I am still (mostly) sleeping on my side of the bed and I can still smell Kai (not talking diapers here) but my family is a thousand miles from home. Katie and Kai are in Mt. Angel, OR. visiting Grandma Hanson. Katie's parents and brothers Mike and Ben are also there. Katie said she had smooth sailing with Kai until they got to Portland and tried to get him into the car with her parents - then he got all barbarian on them. Go kid. I had a talking to him last night over the phone and I think he is straight now.
Walking into our home without either Katie or Kai there felt sad and bizarre. The living room seemed so still and the baby's chairs and toys less animated. I usually try to get to the couch as quickly as possible but found myself sort of wandering around. The house seems huge with just me in it, not nearly so cozy. I ended up wasting the first afternoon in a funk, but have managed to recover. It is the weekend, so I stayed up late last night watching a movie and was able to sleep until 7.
It is snowing outside. Snowed yesterday too. I am actually pretty grateful for some time to chill, read, listen to music, get some laundry done, and decompress.
A big piece of my life has just changed. The Crested Butte Academy has moved from the home it has inhabited in town since I began working there to a temporary home at the base of the resort in one of the hotels. This is a part of the "partnership" with the IMG/Cay Clubs/Sunvest group. In part it has seemed very rushed/disorganized and in part it has been an awakening to the nature of the relationship we are now a part of. While we used to have a lot of autonomy, that was always paired with economic uncertainty. Now that we are partnered with a lot of resources, we are at the mercy of those entities to make our decisions for us. So we are moved into a hotel that is being renovated and have become one piece of the hierarchy of a big business deal - one that sits damn near, if not on, the bottom of the pyramid. Questions and requests go up and disappear sometimes returning to my level - other times not.
Check out this link to see more about the IMG people: http://www.imgacademies.com/home/default.sps
Click on the off site partners to see the link to CBA.
I am optimistic about the future of the school, but the timing of this move coincides with the time of year I always find most difficult - post-snowboarding-springtime. I am emotionally worn thin and the kids are edgy being this close to summer and, some of them, moving on to college. I have wanted to sit down and write about all this, but have really been sidetracked. Too much web-surfing and procrastinating. So I am grateful for a time to type out some words on this subject.
Right now teaching my class is the best part of my days at school. I like having skateboarding as my athletic responsibility, but it is not as fun for me when I am responsible for a bunch of kids who are most anxious to disassociate themselves with school and get into the freedom of summer and their post-high school lives. Teaching is good. The kids I am working with are anxious to learn and have been helping each other in the process. It is a creative process and I am allowed to use my own curriculum and set my own class goals. This is a good redeeming quality that helps me get through the uncertainty of this new situation.
The snow has stopped falling and is melting from the ground and dripping off the roof. I am going to have to tackle a large gardening project - removing the "crazy daisies"- an invasive species of weed - from our yard. Dark clouds are clinging to the mountains around the valley. Could break or it could start dumping. Spring in the high country is always a roll of the weather dice.
