Untitled.

It was late at night when the phone rang. 

My roommate’s little sister sat next to him in Chemistry. One of her friends died.

We talked about what it feels like, to see this happen over and over and over again, to see it get closer and closer and closer.

“Why?” I asked. I didn’t need to finish the question. She knew. Everyone knows the rest of the question. No one has an answer. No one ever has an answer.

“Anger.” That was the best answer we could find. And yet, we mused, no matter how many times we have been ragingly angry, no matter how many times we have survived physical, verbal, emotional, sexual violence, we have never decided to kill people. That’s a white guy response. Overwhelmingly. Another white guy. Why?

It could have been anyone.

But that’s not true. My middle school son, a white guy with outbursts of uncontrollable anger, does not have access to guns. We work with a therapist. He’s learning to be aware of his body, of when his heart starts to pound, of when he feels anger building. We talk it out, every night. His day, his frustrations, his joys, his insecurities, his anger, his laughter. I curl up in bed with him at night, a full body hug, as he cries, apologizing for the plate he broke in anger. He does not have access to guns. 

It’s not anyone. It never is. It’s a specific person at a specific moment in time. Usually a white guy. The signs were there. They always are.

And yet it happens again.

Today, at school, the kids are quiet. Their eyes are serious and sad. The room is silent. Occasionally a student looks up. Makes eye contact. Looks down.

“Are you okay?” I ask. 

My friends there, they were in the group chat as it was going down. It just kept blowing up all day. All night. Helpless. Scared.

Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired. Just sad.

I’m fine.

I know.

I know.

I check the news again, looking for answers. Make it make sense.

My students check their feed. They text their mom. They make eye contact. They put their phone down.

“It’s okay,” I say. “I get it. You can text your mom.”

I scroll my feed, looking for answers.

I want to hug them all, each and every one of them, an awkward, uncomfortable hug from a middle-aged not-huggy lady, because I want to tell them that I am here. That they will be okay. That they are safe. I want to give them assurances that I don’t believe.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” I tell them.

The bell rings.

Time, Time, Time...

13 years ago today, I was wearing an ice-diaper, staring at the biggest baby I had ever seen IRL. He looked like he'd eaten the other babies in the nursery; he was full-grown and so serious, compared to their shriveled hands and crying old-man heads. He was brave and beautiful. 

I walked out of the hospital at my pre-pregnancy weight. That's how big that kid was. And his heart was just as big. He loves, fiercely. He plays, fiercely. He rages fiercely. He turns in circles in the center of the room, telling a story about his day, picking up this thing from here and setting it there, picking up that thing from there and setting it who knows where. He gives me a full-on hug, still my snuggle bear, and he wanders upstairs to watch grown men squeal on YouTube, while I rescue the remote from the bathroom and a dog toy from the kitchen counter and his phone from the back of the couch.

In 6 years, he will be gone, suddenly an adult. 

I am not ready. 

Only this year, have I felt the ticking of the clock, as my kids grow into their futures. They have both started to settle -- just a bit-- into their own skin. Puberty is a fickle bitch and it has not been -- is not -- will not be easy on these two. They both sense and see the world for what it is. They call out injustice. They pick up on what is not said. They see hypocrisy and greed and they see beauty. They are both already taller than me. And they both reject societal standards of beauty and femininity and masculinity and sexuality. They are who they are and they dare you to ask them to be anyone or anything different. They refuse to cave to your pressures. 

But n 3 years, she will be gone. In 6 years, he will be gone. I won't have to feed them fast food in the car as we drive to practice; I won't have to stock the pantry with Cheez-Its because at least it's something they might eat. In 6 years I won't have to check the fridge for the remote. 

Photo by Delia Giandeini on Unsplash

Time is flying off the shelves like toilet paper.

Currently, my house is a disaster, my me-time consists of bourbon and Hallmark movies and laundry, and there is a single Rick and Morty sock on the piano. 

In 6 years, this chaos will be gone. 

I'm not sure I will ever be ready.

Pointlessly Biting My Tongue

 I am biting my tongue.

It is not my place to interfere, to pull rank, to fight my kids' battles.

But everything I know about teenage development and about teaching with equity and about decent human behavior tells me that something fundamentally is broken with so much of our school system.

I get that I'm weird: I include students' own self-assessment as part of their final grade. I allow late work and rewrites right up until the end of the semester, as long as the work is authentic and not just grade-grubbing. I don't mark down for late work. I don't give traditional tests. I think that grades should ultimately represent the students' engagement with the material and mastery of the content, not their behavior.

I've done a lot of reading, research, and contemplation. I've read a lot of what Ken O'Connor has put out there. I've read Pointless. I think about grading with equity in mind all. the. time. Every 504 and IEP requirement? Those are universal accommodations in my room. Extended time? You betcha. Need the audio? Here's the link. 

So I get that I'm weird.

But right now, my daughter is in tears because she doesn't understand her chemistry homework and she has a test tomorrow. She's had a cold all week (that I caught from my own students and then gave to her) and she's missed a couple of days of school. I kept her home because she was coughing, and even though we know it's a cold and not COVID, the stigma is there, and she doesn't want to get anyone else sick. She is exhausted and under the weather and she should have been in bed an hour ago, but she has to finish her chemistry and then read and thoughtfully annotate a 17th century passage for her American Lit class. It's her fault for procrastinating. Everything was posted online, so she should have kept up at home, and she only gets two late work passes per semester, so she has to get this done.

WHY? Why are we doing this to our kids?

What is she learning right now--long after she should be in bed--about chemistry? About American Lit? About responsibility? About humanity?

She is 15. Any metaphorical rebuttal you can give about accruing late fees on credit card payments and getting fired from a job when you didn't do your work by deadline is --frankly-- irrelevant. Because we are not teaching them about paying their bills on time or about the requirements of entry-level hourly jobs. We are teaching them chemistry. We are teaching them American Lit. We are teaching them Algebra. But we are grading them on compliance in a "gotcha" system that nails them if they are unable to pay attention one day, no matter what was going on in their lives.

I am really trying to bite my tongue. 

But this is my kid.

These are my kids. 

Quit punishing them for being human.

Grades should reflect understanding and mastery of content. And every damn kid in the room deserves the chance to truly understand the content, no matter what baggage they bring with them.

Are our policies in place because they make our lives easier? Or because they truly teach our students something meaningful?

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

Are our grading procedures punitive? Or are they meant to acknowledge mastery?

Are we truly trying to reach and teach each kid in the room? Or are we demanding that they conform to a system that works best for us?

My daughter needs to go to bed. She has a chemistry test tomorrow.

I am officially two weeks behind in grading.

And so, I am biting my tongue.

Making a Memory

 As my students were working on their personal narrative essays this week, I wrote my own, to model my process from brainstorming to  revision to final edit, and to show them that writing is never done, it's just due.

The prompt: Write about an insignificant moment in your life that says something significant about you. Try to stay in the moment and avoid obvious "looking back reflection" at the end. Suggested length: 500-600 words.

The mentor text: "My Secret Pepsi Plot" by Boris Fishman.

Making a Memory

“Come on, guys, we are making a memory today!” my mom sang out, while my Pops snorted and I rolled my eyes. As usual, we were starting out 3 hours later than planned, and it would be getting dark soon. We piled into the truck, seat-belts optional, my baby sister on my mom’s lap and me in the middle, awkwardly straddling the 4wd shifter and snow plow lever in the center floor hump.

The only thing matching my Pops’ bitterness at being dragged away from work for “forced family fun” was the bitterness of the cold. I could feel it through my scruffy Moon Boots, a Christmas present to me the previous year, 3 years after they were popular. Everyone wore Duckies now, but I had knock-off Moon Boots, the silver lightning bolts on the side advertising my awkwardness.

Every year we had to cut down our own Christmas tree, a family tradition that Pops and I grudgingly put up with, because it made mom so happy. Trudging through the drifts, getting snow inside the scrunched up felt liners of my ugly boots, my socks working their way down my heels and bunching under my arches, jeans wet around the cuffs and fingers freezing because I couldn’t find my gloves, I grumbled under my breath. My mom held my sister’s hand, as she bobbled through the snow in her hand-me-down faded pink snow suit. Pops carried the chainsaw, ready to cut down a ridiculous, lop-sided tree that would never actually fit into our living room.

“This one?” I pointed, but mom rejected it. 

“This one?” No, not that one either. Pops sighed in exasperation.

“This one!” my mom breathed. This was the one, the perfect tree, her dream tree this year. The bottom branches were too wide; the top of the tree pointed slightly west. This was the perfect tree, the tree that would make this Christmas a perfect memory. These family moments meant everything to her, the family she’d built through sheer willpower and nursery rhymes.

I stood with my hands shoved deep into my pockets, willing my fingers to stop aching. As Pops sawed down the tree, jumping out of the way as it finally creaked over sideways, my sister ate snow from a small hillside on the tree farm. My mom tried to take a picture, capturing this memory moment forever, but she’d forgotten batteries for the camera again, just like she did every year. It was too dark to take a picture without the flash anyway, too dark to capture this memory that would never make it into a photo album.

As we finally dragged the tree back to the truck through the snow, Pops and I grunted and huffed, sticky sap and pine needles coating our fingers. I was on the pointy end of the tree, holding on through the scratchy branches, trying to keep the tree from scraping the ground and losing too many needles. Then, I tripped. The tree bounced to the ground and I landed with a face full of snow. Pops reached out to grab my hand and pull me back to my feet, but I yanked once, hard. He fell into the snow beside me, laughing as he landed, my sister piling gleefully on top.

And Mom smiled knowingly at her family, piled in a snowy, laughing heap on the ground, the mutant Charlie Brown tree momentarily forgotten, the snow glittering in the fading light.

This is not our tree. This is someone else's tree. Mom forgot batteries for the camera, so we don't have a picture of our tree.

26 years

 The year I turned 25, I panicked. I had always thought that I would have my shit together at 25. That I'd have a career and a plan and I'd finally know what I was doing. Instead, I was waiting tables, bouncing between teaching jobs and sub jobs, trying to stay out of trouble but inadvertently blacklisting myself for "encouraging students to write letters to the school board." (Oops.)

It's been 2+ decades since my 25th birthday. The existential identity crisis hasn't passed yet. Today I started my 26th year of teaching. Do I know what I'm doing? Do I finally have my shit together? Will I manage to stay out of trouble this time? Do I have a plan? (Is is a good plan?)

The thing about teaching is that you will never, truly, be successful at your job. Kids will always fail, no matter how hard you try to reach them. Kids will always disengage, no matter how clever or creative or inspirational you try to be. There will always be a vocal parent or three who seem to drown out all of the support and make you feel like you are not only a terrible human being, but an awful teacher, systematically destroying kids' lives. 100 parents will be silent, 27 will be vocally supportive, and 3 will tear you down, and it will be those 3 who keep you up at night, questioning every professional decision you've ever made. 

The first day of school of year 26, I caught a train. By "caught," I mean, the train was stopped on the tracks, blocking the road, and I was 20some cars and 2 school buses on the wrong side of the tracks. After I made an 8 point turn and backtracked several miles to get around the train, finally headed in the right direction, a family of deer decided to be indecisive in crossing the road...should they go? should they stay? should some of them go and some of them stay? Several minutes and two more stoplights later, I finally was within a mile of school, in the mile-long traffic jam, backed up all the way up to the student parking lot. I skated into my classroom exactly 60 seconds before the final bell. And the year began. 

I'm not sure I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish today. Was I warm enough? Friendly? Approachable? Funny? Did I leave a good impression? (Was I a hot mess?) Did I inspire anyone? With anything? Will they be eager to return tomorrow?

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

26 years, and I still worry late at night (and all day long). Am I enough? Do I have what it takes? Will I be able to save this kid? Inspire that one? Challenge her? Comfort him? Support them? Truly connect?

Will I do enough?

26 years of teaching. Day 1 is in the books. Tomorrow is day 2.

I hope I have what it takes to truly make a difference.

20 Books You Have to Read, According to Your Favorite English Teacher

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A former student contacted me, asking for a reading list of 10-15 classics she had to read. Because I can't follow directions, I came up with 20. Without further introduction, here are the 20 books you have to read, because I am your favorite English teacher. 

Dead (and mostly White) Guy Classics

1. Macbeth by Shakespeare. There’s a GREAT article about it here. Plus, the downfall into insanity of Macbeth, as he gets more power, as well as the downfall of Lady Macbeth into suicide as she deals with the repercussions of her actions...the modern parallels are stunning.

2. The Odyssey by Homer. Find an easy to read translation...no need to wade through a hard-to-read version, because the point is the stories, not the language. It’s a great primer on mythology, plus it’s a great adventure story about a narcissistic asshole and his family...definitely insight into modern man!

3. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. This is an amazing adventure story. It stands alone in its genre and creates a stunning fantasy kingdom with likable characters. Full of humor and warmth and bravery, Bilbo's unwilling and unwitting journey is pure gold. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is long and often heavy, but The Hobbit is brilliant.

4. Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway was a womanizer and an alcoholic...but he had his finger on the pulse of what the American Man is. And his understanding of love, although seemingly skewed in his own life, really captures the insecurities and honesties of it all.

5. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald was a lousy husband and father and a drunk, too, but much like his character Gatsby, he was also passing in society. This, to me, is the great American novel, exploring the juxtaposition between middle class and the rich, between midwest America and the East Coast, between honesty and lies.

6. 1984 by George Orwell. The ultimate dystopian novel, this hits uncomfortably close to home. Plus, Orwell’s manipulation of language is spot on. If you don’t have the words, then can you have the thoughts? They who control the narrative and the language control everything. Just think about our country’s issue with health care. We have Obamacare (boo hiss socialism) and the Affordable Care Act (yes please!) and they are the same fucking thing. The words we use control the conversation. Literally.

7. Of Mice and Men or The Grapes of Wrath or East of Eden by John Steinbeck. No one writes like Steinbeck. His characters are gritty but laced with humanity. They are all flawed and all marginalized, but all redeemable and understandable. Plus, the way Steinbeck weaves hope and Christian iconography throughout (without being Christian or religious himself) is mastery. If there is one dead person I'd want to have coffee with, it would be Steinbeck.

8. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. People love to hate Holden Caulfield. He’s whiny and he complains a LOT. But he is the most authentic teenage voice I have ever read. He is every teenager, even when they (and we) hate him.

9. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. Although this is in translation (Hesse wrote it in German, I believe) and it’s a white guy writing about Buddha in India, it’s accessible and it really helps us see the hero’s journey in another culture...not just another culture but another entire way to live. The search for enlightenment is profound and a great contrast to the search for love or acceptance or hope -- or the American Dream. 

10. In the same vein, pick up a copy of the Tao de Ching. Read one "poem" every night before bed. It is lovely and thought provoking. You can find it (and most of the books in this list) online as a PDF, but I’d recommend a pocket edition of the Tao, so that you can just read a “poem” a day.

11. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I love love love this book. It’s long, but it’s really funny, and the main character, Pip, is so true and believable, both as a naive kid, then as a teenager, and finally as an adult. Dickens loves puns...even when little kid Pip talks about being “brought up by hand” and what he really means is that his Aunt slaps him a lot...Pip is innocent, until he’s not...and he’s one of my all-time favorite characters.

12. Different Seasons by Stephen King. King is an amazing writer, and this collection of 4 short stories is brilliant. Each one stands alone and covers a different aspect of humanity, from horror to innocence, and in-between. It’s brilliant. I hate horror and I love this book.

Dead White Lady Classics

13. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Ugh, this book. It is beautiful and it has been so misunderstood throughout the decades. Atticus Finch is not really a hero. He’s a distant father, a closet racist, and he's unethical. But he also speaks truth to his kids -- and their purity, watching this story unfold, is what makes this book live. Although the “white savior” trope and the “hulking but broken Black man with no agency” tropes are problematic, if you read the book understanding what Lee was trying to do, you see both the mastery and the flaws -- and the mirror.

14. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. You don’t have to read the book (although it’s lovely) but if you decide to watch this instead of read it, you HAVE to watch the Colin Firth version. He IS Mr. Darcy. The newer version of the movie is crap and completely misunderstands what Austen is doing: passing judgement on society and on ALL of the characters, and yet redeeming those who are willing to be honest in the end. But I’d recommend the read, if you’ve got the time. Austen pointedly makes fun of people. I feel her. :)

BIPOC Classics or Soon-to-be Classics

15. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. My favorite book in the whole wide world. It is so beautiful and thoughtful and the characters are so real. There is love and humor and hope and resilience and if there is just one book on this list that you read, make it this one. Although it takes a bit to learn to read the dialect, if you listen to this audio for the first chapter while you read, it will all click into place.

16. The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Written as an epistolary (written in letters), it’s raw and stunning and impossible to put down. The movie is good, but the book is light years better. It’s usually my students’ favorite book of the year.

17. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. When I read this book, it took me forever, because I stopped at every sentence and reread it because it was written so beautifully. I love this book not only for the story but also for the incredible craftsmanship of the writing. It’s pure poetry.

18. The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas. Although this isn’t a classic...yet...it will be. This book broke the ceiling for Black YA writers and it was one of the first POC books to be adopted into mainstream ELA classrooms. The main character, Starr, is all of us, and yet she is fighting her own battles about race, about her community, about her friends and family, and with herself.

19. There, There by Tommy Orange. This is a stunning "urban Indian" book. We are used to reading books by Native American authors set “on the reservation,” but this one places its characters in the city, where so many Indigenous people live, and it tells the stories of teens coming of age and their parents and grandparents, and what it is like to be Indigenous in our country today. It’s a story whose main characters just happen to be Indigenous, but that also affects every aspect of their lives.

20. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Beautifully crafted book about what it means to be Black in America...when you are not an American (the protagonist is a Nigerian immigrant). Adichie gave the famous TED talk “The Danger of a Single Story” and this book captures those idea threads about identity. It’s a masterpiece and Adichie’s narrative voice is powerful and authentic.

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

Learning to Just Say No

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

 Yesterday, I said no.

I said no to reviewing a submission for an academic journal. There was too much to tackle in the submission piece, and I only have a few days left before I’m off the grid for a week...and then I’m back to work. I said no because I didn’t have the time, the energy, or the mental capacity to tackle the job. I said no, even though I knew I was passing the work on to someone else, and letting a friend down. My inner child was stomping on the floor, yelling “I don’t want to!” I listened. I said no.

At 1 a.m., after a glass of wine or several, I told my inner child it was time for bed. I emailed my friend back and said I could do it if no one else could. Turns out I hadn’t learned yet how to actually say no. (Thankfully, my friend emailed back and said no worries, he’d pass it on to someone else. I escaped my own trap through no skill of my own.) Today, I told myself that not only would I listen to my own instincts and my inner child, but I would honor my own needs. I would practice saying no and sticking to it. 

Today, I said no.

I said no to pitching 10-12 article ideas for a policing magazine, a possible career-enhancer and money-maker, building my freelance career. But I am not an expert in the field of policing; it’s not my passion or knowledge-base. My focus and energy needs to go into my actual career, not my side-hustle, not right now. And I don’t want to spend the year panicking because I have to create content when I’m not secure of my own footing and knowledge in the industry. I said no, and it was a breath of fresh air, knowing that I didn’t have to commit to that yearlong panic that I was going to let someone in the industry—or myself—down. I listened to my inner child, the one who was whispering, “I really don’t want to do this,” and I said, “okay. You don’t have to.You can say no.” So I did.

Today, I said no.

I got back on skates for only the 2nd time since the great ankle breakage of 2019. I was nervous, but focused, and promised myself that if I felt tired, or unstable, or sore, or anything other than comfortable and confident, I would take a knee. I know that I got hurt before because I was competing with my own insecurities, with not wanting to look dumb, with not wanting to look weak or inadequate or out of shape or old. I’m Gen X, raised with that “No Pain No Gain” bullshit that left us all perpetually injured and consistently in our heads, measuring ourselves against everyone else and setting unachievable goals. So I put the skates on, and with all of the support and no judgement from the team, I slowly did a few drills. And when my back got tired, I took a knee. A few minutes later I got back up, did another drill or three. And when my inner child felt scared, I took another knee. 

By saying no when I needed to, I’ll be able to skate again tomorrow.

I’ve read so many articles today talking about Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles and how they knew that they weren't in the right head space to compete. And I’ve read so many asshole comments from couch-sitters who seem to think that these women owe them—and this country—the sacrifice of their health and safety. I re-watched the horror of the Kerri Strug moments in 1996 when she didn’t say no—when she gave in to the pressure from her coaches, her country, and her internal monologue—and she nailed that 2nd vault and ruined her ankle. At the time, Kerri was celebrated as a hero. Looking back, we see a child who didn’t have a voice—didn’t have a choice—who didn’t have the power to say no.

I don’t ever want to see another athlete say yes when they know they should say no. Simone and Naomi—THANK YOU. Thank you for showing us all how to say no.

I don’t need to be a world-class athlete to follow Simone’s and Naomi’s incredible examples and listen to myself—not the insecure, judgy self who is sure that everyone is watching, the self who compares her progress to everyone else and falls short—but to listen to the self that is willing to take stock of her needs and is willing to say no.

Photo by Isaiah Rustad on Unsplash

“No Pain No Gain'' is an abusive mindset. It’s a harmful myth. We owe it to ourselves to listen to our minds and our bodies. To listen to our reservations. To listen to our inner child. To ask her why she really wants to say no, and to honor her. Because that inner child—she knows that it’s okay to say no, and she doesn’t have to justify it to anyone, least of all herself.

A Letter to Dreamers. Searchers. Strivers. Me.

 Dear Dreamer:

The truth is, you’re a lot like your dad. You take up a lot of room. You are a big presence, physically and emotionally. You are not delicate. You are loud. You can be unintentionally cruel. You wear your heart on your sleeve, even though you are so often told to be vulnerable. You sound like you know it all, even when you know that you really don’t. You care. You care so much. Too much.

But you are also striving to listen, to learn, to understand. You are striving to understand your privilege. The world. You are striving to understand yourself and why you’ve made so many bad choices. And you are brave AF. Maybe there’s a connection there, between bravery and bad choices. You should look into that in your free time. 

You are striving to understand why you take so much on to pay the bills and feel like you matter —like you are making a mark— but then you buy another ill-fitting shirt from China at 2 a.m., hoping it will suddenly make you feel beautiful. Make you beautiful.

Girl. You ARE beautiful. I hope that someday, you can see it, feel it, know it. You are more than the space you take up.

This is the letter you should have written to yourself two weeks ago, instead of the letter of to-do lists and shoulds that you wrote and once again didn’t live up to.

And that —this— this is why I write.

With love,

Me

Might as Well Jump

It's almost June. The cottonwood is blowing everywhere, the poison ivy has surged to life, the oak trees have vomited their catkins all over the yard, and the darkness has lifted. Daylight lasts until 9 p.m. 

Another school year is almost over, and another summer has arrived, a chance to regroup and finally clean the house and plant flowers and read a book...a chance to breathe. 

 I've thought a lot this year about taking the big risks, about daring to jump even when you can't see the ground. 

 I jumped out of an airplane once, expecting it to be exhilarating, but finding it nauseating and terrifying, ultimately disappointed in myself for being the coward I secretly feared I was. 

 I jumped into a relationship once, hoping I'd finally find myself and I'd finally be seen, and instead finding that I didn't like what I saw when I looked in the mirror, a person still desperate for affirmation instead of a person strong with self-worth. 

 I jumped into a new sport once, hoping to build new muscles and find new balance and grace, and learning within months that I was not graceful on skates or on crutches; middle-aged me was just as awkward and ungraceful as middle-school me, and didn't bounce nearly as well.

 I jumped into a new job this year, a huge pay cut and financial risk, a risk in stability from the tippy top of the seniority list to the very very bottom, untenured, with a mentor teacher that had almost been my student teacher decades earlier. A strange situation, being brand new, but almost experienced enough to retire. 

 I couldn't see the ground when I made this job jump, but I trusted my gut and I trusted my village and I trusted in myself that I would be able to make this work and find a place where I belonged. 

Photo by Adrian Moise on Unsplash

 And now, it's almost June. 10 months have passed, and I can see the ground. It is blooming with flowers; the fiddle head ferns are unfurling, reaching to the sky; the Canadian geese are proudly and loundly parading their goslings into yards and driveways and on to decks and docks; it's time to plant the garden; it's time to relearn how to run. 

 Maybe Van Halen really did say it best. Maybe if your back is up against the wall, you might as well jump. 

 At the very worst, you might learn something about yourself, something you needed to recognize, so that you could grow and become a better you. 

But there is also a damn good chance that if you jump, you might find your people and you might see the ground and it might be full of possibilities and promise. 

 If you are brave enough to jump, you might not always get what you want, but you just might find you get what you need.

May Tired.

 It's May.

The sun is shining. Third Winter finally ended. Summer is coming, the garden centers are packed, mask mandates are lifted, baseball season is in full swing.

Your teachers are exhausted.

They have permanent shin splints from balancing on the balls of their feet, standing 6' away at all times, and engaging their students both in the room and on screen through sheer determination, extensive use of eyebrows, and "active posture."

They have become hopelessly near-sighted from squinting at screens for far too many hours per day, and peering hopefully through the black boxes in Zoom, searching for some semblance of life in the layers of black. They are buying reading glasses in bulk, stashing a pair in every couch cushion and random drawer they pass by.

Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

Their house is May dirty. They haven't dusted since First Spring. The laundry is washed and dried, but it's just never going to get put away and they have resigned themselves to living out of the clean laundry mountains, wearing rumpled shirts, embracing their inner Ms. Frizzle. The dishes are clean, but that's because they've given up on dishes. It's easier to just feed everyone out of the McDonald's bags and the pizza box lids. The kitchen counter is full of empty bottles and cans, but at least no one bothers to use a glass anymore. The bills are stacked haphazardly on the kitchen table, hoping to get paid. Shoes are literally everywhere. The cats have taken over.

It's May, and your teachers don't have much left in the tank. Their relationships are May ignored. They are hoping these relationships survive until Mid-June, are strong enough to ride it out; only then will they have enough energy to try to repair what's left of their friendships, family, and loves.

They don't remember what sex is. They also have lost their social filter and they're not sure if they should talk about sex or not. They live with teenagers, are surrounded by teenagers, only see teenagers when they try to close their eyes at night. They have no idea what's appropriate anymore. Looking at the teenagers in the room, it seems like daisy dukes, sweatpants, trucker hats, and socks with Crocs are socially appropriate, but that can't be right. Your teachers are confused. They don't sleep much. They also haven't had a real haircut in 8 months. They are hoping that no one has noticed.

It's May, and your teachers are frustrated. Their email inbox is May full of desperate seniors, asking what they need to do in order to pass the class (turn stuff in) and how many things they need to complete (do the math) and what they are missing (check Powerschool). Their office hours are empty, as no one shows up for extra help, or to ask these questions in person. More emails arrive. "I emailed you yesterday, but maybe you missed it. What do I need to do to pass the class? And may I have an extension, please?"

Your teachers are trying to hold it all together, stretched in the rack of work and home and their kids and your kids and their parents and those parents and colleagues and friends and deadlines and evaluations and bills and grades and so. many. emails. 

And your teachers know that their job is not harder than anyone else's our there, it's just different. It is physically and emotionally draining when you have so many lives to balance, so many kids you are trying to keep afloat, so many plates in the air. Your teachers are not asking for pity, or accolades, or cookies (maybe cookies?), or to be labeled as heroes; they are just asking for a bit of grace right now.

It's May. Your teachers will make it through this. They will get it all done. They will probably not resign. They will probably drink too much. They know that in a month, they will sleep again, and by August, they will get the house back in shape and begin to get their muffin top back in shape and get the relationships they have left back in shape and they will be ready to do it all again.

Because teaching is what they love, and teachers are who they are.

But today, in May, they are spent. Their bucket is empty. Their to-do list has filled the Blue Book and they are writing in the margins.

Your teachers need little bit of grace, a little less snark, a little more physical space, and maybe a couple more pair of reading glasses.

And they definitely need a box of wine.

Photo by Dylan Collette on Unsplash

Untitled.

 Today, I lost a student.

We weren't particularly close. I had him in class last year, the semester the pandemic hit. He was a nice kid, a good kid. He was conscientious. He was funny. He was small for his age, but he held his own. I'd only had him in class for a couple of months. An elective. Not a graduation requirement.

Even though I'm no longer there, in that district, I've been following his story. A freak accident at 2nd base, a collision sent him to the hospital for a week. It was scary. But now he was home, full of positivity, on the mend. A local celebrity on the news, fundraisers full of prayers and well-wishes. Thank god he was on the mend.

And then he wasn't. Somehow, something horrible, awful --there are no words-- something unfathomable happened.

He died.

And I can't imagine what his parents are feeling. His friends. His team. The kid he collided with. His school, his lunch table, his world.

Today, I washed and folded my own son's baseball uniform. His pants were filthy, from sliding into base. They are clean now.

My son has a game on Wednesday. He plays 1st.

I can't imagine what it is like to lose a child. I don't know how I would survive.

All I know is what it feels like to lose a student. And I sit and I hold my son's baseball socks in my hands and I squeeze them just a bit tighter, until I can't feel my fingertips.

And then I put the socks on the pile, and I look out into the darkness, searching for answers.

16

 She was 16.

16.

A girl. Scared, got in a fight with her foster "sisters." A girl, scared, called the police. A girl, scared, grabbed a knife.

She was 16.

My daughter is 14. She has never been in a fight. She has never needed to grab a knife. But if she was --if she had-- would she have been shot to death by a cop in order to break up a fight? Is that what we do in this country? Or is that only what we reserve for Black kids?

If two teenagers are in a fight and we need to intervene, does one of them need to be shot? Killed? Eliminated?

Does "keeping the peace" mean killing whatever is making the noise?

She was Ma'Khia Bryant. A child who had a mom and an aunt, a child who was in the foster care system, a child who had already dealt with some tough shit, a child who loved to sing, a child who loved to cook, a child who called the police, a child who grabbed a knife.

She was kid. Scared. Angry. A volcano of emotions we adults can't even remember because 16 was so long ago and because we have tried a lifetime to forget what it felt like to be 16.

16.

She was not a threat to the cop. She was clearly fighting the women --the girls?-- in the yard. And when people are attacked --when we are attacked, when we are scared-- we attack, or we run away. That's fight or flight. That's our reptilian brain, our survival mechanism. But Ma'Khia Bryant didn't attack the cop. She went after the threat. Or so she thought.

And yet, the cop on the scene --he saw a 16 year old Black girl and decided in that moment that she was dangerous. That she was a scary Black woman. That she didn't deserve to live. The cop who was called by Ma'Khia Bryant simply pulled the trigger. 4 times. No de-escalation. No warning shot. No attempt to disarm. No attempt to recognize Ma'Khia Bryant  as a person worthy of anything other than a bullet. 

4 bullets.

And that cop walked away. Never in danger. Never harmed. Never intervened. Never de-escalated. Never really even tried.

A cop showed up, a cop drew his gun, a cop fired, a cop murdered a 16 year old girl.

And the trolls and the lawyers and the spokespersons will insist that she deserved to die. She had a knife. She was out of control. She should have followed orders.

And yet the adult on the scene, the adult with the actual deadly weapon, the adult is the one who pulled the trigger.

Who is the adult in the room?

Who's out of control now?

Ma'Khia Bryant was 16. She will not graduate from high school, even though she was on the honor roll. She will not go to prom, even though she loved music. She will not hug her mom or thank her foster mom or write a poem in her English class, even though she was a good kid and a good student. She was afraid, and for that, she died.

She was 16.