Something Sweet in Denmark

You don’t have to have a science degree to be able to explain why rotten eggs in Denmark smell bad. You trust your nose, name the source of the problem and throw the damn egg away. We humans like to explain and analyze and justify and that’s fine, but sometimes our mind can override our senses and justify things we knowjust aren’t right. “Well, maybe the egg is just olfactorally-challenged and will eventually get better.” Nope, ain’t gonna happen. 

 

I’ve developed a pretty good nose that I can trust to tell me when something is rotten. The 30 seconds of any time I’ve heard Trump speak is enough to make clear that he is the worst person for a job he never deserved. If you want the “blah-blah-blah” about the details, I could go on, but why bother? Face it—he stinks! Get him out of the kitchen and let’s stop wasting our breath trying to understand how or why or consider alternate viewpoints. 

 

On the other side of things, my nose for what smells sweet and tastes good is equally strong, cultivated by the 40,000 plus classes with kids whose main goal is create a harmonious gathering of intelligence, imagination, beauty, humor and just plain fun! I know it when it’s there, I know it when it’s not, I’ve spent my life trying to prepare the space and time to invite it in knowing that some of it is just in the hands of Grace. When it arrives, I greet it, welcome it, make it feel at home, give it voice and dance with it. 

 

Like today. Such a joyful class with 4^thgrade, making up opposite rhymes (“I say high and you say low. I say fast and you say slow. I say yes and you say no. I say stop and you say go.”) Then exploring opposites in movement and how those kids did dance! Later in Singing Time, 100 kids singing Abram Brown in 3-part canon and then at 3-different tempos (normal, augmented, diminished) and then kids coming up front to conduct scary sounds in “Up and Down the Street.” So many perfect endings and pin-drop silences! 

 

Best kept secret of my life? They pay for such happiness! Of course, not much and happiness is hard, hard work, but really, sometimes I just marvel that this is—and has been—an actual adult job. And I’m thankful for every minute of it.