Tag: writing challenge

microcosm

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The human collective encased within the parameters of the airport possesses all manner of oddities. While this mass of people exists in this singular place for merely a fleeting moment of time, the focus is not on community but more on the individual habits and procedures that will get us where we need to be, when we need to be there, with as little interaction as possible. Skillfully averted eyes and the incarnation of air pods have heightened the already palpable vibe of “don’t talk to me.” We place bags on the seats next to us in the terminal in an attempt to avoid having to sit too closely to a stranger…or maybe just to enjoy some personal space before boarding the plane. Magazines, that so many only ever purchase in the airport, as well as screens of varying shapes and sizes act as blinders, making us appear engrossed in something important that absolutely should not be disturbed. We all meander and move with purpose and intention and with no apparent need for those around us.

Which actually makes reasonable sense in the airport, but I wonder how often we walk through our larger communities in this way–turned completely inward, avoiding conversation and community, focused only on the needs and goals of the self. It feels easier to move through life solo–or at least with a very small tribe. The fewer people who rely on you, who need things, who look to you, who could possibly hurt and be hurt by you, the easier it is to make decisions because the impact feels compact. Yet, no matter how isolated we imagine ourselves to be, or how singular each action feels, no matter how secluded we expect we have made ourselves, ripples go out into the world…for better or for worse.

The thing is this–we were made to be with each other. We were made to associate rather than detach. Sure, life masquerades as simpler when we shield ourselves within a fortress of busy-ness and singularity, but we miss so much in avoiding the intricacies and attachments and beauty of those around us. People are not always easy. Relationships are often uncomfortable. But living in community with those around us constructs scaffolding that holds us accountable while also holding us in tenderness.

The thing is also this–just because we attempt to avoid interaction or just because we deny our place in any given society doesn’t erase our presence. So, consider instead, the power of your smile or a simple thank you or any other basic kindness that possesses the potential to elevate the quality of someone else’s day. Consider instead, that when we look up from our screens and books and busy-ness, there are people, both known and unknown, waiting to be noticed, deserving of recognition. Consider instead the vibrance and richness that could decorate not only our own lives but the world at large if we just took a moment to step out of ourselves and into relationship.

(not sure the day count holds anymore since I’m not writing in consecutive days…but I believe this would be Day 28)

(and also because I seem to have strayed from sharing poetry here…it’s one I’ve shared before but it is perfect for this particular blog…“Gate A-4” by Naomi Shihab Nye)

 

concession

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Well, in order to preserve my sanity and that of my family, I’m changing the rules of this blog challenge–but by all means, there will still be king cake at the end. Despite recognizing days ago that this would have to happen, I hesitated to rearrange the challenge at all. In my weird brain, I had convinced myself that I would be letting people down (you know, like the 6 people who read this blog with any regularity–I was worried about them…). And even though I wasn’t really enjoying the writing after 12-14 hour days at school (difficult days at school) and even though I knew I needed to take care of myself first, I couldn’t bring myself to jeopardize the streak.

And then a good friend asked me who made the rules in the first place.

Yep, I made those rules so I could change those rules and it would be just fine. I could give myself a couple of more days off in the week without lessening the value of the work (actually, the work will probably get better). I could, quite simply take care of myself without having to answer to anybody else in doing so. And, if I am being honest, I do not give myself permission to do that often enough. The very same good friend also asked me to list the things that I do just for myself. I could not produce a rich and diverse list in return. Sure I could think of things like working out and writing and my Wednesday night class. But the working out has to happen at 5am at a sacrifice to sleep. And the writing, while most nights I love it, has also been crafted at a sacrifice to my family and to just giving my brain a break. In that moment, I realized a couple of things: First, I need to seek more ways to do things just for myself and (this is critical) not feel guilty for that. Second, I will be a better human for having done so.

So, the Carnival season blog a day challenge rules are changing. Instead of one day off per week, I’m taking three. And if I am traveling for work, I won’t force the issue. If a blog happens, great and if not, also okay. No king cake will be consumed between now and Mardi Gras Day. As long as I continue to maintain a regular writing habit between now and Mardi Gras Day, the king cake will be mine then and not before.

Excited to write with less pressure for a daily requirement. Excited to enjoy the process a bit more. Excited to take care of myself.

(Day 27)

propulsion

Amy Clark2 Comments

Footsteps–

Metered, methodical

propelled by necessity rather

than spring or even verve.

 

Purposeful–

Not a shuffle or saunter

but serious, maybe

tinged with resignation.

 

Carrying–

Weight beyond

her body as the sieve

of her mind, too fine, clings.

 

Progress?

Maybe…or maybe

that’s her chosen belief because

if she admitted she were only

treading water, if she realized the depth

of the ocean below…then

drowning becomes reality, and

progress a myth.

 

(Day 26…I am nearly positive I am changing the rules on this blog challenge, adding another day or two off, but tonight there was this poem. Again, honoring my commitment to share the requirement that my poetry students share their poetry no matter how uncomfortable. Still a work in progress. Sharing anyway.)

selfish?

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I lost control of the remote and all television viewing when I married my husband twenty years ago. The birth of my kiddos only compounded this situation. In order for me to possess the power to decide what I will watch, I pretty much either have to be at home by myself or the last one awake (which is why I’m only on Season 3 of Downton Abbey with so many other seasons of so many other shows in an ever growing queue of  “to be viewed”). And I’m not going to lie, what the people in this household decide to watch remains questionable at best. To justify that statement, I should mention that currently these boys (lead by my husband) are flipping between some station with a guy selling vintage coins and a reality television show depicting people who go around the country in an effort to haggle and then buy other people’s junk. If somehow something else were to be added to the mix, I can almost positively promise it will be the Golf channel.

Riveting, right?

I wish I could say this lineup was an anomaly, except this happens just about every single Monday night with the remaining nights of the week reflecting equally debatable viewing options. Some days my lack of voice in these matters bothers me and pushes me ever closer to ensuring some kind of “she-shed” becomes a reality. However, at this point in my life, I often find myself grateful not to have to make another decision in the day. Honestly, with the way my days have been going, I would be happy not to turn the television on at all. I would be happy to enjoy the quiet, to find some stillness, to enjoy the peace of solitude. A few months ago, while out of town at a conference, I settled into a quiet hotel room where no one needed anything from me and where I fully intended to wield the remote without contest. Except, I didn’t. I didn’t watch a single show. I wrote and read and rested and my sense of well-being was restored.

My days are typically punctuated with noise, chatter, questions, complaints, jokes, laughter, and more. I’m not griping about that because I am grateful for my job, my students, my colleagues and my family. I am only noting that quiet moments in this span of my life are few and far between. I am constantly in a state of problem solving, constantly in response mode, constantly in motion. Spending the last couple of hours before falling asleep for the night in a state of calm, quiet relaxation seems to be a bit of a luxury or even a guilty pleasure. As a mom, those quiet hours do not exist when I am at home, and I struggle to find a means to give them to myself despite knowing that I am a better human when I have had this time to decompress. Life as we live it moves too fast for this kind of pause, yet I live in recognition of the necessity of it.

And so I guess my realization in this is that I need to spend less time frustrated over terrible television, feeling ignored or secondary, and more time placing my own self first and seeking even just a few moments of solitude. Even if that solitude has the ambient noise of someone proclaiming the value of mint condition coins…

(Day 25…I’m tired…I literally typed up my resignation from this challenge…and then erased it and wrote this instead…why don’t I do this blog challenge in the summer for goodness’ sake?!)

Motivation in around 300 words

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At first, I thought it was the king cake that kept me motivated. Then, posting each blog on social seemed to hold me further accountable. What could be a more powerful incentive than the forces of friends/family and food?

My students.

Some of my students started reading my blog. And it is just the best validation for why I believe English teachers need to be writing for themselves…and in some way, large or small, sharing that writing. My kids are saying things like “I can totally tell when you are excited to be writing and when you are just doing it because you promised you would. It makes me feel like a teacher-like when you can tell we haven’t done our best too.”

It’s the reciprocity that matters, I think.

They see me working hard and being vulnerable by posting work publicly even when it isn’t my best. And I know better what it feels like to go home exhausted with loads of responsibilities and still have to find a way to sound coherent on the page.

Even better than that, they know me as a writer which is only fair given that I know that side of them so well.

I also feel in a very real way that they will know if I miss a night. I wouldn’t just be letting myself down, I would be letting them down. And that is the accountability that keeps me going. My students traveling this journey with me is far better than any slice of king cake at the end. What we have gained along the way far exceeds that delight!

(Day 23–short entry because, well, I got to chaperone Winter Formal tonight)

acceptance

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For what seems like my entire adult life, careless eaters and their subsequent audible mouth noises have rendered me wretched. Crunching, smacking, squishing, gulping…all of it… every muscle within me would tense, while on the outside, I would futilely attempt to withhold visible reaction (though once my shiver pronounces it’s presence, it is hard to mask my irritation). I have no way of explaining the swift development of this distress in any given moment, other than to say it is intrinsic, instinctive. No frustrated thought process exacerbates my reaction and tolerance entirely eludes the grasp of my capabilities.

Despite this aversion in my adult years, I also possess vivid recollection of my mom having to correct me, repeatedly, for smacking when I was a kid. Looking back, I cannot fathom why it took me so long to learn that lesson. Obviously, my manners required refinement, but somehow the sound of my own chewing didn’t seem to deter me. I am not sure when the changeover occurred. I just know that in the same way that I suffer a full body reaction to cilantro when it evades my careful eye and ambushes my taste buds, mouth noises incur complete revulsion.

Despite years of living into this disgust to the point of it worsening, my life turned in a bit of a punishing direction. In the midst of the fury of my inner ear disorder, when it had reached the point of disability, I consented to a surgery that offered no guarantees but did generate hope for restoration. I knew going in that the surgery, whether successful or not, would result in muffled hearing in my left ear as it healed and as the packing inserted during surgery dissolved. I knew a tube would be inserted as well that would also complicate my hearing for a while, but given that my hearing was already complicated, this seemed like a small sacrifice.

A few months after surgery, the surgeon removed the tube and for about three days, my hearing returned to the quality it kept before I was sick…not just pre-surgery but pre-illness. Everything about my life seemed to hold greater clarity in those days-I heard my kids clearly without having to see their mouths moving to decipher their words, my thoughts were uninterrupted by tinnitus, and directionality of sound was restored. The smile on my face in those few days reflected the lightness and joy of my being.

And then the hole the tube tore closed up.

While my hearing remained improved, I quickly discovered that I was also hearing internal noises at a volume not conducive to calm and clarity of thought. Every beat of my heart sent a roar instead of a pulse. Every breath I took, a hurricane in my ear. Every turn of my head, yawn, and stretch accompanied by cracking and squishing–noises we aren’t intended to hear and remains sane. Every word I spoke echoed within.

And also…

Every bite of food I chewed, every sip I took played at full volume and there was no escape, no retreat. All of a sudden, the thing that drove me mad in others became a state of being and no amount of shivering in disgust would resolve the issue. If I wanted to eat and drink (you know, survive), I had to also find a way to manage my disdain for these internal noises. It was hard to explain this situation to others without being greeted with the attempted empathy of “oh yeah, I know what that’s like! Happened to me when I had a cold last year” Not the same. I’ve had colds before that elevated the volume of internal noise. I’ll say it again–not the same…at all.

I wish I could say this surgical consequence brought me new perspective on the patience I should show others before reacting, but it didn’t really. However, it did grant me a realization. Was this situation uncomfortable? Yep. Did it make eating disorienting and difficult? Definitely. But, here’s the thing, I wasn’t dizzy anymore. The tinnitus was gone. I finally functioned in the world, for the most part, like other healthy people (with a few restrictions). I was present with my family and friends. I had been given so much only to be annoyed by these noises that over time, I could learn to live with if I only tried to focus on the positive rather than on the grotesque.

100% effective? Let’s just say, I require reminders:) Just tonight, while attempting to enjoy a piece of pizza, I nearly quit the meal 4 times (literally)  because I just couldn’t take the eating noises anymore. Then I remembered there was a time that just chewing pizza held the potential to incite vertigo. I let my frustration go and I enjoyed the treat.

And I think that is the point. There are so many moments in this life to enjoy when we just step back, let go of the frustration, harness our gratitude and dive into the delight.

(Day 22:) Also, Orange team don’t be mad about the pizza! I promise I ran 4 miles today too!)

flicker

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“For some things/ there are no wrong seasons./ Which is what I dream of for me.”

–from “Hurricane” by Mary Oliver

Hope flickers in the darkness.

Yet,somehow, when we need it most, we see everything but that light. We sink into seeing only the misery that surrounds us instead of squinting to see the light of hope in the distance. The choice remains within us to live into hope…to anticipate miracles that may arise in any single moment…to believe that there is more to come because right now is only temporary and each day brings a new promise.

In the toughest times, it is hard to take ownership of that choice.

In the midst of the most difficult days of my inner ear illness, when I thought I would have to quit my job and give up driving…when I thought my hearing would be lost forever and my kids would never remember who I “used to be”…it was in those terrifying days that for the first time in my life, I lost hope. I felt like a burden to all around me and I saw no chance of healing. For the first time in my life, I sank into the darkness and elected to remain there. Anything else felt too difficult, felt impossible. I could see no way out, could find no silver lining, could not understand anything beyond my own suffering.

And all I can say looking back on that is this: in denying myself access to hope, I denied myself healing of mind and spirit. In succumbing to the quicksand of my despair, I cheated myself out of moments, days and weeks of my life. I was waiting for someone else to throw me a life preserver or to reach out a hand and make it easier all the while missing the point that I had the power to save myself. I could not heal my illness, but I could in fact heal my heart.

Rediscovering that flickering light was no easy path to walk. Learning to trust it again took even longer. Walking forward in that light brings rest to my most difficult days now and also brings gratitude for the journey to its reclamation.

(Day 21–I’m exhausted…this is short and not what I had wanted it to become…I suspect a revision of this will turn into a future blogpost)

Heavy

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We wear our stress until our stress wears us out. The physical toll, unmistakably draining, exacts its punishment mercilessly. Yet we persist in carrying that weight under the misguided impression that we were meant to bear it alone. We shelter others from what we shoulder as though we prove something about our worth in doing so. We exist within community but refuse the benefits of becoming an actual member of that community. We deny support. We deny outreach. And in doing so, we deny our best life. Sleep eludes us; irritability invades. We become merely a shadowing our possibility. We grow weary and feel heavy.

I can discern simply by looking at my high school students where their stress levels are–and a lot of times, I find myself concerned. I do not mean to imply that they should be shielded from discomfort or that they have nothing to learn from it or that sometimes they don’t create it themselves. A healthy amount of intermittent stress and learning to manage it and to cope with it possess the potential to hone life skills in meaningful ways. What worries me is when my kids turn that stress inward and refuse to speak its truth because they think they should simply tough it out. What worries me is when their stress becomes their shame because what they learn in those moments is to feel less than and unworthy…isolated and singular.

So today, I wore the hat of relatively corny principal/English teacher–but I hold no humiliation in actions I think could remotely help even one of my kiddos. As they filed in for assembly today, I asked that each kid grab a rock from a collection that had been scattered on a table. I began by asking how many of them ever felt weighed down or heavy from holding onto their stress. Hands flew up. Then, I explained that sometimes in community, we forget that that we share the space so we can share the burden as well as the bounty. Sometimes we get a little lost and a little blinded to the help that surrounds us. I told them that a visible reminder that they didn’t have to be alone in carrying the heavy seemed like it could be helpful. Then, I asked them to write their stress on their rock and when they felt ready to share the  gravity of that burden, to drop it in a back pack that I would carry around school as that reminder–a reminder that, in fact, people were all around them ready to listen and lighten the load.

There were some very to be expected eye rolls:) But I fully admitted that I didn’t care how silly it seemed, we were doing it because they and their well being are important to me. There was also concern over my carrying a bag with 150 rocks in it, but I told them that I could manage the weight without wavering…not to worry.

At some point today I opened the bag to shift the rocks a bit and saw some of the stressors written on them. The rocks may have been small, the words written flatly across them, but the immensity of what these kids are walking through life with was unmistakable. Part of teaching the whole child, or of seeing the whole human, is owning a willingness to witness the reality of their existence. What may come across as a kid overly concerned about good grades could really be deeper stress that is fed and fostered by something much darker, something much more difficult to manage. And there is no way to know this by simply looking at the surface. We have to be willing to open the door to conversation, to trust. We have to be willing to put on a backpack full of rocks if even for a second it alleviates their weight and allows them to feel seen and loved. We have to be willing to see past our own discomfort to understand that of others.

And not for reward, but simply because this is what we do in community.

We live in relationship with one another.

Hard to be in relationship if we live alone in our own heavy.

IMG_5262.jpeg

(Day 20! That’s a lot of days in a row:) )

imperfection still gets grace

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So, I work with teenagers for a living and I feel entirely grateful to have that privilege. I resolutely believe they are absolutely remarkable humans with incredible potential to do amazing things with their energy and their determination and their ability to see possibility even in the darkness. They are imperfect creatures, just like the rest of us and they will falter mightily from time to time because learning demands those kinds of lessons. And I think that the adults of this world cling to only vague memories of what it was like to be that age–a pang of being grounded for talking back…the sting of a derision for making the hard decision to do the right thing…the ripples from careless words when you didn’t realize you were on 3-way calling (I’m a child of the 80’s…what can I say). That kind of nostalgia requires little effort. What we have shielded ourselves from, though, is the daily difficulty of living in a world that only gives you part of the respect you deserve–only sees you as adult when it is convenient for them to place you in that box, while reserving feelings like love, stress, heartbreak for an older population. As though the right to the intensity of those feelings has some sort of legal age requirement and should be diminished as childish before that point. And it is easy to look at adolescents and remark on how they are so different from kids when you were young–because they are different…the world they live in is different, so they have to be too. That does not make them bad or less than. It does, however, make them worthy of an effort to come to greater understanding, and it makes them worthy of our grace.

Here’s how I know that the young adults of this world are deserving of unrelenting grace…

Tonight, I accidentally encountered some photocopies of my creative writing from the 6th grade. My entire memory of writing these pieces is comprised of the joy I felt in the writing process and the fact that I intentionally tried to concern my teachers by killing off my family in every story in the most ridiculous ways (literally, I had them run over by Mardi Gras floats in one story…). I remember feeling exceptionally proud of my work and that my teacher always seemed to enjoy my stories.

In looking back at my writing now–in seeing the actual pieces that I composed–I am mortified at the person I was. There are comments and story elements throughout that reflect the sort of privileged private school existence that I was granted. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for my education and the sacrifices my parents made to make it possible. But I really thought I was a far more enlightened kid than this writing reveals. And while the teacher in me wishes my own teacher had called me out on some of these judgements and careless words, that very same teacher in me is also grateful that she responded to my creativity with positivity and understanding. My stories really are no masterpieces as I remember them to have been, but she overlooked flimsy storylines and outright character flaws (in me and on the page) to offer careful guidance and not to tarnish my joy in writing. She saw that maybe I was more than some of the thoughtless assumptions I included in my text. She saw more to me than my words and for that I am incredibly grateful.

Here is another reason to extend some grace. In a piece titled “What I Adore and Hate About Myself,” I wrote about how I adores how well I roller skated. I spent nearly a page sharing how hard I worked at this “sport” and how proud I was to be able to jump as opposed to hop on my skates (like I said, child of the 80’s). This “adoration” exists nowhere in my memory. I remember loving to roller skate but had no memory of still doing it in the sixth grade. Our memories are not complete–hazy at best despite feeling intense at times. Which means that just because we might look at young adults and discount their experience because of their youth or because we don’t remember being or behaving like them, doesn’t mean we are accurate in our assumptions. Recognizing that while they still have room to grow and mature, their levels of sophistication do not erase the reality of their current situation. Just because I look back and cringe at listing roller skating as what I loved about myself doesn’t make it any less important or meaningful to 12 year old me.

Will our young adults make mistakes? Yes! Do they still deserve respect throughout that learning process and the promise of our understanding? Of course, they are humans in this world. And as humans, they require support as they identify and repair flaws and mistakes. They also merit appreciation for their goodness. Our young adults should not have to earn our grace, it should simply be an effortless gift bestowed–because we would want the same generosity given to us.

(Just for comedy’s sake for those of you who really know me–in that last piece I referenced, the thing I hated about myself consisted of “the faces I make when I get mad at somebody or I am upset.” My reason for wanting to improve? “Because my mom always bugs me about it.”  Nothing about trying not to upset other people or about attempting to show greater respect or about using words instead of faces–none of that rational mature stuff…nope. Just that my mom was always bugging me about it. Hilarity.)

(Day 19–a bit of a rambling rant…but I didn’t feel like writing at all, so I am honestly just happy to have words on the page)

 

hidden truths

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The thing no one tells you about being a mom is that on the other side of miraculous astonishment over that highly anticipated little life…on the other side of intensity of love previously unimaginable is this truth: on most days of the week, you will wonder if you are enough. “Am I doing this right?” will reverberate as an anthem on repeat because, a lot of times, it’s just hard to know. What no one tells you is that on any given day there are a lifetime’s worth of minute decisions to make, questions to answer, reactions to constrain, lessons to impart, activities to juggle–and every single one of them shapes the people your kiddos will become. That pressure is palpable even when you feel like you’re blindly just getting by. There is no owner’s manual, and complex issues that require resolution seem to peek around far too many corners. In a world where answers are readily available to nearly every question we might possess, parenting works at a speed that does not always allow time for a Google search.  We know our kids, we know our values, we know who we want to see them become so we make our best guess as to how to steer them through the storm until they can navigate it for themselves.

I will never forget staring at my oldest child the day we brought him home from the hospital and crying. Important to note that I wasn’t crying over the wonder that was this baby in my arms after so many years of waiting. Nope. I was crying because in that moment, he was perfect, and I feared that all I would do was mar that perfection. This realization marked the beginning of the internal whispers that second guessed my maternal abilities.

What I have come to learn in the years since those tears is that on any given day, in any given moment, we are all doing our absolute best as moms and that is enough…even when it feels like it isn’t. Even when every other mom on social media or at school seems to be doing it better, my kids need me and I am enough for them. Am I perfect? Not on any day at any time. Do I mess it up? Frequently. Do I blame myself for things like inciting my kid’s fear of thunderstorms because I hurried him along into the house one rainy afternoon when he was somewhere around 2, explaining that lightning was very dangerous? You bet I do.  Was I doing my best in that moment? You bet I was. Will he survive and even outgrow this fear? Absolutely. It is simply part of his story. We all have stories…and his will be more interesting now (okay…that is what I tell myself…don’t burst that bubble).

What I know for sure is this. My kids know I love them. My kids know my number one goal for them is that they become kind humans who look for the good in others and in themselves. My kids trust that even though I make a lot of what they call “statements” that I am trying to teach them something of their privilege and their responsibility as a result of that. They will roll their eyes when I make these statements but I will persist. My kids feel safe enough to be themselves when they are at home because they know that they are accepted for who they are now and for whomever it is that they will become in the future. My kids know they can screw it up royally and while I may be disappointed and while there will be consequences, none of it alters the depth of my love for them.

So, see moms, we don’t have to be perfect in every single moment. We don’t have to second guess every single solitary action we take as a parent to our kids. We can accept that we are human beings who will make mistakes and carry forward as a mamas because our kids have the love that they need to muddle through our potentially amateur motherly skills. Just as we continue to love them through their mistakes, they will love us through ours. And we don’t have to compare ourselves to each other because in the end, our kids are all different humans who will require different kinds of parenting. That doesn’t make any one of us better than any other. We are all just doing our best on any given day and with that understanding, we should rally to support our fellow moms. Because all of us could use a word of encouragement and a reminder that even though it is hard, we are all in this life together.

(Day 17)