Peace Class

Educating for Peace

 

A few weeks ago at the college and career fair during third period, a gleaming red SUV was parked out in the mall area, by the far the most prominent display.  It could not help but catch the attention of the students (a favorite phrase of theirs, as in, "Why did you choose that/ like that?"  they reply, with a shrug, "I don't know, Miss, it caught my attention."  In front stood a row of fit and impressively uniformed Marines.   As if feeling followed by the two patrolling the tables inside was not conspicuous enough!

 

That same week I presented my students with the question "How should someone respond when denied power, privilege or equal standing with other Americans?"  and, inherently, "What is an American?"   Included in our materials were stories that surprised me when I was putting together the unit:  young men and women who served and died in the military, in the U.S. military, only to be granted citizenship after service or death.   (I know I wrote about this before, but I still am shocked).  The same government that has spent the past several years (decades) trying to get schools to disclose illegal aliens, that has continued to test and set obstacles to student achievement reminding them how much more difficult it will always be for them to get ahead is sending these Marines to recruit our same students to bolster Bush's illegal war!

 

Today, I received my copy of neatoday (Nat'l Education Association), which I normally throw into the trash.  Browsing through the contents I am intrigued by an article about recruiters courting teachers to gain access to campuses.  Inside the article it exposes programs to bring teachers to workshops at Parris Island for an inside sales pitch about what the Marines can do for your students.  There are stories of harassment of teachers who discourage students from falling for recruiter ploys.   Moreover, there are excerpts from a recruiting handbook with not so revolutionary advice like buying donuts and coffee for teacher meetings (how I would hate to see that school faculty), keep up with faculty meetings and events, volunteer for events, and so on.  Yet, the insidious targeting of high school students is best expressed with this simile: "Like the farmer who fails to guard the hen house, we can easily lose our schools and relinquish ownership to the other services if we fail to maintain a strong school recruiting program" (Neatoday, April 2007, 37).  (And you know all of this entails lots of money.)

 

Meanwhile, with No Child Left Behind, I am not allowed to teach one period of yoga (it is not in my credentialed area) nor am I able to get a few hundred dollars to buy yoga mats.  Last week I started offering yoga at lunch on Wednesdays.  Only three showed up for the last 10 minutes.  I let my advertising slip -- with regular work duties and trying to organize the new class for semester as my excuses -- so expect even fewer tomorrow. 

 

Yesterday, I asked my students to write about what they want or their dream world.  One student joked, "You would want a world where everyone did yoga all the time, wouldn't you Miss?"  I said, no, just at least an hour a day because I believe it could create world peace.   And I do.  

 

Lesson plans can wait; I have some yoga mats to scrounge up before the recruiters steal my students and my colleagues.  

Sharing Our Experiences of Diversity -- A class assignment

I waited, pacing around this empty square. The bell would soon ring
signaling the battle I expect but am not truly prepared to fight. In
fact, I didn't come here to fight. I came here to teach, to
inspire, to hopefully find a career that will stick.

"Brrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiinnnngggggggggg."

The halls start to fill with noise. It is more like traveling in an
angry and dysfunctional Central American town than an American High
School as I stand in the doorway, the greeter, listening to an
agitated lilting Spanish interjected with English expletives. One by
one, teens with their jet-black hair smoothed or spiked with gel,
either challenge me with their liquid black eyes or turn them away
out of respect or shyness I cannot tell. Some have a deep cinnamon
skin, others are paler than I, yet, somehow, it is obvious I am the
outsider. In the beginning, a few will be unsure, due to my brown
hair and eyes, if I am "one of them." Though most often, as soon as
I open my mouth, greeting the class with my American accent, talking
"all educated and stuff," I betray myself as the foreigner in this
school, just as my rudimentary Spanish gives me away when
traveling. The few verbal responses to my attempts to greet the
stream of incoming students come back in thick accents my ear is not
yet trained to interpret or whispers I can barely hear. A few shout
confrontations letting me know immediately that I am not going to be
given a chance to prove myself, to be accepted or tolerated; I must
fight for it. I should have been in boxing training, not mentoring
a teacher, the past six weeks.

The breaks between classes and my interactions with colleagues do not
alleviate this sense of being the outsider. In the cafeteria, the
workers and my peers also often follow the rule of Spanish first,
English second. In meetings, Spanish would often be interjected in
conversations, jokes that I would not get or key information
unintentionally withheld from me. At other times I would silently
sit in meetings as others laughed at the inadequacies of whites
trying to negotiate the culture of East Los Angeles.

There was nothing malicious in this alienation. In fact, I liked
many of my students and my colleagues. We all became familiar to
each other. Yet, I could not change my skin, my blood, my heritage
-- all reminders that as to why I am not a part of this community.
Perhaps I never could be. I could, however, shift my focus and
perspective.

I learned this from travel.

I love to travel, love putting myself in new places with new
people. Each time I return I am thrown into a bit of American
culture shock -- seeing at times the ugliness, at times the beauty of
all we take for granted around us.

Thus, I began to look at my life as one of travel, particularly
between East LA and Studio City. In Studio City, a fairly diverse
neighborhood, I do blend in more easily: the way I dress, shop,
talk, walk, as well as the color of my skin fits here more than in
the halls of Garfield High School. Yet, in some ways, I am not
completely in here either: not enough blond and make-up and plastic
surgery. At my church, I am the odd one: single woman who teaches
in 'the ghetto,' who travels alone to Belize and Costa Rica, who goes
salsa dancing and snowboarding, who is never quite able to completely
tow the line of the community philosophy. At my school, I am the
white teacher who salsa dances and snowboards and is a bit too
outspoken and refuses to attach herself to one clique and who has
been intending to study Spanish since she started there.

I love the diversity of my life.

Shedding labels and differences, I use the same technique I use when
overcoming language barriers in travel: we are all just humans and
communication is more about understanding our humanity and listening,
as a human, than words and grammar. My students are people who cry,
hope, fear, risk, hate, and love their way through life, just like
me. From different paths we meet each day at this crossroads, more
by obligation than choice, to share experiences the other cannot
live. If they do not want to learn from me, at least I can learn
from them -- what is it like living as a teenage Latino/a in East Los
Angeles, as a teenager in 2007 in the U.S., as a second language
learner, as a minority within a minority, as Karla, Rosa, Diego,
Arlene, Jose, Glenda, Isai, Luis. From my colleagues, I add to the
myriad of friends who offer me new flavors of living and being in
this world.

As I look at my life, my choices, I see I almost work to seek
alienation as a means through which I find deeper, truer, more
enriching connections-- not connections based on perceived
similarities that nail me into a box in which I do not fit, but
connections formed from the energy of living with honesty and passion.

Eating my words . . . let me count the ways

This is what I read last night after posting my blog about blogging:

 

"The Yogic sages say that all the pain of human lie is caused by words, as is all the joy.  We create words to define our experience and those words bring attendant emotions that jerk us around like dogs on a leash.  We get seduced by our own mantras . . . and we become monuments to them.  To stop talking for a while, then, is to attempt to strip away the power of words, to stop choking ourselves with words, to liberate ourselves from our suffocating mantras."  -- Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

 

After reading this I went salsa dancing at a club highly recommended by an avid salsa-dancing friend.   The energy and DJ were fabulous.   Song after song, I was asked to dance.  Just dancing. No talking.  No names. No conversations.  Just laughing and smiling as I followed the graceful leads in turns and occasional goofs.  But it was all good, as my lead laughed with me and kept going.   As much of my life revolves around words, this, perhaps, is why I so love salsa dancing.  Words often fail me and sometimes all you want to say and all you want to know is best communicated through a smile, a hand, a dance, a touch.    And maybe this is why I am practicing:  so that when I get that chance, I can say exactly what I mean.  

Out of town in Gardena and Hermosa Beach

An experiment with "travel" writing about my local adventures
---------------------------------

I always hated driving. Lately, one of the only places I can still
and focus my mind is behind the wheel. It is the music. My
snowboarding mix is serving me well on wheels. Today, I actually
looked forward to 'getting out of town,' (the phrase my friend used
later in the evening to describe her best friend visiting his cousin
in the San Fernando Valley where I live) driving all the way down to
Gardena for non-descript plans with a friend I haven't seen in over a
month. As Radiohead moaned and crooned along with me I celebrated
the traffic that would keep me in the car, lost in my music, for a
bit longer. Then, as the traffic opened on the 110, Muse's
orchestrally arranged pop/rock propelling me down the freeway, almost
missing my exit as I sang Hysteria as if trying to expel that from my
soul.

Gardena really feels like a out of town with too many cops on wide
desolate streets lines with old apartment buildings dotted with seedy
neon-signed hotels and liquor stores. There is a lack of intensity
here compared to the hustle and bustle of Hollywood and its
surrounding neighborhoods. We drive in circles, stopping at the
Peruvian restaurant to check out the salsa dancing. It feels too
much like a family restaurant with no stools at the bar as if to
discourage lounging (my friend does not dance). We drive in
circles. I enjoy the movement, the distractions.

Hermosa Beach. A place of beauty, a place to escape the LA-ness of
LA. She wants low-key, I want activity. As so often happens, I find
myself on the fringe of two worlds, belonging completely in
neither. I've never been. "It is mostly Frat Boys," she warns. We
go anyway. This is the compromise.

Suddenly we cross a bridge and are transported into what looks like a
movie set -- everything is neat and tidy, too neat and tidy, like
that Jim Carey movie where everything is fake. The sidewalks are
lined with glittery stones. Even the parking garage is decorated
with tile murals. Urban beautiful done to the point of blandness.
Much like the people there.

As we pass the Irish pub, we remember it is St. Patrick's Day. The
smell of beer wafts up the sidewalk clashing with the tidiness of the
town. Boy-men hoot and holler from inside for no apparent reason.
We continue on toward the beach. There is a bar, a bit less crowded.
We each order a Guinness, in honor of the day. There is a small
dance floor, which I never succeed in persuading my companion to
venture to, despite the occasional nostalgic 80's song.

"Are you ordering a drink," a voice from behind inquires as I wait
for my foaming Guinness to settle.

"Um, no. Have one here."

"Do you mind if I order one? . . . "

"No. . . . go right ahead," I step aside.

"But you are in my way," he smirks as begin to move.

I am perplexed, as I am moving.

"You know I'm kidding."

"Ok," I am at a loss for how to respond. How, exactly, was I
supposed to know this? I am reminded how I can really suck at this
flirting, if that is what this is. He sort of apologizes again, I
wish him well with his drinking and turn back to my friend.

"Happy St. Patrick's Day," we toast and head up the stairs.

How do I blog . . . let me count the ways

Blogging about blogging. 

 

I guess this is more common that I would think since there is a 'category' for blogs about blogging. 

 

This is mine.

 

A week-long lag.  I miss daily blogging (oddly a new intention I added about two weeks ago).   I have energy leaks.  Blogging is one.  Stopping, I plugged it for a bit, but need to work out a permanent adaptation.

 

Is it really healthy to put so much of my intimate inner and outer journeys out there for public consumption?   Many of you are dear friends, who will hear it regardless, but some have chosen to not be in that circle, yet, I put it all out there.

 

Another intention is to take myself seriously as a writer. I have had the privilege of being asked to help co-edit an independent literary journal, as well as to contribute a piece.  I need privacy and my intimacy back to feed my creativity. 

 

But I miss the daily blogging, the instantaneous feedback, the chance to connect with those I cannot connect with in other ways.  

 

Caroline Myss, in her CD, Your Power to Create, talks about the mystical narcissist who is in touch her inner guide, has faith in this guide, and no longer needs to proclaim the wisdom of this guide or to validate this wisdom by seeking approval of others.  Do I do this in my writing and blogging?   Since the Perfect Saturday, my guide as been mumbling.  

 

Stop and listen, maybe is what she is mumbling. 

 

I am scared of fiction, so rather than blog about me, I will hopefully be posting excerpts of creative essays and stories I am toying with (is this different than blogging?) and hope anyone who reads them might nudge me from wasted energy into creative potential.    

A perfect Saturday

"Sometimes you need a day off from all obligations."

"Funny, a very conservative Christian response came to my mind: 'God
never takes a day off'.'"

"Ah, but he did, that is one story I remember: he rested on the
seventh day."

"Yeah, whatever happened to that seventh day of rest? It should go
back to Saturday as it was; Sunday is too preoccupied with getting
ready for Monday."

"Saturday is the day of rest. The day for me."

"Saturday is errands."

"No. Errands are to be done after church, before prepping for the
workweek. Saturday is the day for just you."

What better way to spend a Saturday, especially after the day of
unexpected anger eruption and a first week back in the classroom,
than on Mt. Baldy with my new adventure companion: Zora (as well as
some real life ones with whom I had the above conversation).

The perfect Saturday.

5:39 am My quickly adjusted body clock wakes five minutes before
workday alarm time.

5:40 am My thankful body and mind fall back asleep.

7:40 am Meditation (a bit short and a bit distracted, but not bad
after a week of lapsed meditation).

8:10 am Put up coffee, make breakfast, ingest both over reading
(normally I would stretch this portion of the Saturday out as long as
possible).

8:40 am Dress, gather snowboard and necessary gear.

8:55 am Run across street to grocery store for granola type bar for
which I made a special trip to Trader Joe's last night and neglected
to buy once there.

9:10 am Calls from E and C, one arriving, the other running late.
Run up to apartment, get last of the coffee, gather gear, head down
stairs.

9:40 am Attach straps to rack on car, cannot figure out how to secure
board, put it all in the back and head out. Get great advice from
my partners in recreation about day of anger dilemma. Feel anger
dissipate like the smog of LA transforms into clean mountain air as
we climb the road from the 210 to the Mount Baldy Parking lot.

This time, there is no snow lining the snaking road, no cars parked
along every curb. I question if it is really Saturday.

11:00 am Park, gear up.

11:15 am "Don't even bother," warn a group of boarders coming down
the slope from the lift.

"Really, there's nothing."

"A lot of slush."

"Even on the beginner's slopes."

"Oh, those have a bit, but the advanced runs are all rocky, " one
guys works to take off his pass. "Here, make it look unbroken and
use it."

We debate, check prices. We're here. We should go up. The air,
the views beckon us. The possibility of even a little practice is
enough for me. We go. As the wind dances through the canyon, I pull
up my hood, thankful I bought this new jacket (brown with a fuzzy
pink interior) as the fifteen minute ride eases us into the peace and
timeless of the mountain. The trees sing like ocean waves, stilling
the noise of my mind.

12:00 pm Arrival. The snow is sparse. I wait, cooled by the wind
and warmed by the sun, as my friends rent their gear.

The next three and a half hours:

The first run frustrates (seems to be my typical first run) and,
today, disappoints. Patches of snow dot the slushy slope. I
struggle to find the stance, the balance, the coordination. My
skier companions seem to fall less. The slush piles on the board too
easily, catching the front edge. The falls are soft, but too wet.

Too warm, I remove a layer and head inside to the locker. I readjust
my boots, my gloves and head out again.

I make it considerably far before a fall. I relax into the gliding
and am mastering the 'falling leaf' glide to the bottom. I learn to
follow the hill and surf over now growing large puddles. The ski
lift boarding and disembarking grow easier, though not completely
graceful.

The slush increases. The going down the hill is slow. Now, falling
is not a problem as I work to get the board to just move. Somehow,
once moving, I am so relieved I forget all else. I get to the bottom
and am able to almost maneuver a toeside turn to steer myself onto
the catwalk toward the lift. I make it half way before the slope to
right forces me to remove the second foot. This time I make it off
the lift without a fall. Another run down the slope as I continue
this process, another fall-less leaving from the lift chair.

I take a bit of a break, which allows my friends to catch up to me
(or me to them -- it is difficult to determine when going in
circles). We glow with the snow, sun, air, and movement. I
realize I just made two runs without falling (all the 'stopping' in
slush made it not feel like a straight run down -- but there were no
falls!).

Time no longer exists. Down the hill, each time I discover new
puddles, new bumps. I am pleased as I feel the board and my body
give and continue, floating right, left, straight ahead, like a boat
gently rocking in the ocean without resistance, not minding small
wanderings in its course, yet with an ultimate destination planned.

At times, I take a moment to sit, photograph the views, and just be
here with nothing to do but decide, one more time down the slope?

I choose to ride the final lift down alone, listening to a kirtan by
Donna DeLory, I move into the end this perfect Saturday with another
meditation. I feel the sun tan my face as all the tension and
tiredness drip from my dangling legs. I feel thankful for where I
am at this moment, even as I contemplate intentions for change, for
progress, for love, for courage. I know on Monday morning I will
look out my window from my classroom at the distant mountains like
star-crossed lovers looking at the moon that connects one to the other.

Thankful for this gift to ourselves, we seek to nourish our bodies.
Indian food, a cuisine of rich flavor and warm comfort. To start
our meal, we order Karma and Taj Mahal lagers, which the waitress
promises will bring good Karma and gifts of the Taj Mahal,
respectively. The conversations about angers and frustrations of the
week turn now to jokes and dreams and adventures, current and desired.

"I had forgotten how easy it is to just drive up to the mountains and
ski for a few hours. Thanks for organizing this." I smile,
grateful to not only have friends along, but to have given this gift
of the essence of vacation.

"It might be the last visit of the season if the heat keeps up. I
want to build up my muscle stamina, need to find exercise to do that."

"Surfing. I have the rack and my board."

"Sure. I'll try that. I am always up for a challenge."

"Oh, it's challenging."

"You know, I have always liked challenges, but in the past limited
myself to intellectual ones because that is where I was told my
capabilities were. Lately, though, it's all physical and I am amazed
at what I can do. Maybe it is thumbing my nose at the accumulating
birthdays."

"Whatever it is, it is great."

"Let's up it one notch and agree within the next 12 months we will go
surfing in the morning and skiing or boarding in the afternoon."

"Ah, now you are trying to keep up with those men you have been
meeting."

"I told you about that? Sure. Well, not keep up, but it is that
proverbial LA day, embracing all it has to offer, now brought into
the world of possibility after meeting two people who have actually
done this. If they can do it, so can we. The legend does not say
anything about doing either expertly. Hell, it could be a surf lesson!"

"Ok. It's a deal."

"Ended, of course, with a night soaking in pools in Desert Hot Springs."

Once home, I soak by candlelight in a ginger bath, steaming myself
into complete relaxation and bliss.

A spark catches on a dry leaf

A spark catches on a dry leaf, left over from fall, and catches fire.

Maybe it was the stamp machine that sparked it. One dollar in the
machine, I wanted to by $1.30 of stamps, the cheapest option, to mail
the $.63 letter and CD. I knew if it went home with me it would be
days before it made it to the mailbox. The machine finally took one-
dollar bill and continued to refuse my second bill. I patiently
tried and retried, determined. The machine then started to beep.
Great, it's going to explode. If I did not make a selection, my
money would be lost, it told me. No pressure. I make my selection.
Now it is upset I am short $.30. I shove the dollar in, it comes
out. I start cursing the machine. A woman walking out pauses,
probably hearing me mumble. At last the dollar goes in and out pops
not stamps, but postcards with prepaid postage.

"Damn it."

An old woman, who successfully procured her book of stamps from a
neighboring machine agreed to sell me two stamps.

"Oh, you only need the twenty-four cent second stamp," she informs me.

"That's ok, I don't mind the few extra." I do the math to see what
I owe her. "Here's eighty cents. Thank you so much."

"Here's your change," she insists, digging through pennies.

"No, don't worry about it."

"No, no, you already paid too much," she puts a penny in the pile of
coins I was sweeping back into my wallet.

The funny thing is she offered to just do this before, but in my
anger at the machine I didn't really understand her offer.

I know this by now -- let the anger go and answers will come.

Then, talking to my mother, now back home and unexpectedly very lucid
lately, this little spark of anger flared into a flapping heated
flame. Not about the stamps, but more about obligations that I
don't want to meet and possible resentment . . . towards whom.

I haven't felt this angry in a long time. Hurt, frustrated,
disappointed -- yes, but there was love and a centeredness to push me
over those humps. But this anger, though not unknown to me, felt
unfamiliar and unpleasant. I hated this anger, only making it angrier.

Oh, yeah, I remember, this is how it works.

"Where is all this anger coming from," my mother asked.

"Good question." I tried to consider this as my mother lectured me
about maturity and gumption.

I suspect it is rooted in fear and ego, though from what hiding
placed they suddenly popped out is a mystery to me.

Synchronicity abounds

Caroline Myss tells me from my stereo, "Our time has come."

 

"Change everything you are, everything you were, your number has been called," sings Muse as I pull out of my garage.   "Our time is now."

 

Synchronicity abounds. 

 

This was a few days ago, before I being back at school, before early morning alarms and late afternoon lethargy.    If I am not moving my eyes begin to droop.    Already, the fears and worries begin, though with a new twist:  will I lose the synchronicity of each moment, the ability to vibrate in tune and in harmony with the world around me if I cannot make the time for meditation and stillness? 

 

I stand in front of my class a mirror.  I do not let their negativity and manipulations pull me in.  Even my 5th period, which I hoped would improve with two months maturity and the loss of a few particularly disruptive bodies, I use all my energy to exude calm and acceptance and tolerance.   They sabotage every activity and I offer praise for what is done.  I move around the halls of this energetically toxic world shielded by a bubble.  I am lucky to be able to leave in the afternoon.  The bubble allows the bumps and pokes to bounce off, returning to its source, hopefully a bit dulled. 

 

There is so much more to life, I want to declare to complaining and competing colleagues at the lunch table.  

 

There is so much more to life, I want to declare to distracted and disheartened students posing apathy and nonchalance. 

 

However, transformation is slow, it cannot be forced upon the unwilling, but must come from within, a million personal revolutions bursting forth with light, sweating out the toxins like a one running for their life.  

 

Perhaps there is a synchronicity for each ball of energy that walks into my room that I cannot (and may not ever) see, that is not so obvious as Muse echoing Myss in my own personal soundtrack. 

 

 

 

Consuming me

High School smells of anxiety, fear, insecurity, and bravado. It
seems into my hair and clothes by the end of the day. Classrooms are
too hot or too cold. My lessons are too long or too short. The
classroom sleeps in lethargy or explodes with energy. My vision for
where each class is going is as clear as the distant mountains after
rain or hazy as a dry summer day sitting on Los Angeles.

Sitting at my desk with file folders scattered around and posters
waiting to be hung, I watch my teacher self. She knows something
needs to be done, but is not quite sure what or where to begin.
Lessons are improvised into full manifestation moments before the
relentlessly punctual bell. She moves into action, knowing the
class will be too long and too hot today. This is OK. The students
will be tired. She remembers they are just teenagers, people too,
forced to be here, playing a role. She plays her role as I look on
with a smirk and enjoyment. Can it really be this easy? Technical
delays, rambunctious boys, testing and testing, it all rolls off and
what gets done will get done. No worries, no stress.

"With teaching, I must make a concerted effort to not let it consume
my entire life," I remind myself more so than my listener.

Caffeine, a bit of planning, finding some files. I have the general
gist of what to do. More important is checking with family,
checking in with myself. I read, I write, I nourish my body with
dinner and salsa dancing. I have found a lesson that works for me:
down the street, laid back yet challenging enough to progress, fits
around my other after work activities. The lessons are rigorous and
the partners are gracious. The shoes are broken in and either my
new confidence or my first week of school sleep deprivation added to
my relaxation, enabling me to follow more smoothly than I have
before. Evidence: several good leads asked me to dance more than
one dance. I left feeling well exercised and graceful.

As with all my life activities, I must make a concerted effort to let
myself be consumed in the activity, in the moment.

Next up for consuming me this week: singing, yoga, snowboarding,
more singing and, finally, more dancing.

Wednesday

Wednesday. The midway point. One week almost done.

Like me in the middle of a circle of students all talking at once. I
hear all, but can only respond to one demand at a time. So, this is
what I do.

One thing at a time. My job wants me to do more. I don't resist,
but I don't bend.

In choir tonight (I like our new rehearsal night falling midweek --
it feels balanced, a day to rest half way to the day to rest), I must
bend and resist at once, feeling my body, my instrument support each
note, resisting falling out of vibration, yet this instrument must
bend to vibrate with each word, each note.

My knee hurts when bending, but, interestingly, feels best when
resisting. At rest, it tenses locks. In action, in yoga and
dancing, it comes to life, warms and melts into itself. I am perplexed.

I am not used to such things in my body, craving constant action and
activity.

Just as my mind and soul crave stillness, which I also am not getting
time for with work.

I tried to meditate in a hot bath, hoping to heal both. The knee
responded but my mind would not follow as the heat rose up to my
face, leaving me parched and sleepy.

Odd, how work limits the activity of my body and the inactivity of my
mind.

Ripples: Broken Water

"What is broken in your life?" she asked from the pulpit. 

 

A presumptuous question, assuming that anything is broken in my life, that anything in life can be broken.

 

"A broken heart, a broken spirit, a broken marriage, a broken relationship," suggestions for those who are blocked for brokenness. 

 

Is it possible, I wonder, for anything in life to be broken? Rather than fix what is broken, perhaps we need to practice pulling focus, constantly adjusting our view so we may see our ever-changing life with clarity. 

 

We work to fix ourselves into fitting into something to please others:  fixing our hair, our skin, our profession, our voice, our personality, our humor, our social status, our income, our education.  We operate in the negative of what is wrong, blinding ourselves to what is beautiful and perfect in its imperfection, its uniqueness. 

 

"God dwells within you as you yourself, exactly the way you are.  God isn't interested in watching you enact some performance of personality in order to comply with some crackpot notion you have about how a spiritual person looks or behaves.  We all seem to get this idea that, in order to be sacred, we have to make some massive, dramatic, change of character, that we have to renounce our individuality.  . . . Swamiji used to stay that every day renunciants find something new to renounce, but it is usually depression, not peace, that they attain.  Constantly he was teaching that austerity and renunciation ... are not what you need.  To know God, you need only to renounce one thing -- your sense of division from God.  Otherwise, just stay as you were made . . . "  (Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love)

 

Fine.  Nothing is broken.  Nothing needs to be fixed. 

 

Yet, I am not fixed; I am evolving, changing, growing.    Another beautiful paradox we find ourselves in with our dichotomous thinking:  how can perfection and change coexist?

 

"I don't want you to change for me."

 

Is it possible to not change we someone enters our lives and hearts?   With each thought, each action, we create and transform our world, including others.  Isn't that wonderful?   

 

I seek transformation and gravitate towards those who will precipitate that.  Recently, I have learned to see myself as no longer the bookworm child, but as an active, healthy, athletic adult.  Others push me to transcend my limits of my self-misperception.   With the encouragement and insight of friends and lovers and acquaintances, I find the courage to periodically molt the skin my ego tries to contain me in.

 

Tonight I remembered I had not read the feedback letters from my peers in response to my presentation yesterday.  I sat down to the read the letters and felt blessed I had waiting until the night before going back to my students.  "Your students must love you."  "Fun."  "Oh wise one."  "Time flew . . . great transitions ... calming voice . . . accessible . . . " Through their eyes I may see the teacher me with new confidence and enthusiasm.  Yes, I do enjoy my job, I do impart clarity and expect much from my students, I do laugh at myself and with them.

 

So, why, I wonder, do we limit ourselves by limiting others, but not asking or sharing our fantasies, hopes, passions, and goals?  

 

Perhaps seeing someone else embrace change would force facing one's own fear of change. 

 

Perhaps we fear being seen as broken and are even more afraid of being fixed.  If we are exactly as we should be and we are not content, then we can no longer coast along a victim, but must act and all actions provoke change, just like the lifting of your arm lifts mine, moving my body into a turn, leading me back to you. 

 

 

Orgasmically Transcendent

Arriving home from the American Cancer Society Thrift Shop (a regular
stop across from Trader Joe's -- shopping for charity is shopping I
love) with a lovely little find, a lime green purse, I emptied the
pockets of the stuffing and found a fortune which was originally
found, I presume, in a cookie. It reads: "You will soon witness a
miracle."

I witness miracles everyday I think, so wondered if this would be a
particularly significant or outrageous miracle. Like my phone
ringing. Or like me sitting at my computer to write and actually
working rather than procrastinating. Or maybe, I will wake up and
someone will have finished all my laundry and housecleaning. Best of
all would be the news that we have too many teachers so they are
giving me the semester off, with pay.

That didn't happen. I even showed up to our first day back, ready to
turn around and head home.

What did happen is I made it through my first three days back to work
(sans students, still) and do not feel pissed or stressed or
exhausted (just a slight grogginess due to the ungodly early hour I
had to wake-up). I am only somewhat prepared, but have faith it will
all fall together. I know the first few days will be just waking up
and readjusting to the routines. This is acceptable. I accept (though
am not overjoyed by) the fact that the first month is already filled
with assemblies, shortened days, trainings, and lots and lots of
testing. All my lessons will be squished and squeezed until, like a
nice fluffy slice of wonder bread hardened into a marble sized ball,
it is compact and unrecognizable, though not totally inedible or
tasteless.

Not a bad miracle, though I am also totally open to a more
extravagant, even orgasmically transcendent, one if the universe
feels I am so deserving.

Floating on Icebreakers

Easing my way back into working life -- schedules, teacher-talk,
administrator-talk -- the so-called real world. My real world is
in my mind and heart and soul, always. I am in each world, though
they two do not always coexist on the same plane.

I exist on the fringes here. Everyone is seated in their usual
cliques, like the high school students we so enjoy rolling our eyes
at as if superior. I have no clique, just like in high school. I
am a floater. It works for me and I no longer resist, making my
floating all the more fluid and fun.

I gravitate towards the table with the panoramic view of the I-10,
Cal State LA, and the distant snow-capped mountains. I long for the
mountains, for the sensation of sliding down (and often falling down
into) the snow.

Instead, here, we have icebreaker activities, a yearly attempt to get
us out of our cliques meeting and greeting the familiar faces we
never know. I am with the 'old' teachers, the 'moms,' the old
guard. An English department colleague turns to me to try to express
with diplomacy her opinion of this activity. "A waste of time," I
help out. She laughs. I am in the clique, at least for the day. I
play along, enjoying listening to the inner workings of this closed
group, finding comfort in their experienced approaches to teaching.

The afternoon brings shifts in our groupings. Now I am with the
Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds community. Here, I am rewarded with a
prize for my expert skills of blowing gently, with just enough
tension around the tip, then smoothly placing the rod into the hole
(I humbly noted, in the face of my mocking colleagues, it was not the
first time these skills were praised), as we assembled our origami
roses.

I finally am able to float back to my car, back to my home, feeling
unusually light after a day of 'professional development.' Patience
and non-judgment have served me well.