When your mood feels like the weather, it’s not a good day.
You don’t feel like talking. Or thinking. Or feeling.
In fact, the one thing you did want to do was to catch up over dinner, which got cancelled…due to weather.
I think I’ll pour a glass of wine and get in bed, dear reader. I don’t feel like remembering this day anymore.
Not just a cheeky thing to say about my lesson plans and the general structure of my school days recently!
Each year, our kindergarteners perform a program for their families and support systems. Our amazing music teacher (who teaches the songs and the choreography) provides the script, which is often quite wordy. Today, over a glass of wine, my teammate and I rewrote parts of the script to make it kindergarten friendly. The show is Wing It!, about baby birds who are afraid to leave their nest and learn to fly. Note: some of the words from this rewrite are from the original script of the musical Wing It. I do not own any of this material! Enjoy, dear reader.
Growing up is frightening but you don’t do it alone
We all have lots of help around, we’re never on our own
Aunt and uncles, sisters and brothers
Friends, neighbors, and plenty of others
Teachers, parents and all of the rest
Will help us all become our very best
We have learned to try, we have put our minds to it
And now we believe that we can really do it
We’re ready to fly, we know we’ll be great
And when we are through, we all celebrate
……….We’re flying!
Dear reader,
The first illustration with humans. A friend in Vietnam.
It’s amazing the mutual payoff we’ve created. My sister’s final project for all of college is based in educational inquiry. Her fourth grade class is pen pals with my class. The idea is that each class can learn about diversity and leave this year culturally proficient. The fourth graders’ conversations have been incredible – people of color as strong protagonists in literature, self directed research about holidays they’d heard about from my class, and a sense of awareness for others that I can only wish some adults had.
The kindergarteners’ reactions have been…a bit different. Few hang on my every word as I prepare them to write their responses, the gears turning in their eager minds. Some have trouble remembering my sister’s name from month to month. And most just like seeing their name in the letter’s greeting and care very little about its substance.
But.
I have learned things about my students exclusively because they’ve trusted these fourth graders with their words. Kids who are hesitant to write and draw under typical writing workshop routines are thriving. And I’m not sure who I’m more proud of – these little ones for how far they’ve come, or my sister for finding her calling so naturally?
We usually hit a rut this time of year.
I can tell from my Facebook memories. While typically he prefers to portray a subtle love to the world, I caption a few photos in a such a way that I can remember. This year, I can remember and smile. No ruts yet.
Must be the newlywed syndrome. That’s what we’ve been using as an excuse. I smile when he walks in the door. I notice when the light catches his speckled blue eyes. I stare at his lips while he tells me anything – about work, a compliment, a joke, the dog’s bowel movements…and I’m just aching to kiss him. I grab my phone at work to send a message when I shouldn’t just to see his name flash across the screen. My body feels physical anxiety when I am away from him for the weekend. And that first hug when I return…what was I talking about again?
When I look back on the seven years we’ve been together, four months married, it sure doesn’t seem like newlywed syndrome is to blame. I think when you find your person, this subtle everydayness gets taken for granted. I think I’m seeing what I’ve always had and just feeling extra grateful.
So sorry, dear reader, if you were hoping for subtle like my husband. He chose not to marry subtle.
Note: I found the word “everydayness” on Pinterest.
I was an Irish Dancer for 14 years.
“Why did you do it if you’re not Irish?!”
I had tried all the other types of dance. They didn’t engage me. My mom said that if I didn’t stick with Irish, I wouldn’t be a dancer at all. So I tried it. And I was a dancer.
I loved that my feet could do something beautiful, intricate, and mesmerizing while my body was still. I loved the feeling of finally understanding a move and being able to execute it flawlessly. I loved the way my velvety dress felt beneath my fingertips as I subtly grabbed on to keep my arms from flailing.
I loved dancing on city streets and bar floors. I loved the urgency of quick shoe changes, when I’d go from a graceful reel to a loud and proud jig. I loved plastering a smile across my face because it wasn’t really plastered there at all, I just really loved what I was doing.
And now.
I love that my ankles don’t look quite the same because of my career ending injury. I love that I get to share the magic of dance with my students each year. I love that though I am not Irish, my heart will always belong to the rhythms of a people with feet of fire.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, dear reader!
A haiku
Best friends figuring
Out how to be adults with the
Safety net of love
I’d prefer to spend my time with my dear friends than write today, dear reader. Enjoy your Saturday!
Admittedly short post tonight –
I’m on a road trip with friends to visit my best friend in New York City. My favorite thing about traveling is the snacks, the music, the sunset, the bitching about other drivers. I love the feeling that something amazing is waiting on the other side of this journey. I love that my phone might die, and that I don’t really care. I love the feeling that what happens in this car for the next 5 hours is sacred between the travelers.
What is your favorite part of a road trip, dear reader?
Aren’t houses strange? This place that is carpet and drywall is a living, breathing piece of your history. My housing journey has been pretty straightforward – childhood home, college dorm, college apartment, then a few apartments through my early 20s. But they’re not just places, are they, dear reader?
My childhood home was the shelter for Beanie Babies, the place Santa still visited through 2014, the site of prom pictures, the sanctuary to cure homesickness (thanks in part to home cooking and four different dogs), and the foundation for three little girls to follow their big dreams.
My college dorm was where I had my first hangover, where I got to try being an “adult,” where I downloaded Spotify, made my first Dean’s List.
My college apartment was the place of eggy sandwiches, meg bongs (beer!), the third generation hand-me-down couch, and the place where my best friends refused to be without me in their lives. Forever.
My early 20s apartments were where I first cried over a student, where I confirmed my love of wine, where I hosted pregames and Game of Thrones watch parties, where I took home my angel, Fin the mutt.
And now. My sweet, quiet apartment. Where I came after I got engaged, married, and honeymooned. Where we’ve hosted parents, siblings, and dear friends. Where my husband and I have made countless vodka sodas just because. Where we’ve spoken words we’ve never said to anyone. Where we’ll soon be leaving.
And that’s it? I’m just supposed to give this place filled with love, despair, hope, and humor to whomever will sign a lease? I’m just supposed to look at a house, decide I want to buy it, and make it mine? Whose precious history lies in my future?
Suddenly, I remember to breathe. Had I been walking around, talking to students, eating my lunch two hours late, redirecting a child, THAT child, and forgetting to breathe? My lungs were sore. My body, too. As if they had been continuing on about their day without my brain giving it much thought. My brain, of course, was elsewhere.
My brain was, is, will be on THAT child. We’ll call him Mick. You know Mick, dear reader. There’s that sweet side, asking while replacing his k’s and g’s, “Mrs. Chai-toe wanna hud?” There’s that untapped potential when you hear his extensive understanding of a book read aloud he only half listened to. And then, there’s…everything else. The stomping. The repeated and forceful physical contact on himself, peers, and me. The shrieking. And the most recently, the confusion in his eyes. Just when I think I’ve figured out what Mick needs to be successful, he pulls the rug out from under me and laughs in my face (I wish this was an exaggeration). It feels as if this small child can see my darkest insecurities – as a teacher and as a person – and manipulate them to fit his desires for the day. My assistant or I spend the entire day one on one with Mick.
There’s frustration. There’s guilt. There’s nineteen other impressionable, thoughtful children in my class (over half with high language needs) that are craving my attention. Attention I can’t give them. As they watch me get repeatedly kicked and screamed at.
There’s a lot of love and support for Mick throughout the building. There’s a lot of faith that the strategies my colleagues give me will work, and that I will also be able to serve the rest of my class simultaneously. There’s a lot of pressure on me to do everything with a smile. But I don’t feel happy. I have the feeling that you get when you’ve held your breath too long underwater. Like you’re in a nightmare. Like your life is flashing before your eyes. And you don’t know how far it is to the surface.
I know I should be grateful – I have a job, I have great colleagues, I only have 20 students when I could have 27, I have a large team supporting me………….and I am. I am grateful. But do they realize how many little moments I miss? The moment when Soren used a reading strategy for the first time. The moment when Tommy actually stayed engaged for an entire read aloud. The moment when Dave said his first words in English after being receptive for three months. The moment when Elizabeth solved a problem at recess independently. It’s not Mick that’s keeping me underwater, it’s the immense guilt of being trusted to shape young minds and only really being there for part of it.
Awake already? Better get up, this is a busy day. Can’t the dog walk himself? Don’t forget to run to the grocery store. Especially since you didn’t pack lunch. Found a few things I needed, what’s next on the list? Get going! Haven’t you checked the time?! I am SO tired. Just the second day of daylight savings has me feeling unlike myself. Keep pushing through this day. Let me check on my friend. Maybe he’ll follow directions the first time – just this once? Nope. On to the next child who needs my love and encouragement. Please can I get one second to myself? Quite the day I’ve had…Right now, I still have three things on the to do list. Squat, lunge, kick! This laundry will never end. Uh, did she really just text me that?! Very likely I’ll overthink this situation all night. Wine seems necessary at this point. EXpecting my husband home soon. Yet, this moment alone is refreshing. Zoning out time!
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the post on Two Writing Teachers yesterday about stories and band aids. I know this is a band aid, dear reader, but I feel like this challenge is pushing me creatively and productively, and I know my real and true story will come. I’ve given you so much of myself without writing a story that I keep pushing it off. Forgive me and thanks for always accepting me and reading me anyway!
A Chai Tea(cher) 