together

bends and angles;

fibers meshed

vertically

or

horizontally.

/teacher rant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5-EwrhsMzY

I’ve learned a lot of lessons in my life. I teach a lot, but through my teaching is when I learn best. It’s hard to know which are the best lessons to teach because it’s really based on knowing when a person’s ready to listen and learn them. Sometimes we hear things we know are significant. Sometimes we see a lesson play out months after hearing the lesson in the first place.

One lesson I've learned:

Everybody’s just doing their best to be happy.

When I first heard that, it was significant. I was all like, wow—soOo true. I heard it, moved on. You only really know how significant a lesson is when it replays over and over again. It becomes a common theme in your life. You can choose to make it part of your life, or not. I suppose I’ve chosen to.

I’ve learned a lot about what it means to love unconditionally. Being able to love someone through all his or her faults is actually quite easy.

No one chooses where they were born, for example. No one chooses their parents. No one chooses how they were raised. As expected, I’ve learned this lesson from my students, my children, or as I generally tend to put it, my babies.

Teaching first grade was incredible. Watching how quickly the little ones can develop and process information with just a bit of structuring, repetition, and socializing is phenomenal. Humans are incredible. We are incredible. They are so eager to learn. All they want to do is grow and become superheroes and show off that they, too, can do all that you’ve taught them. LOOK AT MY STORY. THIS CAME FROM MY BRAIN. ISN’T THAT FUCKING COOL? Is what I’d imagine they say inside their little baby brains.

Teaching fifth grade has been a completely different experience; a genuine struggle. These are not babies. These are very very very immature adults. They have fully developed brains, unique personalities, with highly developed thoughts and perceptions about the world. They do not trust easily and they keep many secrets. They can be incredibly misguided, and incredibly hilarious.

I realize that a lot of my story is unique because of where I work and the particular population of kids I work with. These kids are real and know more and have seen more than I probably have or ever will in my lifetime.

They have not chosen where they grew up. They have not chosen who their parents are. They have not chosen where they were raised. At this age of ten, I am dealing with a group of kids who are just realizing their realities. Many of them, deep down, are angry and depressed. What’s interesting about childhood anger and depression though, is that they do not realize they are sad. They do not realize they are angry. Or if they do, they cannot formulate a particular reason for why they feel these things. So what do they do? They act out. They rebel. They stop listening. They stop caring. They make fools of themselves. They hurt themselves.

This has been my struggle for some time now. How can I get my students to value their work? How can I get my students to value their lives, regardless of whether or not they come from stable, loving homes?

So now I stop because I want to revise. I want to take out every place I say ‘students’ and replace it with ‘babies’. How can I get my babies to value their lives? Humans are amazing. They are capable of achieving everything and anything in the world, if their heart is in the right place. So, my life goal is now to put their hearts in the right place. If no one at home is going to provide them the love and care they need, I will.

I will. For this reason is why I now place Unconditional Love at the top of my to-do list every single day at work. Unconditional does not negate tough-love though. This is what it must be like to be a great parent. One who has limitless love for the little being they brought into the world, but is set on setting stringent boundaries for them to go on carrying successful lives.

My babies drive me crazy. There are times I scream my head off and suspend them and take away recess and call their parents and send them to the principals office and rip their heads off in the hallways and kick chairs and not allow them to go on field trips and make them cry and make them hate me and get them talking about me behind my back.

But then, in a moment, we recover and we move on and we forgive. I sit down with them and I help them. We recover. We both give a little and we come back together and love each other. There’s literally nothing I wouldn’t do for these kids. If I could, I would adopt them all for my own. I cannot imagine my life without them, and attribute everything I am, everything I’ve grown into, to them. They bring out the best in me, and they are what make me real. They are the ones who make me value life and everything it has to offer. They make me want to be a better person, every. single. day.

My goal is to foster the growth of these beautiful children with love and learning with the hope of happiness and success, whatever that may look like to them. But most of all, to just learn how to be happy and to find joy in whatever it is that feeds their soul. I want to give them the tools and the pathways for that happiness.

Because I’ve learned the lesson that everyone’s just trying their best to be happy. A kid’s got the right to be happy. If no one else is going to give it to them, I will.

Also, their hugs are awesome. You wouldn't even believe.

/endrant

easycome//easygo

I still find my thoughts with you. They’re always wandering about without my permission. Anywhere you go, they’ll follow. You’re magnetic, I suppose.

In some sense I’m sure you’re flattered. And in some sense I don’t even mind. You’re a wonderful place to find my thoughts. I know they’ll be safe there. I know they’ll be loved. It’s generally a melancholy feeling when I have to go and fetch them back. Come on thoughts, let’s go home.

I want to let them play there, and I want to let them flow. Be free thoughts! Live! It’s such a healthy place to grow. But it’s hard to come to terms with the fact that my thoughts aren’t wanted there anymore. It’s bothersome, I know.

I’m still trying to figure out how to break it to them in a positive, glass-half-full kinda way, that there are other spaces! Go! Explore all those other places. But, they won’t be easily convinced.

So try to forgive me for a while. My thoughts are still with you. I don’t know where else they should go.

easycome//easygo

dressing for fall

this is ours;
kingdom come
(the moon rises
waiting for the fall)

steady warmth dresses an earthbound breeze;
foggy breath softened by tender tongues
(in my mind it is mine)

kingdom come
---on earth as it is in heaven
(a skin has shed -- it fell in a dream)
and if I die before I wake,
I will have been born into the new.

fall will come,
my kingdom come.

something vague that we're not seeing

My uncle, Mr. Crosby, was driving. I could see his eyes watching me through the rearview mirror, worried. Feeling bad for this, I told him I was taking a nap and that he could wake me when we got to San Francisco or somewhere beautiful. He lowered his head and nodded.

The next thing I knew, twilight had begun. The sky was an incredible purple; lit with bits of stars, like broken glass, anticipating their own failure as the fight to outshine the sun carries on. I'm lead by Crosby to a door which says---Exit Only.

Blurry eyed and foggy I stumble up the steep stairs, and into a dark room; thin slivers of neon lights streaking the smokey air. The music is almost unbearable. It's so loud I cannot even hear it, only feel it inside my chest. It's vibrating my nerves so intensely that I feel they're strumming the song itself.

But then you're there and the world disappears and makes sense. Then what do I do? Fall. Fall and spill someone's glass of water. You're a DJ and I'm a mess. Feeling all the wrong things at all the right moments.

You're jumping and spinning. It's like a scene from True Romance. And as I look up at you from still down below, I think, at least I've made it this far.

be fair to me, I may drift awhile

I chased the sunset

as the last violent red and purple rays

disappeared over the skyline.

I was surprised to find my reflection

waiting patiently across the water,

fragile and fearless.

Dulled lights, Tetris molds

and still waters support a city infected with chaos;

like the pores, skeletons and blood supporting my own empyrean self

simple (living)

Fathers

Observing and adoring he'll patiently sit--contemplating and counting his blessings. He'd carry the world, with all its tremendous weight -for you- dreading the day you'd have to hold it on your own.

And so, there's strength and pride, fear and distress--but their faces are so beautiful, emanating love and joy. Nothing matters except for the sounds of their laughter and the pure vision of their existence.

He knows life is short and can be a terrifying place, but there's nothing he can do besides
_sit back and love
_stand up and protect
and bring forth some wisdom

to love and be loved,
can be more than enough.





rest peacefully, grandpa.
[Antonio Malatesta; Oct. 23, 2011]