Links: Reasons to smile

Teachers' Strategies for Pronouncing and Remembering Students' Names Correctly by Gail Cornwall. As a kid, I went for years mispronouncing my own name. I still don't expect other people to echo the short Spanish o, but at least I say it right myself.

Balogh, the Boston-area teacher, sums it up: “If I can’t make a consistent, good-faith effort to pronounce a name correctly, the implicit message is that I can’t be bothered.” Those who show that they can take an important step toward making all students feel seen and respected.

Life-Size Origami Becomes a Fashion Statement in Dramatic Paper Costumes Worn by Ballet Dancers by Laura Staugaitis, photos by Melika Dez. Gorgeous, skilled ballet dancers wear gorgeous, skillfully-made origami costumes by Pauline Loctin. And the dancers are mostly (all?) people of color.

Don't despair: the climate fight is only over if you think it is by Rebecca Solnit. This one is more serious, but as always Rebecca Solnit focuses on reasons for hope, including ongoing victories.

[T]he World Bank sent shockwaves around the world last December when it announced that after 2019 it would no longer finance oil and gas extraction.

Small delights

Back in the '90s during a particularly hard year, I clung to a page-a-day Far Side calendar I had in my cubicle at work. Every day, at least one good thing happened - I got to peel off a page and read a new comic. On Mondays, I got to do it 3 times!

I look back and wince. Younger-me was hurting so much, and struggling so hard to get through.

These days, I have a lot more to appreciate, including not sitting in a cubicle 40+ hours/week. Some of the quality of clinging is the same, though. Sometimes the fall leaves delight me, and sometimes I tell myself they should delight me.

In the Untangling class they talked about using those small moments of delight and sensory pleasure to support self-in-presence, to nourish us for the hard struggles with our tangles. I think looking at colorful trees with gritted teeth is still better than not noticing at all, and at the same time it would be nice to be able to relax into genuine delight.

I've reflexively clung to nature and beauty (and page-a-day calendars) since I was small. It's good to get reinforcement for that, an external voice saying, yes, going for a walk is valid and important and a good use of time.

Something shifted for me in the last year or two around clinging to things, though. I've started giving away beautiful things I own that no longer bring me delight, or that have been stored away in drawers since I bought them. Spaciousness has its own delight, and it feels good to send things out into the world where they can delight someone else.

I VOTED

I love Oregon's paper ballot vote by mail system. I sat at home and filled out the ballot, then biked it over to the library and dropped it in a ballot box.

What's your plan for voting?