Saturday, February 9, 2013
Smile 4 - Season of Love
Seasons of Love A great song from "Rent."
It is early February and I cannot believe how busy life can get. Spencer has been in school trying to do his "smiles" a little every day. Some days he tries a little too hard. The other kids hardly ever get a turn to volunteer for stuff and they get mad at him. He said that he helped a few kids do some things recently and frankly I cannot remember what but he will tell me in the AM and I will write it here.
It is almost Valentine's Day. I have been very busy this past year with the Ford Family Foundation's Institute for Community Building's Leadership Development Program. I took a lot of weekend classes for two days at a time every few weeks, and then we did a project for the city of Canby. We make decorative bike racks and put them all over the city. They are getting mixed reviews, but to be honest, if everyone likes everything you do all of the time you must be doing something wrong. All I can say is that I was on the Design Committee, and we spent hours and hours and hours getting them exactly right. It was all borne of a love of Canby. So that is ONE THING I have been doing and hopefully people are smiling because of it.. At least a few. We sure made GOOFS out of ourselves making this LIP DUB video... but we sold a LOT of I HEART CANBY T SHIRTS...( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J685Dq7JEik <----embarrassment on an EPIC SCALE) we raised $22,000.00 for Bike Racks! You have to go past all the pics of Canby to get to the REAL Humiliation.. during a JOURNEY song... hahahahaha
Another thing I recently did was help the PTA of Trost ( our beloved school where Spencer is a DLI student) make 1200 Tamales as a fundraiser. That was a lot of work but it went much more smoothly this year.
I wish I could say that everything at Trost was just going along swimmingly but there has been a big kerfuffle of late over the DLI program. So whether it makes people smile or not, I am a staunch defender of the school I love and the DLI. All of that ugliness has been a huge distraction as well.
We are up to FOUR SMILES in our project... and it would be
maybe easier if people joined us.. but
.... who knows. I am not even sure if anyone reads this.
I am left with a
heavy heart in this season of love
because I feel sort of.... cut off or something. I attended Chris's
memorial and it was touching and beautiful
and sad and I hope that it was a
comfort to his friends and his family. However, for me, I think I am still in shock
over the event. I would love to talk to his friend Patrick again but I am sure
he is having a hard time right now so he has sort of... "gone
underground." I don't' know if I
will ever see him or hear from him again, but if not it's too bad because we worked
together for a while.
I think a lot about Chris's other friends and his family and
what they are going through, and how they are coping. About 65 times a day I pass their house and
I see his little car sitting out front. It makes me sad but also happy. I drive by it and I think of
him. Then, if it were gone one day I think that would
completely freak me out too.. so.. I like it where it is. To me it kind of means that a part of him is
still here and I don't know. I really
dread the day when I drive by and it is gone.
When it comes to Chris I mostly feel empty because I did not have the
time to get to know him as well as the rest of the people in his life. I always
wanted to... and I always thought there was TIME. When we worked together You know
let's face it.. He was this cute sort of funny kind of good looking
smart kind of Cool Guy you know? and I
was this sort of lumpy, older like NERRRRRD ALERRRRT soccer mom who drove a
Dork Mobile Minivan and You
know.... so whenever he even talked to
me I was always like... SHOCKED. Like why
is the COOL GUY talking to ME, the huge NERRRD GIRL??? But he was always always always funny and
nice and not at all what I ever
expected. I sat in a different area...
not too far from Chris and Patrick but
not as close as my friend Lyssa. I
always wanted to sit over there by them, but I never did . There was never a computer
that worked over there... and as Patrick
pointed out one day.. I am LOUD on the phone.
Like LOUD But not as LOUD and he
and Chris.. he said.. "Liz, You and
Me and Chris are the three loudest people in this entire Dept. It would NEVER
work." He was right.. But it was
NOT AT ALL as FUN on my side. I always
thought there would be MORE TIME to get to know him.. that cute funny guy,
Chris. Finally on THANKSGIVING is when I saw how truly great he was...
I should have just
barged on over to the other side ANYWAY and let everyone just go deaf. I wish
now that I had, but a lot of times
people do not want to take risks like that. "What if he thinks I am a weirdo, or
nosy or... a weirdo.." And now,
with his mom... who I met and really like... you know I
cannot even imagine how she is
doing and I should probably just call her up and say... HOW ARE YOU
DOING????? but I don't because... I don't know... Trost PTA Tamalepalooza
fundraiser... the Trost DLI controversy thing... and I
am JOB HUNTING, (not because I hate my current job but I JUST CANNOT AFFORD the
GAS it takes to work so far away anymore) The Bike Racks project..... the basketball season has started... it seems
like I have a meeting or a practice or SOMETHING every night... and I do not
want to be that WEIRD, BARGE IN, STALKER GIRL... "HI YOU DON'T KNOW ME THAT WELL, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO BE YOUR FRIEND!!!!" How insane is that??? So I
hope she is doing okay.
I have it on FILM!!!
hahahah Just in case you want to see
it.
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