Spiral Spirit

I wonder at the climate here in California.  It’s so different from where I grew up in the Midwest.  There, you have four seasons that are pretty predictable.  Winter is long and cold.  Summer is short, hot and humid.  Autumn and spring are like graceful dancers, quickly introducing the two main acts.  But here in California, seasons are long, and don’t seem to have definitive starting and stopping points.  They blend and merge into each other, and there is a moment when I suddenly realize “Oh, it’s summer, and it’s been summer for awhile.”  The beginning of the rains is a more definite starting point for winter, and I remember last fall standing in the first rain, with my skin feeling so thirsty.

I like it, though.  It seems like I’ll be in California for awhile, so liking it is probably a good thing.  It’s a hard thing when you are struggling against your reality constantly.  I prefer to flow with whatever is happening, but it’s a skill I’m learning more now, as I’m about to turn forty.  It’s not something I’ve known all my life; I’ve always fought.  Fought against being controlled by other people, fought against things I think are wrong like racism, fought against having to conform to whatever it is I’m “supposed” to be.

What I’m trying to say is I ‘m learning to flow, instead of fight.  It doesn’t mean I agree, conform, go along with, or stop working for my beliefs.  What it means is that I move in directions that feel good, feel ‘in alignment with’ instead of ‘in resistance to.’ This is probably a complicated idea for your young brains to grasp.  It’s complicated for my old brain to grasp.  But it feels like grace, ease, surrender and dancing with the universe, instead of challenging the universe to a duel.  It’s new and different.

Something I really like about me is that I’m always growing, learning, changing.  I can admit it when I’m wrong.  I can usually understand someone else’s side if I take the time to really try, and if I listen without thinking about what I’m going to say next.  Sometimes my learning is so subtle that one day I just notice that I’m different, stronger, better, smarter.  I hope this process of learning continues for my whole entire life, and somehow, I think it will.  It’s kind of like learning to love the climate here, or noticing suddenly that everything is different, like with summer’s heat and brown grass.  I can learn to live anywhere.  I can flow anywhere.

Again and again, I have had the honor of watching my students be bright, shining stars in comparison with the dullards around them.  Why?  What makes them different?  Why do they get to go on research trips to the Amazon, get chosen for the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, get to speak as youth representatives to Congress, and do all the other amazing things they do?  While I support them, I surely cannot take any credit for these tremendous exploits.  So what is it?  Is it being in an environment that allows them to be who they are, helps them develop self-knowledge without forcing curriculum down their tender throats?  I do not know, but I do know that often my students are able to do crazy things that others are not.  And just for fun, here’s a link you might want to check out, and we could compete.  http://www.google.com/doodle4google/

Oh, the science fair.  I’ve taught this process every year for a decade.  And every year it brings up my own experiences as a junior high student, competing in my first science fair.  I just didn’t get it.  I didn’t understand what we were supposed to do.  My dad and I worked a long time on it, demonstrating how prisms split light into the rainbow spectrum.  It was a beautiful project.  I felt very proud of it.  And then the day of the science fair came, and I realized how clueless I’d been.  We had been supposed to do an experiment, just like you all are supposed to, and NOT a demonstration.  I was judged harshly, and got the lowest color ribbon, that everyone got who participated.  I felt so bad and aching inside.  It really hurt.  I’d worked so hard on my project!  It was then I started to realize that sometimes we do our very best, and other people still are disappointed in us.  And sometimes, it’s important to not care so much about what others think, and instead know that my best work is good enough.  Every adult I know can think of a time when a teacher made them feel bad about their efforts, shut them down, hurt their feelings.  I’m sure I’ve done this as well to my students.  So, my question is, dear students, what do you do?  How do you handle this situation?

Every once in a while, I take a road trip.  Sometimes I have a destination, sometimes I just drive and see where I end up.  Last summer I drove across the country without an itinerary.  Moona and I stopped where we felt like, visited friends, went to cool places, and spent many, many hours driving.  It was great.  The freedom of having a car and being able to travel without impediment is truly grand.  I think about other places in the world, where people don’t have this freedom.  I think about Saudi Arabia, where a woman might be stoned to death if she’s seen driving.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/saudis-debate-ban-on-women-drivers/We the Women

So, feeling gratitude this week for the visionaries who formed the country, and the U.S. Constitution which guarantees me certain freedoms.

I see you.  You are sitting at the computer, and you’ve just kicked Dominic off.  You are supposed to be getting ready for your geometry lesson.  And now you’re going to come to lesson and tell me you didn’t get the assignment.  And that I didn’t give it to you.  Uh Huh.  I’ve heard it all before… you forget that I’ve been a teacher longer than you’ve been alive.  You think I don’t know all the tricks in the book?  I wish a kid would come up with something really creative.  One time, a student told me that… oh wait, what am I doing?  I’m giving you ammunition!  Well, just sayin that you should be more creative in your excuse making.  Seems to me that the least likely events are often the more believable excuses.  One time, I called in sick to my pizza parlor-blech job, because I had stepped on a fishhook and had to get a tetanus shot.  At least, that’s what I said.  I mean, hey, anyone can call in sick, right?  What do you think?  Would you have believed me?