Friday was one of those days that shakes you to your core, makes you question your career choice and the society in which you live, and teaches you (via sledgehammer) that words do indeed have power. And even if you don’t feel superstitious, you realize that full moons DO affect the behavior of adolescents. And their parents.
I will spare my sensitive readers the ugly details, but there was some misbehavior, some consequences, and some very angry parents slinging some really powerful and highly derogatory words around. I wasn’t even in the middle of it but that kind of name-calling really takes a toll.
Here I am in a roomful of teen-agers trying to fight the good fight and teach manners, writing, love for neighbor, grammar, life skills, resiliency, etc., (not necessarily in that order) and it feels like the whole world is spinning off its rocker. Have you ever been in a room full of thirty 14 year olds? Now THAT is a job. Trust me. I love this job quite often and the moments of discovery and humor and growth. But think of all the hormones and the growing pains and the personalities spreading their fledgling selves!! It is a lot.
My colleague took the brunt of it this time, but I have been there too. It was his name at the heart of the matter and he had the most to lose. As a teacher you take a moment to discipline and model and try to teach the life lesson, and it all blows up in your face.
We couldn’t even talk yesterday, just shook our heads and looked at the floor as we tried to figure out how people could behave that way. It was very much a funeral; we were mourning so many things like common decency and respect and etiquette.
At a loss for words, I realized my dad said it best. (I don’t know why it surprises me that even after ten and a half years it is my father’s voice I hear in my head and pull out to comfort my friend.) My dad was a tough man; a stint in the army, his job in the steel mill blast furnace, and his career as a repo man made sure of that. His well-worn line: “Don’t let the bastards get you down.”
There’s the rub. I am always tripping on my superhero cape in my struggles to bring peace and justice to the land. Trapped between going whole hog to fight the good fight, or choosing a more prudent, turn-the-other-cheek Gospel approach. Sometimes the line is spiderweb thin. And sometimes I am a little too feisty to decide (prudently) what approach to take. Living the Gospel and praying for those who persecute me (and my friends) seems like kow-towing and letting the bad guys win. But then again, I need a job and a paycheck to support my family and I really do enjoy teaching the future.
I always say this is a job of moments. The giggle of the new girl warms my heart when she finally loosens up in a room full of strangers, a young man turns himself around and starts doing his work consistently, a student creates a metaphor I can remember by rote years later. But there are hard moments too: when the truth gets lost and the players get nasty. It is junior high after all, (with all that entails) and I know that parents love their children (and don’t always believe what they are capable of.) But I don’t know why they won’t believe that I love them too.
Things are a little better today. The moon has waned. Time has started to heal. The deep breathing is helping. And I have chosen to do what I am called to do. (It IS good to re-evaluate choices and methods and heart, after all.) I will not forget that words have power; I choose them carefully. In my head is the whisper of my father and my hope for the future: “The good guys in the white hats always win.”
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Monday, November 7, 2011
Loud and Desperate
”Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” ― Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau says that most men live lives of quiet desperation. At this point in the fall, my desperation is anything but quiet. The animals feel it too. We are racing the winter. The chipmunks are speeding around my patio chattering. The squirrels are running and grabbing and digging. And I am whirling and screaming and fretting.
I feel this desperate animal kind of clawing from the inside out. This clutching at time. The race to the winter. Or is it something more?!
Whole piles of laundry lie unwashed so that I can hit the trail and run through the woods. I go for three miles, and stay for five. The light is so different in the fall, and sends a halo of sorts over the already golden trees.
I breathe in the crispness of autumn, and the chill on my fingers subsides as I tick off the miles. I can see my breath. I run faster, racing the winter: one more corner to round, one more sunny day to inhale, one more colored leaf to follow as it flits to the earth.
The other day the leaves fell like rain. I grew giddy, running and playing the game my daughter plays with the neighbor girl, trying to catch the leaves before they fell. I didn’t manage to snag one, but it seemed as though the air buoyed ME as I ran, crunching the brown and gold at my feet.
I know well the things of winter: the early dark and frozen toes and silent earth. And the fall is a good time to struggle with dreams and intentions and songs before all are buried beneath the blanket of snow or tucked away under the comforter I use to keep warm when the dark comes too early.
And so I wrestle. I run. I jump in and pull back like my son in the pile of leaves on the curb. We both make a mess of things and grab the rake to start again. We laugh at squirrels who search for nuts and scamper up trees and bury treasures they will never find again. And we giggle and frolic and make treasures of our own before the winter buries us all.
Thoreau says that most men live lives of quiet desperation. At this point in the fall, my desperation is anything but quiet. The animals feel it too. We are racing the winter. The chipmunks are speeding around my patio chattering. The squirrels are running and grabbing and digging. And I am whirling and screaming and fretting.
I feel this desperate animal kind of clawing from the inside out. This clutching at time. The race to the winter. Or is it something more?!
Whole piles of laundry lie unwashed so that I can hit the trail and run through the woods. I go for three miles, and stay for five. The light is so different in the fall, and sends a halo of sorts over the already golden trees.
I breathe in the crispness of autumn, and the chill on my fingers subsides as I tick off the miles. I can see my breath. I run faster, racing the winter: one more corner to round, one more sunny day to inhale, one more colored leaf to follow as it flits to the earth.
The other day the leaves fell like rain. I grew giddy, running and playing the game my daughter plays with the neighbor girl, trying to catch the leaves before they fell. I didn’t manage to snag one, but it seemed as though the air buoyed ME as I ran, crunching the brown and gold at my feet.
I know well the things of winter: the early dark and frozen toes and silent earth. And the fall is a good time to struggle with dreams and intentions and songs before all are buried beneath the blanket of snow or tucked away under the comforter I use to keep warm when the dark comes too early.
And so I wrestle. I run. I jump in and pull back like my son in the pile of leaves on the curb. We both make a mess of things and grab the rake to start again. We laugh at squirrels who search for nuts and scamper up trees and bury treasures they will never find again. And we giggle and frolic and make treasures of our own before the winter buries us all.
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