Tuesday, March 31, 2015
2015 Goals, Take Two
Labels:
Being Sensitive,
Best Year Yet,
goals,
Happiness,
synchronicity
Monday, March 30, 2015
Song of the Week: Colors
Labels:
Art,
creativity,
rainbow things,
Song of the Week
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Last Visit to the Old School (Or: Anger Is Magic)
Every few weeks or so at the old school, a parent flips out
in the office, screaming, cursing, and threatening. The administration calls it
“performing,” as in “His mom performed last night so we had to transfer him.”
I’ve always empathized with the exploding parents, even when I was one of the
things they were screaming and threatening about. Friday afternoon I got to
feel a little more of what it’s like, standing at the office counter being
boxed in, talked down to, and treated like a threat. Nothing inspires rage like
helplessness against a system that thinks you are nothing. I didn’t scream or
curse, just seethed and spoke softly, but the anger feels just as wild and hard
to wrangle.
After feeling so good for most of the past month or so, I
dreaded revisiting the place. Amy and I were scheduled to leave the bookstore
at two to run some other errands and then go get the rest of my stuff. (I don’t
know why I couldn’t just leave it, or send Amy with a list, but it felt like
part of my soul was stuck there in the guise of baskets and cute file boxes,
and I could rescue it. I almost crowd-sourced a shaman for the occasion but I
figured I could be my own. I was right, go me.) Around noon, the feelings
started to come, the freezy crick in my spine, the foggy head, the tightening
at the front of my brain. My work tasks, which as you know are beautifully
Candy Crush simple, got harder. Whole rows of sale sweatshirts became
unfindable. I felt the urge to run and hide.
When we arrived just after dismissal, the first person I
talked to was my former grade partner, who was pulling out just as we were
walking up. She seemed genuinely happy for me. When I told her I was doing
well, she said:
“See, it’s like I’ve always told you. As long as you’re…”
“Taking care of me, I know. I am!” I laughed with joy. She
was so taken by my tale of clocking out at five that she might go into
retirement early. I like my new identity as someone who inspires others to do
less work.
Most of the teachers I ran into were kind and distant. They
were on their way to their Friday happy hour, and I admit it hurt a teensy bit
to not be invited along—though I would never be able to keep up, ventingwise!
The best part was seeing some of my former students who were
there for afterschool programs. As they showered me with hugs, their faces
glowed like little angels I don’t have to order around anymore. I loved them so
much.
“Why can’t you come back and teach us?” they kept asking.
“Because I’m too sensitive. But thanks for being so cute and
smart and good.” They nodded solemnly and I could not have imagined a nicer
moment. I kept running into them in stairwells in the course of moving stuff,
and every time they said “Come back! You have to teach us!” It wasn’t sad, it
was like a game, it felt wonderful to keep telling them I’m too sensitive. It
was a joy to finally be with them as myself, even just to say goodbye.
Cleaning the room out was HARD. The longer I was there in
the past, the more my brain constricted, so that easy tasks like sorting the
scissors kept getting harder. The teacher who took over doesn’t share my
organizational skills, so I had to really dig to find what I wanted to take.
But I found the things: I found the book an afterschool student
gave me years ago about growing a rainbow garden. I found the watercolor set
and paper I’d been daydreaming about. I found Apples to Apples Junior and
Mancala. I found an almost-full can of coffee and a pack of fresh scrubby
sponges, items I was happy to cross off the grocery list. I got the rainbow
shelves my mom gave me for teacher graduation (now cheerfully holding all
manner of art supplies) and my blue file boxes with cartoon foxes on them.
The principal came in and was cordial, but weird. She didn’t
seem fully aware that I’d resigned, even though I’d emailed her and put the
paper through weeks ago. She seemed really out of it, but then, as I learned
from Gretchen Rubin, people who don’t sleep are often more impaired than they
think they are. “We don’t sleep,” the principal always said proudly in
meetings, as I fought back a bratty “Well, I do.”
She was concerned with what I might have taken—a set of
workbooks I never got, some missing laptops. The poor tech guy kept coming in
to ask where the missing computers might be, until I got exasperated.
After all of the things were loaded into Amy’s car, the
principal called me into her office one more time. she said she needed to “hold
me accountable” for the missing laptops and she was filing a report with the
district.
It was one of those rare and beautiful moments when I got to
say exactly what I wanted to. In my best quiet teacher voice, I said “I have
never been more livid. I will NOT be held accountable. The part of my life
where I take the blame for things that are not my fault is OVER.” Though I’d
been gone for six weeks and two other teachers had keys to the computer
cabinet, she kept asking, “Well, who SHOULD be held accountable?” which for
some reason is the thing that fills me with the most rage to think of.
It’s not really about the computers or that fact that they
might somehow prevent me from getting the money from my summer account (what I
was thinking of as my work-retail-and-heal money)—I felt the familiar sensation
of being trapped by the place, dragged down by it, stupid, worthless, as if the
idea that I might ever be free and happy was an illusion. That’s how I used to
feel every day, and I must say I do not miss it.
I think that this was really her way of expressing the hurt
of the situation—of losing a teacher, of seeing evidence that perhaps there are
some holes in her plan, of plain old losing a person she used to like and
believe in. She must have worked so hard to protect herself from the emotions
ricocheting around her all the time that the only way she could express hurt
was by filling out unpleasant forms. At least, that’s the most compassionate
way I can come up with to see it.
Although I know that no one can really take this new life
away, that’s what it felt like in the moment, like the happy flow I’d imagined
myself floating along was a stupid illusion, like the bright and colorful new
path I’d devised for myself was gone. I felt like a fraud and a drain on
everyone I knew, especially my family and close friends. As I drove away, I put
on “Ukelele Anthem” as loud as it goes and sang along, but I couldn’t really
feel it. The poison of the place had taken over my system, and it’s taken a LOT
of writing, closet-rearranging, and art-scheming to make the toxins start to
fade away again. I’m still impaired, but I know what to do and I’m doing it.
This month has been among the happiest of my life. I’ve
gotten back in touch with my dream-driven Jungian side and begun to stumble
into some gorgeous synchronicity. For the first time in a while, I can see a
real future on the horizon, one full of art, friends, writing, and love. If it
could also be filled with making a living, that would be helpful, but I’m
pretty sure this new happiness, this new self is nothing any principal
can take away. There is no form for that.
Labels:
Art,
creativity,
healing,
job-quitting,
rainbow things,
Teaching,
WWAPD
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Sunday, March 22, 2015
The Best Creative Advice Yet
Saturday, March 21, 2015
WWAPD
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Hard to Keep Taking it Slow
Things have been going along, but sometimes I still just feel smushed and I worry that I'm not recovering fast enough. I want to have my whole brain back, but some days my whole being can feel flattened by the littlest thing. I want to be strong and independent, but today I'll have to settle for going back to bed and waiting out the sads. At least I have this for company:
Sunday, March 15, 2015
In Praise of Boring Work (For Now)
My first week out in the world after my mental health month
was a pleasant one, but it started out not-okay. Waking up and getting into
grey work pants felt like a death march—I couldn’t quite convince myself I
wasn’t going to the old job to feel scrutinized and humiliated.
As I took the pleasant drive through affluent suburbs, so
much anger and fear streamed out that I had to turn off the radio and just
concentrate on breathing. I even thought of taking one of the six remaining
Ativan that I’ve been carrying around in my purse like Dumbo feathers. (I tried
to blog out some of the anger earlier this week, but it came out as a
twelve-car pileup of pathos and I dreamed about bathroom accidents after I
wrote it, so I thought it might be better to wait on coherence if I want to
continue to have jobs and seem semipleasant.)
When I arrived at the bookstore, the managers (including
Amy, my best friend/ex-wife with whom I’ve worked on and off for twelve years)
were in a meeting and there was no one to assign me a task, so I hid among the
book aisles, straightening and opening books to random pages, including this
one:
“To draw an
analogy: a man's suffering is similar to the behavior of a gas. If a certain
quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber
completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely
fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is
great or little. Therefore the "size" of human suffering is
absolutely relative.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
(Take that, creepy little voice inside that tells me to stop writing
about my white lady issues.)
Even though I knew no one would jeer, yell, or hit me, my body was
sproinged with shame and fear. I hoped that no one would notice that I was all
scared-bunny-in-traffic about my nine dollar an hour job.
The jitters lasted exactly until I had a list of online orders to fill.
As I searched among a selection of near-identical navy blue university
clothing, found the right size, and marked the quantity on the list, a feeling
of well-being filled my soul and the fear and self-consciousness faded away.
It’s the Candy Crush of jobs, satisfying, no-stakes, and somehow perfectly Zen.
I’ve worked in boring jobs for more than half of my adult life, and it’s a
blessing to return however briefly to my slacker roots. I even work for the
gentlest supervisor imaginable—a genial and kind retired postman who is the
perfect antidote for the steely, contemptuous principals I’ve been annoying for
the past two years.
After scripted lesson plans that had to be timed down to the minute,
it’s an exquisite luxury the way time slows down, everything empties out, and
we all walk around with pleasantly neutral expressions. No one is needing me to
validate their entire fucking existence with my attention. (Do turns of phrase
like that mean I’m not meant to work with children at all? I hope not.) No
cultural change, big or small, rests on my shoulders and oh my goodness, I
clock out and then that’s IT.
(It was hard to convince myself to sit down and post this this
afternoon—part of me still thinks I’ll be forced to return to the
children-as-data spreadsheets that used to fill my Sundays.)
This brain-vacation can’t last very long, of course—the only reason I
can afford to revisit my former slackerdom is that what would have been my
summer pay should be arriving from the district before too long—but this job
really has me seeing the value of emotionally neutral work for a sensitive
little seashell like me. Meaningfulness is gratifying, but it can also be
draining and overwhelming. If I fuck up at the bookstore, somebody might get
the wrong size shirt. If I fucked up in the classroom, I wasn’t just fucking up
the lesson, I was fucking up social justice and race relations, and being the
Bad Cop at a time when that is the absolutely worst thing to be.
In the joy of having that off my shoulders, I’m letting myself wonder
what emotionally neutral work might be out there for me, what ways there might
be to balance meaningfulness with gorgeous, timestretching, mind-wandering
boredom. Right now I’m thinking 70% no stakes/ 30% medium stakes might be nice.
It’s such a revelation to begin accepting myself as a sensitive person,
acknowledging what my limits really are. When I was in my mid-twenties, I was
handed a copy of The Highly Sensitive Person by a kind therapist and my
reaction was “Fuck this!” It seemed so limiting to contemplate all of the
everyday parts of life that might make me feel overwhelmed, and I’m glad I’ve
ignored it for so many years. I wouldn’t take back any of the adventures that
I’ve had, but at the same time, I’ve caused a lot of hurt to myself and others
by seeking meaning in situations I wasn’t well-equipped to handle.
I’m excited to see what kind of life I can build to not just
accommodate but celebrate my sensitivity, to find and enhance its strengths
rather than see it as a liability to be overcome. In so many ways over the past
few years I’ve tried to murder my delicate side, so nurturing it is a blessing
and a relief.
I know my day-job job won’t be enough for long, but for now, I’m
basking in it: Time for my newly-freed-from-the-Common-Core mind to wander,
hangers waiting lovingly for me to straighten them, and my favorite near-rote
human interaction of all time:
“Are you finding everything you need?”
“You mean in the store or in life?”
Labels:
Boredom,
Emotionally Neutral,
Happiness,
Highly Sensitive Person,
Teaching,
Work
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Happiest Song Lately, Thanks Kieran! :D
My nephew showing me his favorite video was certainly worth the $1000 deductible, and so much more. So every time I hear this song, I suspect that happiness prevails, even in winter. We spent the weekend in glorious sloth, and I'm very grateful for that stinky rotten snow helping me slow down and enjoy the love, away and at home.
Labels:
Family,
Happiness,
Snowflakes,
Song of the Week
Friday, March 6, 2015
Thanks, Grandmom! And First Thoughts About Leaving the District
The day before yesterday, I got a card from my Grandmom,
wishing me better days and enclosing a gift card. (I probably should have saved
it for a rainy day, but I already spent some of it on a box of thank you cards
and a new purple gratitude journal decorated with the constellations.) When I
called to thank and update her, she said this: “I’m so glad to hear that you’re
going back to your art.”
I don’t know exactly what it means, going back to my art,
other than brainstorming a name for an Etsy store and reading a poem a day from
the Learn then Burn poetry-teaching
anthologies, but what a ringing endorsement of my entire existence in one short
sentence. Throughout the whole breakdown process, my family has been
unfailingly supportive, my mom, dad, and Aunt Connie listening to the same
(already pretty much decided) decision-making perseverations, my ex-wife
watching episodes and bringing pie. Aunt Connie even came to the school to help
me pick up the first batch of my stuff a few weeks ago. My family is a work of
art in and of itself, making it so much easier to make the self-caring choice.
So yesterday I emailed the principals and the teachers that
I like best and today I faxed the form. I just happen to be resigning on the
same date on which I left AmeriCorps five years ago—if something’s too sad, it
sure can’t survive February, it seems. My closest teacher friend texted right
away to send her support, and that’s pretty much all that matters from that
building anymore. I’d expected my letter to be a little more flowery-grateful,
but I guess I’d written them all the thank you cards I had.
I’m still recovering from the stress and depression, but
it’s a good sign that I only took 3 out of the 9 Ativan that the hospital
prescribed last month when I went in for chest pains on what would have been my
penultimate day in the classroom. I still have freakouts that I’m not good
enough, that I’m letting everybody down, that I’m a useless burden on everyone,
but those moments pass, and I go back to my notebooks, markers, and Friends episodes until I start to feel
like myself again.
In the long run, I’m not sure how the bills will stay paid,
but I’m covered for now. While I take a break from teaching, I’m working at a
university bookstore, which had been my day-job-job for on and off for about
twelve years now. I love the heft of the textbooks, then Zen of the repetitive
receiving tasks, the fact that the job asks absolutely nothing of me after I
clock out. I get to feel competent for a while, and after two years of rotten
struggle (and other things) that will be a relief,
Labels:
Art,
creativity,
Family,
Having Faith,
Teaching,
Transcendence
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Remembering And Thanking MJ Harris
Yesterday would have been my friend MJ’s birthday. When he
passed away last fall, I didn’t properly grieve. I was using all of my
emotional strength to prop myself up for my third graders, but that’s no
excuse. I should have honored him, thanked him, properly grieved the way such a
dazzling soul deserved. I’m, sorry, MJ, and thank you.
When I first met him, we were working for AmeriCorps, both
bringing poetry into schools where people kept telling us “these kids” don’t want
to write. We bonded over a shared faith that poetry and art could make the
world a better, safer, happier place.
We became closer friends when MJ joined one of my poetry
classes at Big Blue Marble. He was open and wholehearted in every writing game,
and it was a privilege to stand back and watch his poetry deepen and grow, to
watch his already strong voice get stronger and more sure of itself.
What I admire most about my gone-angel-friend is how he put
his art first. He had faith in the goodness of his talents and never
compromised, didn’t let anything hold him back. He was a true artist and a
loving, generous, and deeply kind friend. I don’t tend to believe that my dead
loved ones can look out for me, except when I do. His spirit might have been
part of what took me through these past few weeks, remembering sitting on the
23 bus talking and believing in poetry, in kids, and most importantly in our
real selves.
Thank you, MJ, I will try to honor you by being more like
you, by putting friendship, love, and creativity first. I miss you and love you
very much, and I hope you knew how much you meant to me, how grateful I am for
your enormous heart, your enormous contribution to the lives of children, your
friends, and the world.
Labels:
Art,
creativity,
grief,
Nice Friends,
Poetry Class
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
February Goals Mostly Done, March Goals Mostly Not Scary
Pretty productive month, for having contained a breakdown! Time to stop trying to make the gym happen, though.
And for the one in the middle, I need a lot of luck, strength, and love:
And for the one in the middle, I need a lot of luck, strength, and love:
Sunday, March 1, 2015
Restarting the Serotonin Factory (Teacher, Interrupted)
This is the second time I’ve tried to write a
back-to-the-Factory post. The first time I tried, school tumbled out onto the
page in a way that was unmanageable and had to be put in the Box of Things to
Be Worked Out Later by Unseen Forces.
About a month and a half ago, I had a dream that a
conversation with a troubled, anxious student cause me to get out of a car on a
deserted highway. I took the nearest exit, which ended in a dirt path and then
nothing. That’s where I am, pathless, for the first time in
I-don’t-know-how-long.
I don’t know if it would be called a breakdown these days,
if we call things breakdowns anymore, but one week I was jollying myself along,
working almost every waking hour, breathing on the restroom floor to keep
myself from fainting, doing the every two weeks or so sob-at-work thing,
whispering a parent out the door who’d come up to threaten someone else’s
child, and then I was…done. I couldn’t put my body or my soul through it. I
couldn’t make my brain be in the straight jacket of the Standards anymore. I
couldn’t make myself give the tiniest shred of a fuck about the PSSAs or
rituals and routines, or how to solve the pencil problem. I looked at my
students’ latest petty theft and thought “They. Are going. To take.
Everything.”
I put myself on extended leave on Feb. 9th and a
few weeks later, a nice doctor verified it: “acute stress disorder” and
“recurrent major depressive episodes.” There’s an antidepressent prescription
waiting for me at the pharmacy, but I’m too scared of the side-effects—what if
I’m one of the suicidal thoughts and actions people, or if my brain decides to
poison itself with serotonin? That’s just too much irony for me.
After three weeks of rest, it’s time to start thinking about
the next phase of my life. I don’t know what it looks like, but do I know that
for the past few years I’ve tried to murder my own sensitivity. I want to find
ways to honor it instead. The thick skin everyone’s been telling me to grow for
as long as I can remember is not coming, and trying to make it happen has only
made me more ragged. I care deeply about what everyone thinks, says, and feels,
even if it’s wrong, even if they’re eight. I take things personally because
we’re all, despite the forces and standardized tests that would like us to
believe otherwise, vulnerable, breakable, real people.
From deeply embedded in the School District of Philadelphia,
it’s hard to imagine any place in the world where a delicate little seashell like
me could find meaning and employment, but I have to imagine that there’s some
productive way for me to make myself at home. Brene Brown says he therapist
once told her something like, “If you feel like a turtle with no shell in the
briar patch, maybe just get out of the briar patch.” In the fog of depression,
it all looks like briar patch, but maybe there’s a meadow someplace out there
with my name on it.
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