind of match in work that I fell, floated into. My being in this office, in this work isn't something I plotted out carefully or could have. I worked hard, learned, shared, and a door opened. It doesn't always work like that. My work situation is one of those "it's not fair" situations in the good direction. It's not fair I have work I love so, when so many have trouble finding work at all. I am profoundly thankful.