Yee-Haw! Or, I Survived My First Year Teaching Middle School

 It’s currently 56 degrees and rain is pattering on the drain pipe as I am typing this from my patio wearing my flannel pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt.  When I envisioned this day, I pictured 75, sunny, tank tops and shorts, but the coffee is warm, the birds are chirping, and y’all, it is the very first day of my summer vacation! And I could sit here all morning drinking coffee and listening to the birds and that would be all I have to do today.  That makes me smile and breathe deep.

Me, smiling, and breathing deep

I like to take the end of a school year to reflect; I do a better job in late May than late December of seeing what the year brought.  This year brought an awful lot of change.  New state, new school, new grade being taught.  I was kind of caught up in a whirlwind of new and being the new person until about January.  I was in my own self-imposed vortex of laying kind of low, being charming and agreeable, and seeing how things were done.  Yuck!  Charming and agreeable are not how I normally run. I also ran out of all estrogen in my body at this time so there were some bleak weeks, I will admit.  

For a while, I really missed my old school.  My own confident self striding around answering to “Coach” and “Hey Miss” while joking with my teacher friends in the hallway between classes. I missed teaching my Women’s class and the room full of avid learners who pushed me to learn more and do better.  I missed the developed humor and sarcasm of a Junior or Senior in high school.  I missed the comfort and familiarity of teaching what I knew.  I have to say that even when I was wallowing in what I missed, I was very conscious of how great this new school was; I just had to get used to middle schoolers.

If it has been awhile since you were in middle school or had a middle schooler, let me remind you that these are indeed some of the worst years of your/their lives.  Friends are friends until they are not, your body is changing and you know that everyone around you knows, and because no one is confident, every one acts overconfident.  Boys this age truly believe cologne or body spray masks stink.  It does not; it makes a new level of stink.  And they touch each other all the time.  ALLLLLLLLL the time.  Half of the girls have hit puberty and maturity and look on with abject horror.  The other half compete with the boys, not by touching, but by being as loud as they can be at all times.  They also make up words and yell them at each other and use them in sentences.  Take my eyes if I have to read “skibbidy” as an answer one more time.

I think it was about November when I came out of my shell shock and started to see past the yelling and stink and carnage of my classroom management.  This may be around the same time a kid lost a tooth in class and I realized  that they were still just kind of babies.  I stopped expecting what I was used to and just tried to appreciate what was different.  I saw hands shoot into the air to answer a question.  I realized that this age is game to try all kinds of new things if you explain what is happening exactly 45 times in a row and with pictures.  They have a desire to learn new things if not necessarily a desire to read or write about what they read.  They question everything.  And, they can be really, really sweet.  They sign their notes “love” because they are still little and cute.  I remembered from myself and my own kids that they want you to see them, recognize who they are right now, and understand that somehow, they will never have a pencil for class.  They can be so patient and kind to others.  They speak in Polish to the student from Ukraine so that he can be part of the conversation.  They take the student from Mexico who only speaks Spanish under their wing and show him it is okay to laugh at your terrible attempts at Spanish.  They love a Kahoot and winning and a Jolly Rancher.  There is joy amidst the chaos when you start looking and I am so glad that I started looking.  

The school and district I work at are truly magical and I have recognized that from the start.  Amazing admin, teachers who have been there 20, 25, 30 years!  They have included me in all things from the first day and checked in with me and questioned why anyone would move from Texas to Illinois.  They gave me advice and comfort and as I stopped confining myself to my self-imposed vortex of being charming and agreeable, I realized they were also providing me with community.  And you definitely need a warm feeling like that when it is negative 100 degrees with the wind chill.

One of the first days of class this year, my terrible 7th period asked me to “yee-haw”.  I was from Texas and in their minds, everyone from Texas would say “yee-haw”.  I declined and they pestered and I said not until the last day of school.  I will be damned if these kids who can’t remember a book or a writing utensil or when things are due remembered allllllll year that I said I would yee-haw on the very last day.  On that very last day, someone shouted “Ms. McMahon, it’s the last day and you promised you would yee-haw” and the rest of the class screamed that I promised and even my Ukrainian student nodded in stoic agreement.  So, I quieted them down, told them all eyes on me, and proceeded to pretend to swing a rope over my head while letting loose the loudest, most Texan-sounding YEE-HAW while they hooted and tripped over themselves and banged the desks with excitement.  It was an insane sort of magical moment and it’s what keeps teachers teaching.  

I will be happy to start next year with this past year behind me. I also plan to have absolutely no contact with anyone between the ages of 10 and 13 for the next three months to rest my weary ears.  If you need me, I will be sipping coffee, listening to the birds, and smiling.

Not the best view, but the birds abound.

School's Out, Really Out

 I have always liked the cyclical nature of a school year: the excitement of the beginning, the drag of mid-year, the sweetness of the year coming to a close.  It feels very normal and I know what to expect and that each school year I will start off tanned and happy and relaxed and end each year tired and kind of fluffy and ready for a break.  Sometimes, though, there are surprises within the cycles. Things like global pandemics, or new leadership, or district initiatives.  Sometimes, I am more excited for the end of the year than the beginning or more sad at the end than I anticipated.  There is a constant amidst the change and it is comforting.  This year, though, I am throwing a real wrench into the works; I am saying goodbye to a job I love, with colleagues I think of as family, and I am leaving.

Oh, I must have a new job, you are thinking. Well.  Not yet.  But I will.  Am I crazy, you are asking?  Maybe.  I have never left a job without having another job lined up, mostly in place, and ready to go.  Would I be shocked, horrified, and completely anxiety-ridden if one of my own kids did this?  Yes. 100%.  But I am not a kid.  I am an adult and there are very good reasons for leaving, even if it is hard to leave.

I have applied to over 100 jobs on LinkedIn and various sites trying to reinvent myself as a designer, a trainer, an HR professional in some capacity.  I was hoping for a remote job with lots of money.  About rejection 85, I started to remember, and was reminded by sweet students sad about the year being up, what a good teacher I am.  That what I am doing is important, that the connections I make with kids help them and fuel me.  All of the jobs I looked at had some sort of teaching aspect to them; it is what I am drawn to. I can think about other jobs and I can wish that I made more money. I know what I do best is teach.  I feel pretty confident that I will be able to get a new teaching job and start the cycle of the school year again, just in a new place.

My person, who I have mentioned before but not often because he is a private person, has moved and I am going to move too.  And we are going to live together and teach wherever and have a life together outside of Chicago in Naperville, IL.  When we left to drive him up there last week, we laughed and laughed about how neither of us had a job or even a confirmed place to live.  We firmed up the apartment when we got there and the jobs will come too.  The important part is that we laughed on a long road trip with a howling cat.  We laugh a lot.  He is very funny, I am hilarious, and we find humor in the weirdest things.  He is so many things and my best friend and yes, of course, I am going to move to a very cold place with bad traffic and some very bland food if it means we are together.

There are worse places to move.

It is hard to leave my kids, even though they are up in Dallas and will be for the foreseeable future.  Mom-guilt is real but I remind myself that they are 22 and 20 and they are about to start their own lives too.  And that I am still their mom no matter where I live.  It is also hard to leave the school I have been at for eleven years.  Walking out of my classroom felt surreal.  I left a lot of things on the walls because it made me too sad to take them down. Sorry to the next teacher who moves in there.  I love a lot of the people I worked with, liked most of the rest, and compiled  a few into my nemeses pile.  They watched my meteoric rise from library to teacher to coach and accepted me in every new position.  They helped me get my own kids through high school there.  

So while I will not be having my usual summer adventure based on trips to CO, I will have an even bigger adventure getting ready to move. I have lived in Texas longer than I lived in Buffalo.  No, I am not ready for a Chicago winter.  It was 65 and rainy when I left there yesterday and I thought “Brr!”  I am nervous, I do wish I already had a job lined up, or that I could tuck my giant, grown kids up under one arm and make them go too, but mostly, I am excited!  I am ready to start the school-year cycle at a new school. I am ready for a real fall with crisp air and leaves that change color.  And I am really ready to be there with my person as we acclimate to living up north and laughing together while we do.  

Another Year Over

I have been trying for the past few days to come up with a good way to describe and wrap up the past year. I wanted to make it shiny and fun and poignant. I wanted to unveil to you a McMahon Unwrapped much like a Spotify Wrapped with Best of, Favorite, and hours spent living a life. And while I do have best of and favorites, hours spent living a life requires a calculator, so that is out. I keep coming up with a year that was kind of good, kind of bad, and, overall, just a year. 

I’m grateful for this year. I had small adventures and large ones .I got to see amazing new places in WY, CO, and SD. I got to see all of my siblings and parents at the same time. I had adventures that I wrote about and some I have kept to myself because, well, they are mine. I have had joy and laughter and a milestone birthday surrounded by friends. I have had wins in the sports I coach and any day I can get a teenager to put down their phone and listen to me talk about literature is also a win. I have had happiness and contentment settle over me and leave me feeling peaceful and smiling. I have wondered at the beauty of snow, ice, mountains, and rivers. I have climbed and walked and hiked and moved through this Earth to see and do things. I have had excitement and wonder and anticipation. I have laughed with my head thrown back and for the world to hear.

I have had losses. I have cried and hurt and healed. I have cried and hurt and remain hurting. I have heard bad diagnoses; I have seen what it can and will do to a person I love. I have heard words I would rather not hear. I have felt inefficient, confused, and lackluster. I have felt like the things I do are not enough. I have felt tired to my very bones and depth of my soul. I have seen terrible things and heard worse. I have missed my kids until it hurts and keeps hurting. I have simply sat and stared and sighed. There are times where I just existed. Times when I forgot I was important or what I was doing was important. I have felt my heart hollow out. I have been scared, afraid, and hesitant. And with all of these things, just like that, another year over.

this tired.

There are always things we hope for when one thing ends and a new one begins. We make a big deal of saying “this year I will…” or “I will never…”. I don’t seem to have any of those right now. I wish for the things I always wish for: healthy, happy kids, a Bills’ Super Bowl win, and someone to stumble across my blog and offer me silly amounts of money to write for them. I wish certain things wouldn't happen: a hot summer like the last one, Donald Trump on any kind of ballot, yet another move to yet another apartment. 

I make no claims on this upcoming year. I know it will be a year, like the last one, where the good and the bad both attend. I will love and be loved. I will hurt and be hurt. I will laugh and cry. I will grow and feel stagnant. I will be an adventurer and a homebody. I will make friends and lose friends. I will delight and offend. I will succeed and fail. I will know things and learn things and forget other things. I will be confident and nervous. I will have great fun and great anxiety. In all of this, I hope I am present and acknowledging both good and bad as it happens and making room for what comes next. And in experiencing all of these things, in being a mom and a partner and a teacher and a coach and a human, I know it will seem like no time at all before this year is over too.

To Teach or Not to Teach

 This was not my best year teaching.  My heart was not in the job a lot of the year.  I was present and accounted for and did all the things I am supposed to do all while not enjoying much of it.  When I admitted and apologized to most of my classes towards the end of the year that I wasn't at my best,  I was surprised that they didn't readily agree with me. I said I was a B, B- teacher at best and one Senior responded that he would hate to see me on my A game.  

In January, I actually applied for another job outside of education because I felt like I just couldn't do this anymore. Coaching plus teaching is exhausting and I constantly felt as though I was running in butter and getting nowhere.   And the hours!  Soccer games mean the day starts at 8:30am and ends somewhere about 10pm.  Y'all. I am old and this is hard on the body.  I also spent much of September to January in this weird malaise where I just didn't feel like me.  Symptom of COVID or menopause or this career or all of these things?  Add to it both kids living away from home for the first time and moving.  It was a lot and it showed up where I work because I am human.

This meant that I really phoned in some lessons.  It meant that I couldn't keep my disdain for Steinbeck from leaking through as we read Steinbeck and made me avow to never read Steinbeck as a class again.  I didn't write comments on a lot of work that was turned in. Just checked and graded and entered and compiled.  I didn't always reach out to the kids I could see who were hurting because I had no emotional bandwidth to give them.  (I am not sure if I am allowed to admit this?). It meant that my coaching was sloppy.  It meant that I was half-heartedly going through all the motions and thinking it would be better and I would be better somewhere else.  And the pay would certainly be better.

I am not sure if it happened all at once like the Grinch and his growing heart or was more like a slow thaw, but somewhere in late February, I started to no longer hate my job.  I was still tired and annoyed with many things, but I didn't hate being here.  Even for ten hours a day.  There was joy and I was seeing it.  It was winning a hard soccer game and doing a stupid TikTok dance because I promised I would if we won.  It was watching the quiet kid laugh at something I said and then write with all of his heart.  It was listening to two baseball boys call each other terrible things while arguing over how to analyze poetry.  (This actually might be one of my favorite teaching moments ever.)  It was writing all of my seniors a note on their last day and watching them become quiet and thoughtful as they read them.  There is happiness most days and I was finally seeing it.  And even better, I could feel it.

I think teaching is a career where I will periodically wonder if I should teach or not teach.  If I am doing the right thing for me, for my future, or hahahaha, retirement.  There are a few things I know for sure though: anything with an acronym will serve to make my life a mess for one year and then be replaced with another acronym, I will always be exhausted, I could get a 20% pay raise and still be underpaid, and that I am total sucker for nice words written on the back of an exam or assignment.  And maybe I am a total sucker in general for not jumping out of education and into something more lucrative or less taxing on the soul. But then I would miss that quiet kid in the corner, or the way that the air is electric in a huddle before a game, or the next section of Women, Words, and Wisdom, and well, I am just not ready to give that up.

And, I do get to see some amazing sunsets.

Wanted: Actually Affordable Teacher Affordable Housing

 If the American dream is owning your own home and that house being the symbol of your success and hard work, well, welcome to my nightmare and my current failures. I think that might be an old dream though, and the new American dream is just finding someplace you can afford to live.  But again, welcome to my nightmare and current failures.

I recently got very excited about a news story saying that there was some affordable housing being set aside for teachers.  I am a teacher!  I need affordable housing!  I scurried to find out what to send to who to see what I could do and in the meantime google-stalked this housing and appreciated the neighborhood, the floor plans, the cute exterior of my new home.  I entered a zoom call with 74 other people in the very tight market for these 30 homes.  Still good odds, I thought.  I had about four solid minutes of watching the presentation and thinking I could get one of these homes.  Yes!  I will volunteer 200 hours to Habitat for Humanity and build other people homes!  (ooh! I will need to get a tool belt and a flannel shirt). Yes! I have money for earnest money and closing costs! (look at me! So financially responsible) Yes!  I work for this district and I am a teacher!  Yes!  Until they got to the earnings slide and I gasped and sat open-mouthed as my heart tumbled out of my mouth, splatted on the floor, and lies there still.  Y’all.  I, a teacher, do not make enough money per year to qualify for teacher affordable housing. In order to be considered for one of these houses, a family needs to make 80% of the Median Family Income.   A three-person home, which me and two kids makes three, was over $70,000.  I laugh/cried when I saw that. Then I thought, they are adults, I won’t count them.  A single-person home, the income was $55,000.  I have no trouble telling you I made $51,000 last year; my income is public record.  I make $4000 too little to qualify for teacher affordable housing.  That $51k includes two coaching stipends and a professional pathways and any other hoops offered for a little more money.

I am a college-educated, professional woman who, as a teacher, cannot afford housing set aside specifically for teachers.  How is this possible?  And if it is this bad for me, what is it like for someone who doesn’t have a college degree? Someone who makes minimum wage? Where the hell are people supposed to live? Even if I did make the $55k needed for the teacher house, the mortgage and HOA fees would leave me about $1000 a month to live on. Oh, and don't think I didn't think about how to make that work. Well, if I only eat two meals a day and my Prius lasts another ten years and we never turn the lights on and keep the AC set at 80 and so on and so on.

The kids and I are currently in an apartment that is close to my school.  Even though they are considered adults by the government, they are still very much my responsibility to house.  My lease is up in December and I am holding my breath waiting to see how much rent here will go up.  And if goes up too much, then where do we move to?  When I look at other apartments, they are just as much and more than my current apartment and this current rent is now a stretch.  

I like to play this game of “Where Can I Not Afford to Live” each night and gaze at houses and apartments Zillow says are rentable in my area.  A current find shows a duplex down the street with a back yard!  My aging dog will be so happy!  Only two bedrooms though.  Looks like someone needs to go live with dad.  Oh. And one bathroom.  Well, it can be done. Maybe not with Sophie’s IBS though. Click on price; $2300/month.  This is $500 more than I am paying for my window-deficient, slightly slanted, 3 bedroom, 2 bath apartment.  Last year, I had a realtor friend set up a house search for me to see other options.  I asked her to please stop the search about a week in as the results were depressing.  Many of the options seem to include living among college students and a house that had recently hosted a murder in it.  Last year, I was hopeful and didn’t know that I was a teacher who couldn’t afford affordable teacher housing.  This year, I know who I am, I know what I make and really,  I am thinking that maybe the murder house wouldn’t be so bad. 

Currently selling for about 1.2 million, as is

Just Breathe

I've been doing a lot of yoga lately: at-home, on-my-mat, Adriene-on-youTube-type yoga.  I started because I missed going to yoga and after a few days I realized it really helped me handle some of the stress of this life a little better. Also, let me be honest and say I am 100% counting the 32 calories I burn while doing it as exercise.  If you have done yoga, you know how much they make you breathe in and out and in and hold it and out.  It is as important as Warrior II or mountain pose.  Feel your breath do this, feel how it makes your body do that.  Breathe in, breathe out.

Today, we have a snow/ice day from school and as I woke up and the realization that I did not, nor could not, be anywhere today hit me, I feel like I inhaled for the first time in a very long time.  I inhaled and thought "No school!", I inhaled and thought "No soccer!", I inhaled and thought "Nowhere to be!" and I inhaled and thought about how very long it has been since I felt like I could breathe this deeply.

I do a lot of exhaling.  Breath out in exhaustion.  Breath out in resignation. Breath out in wondering what the hell I am doing.  Breath out as I ask "Why has no one done this assignment even though we had two days to work on it in class?!?" Breaths out as I wonder if I am the only one who can smell the litter box? Warm, fetid breaths of tired, worried, stale air.  (I am in that mask nine hours a day; this is an accurate description, believe me). 

Some days, I have quick little gasps of inhalation.  Gasp in "I forgot that was due!", gasp in "I need to cook fourteen meals for the week so I don't eat only boxed mac and cheese."  Gasp in as my jeans are tight and I know it's because I have only burned 32 calories doing yoga and despite saying I want to go round and wear snap-up house dresses from HEB, I am still very vain and don't want to go round and winter is not the season for snap-up house dresses.  Gasp in, long breath out, gasp in, long breath out.  

Is everyone running like this?  Social media tells me yes.  We are running and we are out of breath and self-care is a phrase thrown about but no one believes in it anymore. Used to be a bubble bath, a face mask, and a glass of wine could hit reset, but they just don't anymore.  If someone had said I needed a face mask night prior to this snow day my only thought would have been "Fuck you and your face mask" as I slowly exhaled and forgot to breathe back in. (for the record, I did do one last night.  Nothing.)

Is my inability to inhale due to the worst teaching year in the history of teaching minus when Laura Ingalls Wilder had to teach in that tiny shack and the woman she was staying with wanted to kill her?  But even then, Almanzo!  Deep breath in!  Is it the teaching/coaching combination?  Yeah, it is a killer load, but there is joy to be found in watching young women do something they love to do and one that is not often found in my classroom.  Also, I believe passionately about two things in my life: sports in high school are purposeful and powerful for young women and need to be supported and that the Bills will one day win a Superbowl.  I can only help with one of those things though, so I do it.  Um, and I need the money because teaching does not pay a livable wage.  

We have been collectively holding our breath for so long waiting for our world to be normal, I guess it is normal that all we do is breathe out and out and out.  Other teachers and I have commented that our students are just broken, but I am starting to recognize that the adults are broken too.  Our world, our pre-COVID world, is gone.  And we are weary of waiting for it to come back.  And we are breathing out only as we realize it is not coming back. Not today, not this school year, maybe not ever.  Long, slow exhale here.

So what do we do to bring back the inhalations?  The joy?  The rest?  The equilibrium?  I have no idea and you now know my thoughts about face masks.  I would love to know what other people are doing or not doing but want to be doing.

Today, I am breathing in and in and in as I wear soft clothes and wool socks and drink hot things in a big mug.  I am breathing in and in and in as I read a book in bed and unleash this torrent of words.  I am breathing in and in and in as I step outside with my reluctant dog and feel my cheeks get cold and that sharp air hit my lungs.  Today, I will just breathe.

Pivot! PIVOT!!!

 You know that episode of Friends where they are moving the couch and it gets stuck on the stairway and Ross just keeps yelling “Pivot!  PIVOT!” in increasingly desperate tones?  If that is not the mood for teaching in this 2020-2021 school year, well, I just don’t know what is.  

Maybe it goes beyond teaching too, maybe it is how we have all been asked to live life, but y’all I have changed directions so many times, I am nauseous.  Or maybe just heartsick; they present the same way.

I am weary of Zoom classes where no one turns on their camera and I am talking to a screenful of black boxes.  And not black boxes like on airplanes where they are full of information. Black boxes with names of kids who might be there or may have logged on and left; we won’t know until I end class and see who’s still there when they have been told they can leave.  I am told to be engaging, to use new technology, to make lessons fun!  I could stand on my head and juggle fire and that would not be engaging.  Students are tired of being online too.

Work remotely, no you can’t work remotely, that doesn’t count.  Wait, though. Remote learning counts when it could be a snow day.  Work from school and teach to in-person and online kids at the same time and here, step behind this plastic shower curtain that will keep you safe from contagion.  Sports are cancelled, but, wait!  They are not cancelled. Some teams are cancelled.  Wait, that’s not happening either.  Wear a mask on the field, mostly wear a mask on the field.  Always wear a mask on the field.

Aren’t we next in line for vaccines?  Where are all the vaccines?  Yes, old people and 1B.  Of course.  Are we 1C?  Was that just a rumor to get us back behind the shower curtains?  And not a real shower curtain.  I am sitting at my desk with yesterday’s clothes on and a beanie on my three-day-unwashed hair.  And I am only sitting at my desk because some applications require you use school wifi even when school is not open.

All the acronyms that make teaching painful are still on for this year. All the tests, all the professional development, all the observations, and boxes to be checked still need to be checked.  How about new ones for this year?  Only cried on camera once today? Check.  Stays up to date on grades and attendance? Check.  Modulated tone to represent hope and passion while feeling beleaguered and defeated?  Check!

This week was especially hard.  I feel like teachers and students alike have settled into that this is it.  I doubt we will be back to school for real this year and I am trying to find the reserves to power through five more months like this and the kids are too.  No, this is not ideal, but forcing open schools and all of us sharing this air and being superspreaders isn’t ideal either.  I miss actual students in my classroom.  I miss their ridiculous ideas and the way they could make me laugh that just does not translate over zoom.  I miss watching kids work together in groups, even when they hate group work. Breakout rooms are no match for some desks pushed together or the excuse to sit on the floor in the hallway and work.  I miss the smell of coffee permeating the air on the third floor and lunch with my colleagues at our crowded lunch table.  I miss the live sharing of stories, the sense of togetherness, and the knowledge that we were making a daily difference somewhere that day.

I’ll continue to do what we are all doing: pivoting, changing, adapting, powering through.  I just wanted to say that I am so tired and I know that you are too.  I also know it won’t always be like this and sometimes I remember to tell this to other people when they are having a bad day.  I think I just forget to tell myself.  So, for all of us who need to hear it, IT WON’T ALWAYS BE LIKE THIS!!!  And maybe, just maybe, all that pivoting and twisting and turning will give us rock-hard obliques!

And Up From the Ground Came a Bubbling Pool

I wish that we could all say what we know.  I wish we could be forthright and forthcoming and just say it:

this school year will be a mess.  The biggest mess. The messiest mess.  The hottest mess.  A bubbling

volcano of molten lava spilling, churning and boiling into every aspect of our lives and our kids’ lives

kind of a mess.  

KRAKATOA!

It will be a mess because no one knows exactly what to do.  It will be a mess because every directive

indicated will be challenged.  It will be a mess because no one will agree on what is best for most.  I

t will be a mess because this world is currently a mess. It will be a mess mostly because we all just want

our lives to go back to normal, but normal has changed.  And maybe what we used to think of as normal

won’t be normal again for a long, long time.

It will not be because no one is trying.  So very many people are trying!  I know I will try.  I will try to have

engaging lessons that translate over Zoom.  I will try to get to know the names of 170 kids I have never

met in person and convey to them that I care.  I will try to build rapport and relationships and give feedback

in a timely manner.  While I do this, I will also try to get my own kids to engage in their online learning.  I

will commiserate and say “yes, this sucks” and then I will be a mom and say “Get up and do it.”  

And administrators will be trying.  They will be trying to appease parents and teachers all while knowing that

they cannot do both.  They will try to think about the kids while adhering to our state mandates that change

and change and change again.  But they will be trying.

Teachers will be trying.  They have been trying all summer to think of what they could do better than they did

in the last months of school.  They will be trying to learn new skills and read new books to learn new things. 

They will try to be positive as they are told their job will look like this, no this, no now back to this.  They will

try to remember to breathe.

Parents will be trying.  They will be trying to remember that this is an uncharted world and they will try to

remember that everyone is trying.  I hope that they try to think about all the kids at school and not just what

is good for their own child.  However, that is something that takes considerable effort and time and parents

are tired.  

We are all tired.  We are tired of swimming upstream, tired of treading water, tired of being afloat and adrift. 

We were promised this would be over, life would be normal, and while many of us are so grateful for the things

we do have during this, we are also just tired.  We are tired of the uncertainty and the misgivings and the

rethinking of things that we used to do without thinking.  We are tired of the news and the people in charge

and the way things have gotten worse, and not better.  We are tired of not being able to hug the people we

used to hug and we sometimes get tired of the people we are still allowed to hug.

I just want us to be honest and say “We are tired.”  And I want people to listen and say “I am sorry you are tired. 

We are tired too.”  Then we can sigh collectively and admit we are in this for a long time and think about

how to do our best.  I think part of how we can do our best is to remember that other people are trying to do

their best as well.  Maybe this will give parents patience with teachers and teachers patience with parents. 

And administrators.  And these poor kids who don’t know which way is up.  

So as school gets ready to begin again and people are already social media shouting about all that is wrong,

could we maybe just focus a tiny bit on what could be right?  For me, it will be trying my best, failing more

than once, and remembering that everyone else is doing the same.  Oh, and wine.  Lots and lots of wine.

Walk the Line

I had a really good year teaching.  My classes were an interesting mix of kids and even the “bad” kids weren’t all that bad.  I had some students for the second year in a row and they would call me Mom and I would laugh until I read their senior reflections where they wrote about why they called me Mom and cried instead.  I had a class full of Creative Writers who didn’t want to write but that led to a girl in that class thanking me for showing her what it meant to be fierce and determined.  I had apathy, laziness, and students who swore like longshoremen but I also had laughter, some learning, and a network of coworkers I love and respect.  So, a good year, but teaching is a profession that can leave you feeling not only ineffective as a teacher but also as a person some days.  Teaching is stressful, demoralizing, degrading, chaotic, and pays terribly.  Teaching makes you really long for summer and the end of a long, hot summer makes you long to get back to teaching.  It’s a weird line that we walk.

I recently commented to a friend that my plan for this summer is to walk the line between self-care and selfish.  I spend the school year taking care of everyone else and being so busy in my brain, I rarely think about what I really want to do.  I am too busy thinking if I get that prescription after work I can also get a gallon of milk and bypass the grocery store for another two days, but if I go after work, I will also add twenty minutes to our commute.  It is very busy up in there and it is exhausting.  I’ve spent the first three weeks of summer sitting on my deck drinking coffee, watching birds, and simply being.  Self-care or selfish?  I’ve cooked a minimal amount of meals and reply with “huh” when the kids comment there is nothing to eat.  Selfish or self-care?  I plan some days around yoga and when I can get a nap in but that just seems sensible.

I feel like I am walking weird lines with all aspects of my summer life.  One of the lines all teachers walk is how much work to do over the summer.  It is thrilling to think that we throw our hands up in the air and run out the door after the students with sunscreen in one hand and a good book in the other, but we all end up working in one facet or another.  I spent a week with the incoming Freshman and am so incredibly grateful I do not teach Freshman and won’t see these kids for another two years.  I will also spend a week proctoring make-up exams because it is easy and pays well but not because I am a make-up exam fanatic.  I also have to write a curriculum for my new class!  A class about women!  Taught by me!  I am so excited and so scattered on where to start, how to structure it, what to do.  I am caught up in the fact that not only did this Women, Words, and Wisdom class make, it saw enough students sign up for two sections!  55 students want to learn about women and I am going to teach them and I’m not flustered, you’re flustered.  Work, do nothing, work, think you should be doing something, do a little something, go back to doing nothing, school starts.

Staying fit is definitely one line that is definitely seeing some zig-zagging this summer.  I froze my Camp Gladiator account because my knees hurt and because I didn’t want to work out at 6:10am three times a week in the summer; that craziness is for the school year.  However, as much as I proclaim that I might as well go round, I am not ready for elastic waistbands and snap-up housecoats, so I am walking the dog every morning and going to yoga as much as I can instead.  The other day it was 95 degrees in the yoga room with 61% humidity.  I have never, ever sweat that much in my entire life.  Rivers of sweat.  Oceans of sweat.  Detoxifying and purifying and healthy.  Surely, I followed that with green tea and a wheatgrass smoothie, right?  No.  I followed that with a shower, two beers and a sandwich that had not only chicken sausage on it, but bacon as well.  Zig. Zag.

Better one, or two?

One, or two?

Parenting teens is a tight-rope walk all the time, but one I have time to think about during the summer and not just react to like during the school year.  Sophie has a new job.  Great.  She still doesn’t drive.  Damn.  That’s on me and yet I keep saying it is on her.  She will be a Senior this year and I already find myself thinking “last this” or “last that”.  I have to stop that or I will make myself insane, but I also want to be sure I stop to appreciate all these "lasts" with her.  The boy would be on a screen 24/7 if he could and I waiver between standing over him with a whistle and a to-do list or hanging back and seeing if he realizes that he can and should do more.  I don’t think there are ever really any clear paths or decisions in parenting though, just lots of love and a little bit of common sense.  I hear them laughing and talking to one another after I go to bed and give myself a mental high-five for excellence in parenting and the very next day feel I have taught them nothing when dishes are piled in the sink because I didn’t ask anyone to empty the dishwasher.  Up, down, back, forth.

The other morning, I looked outside and noticed that our garbage can was the only out on the street and got worried.  Did I have it out on the wrong day? We couldn’t afford to miss because the boy brought an unemptied can back the week before and it was jam-packed and disgusting.  I stopped to consider trash pick-up days and had to stop because I didn’t even know what day of the week it was.  I didn’t even know what day of the week it was and that friends, is summertime magic at its finest.  So, no matter what lines I am walking, summer has its restorative hold on me and while I might be wondering what day it is, I won’t wonder for too long because I have birds to watch and coffee to drink out on the deck.