Beyond the Gray

I have do a life beyond the recent posts about Gray, but I admit that focusing on the antics of a new four-legged member of the clan can be a diversion from other life tasks, opportunities and challenges.  For me, this week, it's important to mark the shift I made away from working on the Grant Road Project: I formally resigned after almost six years with Kimley-Horn and another 6-8 months, before that, with the City.  I am done with trying to make Grant Road an example of "context sensitive design" on a major Tucson roadway.  Since May, I wanted to turn into another direction, but external events and internal influences now brought me to this fork in the road.  I have been reading Buddhist literature and other books on living an authentic life, a life of abundance, and life of intention.  Those readings formed my internal compass for a new direction. 

One step on that new path has been my volunteer work at the Downtown Library as a Reading Partner.  I feel that I make a real difference in my one hour of reading to kids of various ages.  Now that school has started, the kids are pre-K age.  This week I had a 3 year old who didn't have a name. "We call him 'Little Man'", his mother said with a toothless smile.  This was my first experience with a child who lives on the street.  He sat next to me quietly, hands folded and head down, chin touching his chest most of the time.  The milestone I reached with him, after 30 mins., was when he began to touch the "feathers" on the penguin book I was reading. Before that, I couldn't get him to interact with board books because he didn't know colors, shapes, or nouns such as "cap" or "ball." 

I don't come away from these experiences with gloom, but rather a gladness that I have been in a space where simple reading a book can show a child there is another world beyond his/her life, whatever the conditions may be.  This summer, I have read to or with kids who, by 1st grade, say "I am not a good reader," and with kids who proudly share chapter books two or three grade levels beyond their age.  I have sat with kids with parents who gleefully join the circle and join in the story process and with kids with parents who sit in the back, texting on their phone before, during and after the story time.

So, my life continues to expand with these experiences, and I look forward to walking down a different path in the months ahead.  When I need to rest, I will, with Gray (outside) or with our 12 1/2 year old Lia who still rules the inside-the-house domain, perched on our (now tattered) leather couch.