Inside the Spin-Mosaic Studio

*Special thanks to Linda Buckley and her dog, Kyra for the inspirational resource photo. As the story goes, when her daughter found sweet Kyra, she had clearly been nursing puppies. But, the puppies were never found. Kyra would surround herself with a circle of stuffed animals to help fill the empty places in her heart: to help fill the pockets of her heart. Kyra dreamed of her puppies...

Dreams can be past, present or future. Future dreams we can name and aspire towards. These are worthy for sure. Then, there are past dreams, maybe unfulfilled, that smolder with wistfulness if we are not careful to salt them with perspective and grace. Then, there are dreams that we never named and never knew we always needed.

I was introduced to this brand of dream by two little Amish girls. My dream came true. They helped show me the value of a big and deep pocket.

Pocket? Pockets are peripheral. Pockets are extra. Pockets only serve to hold and hide? What's in a pocket? It was a dream I never knew I needed: bigger pockets.

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You would think that encouraging every child to aim high and "dream big dreams" would be a one-size-fits-all safe encouragement to slather across the ears of an entire classroom of art students like frosting on a cake. Not so.

Be all you can be!

Be anything you set your mind to!

Accept no limitation; you are free to choose!

If you dream it; it can come true!

The Amish children had not only English-to-German translation barriers to surmount, but a gracious conflict of conviction with dreaming. Their convictions were genuine.

It took me awhile to figure out what exactly the quizzical expressions meant that I consistently saw beneath the brims of the white bonnets and mounted atop narrow shoulders with criss-crossing suspenders when we talked about dream-statements.

Amish children were genuinely confused why the English children would write dream statements that were...beyond reach of today.

Many English students wrote in scrawled variations of hand-writing development that they wanted to be an NBA basketball player, a movie star, singer, cosmetologist, fashion-designer, or race car driver. The definition of what dreams should be defaulted to what is perceived as best, brightest, attention-attracting, alluring, and will draw the eye of the news or media.

Most could only hope to be grasped far in the future.

English children dreamed so high they (we) could not imagine the steps needed to cross the gap between now and then. 

The Amish children dreamed as high as they could...which was within reach of today, tomorrow, or next week. Their dreams were as close and as attainable as a reach into their own pockets!

When their dream statements had climbed to the highest they could imagine, the gap between now and what they wanted to be...was a gap they could imagine crossing.

"I want to learn to drive the buggy."

"I want Grandma to live with us."

"I want church to come to our barn."

"I want my animals to be kind to each other."

"I want to build my own bicycle." 

"I want to sew a purple dress."

"I want to help people who are sick."

They did not mourn the gap between what they wanted or imagined because there was not a nagging parasitic knowledge that it may not be able to be grasped.

The essence of this virtue could be argued as limiting, or as purist. That is not my job within this writing. I am sharing as a witness. I offer this as an observation; not a judgement.

Along with that witness, I will also say that the imagining of their dream statements, selection of one, writing about the one selected, and drawing illustrations to go with, brought more collective and wholistic happiness than what I saw in the other vast majority.

Lost or unattainable dreams tend to smolder. Though there is great virtue in teaching our kids (and ourselves) how to dream high, wistfulness over what was once dreamed but never materialized has created many a regretful, embittered and moldy heart full of comparative wistfulness.

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An excited class arrived to Mrs. Z's Art room door full of all the normal shuffles and wiggles and snorts and giggles expected when students are asked to walk in a straight line at a scheduled time en route' to an appointed place; it was my known request for all classes to wait patiently in the hallway...instead of straggling helter-skelter into the room.

This tradition was not about order vs. chaos, though this was also a positive repercussion. This was about making individual connections.

From the hallway, I shared with the entire class the agenda for the day, then shifted-and-gifted each child a smile and a "hello" at the door.

This was not a strategy ever mentioned in a college class or suggested by a mentor. I even had a classroom teacher or two ask why I "wasted so much time" transitioning students into my room.

I didn't see it as a waste. The children didn't either.

A 1st-hello at the corner of my door was always ripe with colorful comments. 

"I saw a sunrise that had streaming ribbons of pink!"

"We got a new refrigerator and the light is so bright!"

"My friend has 6 toes!"

Sometimes small sweaty palms revealed gifts: a chip of broken sea grass, a wilted flower, a paper-clip twisted into the shape of a pair of tiny scissors, a pretty button, a 1-inch pencil used down to the stub, a pink pop tab found on the sidewalk (most are silver), an arrowhead found in a field: treasures for my pockets.  

The compliment to me was their belief that I sincerely cared. And, I did. Every day; every class; every student. 

It wasn't always about the words or information shared, but that each child was predictably gifted a moment of connection in a world of numbers and classes and groups and teams and categories.   

It was during these "connection moments" that I noticed the bonneted little girls in pastel dresses always noticed when I wore a skirt, dress, or art apron that had big pockets. They would stare, whisper, smile, and compliment on my...of all things, "I like your pockets!" 

Once, two sweet faces framed in white bonnets walked arm-in-arm and side-by-side into the classroom as I said hello. One stood slightly behind the other like a shadow. The front-runner clasped her hands together in a happily nervous-but-polite pretzel of intertwined fingers.

"We like your pockets. Can we show you what is in our pockets?"

I later learned, that it is impolite to ask to see the contents of someone else's pockets. That's why they offered to show and share the contents of theirs first.

Like the pendulum of a ticking clock, the girl behind the first popped her head out from behind her friend's shoulder. She wanted to show what was in her pocket, too: a shiny spool of thread with a neatly tucked silver needle.

"You never know when there might be something that needs fixing!", she said with a sing-song lilt likely mimicked from her mother.

The other girl reached into the folds of her pocket. Unfurled fingers revealed a smooth oval rock. My smile in response was bigger than usual. Many years ago, I liked to paint round smooth rocks to look like lady bugs. I asked if she painted her rocks, too.

"Oh, no. This is my favorite hot-rock." 

I had seen some of the Amish children harboring rocks in their art supplies boxes, but had thought they were just pretty treasures. The boys, too, sometimes held rocks in their hands as they walked in my door. They never threw them or caused issues that would lead me to categorize the rocks as a toy or a weapon, so I let them be. 

The girls were mesmerized that I didn't know what a hot-rock was. They were delighted to enlighten. On cold winter days, children's pockets are filled with a palm-sized heated rock freshly plucked from the top of the wood stove and wrapped in a small hand-towel to keep the mittens warm---to keep hands warm.*

I remembered my grandmother saying that when she was very young and coal was running low, hot rocks would be wrapped in towels and placed between sheets and blankets to warm small feet at night.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a stick of chalk, keys, breath mints and a couple of hall passes. I nodded approval for their curious hands to reach forward and handle the items I held out. You would have thought I had passed along a handful of diamonds or fairy dust.

The two little girls had gifted me an exchange of tradition within the culture of Amish childhood: mutual shared knowledge of the contents of one's pockets.

It's true, is it not? What we keep in our pockets reveal unique things about personalities; preferences. What we choose to have close to us and available is strangely reflective. The contents of pockets reveal identity.

Especially when many of the Amish children are dressed so similar, to exchange knowledge of the different contents of pockets was to invite friendship and show what is valued. To hold the content forward within reach of another was to invite another soul into your interests.

I never rejected the offer to hold what was held out to me...even the day when a pocket revealed a small turtle.  I learned to hold out the contents of my pockets in their direction as well. I learned to add unexpected items of interest.

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One day, each student was invited to imagine and draw something positive they would like to see in their own future (a.k.a a "dream-statement".) I was surprised, but not surprised, to find a carefully sketched skirt pocket colored in pastel crayon with a sweetly scrawled 2-word title, "Big Pockets" ---big enough to hold more colors of thread, hotter hot-rocks, a litter of stuffed animals, and a bigger turtle, no doubt.

I began shopping for skirts with bigger pockets. I began looking for Art aprons with bigger pockets. Eventually, I asked my Grandma to sew me a special apron that was made up only of BIG colorful pockets.  

Bigger pockets: the dream I never knew I always needed.