Changes That Confuse: Language Isn't Static

Hemlines rise and fall, lapels and ties get wider and skinnier, and pant legs flare or narrow with or without cuffs. People expect to see fashion change every year, and some even save old clothes, knowing that favorite colors and designs will recycle into popular style once again. While humans understand this truth about what they wear, they don’t always see a correlation to how language changes as well.

Still in my mid-twenties and early in my teaching career, I experienced my first lesson about how words and memories dear to me meant nothing to my students. I reenacted a once popular Dr. Pepper commercial to help a class of sixteen-year-olds connect to what I was teaching. I was certain that as soon as they recognized the metaphor in my perfect example they would understand my lesson.

As I stood before them enthusiastically reciting the little ditty that had made me a fool for carbonated prune juice, I saw only blank looks staring back at me. That commercial had never run during their lifetimes. Those dull gazes turned my catchy lines into something awkward like, “I guess you’ve probably never seen that before.”

Their choreographed nodding from left to right confirmed my fear. We had a major disconnect. At a youthful, pre-motherhood twenty-five, I felt ancient standing before individuals who were only nine years younger than I.

Time has not softened the shock of realizing my understanding of the world is a distant planet from my students’ realm. That moment when I think I’m using a relevant example, but I’m not, occurs often enough that I now pause to consider where teens might have heard a phrase before I write a quote on the board.

To warm brains up, I like to jot challenges on the white board at the front of my room—even saying white board instead of chalkboard is one of those new planet concepts. Students now don’t know what chalk boards are—they’ve’ never seen them outside a museum. I’ll post examples similar to 100yds=1 ff or 52 C=1 D, hoping I’ll hear, “Hey, 100 yards equals a football field and there are 52 cards in a deck.”

Increasing the difficulty, I’ll post teasers such as A S L than W, T and T W f N M, or A S in T S 9. Today’s students swiftly answer, “Actions Speak Louder than Words.” After some time, they figure out “Time and Tides wait for no man.” The tide part challenges them, but they’ve heard the rest of that aphorism. The stumper was the one I thought would have been the easiest, “A Stitch in Time Saves Nine.”

Once I told my classes what A S in T S 9 meant, several questioned the meaning of that adage, putting me on the spot. Heavens, neither my students’ nor my generation have mended hand-knit socks to make them last. We buy our socks in packages and toss them in the ragbag when they get a hole. Jeans that folks buy today further confound matters. It seems getting an extra hole is a bonus, not something we race to stitch-up.

Some things about people don’t change. Everyone needs love and acceptance. Everyone needs a meaningful occupation. Everyone needs healthy food and protective shelter. However, fashion and language use do change. What one generation understands can confuse a different generation. 

Just wear your old zoot suit or bell bottoms and explain something to your grandchild  like that's the bees knees or that's groovy, which made sense to you as a kid, depending on your generation.

Creativity Doesn’t Have Age Limits

After my juniors finished a unit over Native American creation stories, I challenged the class to create their own worlds and write narratives explaining their inventions. I never get tired of seeing what teenagers come up with and how they share it. After some deep thinking, one young woman focused on her love of movies. Another developed a tale based on her love of farming while several young men put together stories centered on the outdoors or sports. These youngsters’ efforts made me think about what realm I’d produce given the opportunity.

At the time my students were working on their projects, I enrolled in a Joy of Painting class at the Dane G. Hansen Museum. This particular course provides a pre-selected subject for the artwork. Using various brushes and paints, each artist chooses how to develop his or her own piece. If there are 30 artists in a class, there are 30 different paintings.

When I first arrived, I examined the teacher’s model of that day’s subject, a huge whitetail. I was eager to learn to paint a big buck surrounded by pines and dark, cloudy skies, but I noted a few details I wanted to tweak. I visited with the instructor to be sure my changes were something I could manage without taking more time than the class allotted. When she gave the go ahead, my brain went into overdrive considering what I needed to do to make this painting mine—in essence to do what I’d charged my students to do-- to create my own world.

That is what artists get to do. Writers, musicians, sculptors, painters, movie makers, photographers, and other creators take charge, for a little while at least, to produce an existence of their own making. For that instant, an individual gets to pick words, rhythms, mediums, color, characters, and other details necessary to manufacture something unique to that spirit. If an artist is lucky, his or her creation will connect someone else’s spirit, and he or she’ll get to enjoy a moment of appreciation.

We live in a world that seems to me to get further and further away from individuals creating. We enjoy other folks’ constructions—video games, movies, and music, but it doesn’t seem that we are active participants in actually creating a finished product. Maybe I’m longing for something that never really existed, but when I listen to elders’ stories or read books about the good ol’ days, one thing folks did together was create. 

If there was a gathering, anyone who could play an instrument joined in a little impromptu music making. Women gathered to construct beautiful quilts out of leftover scraps, and communities put on plays and declamations. People didn’t think they needed lots of classes before they were willing to participate in something like sewing, painting, or playing an instrument.

Young or old, it’s good to create. It’s necessary to encourage youngsters and grownups to dabble in imaginative endeavors from making radishes into roses and creating sculpture from spaghetti and marshmallows to painting and playing instruments. Getting older shouldn’t inhibit people from making new worlds. Creativity doesn’t have age limits. Look at Grandma Moses.

The Best Part of Each Day

A friend who rises early to paint each morning’s sunrise inspired me to capture photos of Merry Old Sol’s first peek over the horizon for the last year. I’m not as diligent as Debbie is at capturing every dawn, but I’ve seen enough now to make some observations.

Some mornings are not remarkable, but it’s worth getting up early to check. Sometimes I spy lingering stars fading from night’s canvas and make a wish or two to begin the day. Morning moons are softer and gentler than they were a few hours earlier. They’re a nice reminder that time softens hard edges and feelings. Always, always there’s a bird singing. Even when dawn begins in grays, happy trills and coffee make everything right. 

Some sunrises are a flashing neon message from God that I’m in the middle of a wonderful blessing. Usually a scarlet or deep apricot color infuses blues and lavenders. Then a brilliant glow backlights one cloud or several so it looks like a special effects artist is working overtime with a neon paintbrush. At this point, the effects can develop in several ways.

Sometimes those scarlet or apricot tinges bleed slowly outward into gesturing fingers. When this occurs, I’m reminded of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey where he repeatedly refers to the rosy fingers of dawn or dawn’s rosy fingers. Over two thousand years ago, Greek sailors enjoyed the same kinds of sunrises that dazzle me. The world has changed in so many ways, but dawn’s early light still works its magic on those of us willing to get up to see the display.

Other mornings, it’s as if the sky explodes. There’s no slow, gentle bleeding of color or light. It’s a nuclear flash of brilliance, and the day has begun. It’s a no-turning-back, continue-charging-forth moment that gets adrenaline pumping and hearts singing.

On rare occasions, morning light manifests itself in odd little peep shows. One of those occurred last week. In general, the sky was gray with bits of buttery gentle light peeping through every now and then.  Suddenly, a tiny square of orange ripped its way onto the stage and directed itself on an old farmstead in its path. I kept expecting more light, but it seemed content to shine through like a flame glowing behind isinglass.

We’ve all seen movie sunrises where celestial music plays as clearly defined rays break and spread over the horizon like a giant crown. When I’m outside watching those displays, I’m always disappointed that I hear only birds or crickets. It seems an orchestra ought to perform so loudly no one could sleep through it. I saw one of those sunrises last week as well and turned the radio down just in case I was missing angel music.

Not everyone is a morning person, but I’m sure a few weeks of watching dawn arrive in the eastern sky might convince a few slow risers to enjoy a front row seat to see the best part of the day.

We’re More Connected than We Realize

A vacation in the Rockies is a trip to another world for Kansans and Nebraskans. The geography is unlike our plains in every way. Towering peaks draw eyes heavenward and then remind us we can’t see beyond them. Racing rivers and streams rip down craggy declines so fast that water foams and spews. Evergreen forests shade hiking trails and scent air with non-prairie-like perfumes. Morning and evening temperatures demand jackets be included in summer wardrobes. Torrents of water and high altitude bird song replace the sounds of wind soughing through dry river and creek beds and meadowlark trills.

The differences between the two landscapes vary so much that it’s easy to forget they are connected. That is until some powerful force of nature reminds us that more than interstates and highways link lives and geography.

News of recent flooding in Rocky Mountain National Park and Boulder captured our attention and hearts as we watched families lose homes and loved ones. Reports of communities cut off from safe drinking water and regular food supplies reminded us how quickly life can change from being like an ongoing vacation to everything turning miserable and frightening.

Despite concern for victims and hastily sent donations to Red Cross and the Salvation Army, raging water and its damage seemed far away, much like summer memories of pleasant mountain villages are in dreary February. However, a short drive to the Platte River in Nebraska revealed another story. Waters that wreaked havoc in the Rockies deliver hope to those living in the heartland.

Each March the Platte River is home to the annual sandhill migration. Most folks consider the region of the river where these favorite birds stage for six to 10 weeks a lazy stream filled with sandbars and small islands, a main reason that cranes rest there. Swift moving river is not a descriptor one would use to describe this landmark.

In the weeks since pouring rains washed out Colorado roads and housing divisions, raging waters have followed ancient waterways eastward. Not long after the floods, the South Platte raced out of it banks funneling this wealth of moisture toward the larger Platte. Fields in Easter Colorado bore the brunt of that overflow, leaving farmers with ruined harvests this season but water surpluses for next year.

As the waters neared Nebraska, irrigation districts opened channels to direct the abundance toward dry fields and ponds. Even with the extra efforts, more than plenty of water filled the Platte, erasing islands and sandbars and washing through stands of willows growing along the shallow banks. If it were migration time right now, cranes couldn’t find a dry roost in the river.

When I heard that the Platte was high, I wanted to see it out of its banks. Despite its reputation as a meandering, shallow stream, it’s currently a racing river full of surging currents. I wasn’t alone in my eagerness to view this rare event. To prevent sightseers from jamming traffic, road crews posted “No Parking” signs on major bridges. 

A steady stream of foot traffic going and coming from the walking bridge in Fort Kearney State Park keeps the trail occupied. It’s as busy as it is during peak crane migration visits. Fellow sightseers did what I did: they marveled at seeing so much water delivering hope to a drought-stricken land.

I suspect they also felt what I did when I considered at what cost this water came to us. What have those who call the mountains home lost in order for us to receive this blessing? It takes monumental events such as this deluge to remind us that each region is connected. We aren’t alone in this adventure called life.