loose change

writing this sixth post from nutbelly pizza bar! during ad breaks of the michigan game and in between conversations with mom. i knew i had to write this by monday and was thinking about it during the weekend–i almost started writing yesterday–and completely forgot about it until thirty minutes ago! so i’m distracted but i’m writing.

today was our first day back to school after three weeks. i went in yesterday to take down the christmas decorations and get the schedule together and was surprised at how natural it felt to do it, & was surprised again today at the comfort and confidence i felt in my role as teacher. i’m not a miracle worker by any means. i often feel like i’m doing the bare minimum in the classroom because i get so overwhelmed with supplemental things–with crafts, or science projects, or Big Discussions–but it’s a solace to know that the kids are happy in my class and that they trust me as their teacher!

this week, my goal is to help at least one of them understand the significance of Martin Luther King Jr. and the reason we observe monday as a national holiday. one of the kid’s moms reminded me at dismissal of the idea that fairness is not the same as equality, and i hope i can incorporate that into our discussion tomorrow! sometimes when i try to explain to them these Big Ideas i really stumble through it, because their questions always catch me off guard. one of them wanted to know exactly who shot MLK and why, and i really scrambled to come up with a response. i think i can just be happy that they care, that they’re invested enough in the learning to be able to ask the questions.

it’s tough because there’s this draw to be funny, and to be careless, and cool, especially for the boys. every single student of mine is genuinely sweet. i know that at their best, it’s never their intention to hurt another’s feelings. most of the feeling-hurting comes when they’re too caught up in how they’re being perceived, when they start to become self-critical as opposed to being self-aware. there’s a tug of war between the desire to be in power and the desire to be kind, and being powerful usually wins. the good news is that they’re all pretty good at expressing remorse, and it’s clear that they feel badly when they’re called out for being mean. but it’s so hard as a teacher to convince them that caring is cool, that being kind can benefit them much more than being cool.

and there are hard moments where their innocence defends them from understanding the reality that their humor is grounded in. one of them today told me that he wished he got TNT for christmas so that he could blow up the school. it is SO HARD to step back in these moments and place myself in their reality, which is so pure and so protected that there’s no doubt in their minds that this is a funny joke, a ludicrous joke even, a joke that would never be brought to fruition in the real world. i’ve been pretty stern about banning fake guns from the classroom. but there’s no way to explain to them exactly why, especially for a generation that is growing up in the era of video games where murder is for sport.

i want them to maintain innocence for as long as they can. in a way, it’s a beautiful thing to be so protected. in a way, they’re giving the world the benefit of the doubt. i don’t want to be the one to tell them that guns are the leading cause of death among children in this country. i don’t want to be the one to tell them that millions of american children risk their lives every day just by going to school. but it’s also deeply disturbing to me that gun violence has been normalized enough in their lifetimes to the point where it’s humorous to them.

so i asked them today, after reading a book about Martin Luther King Jr., what each one of them could do to make their world a better place. i had no idea what to expect. two of them thought about times they’d taught their younger siblings. one of them was just focused on watching tv by himself, which evolved into inviting his friends over to play video games with him. one of them wanted to fight for people, which we turned into standing up for people who need help. one of them, without any consultation, began drawing a picture of a stick figure amongst trees with lots of dots raining from his hands. are you planting seeds?! i asked, and he said yes, extremely nonchalantly. i can help the world by planting seeds. one of them was struggling, and so i asked what can you do that improves the world around you? he responded inquisitively: make people…laugh? and i resounded an emphatic YES!

i want so badly to teach them that they have an impact on the world around them, regardless of whether they mean to. it’s something they have to learn for themselves. i’m aware of my influence. they are so malleable that their opinions are driven in large part by the people they admire. they’ve got no idea of personhood, no idea of who they are and who they want to be, no idea of the power that they wield just by existing. i’ve been learning that there are many things that cannot be taught. i’m certain that every revelation i’ve ever had has been taught or told to me before i’ve been ready to learn it. and i am not naive when it comes to teaching these children: if my impact reaches just one of them, i’ll feel successful. but i have high hopes that i’ll reach more than one, and i have high hopes that they’ll help each other along the way.

i went for a good run in big bear a couple of weeks ago, and listened to an episode of the moth where a middle school teacher was featured. her goal as a teacher was to instill in her kids that they had all the power at their fingertips to do things on their own, to answer questions on their own, and to know that she was there to support them if they couldn’t. she talked about active shooter drills, and the way they’ve become as routine as a fire drill for schools across our country. in the span of a decade, she’d gone from reassuring kids that this was something they really didn’t need to be concerned about, to answering this question: if i’m getting water, and we go into lockdown, would you let me back into the classroom? she had to answer no. i had to stop every quarter mile to choke out my tears.

to be a good teacher is to care. and the caring requires a vulnerability that i didn’t know i possessed until accepting the job in first grade. i’m hard on myself about making an impact or not. i used to worry that they would be academically stunted if they didn’t learn a certain topic within a certain window of time. i’m learning that my merit does not lie in the boxes that are checked off. i am a good teacher because i care immensely about the wellbeing of my students–about their safety, their comfortability, their confidence in the classroom, their happiness. the more i recognize this the more i understand why this job was entrusted to me.

and things on all other fronts are okay! everything is baby steps lately. i went to the beach last night for a sunset meditation after cleaning my classroom up. the practice was on extending compassion outward after forming a sturdy base of self-compassion grounded in my field of care. my mind was not still. i fell into the natural rhythm of deep breathing but lacked the mental clarity to really feel successful in meditative thought. and even so, i walked away knowing that the fact i practiced outweighs the success in doing so. this is promising to me!

i’m nostalgic about everything these days. winter at home usually begs nostalgia, and it’s twofold now that i’m unsure of where i’ll be at this time next year. i’m moving to on-call shifts at the restaurant. i resisted doing so for as long as i could. i didn’t want to give up my shifts until it felt like the most sustainable option, and finally choosing to do so has brought some kind of relief. it’s also evoked these feelings of sentimental pride? i think?

i was so fucking lost when i applied for this job at the restaurant. i was battling for a breakup and feeling really inadequate with the sparse hours i was working at school. i wanted to be alone just as much as i wanted to find a community of people i enjoyed being with. i wanted to prove something to myself. it’s impossible to believe that it’s only been one year since i began working at little dom’s. so much has changed in that time, and the restaurant has only continued to provide me with confidence and support and laughter and a sense of purpose that extends much deeper than my ability to greet people at the door.

dom’s is situated perfectly in terms of sunsets. you can look left out the window and see the clouds over the ocean, straight out the window and see the evening light on the foothills, and look right and see the shops on the main street lit up with pastel purples and pinks. my final ~officially scheduled~ night there was anticlimactic–because we all know i’ll be back the second they ask me to pick up a shift–but it was in a beautiful way. i felt so much gratitude as the sun was setting. just secretly overcome with love for this place and these people who i’ve gotten to work with and laugh with and be supported by over the past year! and as i was romanticizing all of these feelings, the song small town by john mellencamp came on. it felt scripted. in that moment i felt simultaneously in love with the life i’ve created in this small town, and prepared to move on to bigger things knowing that i’ve done something great here. and that felt really, really good.

baby steps! as much as all of this feels really good to acknowledge, there is still room to grow in infinite other places! i still need to clean out and donate at least half of my closet! and maybe put some intentional thought toward what i might do after august, when my free agency takes effect–even though a large part of me is tempted to just leave it up to fate. kolby reminded me the other day that magical things happen quite frequently, and especially for people like us–the believers! i always forget that i’m a believer until the magic really happens, and i’m left with no choice but to recognize it as real.

anyway wow! these aren’t at all the words i expected to produce tonight! but how exciting to have written for six mondays in a row. who would’ve thought! not me! i can’t wait for next week. thank you for riding this piece out if you’ve made it this far! until next time xxxoo