"My heart hurts," she said.

She came into my classroom, clearly agitated. I had a mountain of grading to do, but I could tell this couldn't wait. I asked her what was up.

"Have you seen what's going on in Alabama? In Georgia? In Missouri? I can't even process this. I just can't. I'm so afraid."

And we talked.

We talked about my own miscarriage years ago at 6 weeks pregnant, when my uterus reabsorbed the embryo, which would have been the size of a pomegranate seed. With no proof of natural miscarriage except for exceptional cramping, dropping hormone rates, and extensive bleeding, could I have been investigated for murder under these new laws?

We talked about the 4 miscarriages her own mom had endured; about the endometriosis that runs in her family, making dangerous ectopic pregnancies highly probable. "Why do these people value a fetus more than they value my life?" she asked. "Why isn't my own life important? If I got pregnant, I could die. Why do they value the not-born more than the born?"

She showed me the social media posts she had seen, where old men were spouting highly unscientific "facts" about pregnancy, clearly showing no understanding of women's bodies, nor of gestational development.

Photo by Victor Lozano on Unsplash

"My heart hurts," she said. "Why don't they value our lives?"

And what could I say to calm her fears?

Later in the day, another student came into the room, 20 minutes late to class. She kept her face hidden, her hair hiding her eyes. She handed me her late pass, avoiding eye contact. I asked her if she was okay. "Yeah," she said.

But I knew. I knew she was not okay. These men ranting about adoption and rape and insisting that pregnancies conceived in rape were more important than the women who had been raped were causing harm to this girl. This girl, who has been abused and raped as a child, was reliving those moments again and again, triggered by the news telling her that her horrors would have been blessing, were she only lucky enough to get pregnant.

What can I say to alleviate her pain?

Still later, on Facebook, a former student and dear friend works through her own pain, dealing with the anniversary of her ectopic pregnancy and the health scares and crippling depression that followed. Daily, she is stunned by the men spouting fallacies about "transplanting embryos" as she attempts to get on with her life and heal her body and her heart.

What can I say to help her heal?

Another hour, another beautiful girl, 6 months pregnant, takes a seat and opens her journal. She writes about the moment she realized she was pregnant, eating breakfast with her grandma at Bob Evans.

And still, two hours later, another pregnant girl, this one a senior, smiling gently, knowing that she will graduate. Knowing that she will not go to college or open her yoga studio or follow the dreams she once had.

These pregnant teenage girls will never again be able to jump on a trampoline, sprint down the hall, or do jumping jacks without peeing their pants. These girls will have their perineum torn as they give birth. They will have stitches, stretch marks, and scars. They will never be able to go out with friends without spending a fortune on a babysitter. They will never sleep through the night. They will probably never earn their future 79 cents on the dollar like the other women in our country who were lucky enough to not get knocked up during their high school years. And their babies will have a higher chance of crib death, learning disabilities, addiction, and childhood poverty.

My own daughter turns 13 next month.

I lost my virginity when I was 13, not entirely by choice. Thankfully, I escaped pregnancy.

What do I say to my daughter to keep her safe?

How do we explain to our girls this fetishization of the fetus, the valuing of a life only if it remains unborn, in its pure, virginal state?

Because our girls are watching; they are listening. And they understand that if these laws are allowed to stand, it means that we value a fetus--a heartbeat, but no brain and no ability to feel pain--more than we value the beautiful young women forced to give birth. Our girls have hearts that hurt with this knowledge that they are not valued, nor are they truly wanted once they have been born.

There is gum on my bathroom wall...

Tonight, as we were getting ready for bed, my partner yelled for me to come upstairs. What was this thing adhered to the wall in the bathroom next to the mirror? Was it some sort of leech? a cocoon? a snail? a horrible pod of spider eggs? What exactly was stuck to the wall next to the bathroom mirror?

On closer examination, we determined that it was, in fact, gum. Which totally makes sense, because my 10 year old son bought a pack of gum with his allowance earlier in the week, when I let him ride his bike to QD after school...

But why is there gum now stuck on the bathroom wall? Was he saving it for later? Or was an experiment to see how long it would stick there?

I mean, I know my kid. I get it. I know what happened. He had gum in his mouth and he was told to brush his teeth and he was supposed to floss and brush his retainer, but he had gum in his mouth that he wanted to save. And, hey, look outside the window, is that a squirrel? And now, looking back in the mirror, what if he held his head at this weird angle, then he'd look like an alien! And if he flexed like this, he looks like Hulk! And now mom is yelling, "hurry up because we are going to be late again!" And was that another squirrel outside? And "I'm coming, mom, I'm coming as fast as I can!" and "Come ON! We're going to be late AGAIN!" And...

And now there is a wad of gum stuck on the wall next to the bathroom mirror.

But this kid--this kid is amazing. This kid had to create a city at school yesterday that had clothing and food and books and money, but his group was only given construction paper at their table to create their entire city and they ran out of time before they'd created the clothing for their residents...and this kid...he saved the project by announcing to the class that their city was called Nude York. This kid, who is so smart and so funny and so kind and so clever, is also the kid who stuck gum on the wall in the bathroom next to the mirror.

I know this kid will be an incredible adult someday. After all, he's a pretty incredible kid. But he's also a kid who will stick gum on a wall and then somehow forget about it. And I'm just not sure that the M-Step or whatever other standardized measures of proficiency we create will be able to accurately measure this kid. I'm just not sure that he will thrive in school without being ground down into submission and bubble sheets if a squirrel happens to be outside the classroom window.

There is a wad of gum on my bathroom wall. And I'm hoping that some rubbing alcohol and peanut butter will fix it and all's well that ends well, but I also know, deep down... that there is a very good chance that my kid will be measured out there by the gum he sticks on the wall and not by his clever save of the city of Nude York. I don't know how to focus his power for good, and I don't know how to tell my son that Nude York was a genius move, even if it didn't earn him the points, and honestly, I'm not entirely sure how to get the last of the gum residue off the wall next to the mirror in my bathroom.

Too much.

Too loud.

Too bossy.

Too thick.

Too driven.

Too sarcastic.

Too bitchy.

Too cold.

Too much hair.

Too much baggage.

Too many shoes.

Too many books.

Too many opinions.

Too many tattoos.

Too many expectations.

Too progressive.

Too obsessive.

Too sweary.

Too perfectionist.

Too complicated.

Too much.

Challenge accepted

She challenged us to post about how we loved our bodies.

It reminded me of something I wrote several years ago.

*************************************

These legs.

You’ve got legs like a piano bench, he said. What does that even mean? I was 8, or 10. or maybe 12.

I internalized that he meant that my legs were like tree trunks. But tree trunks don’t look like a
piano bench. Piano bench legs are delicate. My legs are not. Perhaps he meant that I have no
ankles, which is a fair assessment.

These legs. These legs have been a lifelong struggle.

Always pushing me into the next sized clothing, even if that size fits no where else. These legs
make me a mudder, not a sprinter. All the romance heroines have grey eyes and delicate
ankles. Clearly, those books are not written about women like me.

These legs.

You have old lady veins in your legs! She said. And she was right. I was 17. How many
procedures have I had, do I have before I give up, and just deal with these old lady veins...How
many years of refusing to wear shorts before I say, “fuck it, these are my legs and I’m simply not
going to care. I’m going to own them.”

Because here’s the thing:

These legs ran 4 miles today.
These legs are strong.
These legs are solid and they keep me practically on the ground, even when my aspirations and
my obsessions would have me losing sight.

These legs are not delicate and lovely; but neither am I. I am loud and bold and colorful and
opinionated and strong. These legs are, too. They have never let me down.

Legs like a piano bench? Legs like tree trunks? Old lady legs? Yes. Legs that run mile after mile
and are strong enough to walk down the stairs every morning with 60 lbs of 9 year old in my arms; these legs climb ladders and roof houses and ride bikes and run races and play soccer with the kids. These legs keep me on my feet. They are strong, not delicate. They are in your face, not acquiescing. They are powerful and they are reliable.

They are.

Reflecting in the Sunshine

The sun rarely shines in January. But it was shining today, as we remember you.

These are the words I wrote for you a year ago, when you finally were free of the cancer and the pain. We love you, mom. Thank you for being our sunshine.

December 28, 2017

When I was about 4 years old, I knew that my dad was kind of lonely. His life had taken some unexpected turns and I think he was a bit lost. I know he dated some, because I remember a story or two about a woman named “Jugsy.” But for some strange reason, he and Jugsy didn’t really seem to pan out.

Then one day, he introduced me to this tiny woman with a radiant smile and the blackest hair I’d ever seen. She was beautiful and she was young (she was only 20, dad!) and she just glowed. She was sunshine. And my dad? He was glowing, too. And a couple of years later he married her, and I’m pretty sure he hasn’t stopped smiling since the day they met.

Pure sunshine.

And this beautiful woman became my Chris. We never used the words “step-mom.” That just seemed awkward and tacky and Chris—we all know Chris—was never awkward or tacky. I was the awkward one, but she loved me like I was her own. She introduced me everywhere as her daughter. There was no further explanation. Just daughter. She would always tell everyone that I got my brains and my curly hair from her. She and I were as unlike each other as two people could be. She was tiny and cute and I was tall and awkward. She wore outfits that matched and I wore inside-out sweatshirts and ripped jeans held together with safety pins. She was jewel tones and glitter. I was goth. She cooked amazing ribs, or so I heard. I was vegetarian. She collected Precious Moments figurines. I collected tattoos. But she was proud of me and she loved me fiercely, because, to her, I was her daughter.

My two moms on my wedding day.
(It was raining. But we were glowing.)

It was only a couple of years ago when I realized that, for all of these years, the name Chris, to me, was just another name for mom. And so, after 35 or 40 years of calling her Chris, I asked her if I could call her mom...if she would mind. And she said, with so much emotion, that she would love that very much.

Because she always was, and is, and will be my mom. She is a part of me and she gave me more than I’d ever dreamed she could: she saved my dad. I actually got to tell her that, on the day before she died. I held her hand and said, “mom, I just need to say thank you. Thank you for saving my dad. Because before he met you, he was so sad. And ever since he met you? He’s been so happy. You helped him find himself, and you built a family and a life with him and you saved him, mom.” And she squeezed my hand, and she nodded, and she smiled, and she knew. She knew it, too. She saved my dad.

She was this tiny force of love and sunshine when I met her over 40 years ago and her light never went out. She was fierce. And yet she was so, so kind. And she taught everyone she met, because of how she lived, to live with strength and kindness. To love with passion and gentleness. To use glitter—and butter—often, but with decorum. To refuse to eat fish obstinately...but very politely. To listen when others are talking with focus and interest; to look them in the eye and let them know that their stories were truly important. To live and to love with passion and with joy.

Holding her granddaughter (my daughter) in the sunshine.

She made every recipe she cooked taste just a little bit better. She made every room she decorated just a little bit nicer. She made every outfit she wore just a little bit prettier. And she made every one of us just a little bit better, because that’s just who she was. She made the world a little bit nicer and we are all just a little bit better because of her influence on each of us. She was—she is—sunshine.

Thanksgiving is...

Thanksgiving is?

An American tradition.

An oddly sanitized holiday, a mythology of pilgrims and Indians and the idolization of corn.

A time of loneliness.

We watch the commercials and parades and we go to the store, which is strangely out of both pie crust and potatoes, and we sense that there is something, some bigger thing, that we are supposed to understand and that we have somehow missed.

I have not had my own children with me for Thanksgiving in almost 10 years. This was a conscious decision...a calculated moment in front of a judge, where I had to weigh the honor due to the respective grandparents against the traditions I wished I could build. A Hallmark Thanksgiving dinner shooting butter pats to the ceiling in our napkins and drinking Grandpa's homemade cherry wine? Those memories from my own childhood would have to suffice. That Thanksgiving is a dream of nostalgia, something that could not be recreated today. My children, instead, deserved a holiday with their paternal grandpa, the one holiday he claimed, and he deserved this singular day with them. And so I would barter Thanksgiving for the next decade, in order to claim New Year's Day with my own mom, a Christmas of our own.

My Thanksgiving traditions became...running a 5K. Climbing on the roof to clean out the gutters before the horrors of winter descend. And then, going to dinner with my boyfriend, to his ex-in-laws, because that is the family we have. That is the family we have built, out of the messiness of all of our histories.

These holidays. These holidays are so messy. Fraught with what they should be, the greeting cards and mythologies of our upbringing, juxtaposed against the barbed wire of our realities. In my own childhood, we could not celebrate Christmas at Christmas, because every other year I belonged somewhere else. And so, the family Christmas was moved to New Year's Day, a day that Friend of the Court didn't value as much.

And then, decades later, in my own divorce, we were stuck attempting to somehow honor the traditions that had been set. Thanksmas? That went to his dad, celebrated on Thanksgiving Day. Christmas? That went to my mom, celebrated on New Year's Day. December 25? Every other year, celebrated with my dad in Florida...until my second mom died. And then we moved that tradition, too, because we couldn't try to pretend that a Christmas without Chris was even a Christmas.

And so, in this convoluted nonsensical explanation of the holidays, I give you this.

Thanksgiving is.

Who you choose to be with.

Who chooses to be with you.

Thanksgiving is a time of loneliness.  Thanksgiving is a time of togetherness. May you find a hand to hold, no matter what your traditions are, no matter what your family looks like.  May you find a space that feels like it means something. May you stumble upon an experience that, with time, could turn into a  tradition. May you find a space that you can claim as yours. Your family. Your safety. Your circle. Your Thanksgiving. I hope you find it. I hope you build it. I hope you make it yours. May you find your family.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Photo by Ryan Christodoulou on Unsplash

Day 528 – Letter to the American People: A Parable of Two Boy Scouts. And a Guy With A Lizard.

Dear friends,

This is a true story.

Two Boy Scouts, both third graders, were volunteering at a park cleanup event. They were weeding the gardens and planting flowers and discussing the many Pokemon players wandering throughout the park. One of the people who caught their attention was a man, in his mid-twenties, with a foot-long lizard clinging to his shirt.

The boys were enthralled.

“Did you see that guy?” they whispered. “See his lizard? Check out that guy with the lizard! I wonder why he’s got a lizard with him in the park!”

One of the boys, the long-haired one, said, “Let’s go check it out! I wanna ask him about the lizard!”

A second boy shook his head adamantly. “No,” he stage-whispered. “No, we can’t go bother him. He’ll get mad. He doesn’t want to be bothered by us.” The rest of the troop held back. No one was willing to take the lead.

The long-haired boy responded, “But the guy literally has a lizard on his shirt. He is walking around the park with a giant lizard. He knows people are going to see him and want to ask questions. He wouldn’t be playing Pokemon with a lizard on his shirt in the park if he didn’t want to be noticed.”

And so the long-haired boy led the way. He went up to the lizard guy. The rest of the troop followed. “Excuse me, sir,” the long-haired boy said, “but can we see your lizard?”

The man smiled. He said, “Sure!” And he proceeded to let the boys pet the lizard while he told them all about it. The boys spent 10 minutes with the lizard guy, learning all about lizards and how to train them and feed them and hold them and exercise them.

When the boys came back to the gardening, they were chattering non-stop about the lizard guy and his lizard. “So cool!” they said. “His lizard’s name is Toothless!”

And an hour later, when they exclaimed that they had found a snake, the lizard guy overheard them. He came back over, helped them pick up the snake, and gave them another 10 minute education on garter snakes and their markings, their mating habits, their lifecycles, and how to help preserve their habitats.

This is a story about two boys, both Boy Scouts, with vastly different world views. How did they grow up to the wise old age of 9 with such different ways to function in the world? The long-haired boy is from a liberal family, raised without organized religion. The other boy is from a very conservative family, raised with strict adherence to religion. But both boys are white, middle class, with highly educated parents. Both boys have been raised with a strict moral code. Both boys have the world at their fingertips, and only need to ask.

Yet, this second boy, the conservative one, has been raised to fear. Fear the stranger. Fear the conversation. Fear the unknown. And his fear has caused him to misread situations and sense danger when none exists. He saw the lizard guy as a potential threat to be avoided. The long-haired boy, curious about everything and raised to see people as generally good and full of knowledge and experience, saw the lizard guy as an ally. An opportunity. A guy just walking his lizard, playing Pokemon in the park on a beautiful summer day.

The parable of the two Boy Scouts should give us pause.

How do we see the world? How do we see others? How do we approach them? When and why do we fear? What can we do to overcome this? And how are we raising our children?

If we live in fear of the unknown, we begin to see each other as dangerous. We avoid conversations. We avoid interactions. We live in our bubble of fear. And because of this, we will never meet the lizard guy and his lizard, Toothless. We will never learn about the garter snake and how they have babies and what they eat for lunch. We will never take the risk to talk to a stranger in the park and learn about his passions.

And we will live our lives shortchanging our own experiences.

Creating our own filter bubbles.

Isolated.

Afraid of the unknown.

Just think about what our lives—and our country—could be like, if we all took the opportunity and made friends with the lizard guy?

Sincerely,

Sharon Murchie

(Originally posted at Letters2Trump.)

Day 501 – Letter to Middle Class America: Have You Ever Been Truly Hungry?

Middle Class America: Have you ever been truly hungry?

Dear Middle Class America:

Last Friday, as our president prematurely exuberated over his jobs numbers, were you eating a solid breakfast? Did you have a roof over your head? Were your lights on? Was your A/C running? Did you then drive in your reliable car out of your middle class suburb to your middle class job? Did you curse at the traffic? Did you stop for coffee? Did you think about what it was like to work one of those minimum-wage jobs, trying to somehow make ends meet, keep the lights on, and feed your kids?

Did it occur to you that those employment numbers the president tweeted about don’t actually mean that the people working those jobs can afford to pay rent? Or go to the doctor when they’re sick? Or eat?

According to the United Way ALICE project:

Photo by Manki Kim on Unsplash

“Nearly 51 million households [43% of American Households] don't earn enough to afford a monthly budget that includes housing, food, child care, health care, transportation and a cell phone.”

16.1 Million households in our country live in poverty. Another 34.7 million families are “ALICE”: Asset Limited, Income-Constrained, Employed.” They are gainfully employed, playing by the rules, trying to live the American Dream...and yet they don’t earn enough to support a bare-bones household budget.

The growth of our economy shouldn’t be measured by the rise and fall of the stock market. It should be measured by the ability of working Americans to afford their homes, feed their families, and keep them healthy and safe.

So, Middle Class America: as you eat your dinner tonight, flip on the lights, turn up the A/C, and ask your kids about their day...think about what it means to be hungry—really and truly hungry. Think about what it feels like to not be able to feed your kids. Think about what we need to do, as a country, to take care of our working poor.

Because our economy? It’s not working. And it won’t be working until we, as a nation, can afford to feed our families. All of them.

Sincerely,

Sharon Murchie

(Originally posted at Letters2Trump.)

The scream becomes a yawn...

(when we are not inspired)

I have a discussion board synthesis essay (and two meaningful comments) due in Blackboard by midnight tonight for my doctoral program.

I am not inspired.

The topic doesn’t inspire me.

The other students’ discussions don’t inspire me.

I have to write this essay.

I am looking around the room at my own students, as they write their practice timed SAT literary analysis essay.

I have my favorite Facebook teacher group (2ndaryELA) pulled up on my phone.

We teachers are all noticing the same thing: our students’ writing is not inspired. They are just phoning it in, day after day. They are passively writing mundane pieces with no voice, no passion, and very little thought. The Facebook group is lamenting the soul-crushing student essay—the one that crushes our teacher souls—the one that we read thousands of every single year.

Why don’t our students care about Paul Bogard’s “Let There Be Dark” essay enough to write passionately (in 50 minutes) about the rhetorical moves he makes?

Why must they crush our souls with their soulless discussion (written in 50 minutes) of the former US President Jimmy Carter’s Foreword to Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land, A Photographic Journey by Subhankar Banerjee?

They are not inspired.

The topic doesn’t inspire them.

The other students’ discussions don’t inspire them.

They have to write this essay.

Somewhere, in the maelstrom of all of this SAT and AP testing, we have lost our souls and jeopardized theirs.

The Metric lyric echoes in my head.

“The scream becomes a yawn/I’ll shut up and carry on.”

I desperately want to solve this problem. Find the solution. Touch the souls of my students. Get my own soul back.

But I can’t fix it tonight.

I have a discussion board synthesis essay (and two meaningful comments) due in Blackboard by midnight.

I yawn. I’ll carry on.

Day 474 – Letter to Melania: Please, Let’s Just “Be Better.”

Dear Melania,

Yesterday, speaking as a mother and as First Lady, you unveiled your “Be Best” campaign “to educate children about the many issues they are facing today.” Your speech focused on the “social, emotional, and physical health” of children, and promoted “well-being, social media use, and opioid abuse.” A grammar quick rule (for future reference) is that items in a series should use parallel construction: each item in the series should follow the same pattern. As you can see, your campaign statement promoting well-being is coherent, but promoting social media use is somewhat confusing, and promoting opioid abuse is perhaps counterintuitive. Also, “be best” isn’t an actual sentence in English.

Image from Independent

However, I know what you meant even if it isn’t what you said. So I’ll let the grammar lesson go and focus on your intentions. (And your intentions are good.) But Melania, here’s the thing: we are not ready to be [the] best quite yet. Right now, we need to simply be better.

You spoke of “social and self-awareness, positive relationship skills, and responsible decision-making” and the need to teach our children to “communicate openly with one another and instill positive feelings of mutual respect, compassion, and self-esteem.”

Melania, this is an area where we can truly be better. I might suggest that the White House is an excellent place to start. We can teach our leaders—even our President—how to build positive relationships and communicate with mutual respect and compassion. Instead of belittling, name-calling, mocking, and insulting, let’s be better. Let’s build relationships, not walls. Let’s build each other up instead of tearing each other down. Imagine how much better we could be.

You also said that we need to “teach our children the difference between right and wrong.”

Melania, this is another area where we can truly be better! It is so elementary: lying is wrong. Telling the truth is right. Let’s teach our president and his followers how to tell the truth! Coercion and collusion are wrong. Cooperation and self-control are right. Think of how much better our lives could be if our leaders knew the difference between right and wrong.

You said that “when children learn positive online behaviors early on, social media can be used in productive ways and can affect positive change.” And you said, “when they are using their voices, whether verbally or online, they must choose their words wisely and speak with respect and compassion.”

Melania, this is brilliant! Let’s do this together! Let’s insist that our president learn positive online behaviors, use social media in productive ways, and affect positive change! If only he would choose his words wisely and speak with respect and compassion. If only he could be better. Imagine all the good he could do!

And finally, Melania, you said that successful recovery programs treat “the whole family” and infants can thrive “because parents are also given the support and tools needed to recover and succeed.” You said, “I hope that together we can be best at helping children and families find effective ways to educate themselves and support each other.”

This is an area where we could be so much better. Imagine how the children in our country could thrive, if we supported all families in their times of need. Imagine living in a country where poverty was rare, not the norm. Imagine living in a country where every family had food on the table, and where every child had a safe home and a warm bed. Imagine how our entire country could thrive if we actually took care of each other-—of everyone—and excelled in support instead of judgment.

Melania, I believe that we can be better. Imagine if we insisted that our president be better. Imagine if we demanded that our leaders be better. Imagine a country led by people who communicated with respect and compassion, knew right from wrong, and believed that, given the support and tools they needed, all families could recover and succeed.

We simply can’t begin to “be best” if we haven’t begun to be better.

Let’s demand that our country be better. Are you in?

Sincerely,

A Mother and English Teacher

(originally posted at Letters2Trump.)