The Pursuit of Joy

Hey!  Welcome all!!!  Glad you are here…at this time and at this place.   With me.  Sharing my writing and this space called Pursuit of a Joyful Life!  I am humbled by your presence.

A few words about my writing, my blog and the name of this group.  I named my blog  “Pursuit of a Joyful Life” because joy is what I chase each and every day that I have breath.  Each and every day that I have energy and life within my soul.  Within my heart.  And it’s called a ‘pursuit’… because I am still working at it.  Joy does not come easy.

And I think sometimes we confuse joy with happiness.  We think joy is when life is pleasant.  That joy is peace and easy-going and bliss.  But joy is hard, my friends.  It is hard.  And it is a trail I follow like a dog tracking game.  Like a child chases after rainbows for that prized pot of gold.  And so do I, chase after joy each and every day hoping to find it in unexpected places.  And when it eludes me, I vow to never rest until I find it again.  And I always do.

I want to share a story.  A very recent, humiliating, humbling story.  But first, permit me to give you a little background information.

A few years ago, I was doing a short-term contract with a local school.  It was a music contract, teaching Grade 1-6.  I loved my task and its musical focus, particularly because I had been given freedom to do a variety of music appreciation activities with the older students during class and recess times.  The students were engaged, and so was I.  This was teaching at its easiest and at its best, as far as I was concerned.

For the Grade 6 closing that year, we had planned a sort of Flash Mob dance which would take place during the ceremony.  It was a lot of work pulling everything together, and I had no previous understanding on which to build.  Everything was a learning experience.  But that dance was my primary focus.  It was my baby!  And I was pumped to deliver to the awaiting crowd of family and friends the resulting product coming from the students hard work and effort.

Finally the big night came.  And I thought everything was set and ready to go.  We had checked the sound system, and it worked (actually, it later crashed and totally failed us, but that’s another story all together…).  The students were dressed to the Nine’s.  And I was on my game.

The time came for the proceedings to get underway, and I took my seat in the front row.  I waited expectantly for the Principal or some other dignitary to get up and introduce the program.  A few seconds ticked by.  I waited some more.  Finally, I looked up, only to hear the undertone of the Principal’s voice- who was leaning across the stomachs of the dignitaries in the front row.

“Aren’t you going to lead ‘O Canada’?” she whispered loudly.

“O Canada…,” I curiously thought to myself.    And then, as I realized this part of the program had been overlooked by Your’s Truly- the acting music instructor and concert co-ordinator, I then quietly hissed under my breath, “Oh! CANADA.”

I turned and looked.  There were five hundred people behind me.  I looked below my feet…no hole in which to descend.   It was sink or swim.  So, I started up towards the stage, and the awaiting mic.  Hoping not to trip on the seemingly mile-long walk towards the steps leading up.   After I had started out,  my Principal- sensing my lethargy, wisely decided to follow me up.  Whether or not she knew I was in fight or flight mode, I do not know.   I will admit the thought of running did occur to me momentarily.  But nevertheless, we both arrived.  Together.  And one of us was a little jittery.  I won’t say whom.

Needless to say, we both looked at each other.  And we both knew: there was to be no music with which to cue our start.  No piano player had been selected.  There was not even a canned music tract to be found in the place.  I looked at the Principal.  She looked at me.  A showdown of sorts.  Neither one of us in any hurry to initiate vocal take-off.

And finally.  As there were five hundred sets of eyes boring down on me, and about twenty Grade 6 student’s standing behind the stage- raring to get on with the show.  I let ‘er rip.

“O Canada…our home and native land.”

Well.  About part way in, I started to get a little more nervy than I already was, the adrenaline wearing off and all.  And my mind took a blank spell.  I started to panic.  I started to sweat.  I looked over at the Principal, and she seemed to be doing a fine job.  So, I stepped back from the mic, and took a breather.  Not a long break…just a pause, so as to catch my breath and consider, “What in the heck is the next line again?”  And as those five hundred voices sang out, I remembered.  And just in time.  As the song was nearing a close.

PHEW.  Not my most stellar performance moment of all time.  But time has healed my wounded pride.

Fast-forward.  To present day…actually, yesterday to be precise.

So, I have again been invited to sing ‘O Canada’ with a choir of five-hundred.  Only this time, they aren’t strangers.  They are my peers- teachers and colleagues with whom I teach and converse.  You can imagine my anxiety.  I have of course sung this patriotic piece in public numerous times before- indeed, I sing it every day with my Kindergarten students.  But, to sing it in front of an audience of one’s peers.  Now that is intimidating.

But I love a challenge, and I have decided to face my fear- that is, the fear of forgetting the words to my national anthem while singing on stage- and I take on the assignment.

I had one week to prepare.  In which, I was also to present at two literacy work-shops and sing at three other benefits or assemblies.  To say that I put ‘O Canada’ on the back burner is a bit of an understatement.

But.  I did remember the angst of that long-ago Grade 6 closing.  So with that propelling me, I decided to look up the words on Google.  And I don’t know what happened.  Maybe I got distracted.  Maybe the kiddos called for me.  Maybe my mind was on other more pressing concerns.  But I never did write down the words to the song on paper.  And when morning broke on the day of the meeting at which I was to sing, I decided to go with my memory.  My poor, poor memory.

Well, I must have practiced the song close to ten times.  And then later, as we were about to walk on stage, I decided in a last-ditch effort, to finally get smart and write down the words.  FROM MEMORY.  And feeling confident, I walked out on stage.  And sang my heart out.  With gusto.

And it was only much later, after I had replaced the mic on its stand, walked back to my seat and sat my relieved butt down in a folding chair- breathing a huge sigh of relief, that my Hubbie leaned over and told me…I had sung the wrong words.  Again.  To my absolute and utter horror.

And I tell you all this to say the following: joy is a decision.  A decision reached at not because the circumstances are right and the feelings are perfect.  But because.  Sometimes it is the only way to view life that keeps us from giving up.  And throwing in the towel.  Joy is taking difficulty, frustration, sorrow, sadness, humiliation, anxiety, pain and trouble and using them as a springboard to find the best there is in life.

Pursue joy.  It is the path that leads both forward and back.   Leading toward reflection on both life’s greatest and worst moments.  Moments we would forget or bury if not for joy reminding us to go back. And yet.  Leading us forward to moments of absolute wonder and awe at what it means to be truly human.  And truly alive.

Arms Outstretched and Hands Raised

Last night was kind of the crowning glory for me.  A moment in time when I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole.  And to be sure.  I have had my fair share of awkward moments.  Moments when my truly funny life has imitated fiction.  Watch me in action for about five minutes and you could probably catch me doing something just a little left of center.   We fools are probably why they formed channels like TLC.   We’re just a little bit on the special side.

Adorable, but special nonetheless.

So I guess it could be said- there have been one too many times in my insanely crazy real life when real life has imitated art.  As long as you understand that the art I am talking about is a very entertaining (albeit low-budget) television reality show.  (Shout out to the Duggars… love you guys!!)

But physically mistaking my friend’s husband for my own has got to be a low point of the week thus far.  Even for me.   I made contact with the poor guy’s shoulder…!  Yes, it could’ve been worse.  Thank the Lord for that.  And yet.  This embarrassing faux pas has got even me wondering: what next?  How am I going to top that one?  If only…I hadn’t been rubbing his shoulder…if only I had caught myself before making contact.  If only Brian and half of West Price had not witnessed the event….   If only.  So much embarrassment could have been saved.  But nevertheless.  The ‘if only’ is not what happened.  Obviously.  And here I am to tell the tale.

What next?  Can there be any lower levels to reach?    I am already lying face down at the bottom of the barrel.

So it wouldn’t be surprising to any of you, now would it, that I was again late for work this morning.  I should just shoot myself and call it a draw.  This is becoming a habitual rite of passage for me, transitioning from my home self to my professional self.  I feel like one of those old time coal engines that take their good ole’ time warming up.  And when they reach full steam, look out.  They cannot be stopped.

This morning was the usual busy morning.  Rushing, meltdowns, fights over clothing.

Yadda, yadda.  The works.

But what was different this morning was I had actually convinced myself that I would be on time today.  (Stop laughing, fellow co-workers.)  I felt like I really had a fighting chance of arriving at work before the expected check-in preliminaries, for a lovely change.  Everything was seemingly lined up in my favor.  I had an extra hour today to play with, an extra hour within which to arrive.  So it should naturally follow, if ‘one’ had so much extra time on their hands that ‘one’ would thus arrive at work at the very least, before their first meeting of the day.

Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve.  And it should be noted: I am ‘one’ gal who has always been the exception to the rule.

So.  Since I did not arrive on time… but instead arrived late (5-7 minutes late, to be exact…but who’s counting), and since I missed the introductory staff meeting, as well as my first grade level meeting (very small short meeting)… I was extremely disappointed in myself.  Frustrated would be another choice word.  And so it was.   That I spent the majority of the morning berating myself and beating myself up for my ineptitude and uselessness.  Telling myself I was incompetent and a total let-down to my profession.  What.a.jerk.    (And this is just my day job.  Don’t get me started on the other slack areas of my life….)

About half-way through the morning, I made a trek up to the office.  Sheepishly looking around to see who was watching, all the while wondering if I would ever be able to arrive ANYWHERE, ever again…on time.   And so, I decided to unload all my feelings and frustrations on the very capable and caring shoulders of our amazing secretary.  And as I proceeded to tell her the very many ways in which I felt I was unable to live up to my expectations of myself (not to mention the expectations everyone else probably had of me), the conversation took a turn.  It swerved away from me apologizing over and over again for all the failures in my life and instead started heading in a direction I like to call ‘forgiveness’.  Grace.  Acceptance.  Toward a place where a body can say to themselves,

“You know what?  You’re not perfect, girlfriend, and you never will be.  So why don’t you start forgiving yourself your failures and start concentrating on what you’re doing right.  And while you’re at it, start learning to say NO.  YOU ARE TIRED, girlfriend!  You need to cut yourself some slack!  If you drop a few of the balls you have in the air, nobody is going to be the worse for the wear.  Stop trying to live up to everyone’s expectations and start setting some limits for yourself.  And while you’re at it, do something nice for yourself this weekend.  Get a coffee just for the fun of it.  Buy something pretty.  Read a book.  Go for a drive.  Call up some friends.  Laugh.  Love.  Live.  YOU DESERVE IT!!!”

And I don’t know about you, but I kinda like the view from that place- from GRACE.  From Forgiveness.  From self-acceptance.  Because it is so freeing when you tell yourself that you’re okay.  Just the way you are.

And I tell you all this because?

I don’t want to hide my life behind a facade pretending to be something I am not.  I am exactly what you read: a bumbling fool most of the time, but for the other twenty-five percent of the time, I am a girl who is learning to love herself.  Flaws and all.  And I think that when we take down the walls that hide our true selves from public view, we come to discover…we are all essentially alike.  We have insecurities, flaws, un-met expectations of ourselves.  We do embarrassing things.  We mess up.  We live crazy lives.  We are a work in progress.  And if we can share with each other a small portion of ourselves, it might encourage us all to live life as if we had no secrets.

And life stripped of all that baggage- those feelings of inadequacy and failure and incompetence and disappointment, is SO MUCH BETTER than hiding behind a false barrier.

We need to live life in view.  Maybe not as in full view as I do (I have pretty much no pride left- my dirty laundry is hanging out for all the world to see baby.  And those hip-hugging puppies are not pretty, let me tell you.)  But let’s be serious: we are so very much the same and we can learn so much from one another when we come out from our hiding places.  When we live our lives with arms outstretched and hands lifted.  And we stop hiding who we truly are.

What I’d Change (If I Were Queen of the Schools…)

When my son was little, I lost natural hair color over stressing about his day at school.  I don’t know if his initial school experience was typical or not, as he is my only boy, and I merely have his one experience to go on.  But, I am starting to think it might be.  Although the variables might change from boy to boy, there are certainly some parallels to be found when it comes to educating boys.  When it comes to boys and their indifference- and lack of interest in, the whole school experience.

My boy fretted and worried about school from the get-go.  His first day home from kindergarten, I waited patiently under the old maple, picking at the moss growing along the spreading roots.  I watched the bus go by, and then watched as it swung back again, up our side road, dropping my son off at the end of the lane.  And, as eagerly as I chased him down to hear stories about the first of all experiences at school, he equalled my enthusiasm in stridency, storming past, eyebrows in a furrow.  Pounding feet against the stone walkway, as he stormed into the house.  What a mother fail for me.  How I wanted to sit in the late summer breeze hearing about all the wonderful things he’d done, all the magical experiences he’d been part of.  He’d have none of that foolishness.  He had some unwinding to get to, and sitting with me waxing poetic about his school day, was not on that list of after-school priorities.

Grade 1 was even harder.  He clung to my leg for the better part of forty-five minutes.  He was anxious, worried about making friends, scared of being alone, frightened of me leaving.  I held one babe on my hip and clasped another toddler with my free hand.  Three little bodies stuck to me like crazy glue.  And while I tried to un-peel his little hands, I thought to myself, “There’s got to be a better way.”  I knew this was awkward.  I knew there would be eyebrows raised.  And I felt that pressure to let go his hand, even as my mother instinct was telling me, “No!  We’re both not ready for this.”  And yet, I let his hand slip first, turned and walked away.  Hoping for the best.

Each year got both easier and harder.  He began to distance himself from me…no more clinging.  But there were new worries to be had.  There was the whole adapting to classroom structure to fret over.  Homework routines to make and then stick to.   And the issue of his making and finding friendship, to add to the mother lode.  Not to mention the usual childhood rite of bullying to endure, that helped to establish the playground pecking order.  Somehow, he often found himself on the bottom of that pile-up.

And woven into each additional year was the stress of performance anxiety.  He was not a behaviour challenge inside the school setting.  Indeed, his teachers raved about his smarts and his ability to focus.  But, there was something awry that I just couldn’t seem to put my finger on, at the time.  It seemed to be the combination of his trying to find his place in this new world of norms, along with trying to please both his peers and the adults around him, along with the very high expectations he placed on himself.  All combined, becoming a triple threat of trouble.   Perhaps the most taxing of all was the pressure he placed on himself to stay in tip-top academic shape, as that was often the only area he was able to truly control about his school experience.  And in doing so, school became difficult at times.  Tedious.  Even dreaded.

And although my son has succeeded academically, there are many ways in which I feel he has fallen through the cracks.  Because he is prone to performance anxiety on a personal level, yes.  But also because in a more general way, he is a boy.  A boys and school can often make for an unstable combination.

Although I am a mother, I am also a teacher.  And I have gone through my fair share of navigational mishaps in trying to find my way as a teacher of both male and female students.  I have made many mistakes along the way.  But, in gaining experience, I have come to believe that there are some ways in which the school systems could better service boys, and girls for that matter.  Helping students who don’t fit the usual mold better adapt.  If it was a perfect world, and I was Big Boss of the Education System, here is what I would change. (And might I add, many of these beliefs/ideas about learning are already at play in some awesome classrooms of colleagues and fellow teachers)

Students need choice.  Students need as part of their day, time built in for choice.  Time where they decide what their learning will look like.  Time when they set the learning outcomes and strive to meet their goals.

Students need responsibility.  Students need to learn to follow through on choice.  When they make a mess, they clean it up.  When they make a mistake, they initiate the change.  When they do it wrong, they find another way to do it right.  When they make a poor choice, they are given instruction on how to make a better choice next time.

Students need flexibility.  When students are starting to zone out, students need options.  School is hard work.  Some kids can only last for a short period, and they need a break.  Some kids need physical activity interwoven into every part of their day.  Or they can’t survive.  Some students only learn when they are out of a chair.  Some kids can’t handle a desk.  Some kids need to run.  Kids need lots of different things to learn. We need to get better at helping them cope with their differing learning styles.

Students need less structure.  I did not say ‘no’ structure, I said less.  When I think of a well-balanced, healthy home environment, I think it is an ideal learning atmosphere.  In a typical home, at any given time, a child can be on the computer fine-tuning their problem-solving skills, all while one sibling is measuring ingredients for an after-school microwave concoction and another is practicing their tuba.  Or, if you will.   While one is resting on the sofa, texting messages to a friend and another is sketching designs for the latest fashion show.  What the home environment does for learning is allow for freedom from rigid structure.  There is structure, it is just more fluid.  And learning takes place in a less rigid environment.  It just looks different than traditional, formal education.

Students need more student-led learning and less teacher-led instruction.  The days that talking heads are the ‘be all and end all of instruction’ have already gone the way of the do-do bird.  Sure, there is a place in instruction for lecture-style learning.  Sure, some students learn best in a structured, traditional classroom setting.  But, many students don’t.  These students need application and hands-on experiences, they need trial-and-error, risk and adventure, opportunity and choice.  What everyone needs is the opportunity to put into practice what they are learning.  And what better way to do so than when following an interest initiated by said student themselves.

Of course, these all rest on the commitment of teachers to best teaching practices.  And past that, teachers rely on school boards enabling them the time, resources and space to follow through on  these best teaching practices.  And school boards rely on government, and so on and so forth. Change is always hard coming.

Little by little.

And sometimes it’s the simplest things that matter the most.  Like an upper-elementary boy being allowed out of class to come down to the Kindergarten room to color.   Like an over-active boy in Kindergarten being allowed time to go for a run in between learning goals.  Like students being given time to dance in music class.  Like showing kids that physical activity counts as an important part of learning.

And its these smallest of changes that often make the biggest difference in the life of a child.

If God is love…

If God is love, why do Christians think He is unhappy with them so much of the time?

I am sitting across from a lovely girlfriend.  A dear friend.  Who also happens to be a Christian and who knows the hidden dangers and obstacles, blessings and joys that this chosen life entails.  And we are hard at it, talking about that stuff which really matters.  God.  Church.  Family.  Struggles.  Pain.  Hurt.

And as we share, she confides in me that she thinks God is judging her.  And she proceeds to tell me why.  And I think to myself, “If God is love, why do we (conservative or not so much…) Christians always come back to this place?  That God is angry with us for doing/saying/omitting  x,y, and z?  And thus, He is judging us.  Why is that?  That we think every wrong turn in our lives warrants judgment?  That life is about attaining holiness more than it is about exuding grace?  About judgement than it is about kindness?   That the wrong in our lives trumps the right?  That life is about guilt rather than celebrating victory?

That love is conditional?  That our life is about love plus something, or else it is wrong…?

Why?  Why is this so?

I walk, days later, through snow on a Sunday afternoon, and I think about how so much of my life has been consumed with feelings of guilt, with feeling bad and inadequate.  Feeling that I am not good enough.  And I think how no preacher has ever had to tell me how to feel guilty.  Sinful.  Wrong.  That all came naturally to me.   Like breathing in cold, frosty air, only to then exhale that same heat from that same hidden place.   As natural as breathing.

Oh,  I know how it is to feel less than.  I know what it is to fall short.  To sin.  And think that God is out to get me for it.  No one has to tell me how to feel bad.

I just want someone to teach me, to show me how to feel loved.  What does love mean?  Is it this?  Love as by a Father.  As by a Daddy- Father.  A Papa.   Whose love is unconditional and endless and full of perfect acceptance.  No matter what.  Who is forgiving.  Full of grace and mercy.  Who isn’t holding out past wrongs over my head like a banner.  Who knows my heart and its desire to please and seek the right.  The good.  Who loves me anyway.  And loves me more.

Love.  I think it is this very thing.  And I want to know more of that God who loves.  And I think there might be other Christians out there who echo the same.

Because truth be told, I don’t think we really understand God’s capacity for love.  It is His defining feature.  He is LOVE.  He is love in every other aspect of his character.  And He can do nothing but love.  And Christians need never feel that God  sees them in any other light than through His precious, encompassing, all-surrounding loving kindness.

He loves us with a wild and fearless love which we will never fully come to understand.  He loves.  With love as an ideal Daddy loves His children.  With love… as a Farmer loves his crop and animals.  With love, as an Entrepreneur loves his work.  As a Mother loves her babies.  With love.  As a Father loved His Son.

And it is that LOVE that holds us.  That will not let us go.  And it is that LOVE that saves us from believing any longer, that we are sinful, less thans.  We are able to accept it, this love.  Because it is for us to have.  This freedom-love.  Love,  enabling us to believe we are able.  We are worthwhile.  We are beautiful.  We are valuable.  We are more than just sinners.  We are children of a Father who LOVES US.  It is His Daddy- love that makes us so.   Beloved children.

And I will no longer let my feelings tell me otherwise.

He loves me.  Jesus loves me.  Yes, He certainly does.

Ya’ll come back, now. Ya hear?

My baby turned six today. Happy birthday, M.A. You bundle of energy, you ball of fire. You, my own little spitfire. I love you to the moon and back.

Who would’ve ever thought we would get this far, intact. Intact being the key word here, and don’t think I don’t mean it. Intact, with most of my sanity still hovering at even-keel. My gray roots still clinging to the scalp for dear life. Holding out for a brighter color wash tomorrow. If I am lucky.

Grey roots are so optimistic.

What I know for sure is this. What is going to happen tomorrow is NOT that color wash: instead, I am going to get up at the crack of…actually, make that get up in the dark. (darn time change) I am going to rush around like a chicken with its head cut off until it is time to load the Gard bus/mini-van. I am going to burst headlong into the school, second last to arrive. Yes, sadly arriving nearly last and only before the Grade1/2A teacher pulls in and parks beside me, at our usual spot… next to the ditch. (I can tease her…she’s not on Facebook. HA!)

Then, I will greet the various students who are gathered at the front doors, and eventually make my way to my classroom, which will be half-organized because I was at the school the night before past ten o’clock. Then, I will have first and second recess outside duty, I will have afternoon centers/mad mayhem, and I will help load the precious little students on the bus so they can go home to their families. If only for the better part of an hour. (more on that later)

And if I am lucky. I will have pulled out in my Gard bus/minivan with my own three children in tow before the school buses leave the school parking lot. And all this so that I can pick up Son up at his school for a three o’clock dentist appointment. After which, I will indeed head to the beauty parlor. But I will sadly, as I mentioned above, not have time to cover those blasted roots. Instead I will comfort myself with freshly plucked and shaped eyebrows. This is what I call a good time.

While I am lying horizontal on the esthetician’s bed, my darling children will be somewhere, talking to someone and doing something over which I will have no control. Because I will be lying prostrate in a very compromising position, and I will also be in no position to get up. That’s what getting my eyebrows shaped really does for me: it gives me the great satisfaction of thinking that I am totally off the hook for the well-being of my three girls for those five minutes.

“Que sera sera, my generous beauticians.”

“Don’t break anything, lovies.”

I will then leave at exactly 3:15 p.m. for Alberton where I will persuade the bank to entrust me with some American money which I will try not to spend the first five minutes I land in an American mall. I will leave the bank, and head back towards home. Only I will stop before the bend. And that stop will land me directly at the Alberton Baptist Church gym. And I will stop because I have invited 20 children and various adults, (seven children of whom have already spent six hours with me today), to bounce basketballs and scream very loudly in a very ‘sound-inefficient’ gymnasium. And this fun will carry on for, oh say, the next two hours.

In other words, I am planning on having a migraine.

After succoumbing to which, I will head then to the bowling alleys for my eventual and imminent demise. And if I am lucky, someone will roll me down the lane into the gutter. I will be able to take a nap behind the curtain.

And to cap it all off, this fun day ahead, I will come home and finish packing for a trip which I still have yet to finalize the details regarding my return trip back home. Which really means: I have been very interested in Florida real estate lately.

My crazy schedule combined with my sudden interest in the housing market in Florida…coincidence? I think not. I am already looking into a green card. I hear they give them out on St. Paddy’s Day.

(and of course y’all know that I’m kidding. I love that word…y’all. I hope I get to use it in Florida…)

Show others you care…

I am home today.   Which is to say, I am not at work.  Which is to say, I feel like a slacker.

So.   When one is home, as I myself have now discovered.   There are a few things that sometimes occur.  Sometimes large brown security trucks arrive unannounced in your driveway, with the unspoken expectation hanging there like a cloud over one’s head, that one must needs come to the door armed themselves with all the right answers.

Which is to say.  The UPS guy just dropped by the house.

And I must say: he quite caught me off-guard.   I almost didn’t come to the door.   Me, with yoga pants on, hair done up in a purple butterfly clip and no make-up.   Scary, female stuff.   Working blue-collar guys just might not understand this stuff.  But I am only surmising.  Nevertheless.  He looked as surprised to see a human being home as I was to hear the knock at the door, surprise which quickly turned for him to annoyance. It appears my husband had forgotten to inform me of this little visit from UPS, and the important package I should have had ready.  No matter.  He’s gone now.  Off to do his important, adult job which quite possible could include harassing other unsuspecting housewives over packages their husbands forgot to mention.

All in a day’s work.

Today is meant for me to be a mental health day off from my real life (where I practice being an able-bodied,  competent adult.)  Again, which is to say: I often moonlight as a scared and tired, unable preschooler because that’s how humans roll sometimes, if we’re being honest.  Adults are just kids whose skin has stretched.  And truthfully, mental health days are sometimes necessary, even for me.   And right now, especially for me.  Because my life is not as perfect as it might seem from the outside(as if anyone’s ever is).  And mental health counts as whole body wellness.  And then some, I might add.

So I am home today, healing a few things from the inside out.   And in order to be at home today, I had to get up at 6:00 a.m. this morning, so as to prepare my lesson plan at sharply 6:15 a.m.  After which, I drove into the school for 6:40 a.m. to get my sub plan ready.  And all this, so I could take my most-needed mental health day off from work.

All in a day’s work.

I love the school at 6:40 a.m.  I move quietly around the classroom, preparing sheets, books, homework bags.  Readying supplies, sticking Post-It notes on everything.  Photocopying.  You know, the usual teacher stuff.  I love the quiet, the peace.  The calm.  So still.  I can think without interruptions.  Some people ask me why I go into school sometimes late at night to prepare for the next day’s lessons, and I have to answer that question in this way: the school after-hours, is for me, a respite.  After the hectic events of the school day, that building is the quietest, most peaceful place I know.

It reminds me of a book in my classroom called My Teacher Sleeps in School.  Which has done wonders in unravelling the mysterious myth that teachers have no life outside the confines of the four classroom walls.  Now, if parents could only read the book.

Someone asked me yesterday, “Do I enjoy teaching this age?”  (I teach Kindergarten), which really threw me for a loop.  As those kinds of questions often do.  Whenever I am asked questions like “Do I enjoy teaching?” or the more broad “Do I enjoy parenting?”  or the more specific “Do I enjoy having a big family?”:  I feel like it’s a test.  Like I am completing an exam.  And we all know, when writing exams or when answering those kinds of questions- there is always a right or a wrong answer.

I wish they’d just ask me if I have ever tried licking my elbow.  For the record, I have.

In general, I have come to believe that quite often, people don’t really want to know the real answer to tough questions about life.  They want to hear you say the right answer.  That “yes,” you love “altruistically laying your life on the altar of self-sacrifice and that you get a secret thrilling satisfaction from doing everything the above questions entail, including but not limited to refereeing disputes and laminating holiday crafts of every variety, to wiping snotty noses (this one is geared to the middle and last questions) and changing bums, to acting as a chauffeur and making household ground rules only to have them broken the minute they’re been issued.”

I quite like all that.  Really.  I do.

But if that was the real reason I decided to be a teacher, or a parent or a mother, I’d have to be truthful.  There’d be more mental health days than just the present one I’m on right now.  Because quite honestly, I don’t really love all those latter parts of my job, as it concerns both being a parent or a teacher.  Or as it concerns being a mother, to up the ante even more.  The above answer is more about the details that sometimes complicate my love of this Life that I am living.  Not so much about my motive.   And we all know that details sometimes weigh us down.  The records I am required to keep, the list making.  The unrecognized acts of service: like wiping up bloody noses and picking freshly chewed up wads of gum off the classroom floor or dispensing of crumpled up food containers that didn’t quite make it in the right waste receptacle.  The constant, continual reminders, to follow the classroom  rules.  The late nights and early mornings.  The duty days with no regular pee breaks.

Acts of service that sometimes go unnoticed.  It’s all in the details.

Details like rushing home so as to throw supper on before rushing back to pick up kids from after school programs, then making sure everyone has practiced their piano, done their homework and hung up their coat, even if that means receiving the Meanest Mommy Award in the process.  Details like sifting through back-packs and lunchboxes so as to ensure everyone has their ‘favorites’ and enough of  these goodies to last at least three feedings throughout the day; along with all papers signed and ready to go, mittens, hats, boots, coats.  Oh! And Pajamas, teddy bears, slippers and housecoats packed, if it happens to be Winter Carnival.  Details like filling medicine vials for one while slathering Vapo-Rub on another, while lying down with another who is just a wee bit scared of being alone.  Details like acting as the presiding judge over such important cases as “who really did touch that donut first” or “who let one go during bedtime story.”

Details like listening to your children’s hearts and navigating through the clutter of everyday life.  To search out and know, I mean really know the issues that matter to them.  The issues that are important in understanding another human being, as precious as a child.  Details that help shape a person into a good citizen, details that make or break a person’s character.  Details.  But so important to the job.  Without such, there would be no job.  The details could be defined in this way: all that essential stuff that makes a person a teacher, a woman a mother, a human being a citizen: stuff the life manuls, textbooks and baby books never covered.  You can’t fault a book.  They just forgot to include that life isn’t really all in the details.  Sometimes life is more complicated than that.

No biggie.

I’ve read articles on parenting and have had really deep discussions about teaching with my colleagues.  And the question I hear asked or that I am asked myself, is this one: “What makes a good teacher, parent, mother, human being?”  And I have thought long and hard about this one.

Because the right answer, I think, is also the real answer.

We human beings in general can forget that life is about caring.  We can feel these expectations weighing down on us.   Feeling the pressure on us, so much so that we think that if we slack off in any aspect of our lives- whether that be the job, in the homes, in relationships, through unspoken expectations we have placed on ourselves- that we are failing to live up to a certain standard.  Some people oddly, yet  joyfully align themselves as slackers.  And I’ll admit it.  There is a freedom that comes in admitting you cannot do your job perfectly well.   And for those who don’t take the pressure off themselves, there can be enormous guilt from not living up to expectations, whether those be for a job or a home.  But for either/or: if a person ultimately CARES about what they do, it really doesn’t matter how well they think they are doing.  Or not.  What matters is their concern about the matter.

Caring about something indicates your heart is in the right place.  You cannot qualify care.  You either have it, or you do not.

The thing is.  We all want to do our best.  Those who openly say they don’t care, and those who inwardly beat themselves up because they do, we all care about what we do.  We care, because we are human.  We care about what we do because to not care would be to not be human.  And caring is just a form of kindness.  When we care, we show kindness.  Whether that be showing care to one’s students, co-workers or one’s children.  Care indicates kindness.

All of life is really about kindness.

The question that matters in everything is this: “Are you kind?”

I write a message to my Kindergarten students everyday to reinforce learning outcomes, and the latest area of teaching has been regarding the area of punctuation in writing.  So this week, I introduced quotation marks.  Every day, I write a new quotation at the end of my message, all in the hopes that the students will “get it.”  The punctuation, that is.  I am such an intentional teacher, teaching quotation marks to Kindergartners.   But I digress.  So this morning, I was finishing up my message, all while searching my mind for a quotation to put in the message.  I began looking around the classroom, and the very last line of our collaboratively created class rules caught my eye: Show others you care.

Which is to say, I wrote the following: “Show others you care,” said Mrs. Gard.  And as I was writing, I began to see that teaching quotations marks is not the lesson.

The message was the lesson.  “Show others you care.”

Is this not all of life summed up in a line?  Is it not the answer to those hardest of questions?  Do I like teaching this age or that age?  Yes I like teaching- not because of the outcomes or grade level-expectations: but because I care about the students.  Do I like my job?  Yes.  Because I care about the people with whom I interact.  Do I like parenting?  (And here is where the questions get harder…)  No, I don’t always like parenting, but I like being a parent.  Because I care about my kids.  Do I like mothering?  No, I don’t always like mothering, but I love my children.  And because I care about them, it makes everything else worthwhile.

Do I like the details that weigh me down in my various roles of Life?  No.  Do I always even like my own four sweet children?  No.  But I love them.  (No one ever said you had to like ‘em or their peculiar habits and annoying ways.)  Do I have to love the details in order to love The Life?  No.  But I have to love the people who are affected by the details, who often create the messiness of the details, that hinder me from understanding the true meaning of life.  That life is about love.  And love is borne of care.  And care is just another word for kindness.

The right answer to the hard questions about people is always this: to care about them.  If we care, it takes care of the sordid details.  Caring makes everyone and everything else worthwhile.  And if there is one message in life that I would have my students learn, indeed my Flesh and Blood- my own four beautiful babies learn, it is this.  That all of human relationships- both work-related and home-related boil down to this underlying principle: caring and kindness are what they are all about.  And when we practice these two in tandem, it makes all the difference for everything else.

Kindness matters…

The big events in life are fantastic, of course.  And when they happen, I am blown over.  Awestruck.  But it’s the little things that really get me.  Those smallest of events, the little graces.  And when something little happens to change the course of my day for the better, I know there is nothing else to do but offer up gratitude.  To yield true appreciation for what I have received.

Because that one small thing was the game changer.  The difference.

Friday afternoon, I am sitting at a small desk with a stack of papers, a student to my left.  As I have been out most of the week with Oldest home sick, I am truly behind.  Depressingly behind.    Everything’s a mess.  And I hate messes.  Never mind the fact that I was SUPPOSE to have been home even today.  That didn’t happen because my sub never got booked.  And The Call (the “where in the heck are you” call) came from the school about ten minutes before homeroom.

Where was I?  And who was my sub for today?  Good questions, both of them.  I didn’t quite know the answer to either, to be honest.  All I knew was this:  I’d better get my heiny in gear as I had a class to teach, with or without a substitute.

Me still in my flannel pajamas, mopping up water spills on the cupboard.  Hair like a rat nest.

So, the rush began.  Trying to call a sub, while frantically moving around to get ready anyway, I ran my leg into the corner of the hope chest in our bedroom.  Leaving a sharp pain searing through the torn flesh.  No time to stop.  Just.keep.moving.

I rush.  Arriving at school only twenty-five minutes into the day.  My eyes like lead balls.  I have a strong desire to prop them open with my fingers.  But in spite of this all, the children’s voices call out to me.  And I can feel the teacher engine revving.  The hugs, the little arms that envelope me.  The “I love you’s” offering up the encouragement I need to make this all happen.

“I can do this,” I whisper to my inner self.

The day grinds on.  I use my prep to return home to check on the invalid, bring drinks to the bed, pulling up covers.  I scramble to also pull together or put away a few of the things I left hanging in my haste to leave the house.  And then.  I am off again.  Back to the classroom.

Back to the reality of today.

And so it was that I found myself sitting there in the afternoon with that stack of papers.  Feeling the pressures of deadlines and checklists weighing in on me.  And right in the midst of it all, an extra little Boy showed up.  “Could I come in for a break?” says he.  Ah, yes.  I had almost forgotten that this was that time of the day.  Him needing the break, and my room being the “just-right-spot” for that break to happen.

And then,  I’ll admit that I thought it.  “How am I going to get all this done…with another busy little body to add to the mayhem?”

Needless to say.  The noise levels rose, the toys began to take on a life of their own.  My concentration was breaking, as was that of my uninterested little subjects, whom I was testing.  And right about the moment that would have been the breaking point, a little voice asks, that of the Boy:

“Mrs. Gard, where is your broom and dustpan?”  And I’ll admit it.  I turned swiftly, expecting to see an overturned sandbox emptied out on the floor.  But all I saw was a tiny pile of moonsand.  And a Boy who was willing to help sweep it up.  Could I find him the means to be of assistance?

But of course.

Kindness matters.   It can come quite unexpectedly.  Sometimes coming wrapped up in shiny, big packages, done up with bows.  But at other times, it arrives quite unobtrusively.  Through a Boy’s hands and feet.   I like big shows of kindness, but my favorites are really the smallest of gestures.  Because kindness matters, regardless of the proportions or dimensions of the expression of goodwill.  It is the act of doing that makes the difference.

And when kindness comes from a child, directed toward me, the adult.  I don’t know why.  It just blows me away.

Of course it matters that we practice kindness in relation to our fellow humankind.   But Adults, listen to me: it especially matters that we direct kindnesses to those who are still so very small.  Toward those who are still the child.  Who are still the impressionable ones.   And kindness matters when adults are the givers because those first of all impressions are the hardest ones to undo.  And our first impressions of life are of course made in our childhood.

So then.  It really matters how we treat a child. It matters because children never forget.  And neither do we who were once the child ever forget.   We never forget the unkindnesses, but thankfully neither do we ever forget the truly wonderful little graces that make life more bearable.

Kindness always matters.

It matters when one is sitting on the bench at a sporting event, and a child is competing for their personal best.    And the pressure’s on- the score is that close.  It matters, whether or not, the Adult- the coach, is kind.  Whether or not he treats the child with integrity, with value.  It matters that the coach believes the best about the child’s abilities and thus wants to lift the child to even better bests.  Every time she plays.  Because he believes she can.  That she is able.  He has that kind of faith in her abilities.

It matters when one is sitting in a classroom, and their child’s educational records lie naked before them on a student-sized desk, peppered with 1s and 2s, along with (maybe) a few 3s and 4s thrown in for good measure.   It matters, whether or not.  The Adult, the teacher kindly speaks and listens to that parent’s desperate entreaty for understanding.  Whether or not the teacher can see the child through the parent’s eyes, through their unique awareness of the child’s needs and conditions.  It matters that the teacher listens as that parent urgently makes their case, that the teacher honors their role as the primary caregiver of this child.  It matter that the teacher really cares, truly believes in the child.  That she sees through to the person, beyond the behaviours.  To the heart, to the essence of the human being.

And later still.  It matters when one is sitting across from a school administrator, trustee or board director, and a child’s future rests firmly in the hands of significant others.  And there is a lot to lose, a lot at stake.  It matters that the school board personnel act with integrity and honor, always seeing the child as a face, not a number.  Because children are more than just cases, or data or the property of anyone or anybody.

Kindness matters.

And when inevitably.   One is sitting in a hospital room, and a child is lying limp on a bed, temp rising and cheeks flush with fever.   It matters whether or not kindness has been done.  It matters if the Adult, the doctor, kindly speaks and listens to the parent’s pleas for help.  It matters that he listens as the parent speaks their mind, that he hears her with respect and consideration.  And it matters that he talks kindly to the young patient, soothing them with his gentle demeanor.  It matters that he act with the utmost of consideration.  To preserve the dignity and sanctity of life.  It matters.

Because kindness matters.  And although the big things in life are wonderful, it’s the little things that make all the difference.

A few words on gratitude…

I am steering the van towards after-school destination numero deux in project “My Life as a Chauffer.”   A tired Kindergartener rides solo in the backseat, a motley assortment of Foodland bags/backpacks/other odds and ends ride shotgun in the passenger side.  And all the while, Veggie Tales blares in the background.  One male character says to his sidekick, “Do you think she’ll like me?”    To which comes the response, “She has to like you…under order of banishment or imprisonment.”

I wish I could jump into the script and wring that little gourd’s rubbery neck.  But I resist.   Because in a world of cartoon characters, it is that easy.  To draw the lines, shade in the edges and round out the scene.  If you want it to happen, it will happen.  Just write it in the script.  If you want a happy ending, wave the magic wand.  Done.

If only life were so easy.

And when real life is factored into the equation.  And the show is over and real-life begins.  That’s when the truest test of character is evidenced.  When the chips are down, and everything is laid bare to the raw bones.  It’s when we are at our lowest that we see what stuff we’re really made of.

Can we truly find joy even in weariness?

It’s the gradual wearing away, the erosion of patience and understanding and empathy that really hurts.  The endless trips we make back and forth, from home to goodness know where else.  It’s the lack of time for meaningful conversations.  The sleepless nights.  The gray hair.  It’s the little things that wear us down and make it hard to be thankful.

Living life with gratitude sometimes means one must offer thanks at the most un-opportune moments. Uttering words of gratitude even for those things in life of which one is not always fully enjoying, passionately loving, deriving pleasure or benefiting greatly from nor receiving back a large measure of happiness.  Sometimes we give thanks for the smallest of things.  And in the one item of thankfulness, it can often more than balance the scales in the long run.  Life lived in gratitude is the truest measure of joy.

Tonight.  I am thankful for:

1. My ignorant bliss this morning as I slept in almost an hour past my alarm.  My body needed that little bit extra.
2. Not losing my patience as I coped with having slept in way past what I should have done.
3. Nutri-grain bars. Great breakfast option on the run.
4. That domino game I forgot about.  As I also forgot my math teacher’s edition, it was a great pinch-hit for a harried teacher.
5. My colleague who offered me a domino worksheet last Thursday.  Whoever would have dreamed it would’ve come in so handy (#loveyoumarlenewarren)
6. Five-year old helpers.  Who are almost already out the door even before I get my thoughts out of my head and into words.
7. A husband who packed my lunch today.  And always.
8. Cell-phones that are not broken.
9. Schedules that allow windows of opportunity.
10. Supper meals without fighting.

 

And these, dear friends, are just a few of my favorite things.

One of a kind…

Softly. Flakes fall, seeking for cushion on which to land.  Wanting.  For lodging.  Connection, attachment. In need of that which is found, only in community.  Longing to be more than merely that singular one.  Searching, in their spiralling descent, for the many.  And when that final security of joining the multitude is realized, when that comfort of solid ground is found, a layer of millions is formed.   Ice crystals spread in layer upon layer of sparkling glory.  Formed in perfect solidarity, through connection.  Allowing many stratums of snowflakes attached at the point to form a blanket of white that stretches as far as the eye can behold.  Tiny, delicate.  Sparkling frozen transparencies.  Holding one another up- even in their fragility.  Boldly conveying strength in numbers.  No longer one, but many: joined in the common effort of covering stark, barren landscape.

Creating something beautiful out of dark, frozen austerity.

Such is the beauty of friendship when it covers for our singular weakness, making much of what is little.  What God has joined together, let man not separate.  What ordinary mortal could separate one snowflake from another without the tools of science?  We are wont to accept the mystery and left simply to enjoy the complexity.  That together, in their vulnerable plurality, in their minute complexity, they are much more than solitary snowflakes.    They are many- a blanket to cover, protecting the hardened earth until the promise of spring.

These, a humble shroud formed from the common bond of both the falling down and the holding one another up.

One is also wont of such beauty in friendship by times.  Desiring that kind of relationship that unites in commonality, in desire and purpose.  A friend indeed is one who loves at all times.  Often our best efforts are usurped at the part of that phrase “…at all times.”  Time is of the essence.  We are so busy, so rushed, so consumed with our lives.  We forget that at all times means right now.  We must love in that pure sense of the word.

In this moment.   Now.

It is hard enough to keep the eyes open to needs around us.  We are consumed by many things.  And too often, we fail to see the opportunities even when they present before our very eyes.  Opportunities to reach out.  To that one in dire need of a friend, of a listening ear.  Failing to realize the opportunities to help.  That friend needing a shoulder to lean on.  Those opportunities to listen.  To lend an ear, a caring heart.

We speak of love.  Greater love has no one than this: that she lay down her life for a friend.  We lay down our own busy schedules, our time, our pressing concerns.  We lay them down on the altar of self-sacrifice and we say this: others first.  Holding onto and falling together, because life is often about identifying with the descent of others.  But then.  Holding on to one another, lifting each other up.   Because life is not all about me.  It’s about us.  And I am not actually number one:

HE is.  You are.  I am.  We are.

Looking out for ‘me first’ leads often to loneliness in the end.  Looking to Him first leads to joy and peace.  And making others the next priority brings much satisfaction.

It is a life well-lived.

She asks if she could make me something, she who is crafty, more talented than I.   A resource for my classroom.  It would take from her weekend, from her time.  And I quickly tell her no, I don’t wish to be a bother.  I am hesitant to take her offering of time, spent creating something for me.  But she insists.  And so I am swayed to cave in and accept her help.  To receive her gift of time.  And this treasure, it comes on the day I need it the most.  On a day when I am falling.  Like these snowflakes outside my window.  And although she might never know it, this love offering is received as it were, as if she was coming alongside, holding me up in spirit.  As a true friend does.  An offering of love, this token of friendship.

And I know that like a snowflake.  She is one of a kind.

Why it matters…

It’s little recess.

I have maybe nine minutes to run to the washroom, grab a glass of water in the staff kitchen, and check my mailbox in the office.  En route, I duck into an adjacent classroom to mine to make a quick phone call to a parent.  The call is regarding a preference her child has about an optional in-school activity, and I just want to double check with the mom that this student is truly opting out with parental consent.  When I make the call, I can sense the panic in her voice as she picks up the receiver.  And I can also tell that she thinks an unpleasant report will follow the preliminary greetings.

And then she says, “I always worry when you call.”

I am a bit taken aback.   I do not take myself to be an intimidating teacher, nor do I see myself as an unapproachable person.  But I get what she is saying.  When the teacher calls, usually something unpleasant is inevitable coming down the line.  It’s just the way the cookie crumbles.

Why is that the case?  As both a parent and teacher myself, I can put myself in both roles.  I know what it is like to receive the phone call from a teacher and I also know what it is like to make it.  Speaking as a parent, usually when a teacher has called our home- and (thankfully?) these calls have been quite rare- it has to do with a fairly important issue.  The issue could be minor or of a more serious nature, but there is generally something that is being addressed in the phone call to which I as a parent am expected to respond in some proactive way.  And in the same token, most of the phone calls I have made as a teacher have been very much the same: calls with regards to something student-related that requires parental attention.

And, of course, there is nothing wrong with this model of interaction.  Per say.

Last year, a woman with far more experience than I in the education field came to our school to speak to the staff.  In her discussion, she broached the topic of communication with parents.  And one thing she said stuck in my head and has challenged me ever since.   I still think about her idea often.   And it was this: her practice as a teacher was to make a call home to one set of parents of a student in her class each day after school.  And the nature of the call was to simply tell the parents how much she enjoyed the child as a member of her class.  Nothing unpleasant, nothing related to an issue.  Purely a phone call to say how much she liked their child and valued them as a student.

I can’t get that image out of my head.  The image of the dumb-founded look on that parent’s face when they held the telephone receiver in their hand.  Because truth be told.  After the parent had gotten over the initial shock that their child was not in trouble, the shock that someone had made a specific call home to them with the sole purpose of stating how lovely their child was, would be enough to knock a parent over with a feather.  Believe me, I can just imagine.  I am a parent too, remember.

So here’s the deal.

Making a phone call a day is doable.  It is a five minute commitment.  And it takes the time one might otherwise use to walk through the school once.  And what a gift that would be: to call solely for the purpose of making someone’s day a little brighter.  Brighter both for the parent.  And brighter for the child.  And it could very well be the change that everyone is always talking about.

A teacher could be ‘the change’.

The other evening I had to make a call from home to a parent regarding a rather serious issue that had come up in the course of the school day.  The tension was inevitable in the phone wires and I felt the need to break the tension somehow, with whatever means I had at my disposal.  After getting through the preliminaries, after addressing the issue and ensuring the child in question was going to be okay, I remembered something funny about the situation that was just one of those things that sometimes serve to be the silver lining of an otherwise dark cloud.  As I considered ending the conversation, I decided on a whim to share the funny story with the parent.

And by the end of the story, we were both crying with laughter over the humor in the situation, humor that is often the bonus result that comes with acknowledging life in all its complexity.  The fact that we can take a step back from life and laugh about it is sometimes all that carries us through the hard times.  And when parents and teachers can laugh together, it makes all the difference.

I’d like to say that I am the kind of teacher that calls home every night.  I don’t.  But I certainly aspire to be her.  And aiming for a target and setting the goals to do so, is a very good place to start.  Because one never knows what impact that one telephone call might make in even one’s child’s life.

And one never knows which child just might be the starfish for whom it really matters.