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.