Grace at the Lake

I didn't want to go.

In fact, if I could have reverted to my small child self...I might have had a tantrum and just refused to move.

Another week-end.

Another soccer tournament.

I am over it.

I should know better.

I got into the car on a Friday night and began a three hour trek into the mountains.

My 12 year old grabbed the cell phone and made a comment about how I needed a better phone.

What?

She complained about the car we were in.

She didn't like my music.

I didn't like her vibe.

As I sat in traffic, I fumed.

I couldn't take one more millisecond of the ingratitude.

I lost it.

Like a surveyor, I reminded her of the topographical lines of her life...the deepest blessings coming first...

Did you notice that you're healthy?

That I'm healthy?

That we have a car to drive?

That we have gas in the car?

We have the amazing ability to spend a week-end playing soccer?

You have a mom who is willing to devote a week-end to soccer?

That we are together when so many moms and daughters don't get that chance?

As I assailed her with her blessings...

the boomerang effect took place.

Hey, Beth, are you listening to yourself?

Stop your complaining and start noticing.

As we meandered at dusk through the mountains, the reset button was pushed.

We stopped for dinner and we both took a deep breath...

we inhaled the scent of the pines...

it was going to be okay.

We had a soccer game at a high school where giant pines surround the field.

I tripped over a giant root and noticed extra large pine cones...

the sky was a shade of blue that made me consider paint colors:

Cobalt

Cerulean

Cornflower

True Blue

Azure

After some weeks of fires and smoke near me, the color of the sky was a long lost friend.

We had a break and some time until the next game.

Some moms had rented a cabin together so they invited the team to hang out there.

We walked into a welcome where the team cheered when Caroline came in.

She had been injured in the game - a serious bonk to the head - and her team, in that moment,  let her know that she mattered.

I could see her body relax...comfortably finding a spot at the big table to paint a few paper flowers.

Parents were tracing flowers, cutting flowers, making paint and paintbrushes available to anyone -

it was an anthill of effort.

The flowers were for our coach, who had lost his mother during the week.

The hand-painted flowers would be a perpetual bouquet for Coach Mike...

a way for 12 year old girls to say:

We see you going through this hard thing...we are so sorry...we are sending love and friendship.

I was so humbled watching these mothers (and fathers) showing their daughters how to love someone through something hard.

I picked up a tracer and a pencil and swallowed hard.

These parents were strangers to me...

but they were mothering my daughter...

right in front of my eyes.

Their love was better than any ice pack.

She was given the gift of thinking of someone else...

the gift of doing good with paper and paint.

Together, we were reminded that it is so often the simplest acts of kindness that last.

After another soccer game, we had the grim consideration of dinner for 40.

How would that work?

What restaurant would serve us?

Instead, another group of moms opened up their cabin...and told us all to bring a little something.

Something turned into quite the banquet.

Moms know how to feed their people.

The girls devoured bowls of pasta, while the adults ate tasty tidbits and watched with wonder more flowers being painted...the designs getting more intricate and beautiful with each effort.

The cabin was at the edge of Lake Tahoe and so the team wandered down to the lake...the girls swam and the sun did its downward dance...gilding the sky...reminding us that this ordinary holiness...this beauty of light...tattoos our world every day for the briefest of moments.

Against the backdrop of waves and feet buried in sand and a chill in the air and a purplish dusk, a group of moms talked about family and the challenges that go with helping our girls grow up...we talked writing and teaching blanketing over the real messages of care and love.

One mom echoed what we all were feeling:

how grateful she was that her daughter was surrounded by these moms (and dads)

...she called it a clan...

a tribe...

an echo from the times when grandmothers and aunties and cousins and others watched over the little ones and made sure it was all as it should be.

In that last little breath of light before the dark, my heart was full.

She was exactly right.

This team has traversed the territory of strangers on the sidelines and moved to a higher plane:

 a community that cares.

It was seemingly effortless...but it wasn't.

It took one mom to consider the coach and find a way for 12 year olds to deal with grief.

It took another mom to open her cabin.

It took moms and dads to buy food and take the time to make food and create 

a space that welcomed everyone.

It took coaches who had loosened their control on the team for something organic to grow.

It took problem solvers to figure out seating and clean up and all sorts of other glitches.

It took effort.

There, at Lake Tahoe in the middle of a soccer tournament, grace was in abundance.

I didn't have a cabin to offer...

I brought very little food...

I didn't bring art supplies or any ideas.

I pretty much was on the sidelines just watching the miracle unfold.

I guess I'll be the recorder.

When's the next tournament?

The Junk Yard vs. Poetry Beach

There's been a lot of sorrow.

Deep sadness.

Tears.

Worry.

Fear.

I try not to think about it...but every tiny act of mothering is a reminder.

Tonight I clipped my child's fingernails.

I wondered who clips the nails of the children in cages.

Does anyone notice when their nails are too long...or too dirty.

Yesterday, my 12 year old daughter asked me to braid her hair.

It's a rare treat these days so I seized on the moment to brush and tend and love her via her hair.

I wove her hair with a heart that is tattered...I saw the tiny stripes the sun has tinted in her hair already...I knew the area on her head where the braid always gets bumpy...I smoothed and tightened and thought of all the young girls with no one to fix their hair.

Children are being taken and separated from their families.

Intentionally.

The government is working to bring the most pain to bear on immigrants.

It's working to harm the youngest and most vulnerable.

I can hardly believe this nightmare is true.

A few days ago, I was moving my daughter up to Portland.

Despondent over these babies and mothers I went for a walk along the Willamette River.

I tried to lose myself in that new place...tried to notice something new with each step...

a wildflower here...a tiny bird there.

It felt good to walk along a river and notice the current that never falters...always moving forward.

Lost in my thoughts I abruptly hit the end of the path...

a dead end with a junk yard attached.

How cosmically perfect.

Gross - Dead - Polluted - Junk

Might as well be describing our government...or my mood.

It felt maddening and sickeningly spot on.

What could I do but turn around?

I literally made an about face to begin walking back and discovered a path called Poetry at the Beach.

I marveled at this mystery.

What was going on?

How could there be poetry at the beach?

Literally, two of my favorite things embedded in some sort of spiritual mash up...what??

I should head back...I had chores to begin...and commitments to attend to...but I knew that wouldn't be happening.

I had to walk the path...

I discovered stones that had the words of children...the poems that children created carved into them...voices of Native American children who pondered the Willamette River and what it 

meant to them - felt to them - inspired in them.

Here are their hearts etched into stone:

There's always one over-achiever...meet Jordan.

Every carved stone captured me...I wondered where the student wrote the poem...who did the carving...where did the rock come from...who funded it all...who did the work of placing the stones in their spot...all of it seemed like one big surprise party made only for me.

Every stone echoed in my heart.

I came upon stones that had the Native word for our ordinary words:

It felt like I was being handed a secret code...or a blanket from the past...

Sit here.

Wrap yourself up in our words and our ways.

Know that the Willamette was here before you and will remain long after you.

Find comfort in the unwavering strength of stone...the unstoppable movement of the river...

the beauty that waits for you to notice.

That beauty is yours every day.

Poetry at the Beach

Here she is:

Meet the Willamette.

I walked along that stunning slice of sand...soaking up the driftwood so beautifully, carelessly tossed right where it was meant to be...looking at the gray stones and seeing 

gunmetal, silver, ash, slate, smoky, dove's egg, charcoal...the twists and turns of gray...

and the gift of being able to see every last hue between black and white.

I started my walk despondent over the now...alone...I ended my walk soaked in the people who came before me...the river that spans both and will arch into the future as well.

We have junkyards and poetry.

Stones waiting to be carved and poems still left to write.

Every single day, it's up to us to find the poems.

Up to us to notice...and leave our mark.

You get to choose:

junkyard or poetry.

Today, I thank the eagle, the frog, the Canadian geese, the otter and the driftwood.

I thank whoever found the swimming otter driftwood and left it for me to enjoy too.

I thank the stone carvers and the poets...the dreamers and the visionaries...those who thought to combine Native history and language with the beauty of the beach and children's voices.

Mostly, I thank the Willamette River who has seen her fair share of junkyard and poetry...

and still she flows.

Artisans of the Common Good

It's been a long hard year.

We've had leadership that is undignified, unprofessional, unkind at the highest level.

That places a pall over our country, even our world...

...and yet, every single day, in my world, I see kindness and compassion,

curiosity and integrity.

I drop my children off at school and feel grateful for the teachers who work so hard, every single day, to be role models and to find a way to educate every student in their class.

They come to school with difficulties of their own and yet, they place them to the side and advocate for children...work with children...honor and cherish children...and the best of them set a child on a course of learning and growing that is life-changing.

I drop them off with gratitude in my heart...but I want to yell 

YOU ROCK!!

These teachers and principals, lunch people and custodians are

the very threads that make our country beautiful...

they are, as Pope Francis so gracefully said,

"artisans of the common good"

Yesterday, I went to an oak grove and I found a worker raking the path.

I listened as the rake clawed at the ground over and over, cleaning the way for people like me who enjoy wandering among tall oaks in the mist.

I smiled but I wanted to shout THANK YOU!

He is an artisan of the common good.

I mailed off a package that was important to me...

it holds a dream, an opportunity, a wish.

I handed it to Laura, one of the local people in my town who mails things off...

I wanted to hug her and thank her...instead I just gave her my few dollars - safe in the knowledge that my package would make it across the country because of her expertise.

Another artisan.

I walked my dog and noticed the street sweeper had swept the gutters of my street.

Another artisan...invisible but holding us together.

We have firefighters, policemen, 

nurses and doctors,

ambulance drivers,

city workers,

the highway patrol,

the people who build our bridges and smooth our roads,

the tree trimmers,

the park maintenance workers...who bring WD40 and find a way to help the swings lose the grinding metal on metal sound...honestly, these park guys do that (!)

we have people who plant flowers

and paint stripes on the roads,

the people who keep our electricity running

our water clean and flowing...

our garbage picked up,

our sewer system functioning,

our street lights on

our signs clearly marking the way,

our railroads in operation,

our city buses with wheelchair access...

we have artists who create public art...

farmers who bring their food to the local farmers market...

we have musicians playing on the sidewalk...and even bicycle taxis.

Our local co-op grocery store sponsors a candlelight walk at Christmas time...

Together, our community is a magical place...

the keyword: TOGETHER.

WE are who we have been waiting for.

WE are the artisans of the common good.

Every time you stop completely at the stop sign and wait your turn in traffic and truly only take 20 minutes or less in that 20 minute parking spot, YOU are contributing to the common good.

When you sweep your sidewalk, pick up the litter, share whatever extra you have with the people who have nothing, YOU are an artisan.

Today, I'm so very grateful for the people who go about their day just doing their good work...faithfully, professionally, honestly.

I'm so struck at the grace of that.

The interdependence we all have with each other.

Thank you, each one of you, for making our world a better place.

Love

Kindness

Compassion

Deep breaths

Friendship

Together, friends, we are the artisans of the common good.

We'll get our leadership to reflect our common good...soon, very soon.

Until then, craft your corner of the world with beauty and compassion.

Together, with other artisans.

Why Poets Should Negotiate Peace Treaties or The Power of a Clump of Words

In the fall after Patrick was diagnosed with leukemia - Fall 2002 - 

I was making lunch for Patrick and listening to CNN.

I heard a lively anchor share a news story in an upbeat voice...

she had something great to share...

and I needed great...

so I listened.

I paused my lunch making and listened:

"The latest research shows that if your child is in day care, 

they have less chance of developing leukemia."

Shit, really?

You mean, if Patrick had been in day care we could have avoided all this?

Really?

I rewound the past few years of Patrick's baby life.

His birth.

His instant diagnosis of Down Syndrome...

not even a single day of life free from that label...

another diagnosis that took only a few days of life: a heart defect.

In need of open heart surgery at nine weeks old...

coming home from the hospital and just wanting to love my baby...

and somehow, some way, tend to my other kids...

day care was last on my list.

Now, just a mere two years later, the leukemia diagnosis and the Three Year Protocol - always sated with capital letters - and the big unknowns...

Life...what does it look like three years from now?

Health? Is that possible three years from now?

Family? What does that feel like three years after this?

Just hours after that CNN report, in the dark of night as I am not sleeping, 

I watch Bill Moyers interview a poet, a Palestinian-American poet,

Naomi Shihab Nye,

and I hear her voice read a poem...

this poem...

and it changes my life.

On.The.Spot.

I'm instantly different because of the words.

I gift them to you, right here:

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride

thinking the bus will never stop,

the passengers eating maize and chicken

will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,

you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho

lies dead by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you,

how he too was someone

who journeyed through the night with plans

and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice

catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes

and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,

only kindness that raises its head

from the crowd of the world to say

It is I you have been looking for,

and then goes with you everywhere

like a shadow or a friend.

*****

Those words made everything in my world make sense.

I clung to them.

Sorrow became a tattoo that I could locate on others...

which allowed me to locate the kindness.

I wish I could convey the depth of those words in the engraving on my heart...

...but as life likes to do,

I moved on.

Patrick survived - truthfully, thrived - through the Three Year Protocol.

I stumbled and bumbled through it...with plenty of bad attitude and crushing worry.

2005 happened and our family cheered.

We snuck away from blood counts and chemo...

we hid from conversations about blood cancer...

and we got away with it.

No one came looking.

2006 arrived and brought its amazing grace, sweet baby Caroline, and life got busy...

with the regular things...

school lunches, soccer practice, homework...

Naomi's poem hibernated within my heart.

2016 arrived with election insanity...

meanness as an accepted way to live in our world...

shutting our collective eyes to refugees...

so, so, so, so many of them...

plugging our ears to the din of the poor, the overlooked, the desperately lonely...

and along comes Naomi Shihab Nye - chosen as the UC Davis School of Education's 

Author in Residence and Words Take Wing Author.

Something within me, sleepy from slumber, awakened.

What?

She will be here...in my orbit...how?

I couldn't fathom the good fortune.

Couldn't take it.

Kept shoving it down...

and then it happened.

December 13th, 2016 Naomi Shihab Nye was hanging out in Davis and our worlds collided.

I first got to hear her speak to student teachers...a room full of worn out beginning teachers...so vulnerable and shy...about 40 of them.

Do you know what she tells them?

First thing.

I know because I took copious notes the entire time she was around...

like a stenographer on steroids...

she said:

"I congratulate you on your life choice to go into teaching and knowing that teaching is the center of where it happens."

*****

You may not hang out with beginning teachers...or any teachers...but I want to stop here and point out how incredibly UNcommon this gift was that she gave the student teachers...why? 

Well, virtually NO ONE congratulates someone on going into teaching.

They get the constant refrain of one of these reactions:

A) Well, you get your summers off, that's awesome!

B) Yeah, I thought of teaching too... (as if it is the best second place option around)

C) Are you sure? You make so little money. 

It's hard work to become a teacher - really hard - and to be met with those three reactions wears even the most optimistic, badass beginning teacher down.

So, to have a world-renown, award-winning poet come in an begin with a congratulations...well, it was a gift. 
A genuine gift. And we could all feel it.

*****

She reads an excerpt from a book called, News of the World:

"Maybe life is just carrying the news...surviving to carry the news...maybe we just have one message, it is delivered to us the day we are born..."

And then she asks us to think about our message.

What is it?

She asks us to write it down.

And she says:

I'm not going to ask you to read this, it's just for you to hold.

She reminds the teachers that

"Creative writing needs to be an ongoing practice - not saved for the last weeks of May."

[Beth, are you listening??]

She makes writing accessible to each of us...

shows the teachers how to help their students write with their hearts...

makes it seem effortless...

like, of course, I could write a poem...

she shares the poems of 6 year olds and Palestinians...

she reminds us that we are Living in a Poem...

and touches us with the beauty of a lemon, a walk with a friend, a note of hope.

Her gift is helping all of us see poetry.

Like hieroglyphics, we all think it's cool. 

We feel a kinship.

We want to know what it means.

Naomi, shows us what poetry is...

and helps us to feel that it is essential.

Like oxygen.

*****

After school, Naomi does another session for the Resident Teachers that host our student teachers.

Her energy is palpable.

Her reverence for the teachers is a gift she bestows on them...

like one of the Three Kings.

She's a bright light.

Sunshine

Starlight.

Spoiler alert: we shared starlight...big time.

She shows us our humanity and the thread that binds us.

Holds it up and then weaves it...

reminds us of our connection...

our beauty...

our messages and stories that we each MUST share.

She reads us poem after poem - of other poets -

friends of hers, mentors.

She shares the story of Juan Felipe Herrera - our nation's current Poet Laureate - how when he was in school, he said no words out loud, tried to disappear -

embarrassed by his inability to speak English - he hid behind a bush and sang a song that his mother and grandmother sang to him during lunch...passing on the other side of the bush, Juan Felipe's 3rd grade teacher...she stopped to listen.

Juan Felipe tells the story that after lunch, his teacher asked him to come to the front of the classroom and sing. He was shocked! Afraid! Disoriented...but his teacher had asked and so he did.

The classmates applauded and the teacher said the words that changed his life.

Five words.

"You have a beautiful voice."

With that little bit of encouragement, Juan Felipe began raising his hand, began seeing himself as a student, began to believe in himself and share his voice.

Sprinkling that story on the teachers, Naomi reminded them that they too,

have a beautiful voice...and beautiful profession...

a noble duty.

A sacred calling. 

She gifted them a chance to see the beauty in their work.

The importance of their influence.

Pausing and reminding them that they change lives.

She had us write "clumps of words" and used those clumps to help us write poems.

We shared them in this small group at 5 o'clock at night...

watching the twilight...

feeling connected.

This Palestinian American poet brought with her a cloud of grace...

peace...

community...

and it was then that I wanted to be in charge of the world.

I wanted to be able to appoint peace negotiators...

what if we had a Palestinian poet, an Israeli poet and a Palestinian-American poet all gather and forge out some peace with a few "clumps of words".

It might only take five words, like it did for Juan Felipe.

It might take twenty five...but we know poets are known for their choosy, careful way with words...we can be sure that unnecessary phrases would be absent. 

No posturing.

No facades.

No misleading text...

everything cut away to just a few words:

Thank you, Naomi Shihab Nye for your heroic ability to 

step out of your line and draw a larger circle.

Thank you for reminding me of the power of a clump of words...

the beauty in Kindness...

the love of the ordinary...

and the gift of a few clumps of words.

My circle is larger thanks to you.

Grace Under Pressure: America's Teachers

Wednesday, November 9th, 2016, the day after the most contentious presidential election in our recent memory,
was a school day.

School teachers and principals everywhere had to find a way, any way, to create unity in a time of division and open cruelty.

Donald Trump is now the President.

Donald Trump - who acted throughout the entire election season in a disrespectful, antagonistic, loud-mouthed, divisive way - won.

So, teachers who work on holding their students to standards of respect, tolerance and kindness for the first time had to look at their President and then look away.

Then they had to enter their classrooms and find a way to change the message.

As the universe would have it, I had to be in classrooms that day.

Normally, in the fall, I only go into classrooms on Mondays and Tuesdays, but because of a scheduling glitch I had to be there this Wednesday.

I like to think of it as divine intervention.

I was melancholy watching so much hatred and vitriol and as someone who loves children - hangs out with children all the time - I couldn't comprehend this new reality for them.
For us.

What would school be like?
What would my student teachers face?
How could a school create unity when the country was so divided?

How can you hold kids accountable when the adults in the room are acting anything but?

I walked onto an elementary school campus and was greeted with three third graders marching and saying: "We need a recount. Recount. Recount."
Who even knows that word in third grade?

I walked into a classroom before school had even started and found two veteran teachers in tears...and my student teacher just quietly watching.

"What do we tell the students?
How can we ask our students to behave with kindness and respect when we have this President?"

Good questions.

But time was ticking.
They didn't have a script.
No instruction manual...
students were coming.

Deep breaths.
Game faces on.

Good morning.

I watched it unfold in classroom after classroom.

Sat in awe as teachers comforted and listened.

Sometimes they gathered their students together and reaffirmed for them that this school in this place was safe and most importantly was theirs.

Sometimes they talked about democracy and founding fathers and the idea that every single one of us gets a vote.

I watched a student teacher guarantee her students safety, tolerance and respect in such a commanding way that I got teary eyed taking my notes with her words.
She helped her students see the beauty in our nation...
in our equality...
in our traditions and our government.

She offered every student herself.

If they didn't feel safe;
if they felt like they wanted to talk;
if they wanted to share a story...
she was there to listen.

I know a teacher who took the last part of the day to make friendship bracelets.
"Go ahead and work on a bracelet and think about who you will give it to in this classroom."

We are all friends here.

That guidance.
That steady hand.
Those loving arms.
Big hearts.
Listening ears...
that's what happened in school today.

All around the country, America's teachers steadied the course.
They went to work...
picking up the pieces and creating a beautiful mosaic.

Holding the expectations high.
Showing children what it means to be American.

These incredible people are stitching our children together,
binding them with love and kindness.

Living tolerance.
Breathing respect.
Inhaling peace.
Exhaling chaos.

If you want to know where to look during this time of disequilibrium and division...stop at a school.

Watch a teacher in action.
Listen to her big book about friendship.
Let the music of children's voices float over you.
Rise to the expectations of a child's best version of you.

We can do this.

We have their example.

Follow their rules:

Be safe.
Be productive.
Be kind.

America's teachers offer all of us a glimpse of extraordinary grace
during the least ordinary of times.

All we can do is follow their lead.

Joy

Want to tell a graduate some words of wisdom? Share this:

We go around and spend our days with people at work or school and never really know what it is they are in love with.

Unless they randomly share a story about a family member or a special treat they've made or talk about some tickets they are buying...providing the tiniest window into what moves them.

If we're lucky, they share their love.

They reveal a love for ballet, or theater or travel, or knitting, or singing, or butterfly collecting...

or whatever.

It really doesn't matter.

Whatever they love, 

that is the secret passageway to their joy.

Like a chemical reaction, joy just bubbles up.

Caroline has had a coach for two years that loves soccer.

LOVES it.

He thinks about it at all hours of the day, researches the game, seeks out ideas for making practices engaging and learns methods of teaching very specific techniques.

He writes lengthy emails.

Offers up videos to watch.

Let's us know when the next big professional game is on so we can find a way to watch it.

I happen to have a kid who loves soccer so it's a win/win...no pun intended.

But, that's the big question...

which came first?

The chicken or the egg...did Jeremy love soccer enough to catch Caroline on fire...or was Caroline already simmering with a love that caught fire once she met a coach with the right flame.

Who cares.

What matters is that for two years Caroline has been swimming in the pool of soccer love.

And well, she's soaked.

It makes her smile...pumps her up...fills her up.

It takes a very special coach to aim for the decades after his players are done with the sport.

Decades from now, the goal is that the players will still love the sport.

Still perk up when they hear about a game or an exceptional player.

They will still smile at fancy footwork or a tremendous save all those years later.

Caroline's coach did not focus on winning.

He focused on joy.

His joy in the endeavor couldn't help but seep into the kids' idea of the sport.

His zen energy during a game radiated that joy.

Yes, yes, winning sure is fun...

but there is joy in a hard fought game that was razor close...even if you lose.

There is joy in leaving it all on the field, regardless of the score.

There's joy in a beautiful pass, a strategic kick or an incredible save...

even if the game ends with a loss.

What Jeremy knows is what all coaches who see decades down the road know:

winning or losing are just words, what matters is what you feel.

Do you feel that essential connection with your teammates?

Do you feel that what you are bringing to your team matters?

Do you feel important? Wanted? Needed?

Do you feel excited?

Empowered?

Kids sports today are often drudgery...

practices that go too long or meet too often.

Parents on the sidelines yelling useless tips...caring way way too much about the win.

All sorts of people are taking it way too seriously.

Tonight I'm grateful that Caroline has stood in Coach Jeremy's sunshine for two seasons.

Two seasons of JOY.

Joy in learning.

Joy in striving.

Joy in just playing the game.

There is no way to thank someone for sharing their joy...

except for maybe letting them see the joy that has been passed on. 

Is it the joy of a well placed kick?

The joy of friendship?

Or the joy of climbing trees with friends?

Too many joyful moments to count. 

Thank you, Jeremy, for your kindness, your gentle strength, your willingness to have fun and most importantly for your joy.

It's been contagious.

Coach Stacy...you're amazingly wonderful too...a true partner in sharing the joy.

Your support and dedication and sense of fun made this past season extra wonderful.