snails & mercy in Bali

Dave and I are spending spring break in Bali. We have the most lux and lush private villa, complete with our own pool, open air living space, and bathroom a la outdoors. It is just us.

But it isn’t. All day long doves and cicadas serenade us. A fountain gurgles. Light dapples on leaves that dance in the incense-kissed breeze. We wake at 6am in the morning to the Puja Tri Sandhya that sings for 5 minutes from some unseen speaker. The world is alive.

So are we.

I have come here to relax, to decompress, to rest, to be. To nurture the spirit and heart. The last two days the blessings have come in the form of snails.

They are everywhere here!

Did you know they grow their own shell? They do! In ever-expanding cycles of spirals, they calcify the outer part of them into something hard and protective–their very own escape from the difficulties of the world.

I do that too. It’s not bad. Or it’s not only bad.

My ever-expanding cycles of spirals calcify bitterness and betrayal and bad behavior and blame into shells. Beautiful. Strong. Nuanced.

And tucked away into that self-grown, ego-blown shell I can be safe, and soft.

And utterly without mercy.

I hate that word. I hate being weak. I hate when weakness–mine or others–inconveniences. That’s hard isn’t it? Brittle. My very own unbreakable shell.

It’s amazing I can hang upside down on the leaves of life.

Mercy is upside down too.

I’m reading Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy, the sacred sacrilege of Anne Lamont (how I love a woman who swears and prays in the same breath).

“We know mercy is our salvation… But I wish it was something else. I wish it was being able to figure things out, at which I am very good, or to assign blame, at which I am better, or to convince people of the rightness of my ideas…I want to want this softening, this surrender, this happiness…The problem is, I love to be, and so often am, right…I know justice and believing that you’re right depend on cold theological and legal arguments where frequently there is no oxygen, but honestly I don’t mind this. I learned to live in thin air as a small child.”

I am good at thin air. I am not good at mercy.

Well, I am not good at giving mercy.

Unbeknownst to me, or unbidden, I do get it. I live off of it. I exist through it. But I don’t like to name it, to feel it, to admit it. It’s embarrassing. It’s humbling.

I mean look at the snail’s shell! It is stellar; it makes you gasp. It holds constellations on its back. It is strong and firm and endearing.

But that fleshy inside. Ewwww. Gooey and oozy and undefined and without boundary and, really, it looks a little too much like my middle-aged, menopausey stomach folds.

No thank you.

But yes please.

Mercy. Can I be the snail? Fully hard and fully soft (that’s what she said). Wholly protective and wholly vulnerable. Utterly compelling and utterly repulsive.

Mercy. Can I be it all?

Mercy.

twisted ankles & overblown alarms

I twisted my ankle this week.

After a high school assembly, I stood poised in the entryway between the auditorium and the hall, on my phone. Without thinking, without looking–without caring–I stepped to move forward, and

WHOOPS, oh, that’s a stair,

whoa, that’s big step down,

and, hello, crack,

and ouch limp,

and swoosh went my laptop crashing to the ground,

and I went right into it a necessary day or two of RICE.

In case you haven’t noticed… I. am. important.

The emails that come to my phone are so essential, so time-pressing, so urgent, that I dare not look up and live the life in front of me.

#ouch is right.

My priorities and perspectives are about as twisted as my ankle.

I wish I could say this is the first time I’ve written about this… but no. Let’s travel back TEN YEARS, back through two countries, and a different job, to when I wrote about alarm fatigue:

I only hope those in power see the liability of “alarm fatigue” in education, and that we return to a renewed focus on treating–teaching–the student. Only then will we all find healing.

Well…Houston we have a problem.

I am now one of those people in power. And I am so consumed with the alarm bells of my inbox that I can’t even look up.

My beautiful ex-colleague but still-friend, Nikki, said something a few years ago that I can’t stop thinking about… and talking about. She talked about how in education we manufacture this false sense of urgency. Often, it is from a lack of proactive and thorough planning and diligent execution, so then, when the action arrives, wait, what, what action?, didn’t you check your email?, everybody and everything is so frantic to get it done and get it done right that everything else has to be stopped to do this thing, oh but wait, doing this thing means you have to stop that thing, and no, you can’t NOT do that, things will fall apart if you do that, so juggle it all, with the same intensity, oh and also don’t forget self-care, and model for students healthy boundary-setting, and, oh wait, crap, the copier is down, oh and also could you help? we don’t have someone to sponsor that club, can you do it?, because the person who was doing it is behind in writing a new policy for deadlines because nobody is getting all the important stuff done in time and so they don’t have the time to dedicate their time to that, and we need that policy because the external organizations we are paying a butt-load of money to don’t have their ducks in a row, wait, they just changed their syllabus again, can we have a meeting to get that figured out?, and, don’t forget to spend time exploring GenAI because your kids are using it and cheating all the time, yeah, you’re right, they need some social and emotional development, especially after COVID, oh gosh, that reminds me of the other gaps that came about from that years-long span of being behind a screen, can you fill out this form and let us know what you’re seeing, but wait, let’s circle back to that because this is important, wait, what THIS are we talking about?, but, also, don’t forget your day job.

If you need a breath after that sentence… welcome. to. a. Monday. for. anybody. working. in. a. school. #commasfordays

And I see it in my leadership. The language I use and ways I act that inflate the urgency. Words like “crisis.” Or the incessant response of “busy” to the question “how you doing?” (I’d like to meet this Busy, because they are getting a lot of action. #swiperight) The hesitancy to look up from my computer to be with someone when that dreaded question comes: “you got a minute?” The shortness of breath and tightness in my chest and tensing of the shoulders I get when I feel a sense of panic at not being able to accomplish a task.

It’s embarrassing to confess. It is just high school Mary! Geez! It is not an emergency room! It is not the end of the world!

And what kills me the most is that I see it in our students. They live their lives without sleep, enslaved to the scores of external exams, pressured by family and society, rushed from period to period–from test to test–weilding the weaponized language of mental health, lost in their phones, isolated from their peers, building habits that not only will affect them, but our future society.

(see what I did there with that paragraph? oooooozing with drama and intensity and urgency)

All of our ankles are twisted… aren’t they?

Can we all just calm down?

I’m working on it.

Breath in.

Breath out.

home for Christmas

What is it about Christmas music, that just in.stant.ly transports you to a time and place? Liquid nostalgia, pouring into the ears, flowing down into heart, settling deep into the belly.

I remember my Dad, sitting on the faded blue-patterned, rough-textured couch, playing his albums, then cassettes, then CDs. Whistling along. Singing along. A grown man caroling like a child.

He used to do that with the birds. We’d go for our walk–when I wasn’t too much of a self-absorbed, self-important teenager–and he’d hear them in the trees, he’d look to find them, and then he’d speak to them. Fluent in bird song.

I do that, now, too. We’ve spent the past week at the simmering beach and then in the cooling mountains of Malaysia, and there wasn’t a bird I didn’t converse with.

I’d do that now, too, if I could. I’d go home to the house that built me, and I’d get Dad out of his bed–one of his only places of known comfort as his memory failed him–and I’d take him for a neighborhood walk. We would stroll to the local creak. The trees would be barren, as it is in winter. The sky would be grey, as it is in the midwest. The cardinals would be calling, as they do in nature. The time would be precious, as it is in grief.

I’d then meet my Mom in the kitchen. We’d make inappropriate jokes and gestures with powder-sugared, peanut-buttered-ball-snowmen. She’d settle into her art of reliving her past with words and stories, punctuated by cigarette-puff-periods and West-Virginian-hill-exclamation-marks.

And, before a time of bitterness and splintering and who knows what else, we would all be there. It would be loud, and chaotic, and being the youngest, I’d be annoyed at having to sit at the kids’ table. Of course there would be fighting in that ivy-wallpapered kitchen… we were family, after all. But we were together, getting drunk on sweet potato gravy and criticizing the yearly dry turkey (but, at least it was cooked, right?). That kitchen welcomed multiple lovers, some that stuck and some that didn’t; ever-widening circles of extended family and in-laws; kids and more kids and then their kids. Sometimes, we would spread into two rooms there was so much… much.

That kitchen now houses another family.

I’ll be home for Christmas. But I won’t, really, ever again. At least not that home.

And being, literally, around the world, on the other side, I am deeply feeling the nostalgia this Christmas morning. The loss and longing and love.

I won’t be home for Christmas this year. Not in Chicago. Not in Dorchester. Not in Columbia.

And it hurts.

I ache to wrap my niece in the most giantest of hugs and unconditional love and shared-all-the-things-ness. To be my favorite role: Grauntie, to remind them of who I am, so far away. To catch up on the latest romantic comedies with my sister. To sit on my in-laws’ flowered recliner, and bundle up in the soft blankets Mom makes sure I have on the ready, and make fun of Dad’s westerns in all their sexist glory, and watch the bird feeders. To feel guilty for those I am not seeing, those I have separated from… but not really. To be delightfully bored, and lovingly annoyed, and so beautifully irritated in that special way only family can achieve.

I’ll be home for Christmas… if only in my dreams.

To my dear family, each and every one, sending you love from the other side of the world.

love letter to Brasil

Bom dia
Bom to the dia
& it certainly is good in the mornings around here
With the sun-bellied bem-te-vi screaming HERCULES
From the white rafters in the student center
That create a jungle gym for the rising sun
I will miss walking onto this campus
The warm & secure & reliable greetings from the guards
“Bom dia querida!
Bom trabalho”

Bom to the trabalho
& good is the work of deeper learning
& Shormila’s laugh echoing through the halls
& Butler’s shooting of the shit on the greens
& Maggie’s PGC legacies on the walls
& the English departments in-your-end-
Ohs…
Whose end?
The patriarchy’s, replies the Bush Witch.

And the leaving as good as the coming,
With “Bom descanso” following the exit beep
Bom to the descanso
In a country where my students still eat dinner
At the table with their families
(Albeit after I’ve already gone to bed)
& Sunday mornings are quiet
With deserted streets & tucked in last-night lovers
Who make out in public places like middle schoolers
Bom beijos

Boa vida
Boa to the vida
A life grande,
so big the “d” takes on 2 syllables,
(why can’t it sound like it looks?)
A dj sound, musical,
Full of bom shows
& bom passeios
On horses in Campos do Jordao
In markets on Paulista
In shopping in Cunha
Passeios like tickets
Around the world of Brasil

Bom viagem
Bom to the viagem,
It is good to travel
The speed-bump lined,
Pothole-dotted,
Blackie-Friday snack-cart frighteningly-
frogging the middle of the rodavia,
Bom viagem to see
the monkey’s pedestrian bridges,
& crazy descending roads
Amidst the carnage of hubcaps,
& colored favelas governed only by themselves
Climbing the slopes
& the Cristo’s caress of the bay
& termite hills so monstrous
they can be seen from the universe
A boa vista

Boa vista
Boa to the vista
That view, that moment
The eyes leave the road
To see the sea
The sharp descent to the glittering
Home of dolphins & whales
& turtles
& on boa praia days,
Me.
With a caipi.

Boa praia.
Boa to the praia.
It’s what Brasil does best, ve o?
& it is good
With its funk–that they don’t like–
bumping in 3 conflicting speakers
& its queijo coalho
& its cerveja in the most tiny of glasses
& its ocean vibes converting everyone
Back into kids
Waves of laughter
& drips of sorvete
& tiny strips of clothing
& Haviana thongs
On everyone
From swimmers to motoboys
To my family back in the states
& to me, next, in Malaysia

Bom Brasil
Bom to Brasil
Your spacious landscape
Sings & dances the Samba
Of your encompassing abracoes
& warm bemvindos
& loving fique à vontade
& carnaval of fun & vivaciousness
& the loving EVERYTHING
That is voces
That is your heart
Your big, beautiful coração
That breaks my heart to leave
But also fica in my heart forever
Boa tchau
Bom tchau
Boa corazon

Obrigada Graded
Obrigada Brasil

mining the transition

I know that the year of transitioning into an administrative role and out of the classroom is a mine rich for gleaning. And I also know that learning doesn’t happen in the event… it happens only after reflecting on the event. So allow me to do some reflective mining…

_{Photo by Vlad Chețan on Pexels.com}

Here’s the nuggets that I’ve been surfacing lately:

I take things too personally. I make everything about me. I forget that people have a world of issues, tensions, nuances, struggles, celebrations, inquiries that have absolutely nothing to do with me. They are a reflection of their own histories, and the stories they tell themselves about those histories.

I act too swiftly. In my effort to be action-orientated and known as someone who get things done–and perhaps, maybe, even in my desire to save the day–I hear a story, and then I move forward on that story. But every story has multiple narrators and hidden alleys and secret ghosts. I am realizing the need to pause and investigate… and do so while suspending judgment.

It’s one thing to be a volunteer firefighter in a rural town; it’s another thing to be the firefighter in a large metropolitan city. This metaphor captures a lot of what my transition has been. In my past leadership roles, I have done a lot of what I’m doing now… but in isolated bits, here and there, all the while doing what I love in the classroom–and what I know. But now, whoa. There are so many fires, on so many levels, blazing so quickly, so needingly, and I have to be everywhere, at all times, in my best problem-solving state. The volume, the pace, the intensity is just at a mind-blowing different level.

Difficult conversations are best had immediately and in small digestible bites; otherwise they become big, scary monsters that just hover–and quite frankly, intimidate. I need to do better at saying what needs to be said in the moment and then working through it. This is that courage I knew I was going to need to lean into, and the courage I am called to again.

I am grieving the loss of my teacher identity. Yep, this is a doozy. I didn’t even realize it til my own coaching conversation I had recently. I got it as a teacher: I knew how to connect with students; my reputation did work behind the scenes for me; my sphere of influence was manageable; I was trusted… I was known. And now I am in a new school, in a new role, in a new country. And as with every evolution of the self, a part of me has died. I know something new–and beautiful and glorious–is coming to life, but without a doubt, I am grieving what is gone.

It’s October. And it’s only October. Talking with a new–dear–friend reminded me of this. Everyone knows October is a hard month in schools. Period. And… I’ve only been doing this for 3 months. I’m a baby! Self-compassion, softness, spaciousness call to me, and sooth me.

I can lose sight of joy. I am prone to heaviness, criticalness, relentless expectations. Inwardly and outwardly. But. And yet. Just this week, I got to sit in on a student receiving a prestigious award. And the pride on her face, it was, just, everything. Yesterday, I got to see students present their innovative products designed to be circular. They were discussing chemistry and business at the highest levels, and with wit and humor, and they were only freshmen. It was spectacular. Even in detention yesterday, I had some tender conversations with students. There is so much joy, and wonder, and light, and laughter. I embrace that.

a gr8 start

I’ve thought a lot about my transition into admin.

I remember kicking around the idea a couple of times before, & then backing down. Now, I see how “meant to be” that was, because I was. not. ready.

But I’m ready now.

Even though it pains me to leave the classroom & the connections with students it gifts me, I am so excited to do that on a bigger scale now. In many ways, I have approached my 1st year as an assistant principal in the same way I have always approached my students: mindful of relationship. With that, here are 8 ways I made early deposits into my new colleagues’ love banks:

1. I wrote the HS teachers an open letter introducing myself & asked them to do the same. I gave them time to do this IN a meeting, because let’s face it, they got enough on their plates. I have been taking my time working through their responses so that I can remember who is who & what is important to them. I am actively seeking to know them.
2. I showed up on a Saturday during an optional set-up-your-room-day with snacks. Because, well, snacks! I am not above bribery.
3. I have made sure to address what’s been brought to my attention, even when it’s small requests. Little things like technology snafus, sending that email, writing thank yous, showing up in a typically deserted hallway, circling back to a conversation, etc.
4. I am visible. As much as possible, I am trying to get into the hallways, into classrooms, into the lunch room, into practices & clubs. I attend meetings. I have an advisory.
5. I am making clear the expectations & holding students accountable to them. We have spent several sessions in the opening days ensuring students explicitly know what successful behavior looks like. I am exposing places where we rely on assumptions. I addressed the entire junior class in front of their parents for immature use of technology in a meeting… “hi, I’m new, now listen up!”
6. I am spotlighting the good. I send good news emails home to students whom I have met & want to celebrate. We set aside time in our HS PD to write positive emails home to students. When people offer me a compliment, I accept it with a thank you.
7. I act in humility. I readily admit what I don’t know, ask questions to learn, & take responsibility for shortcomings. I am taking copious notes of all the things I need to do to start next year better, earlier. I ask for feedback. I do not hide behind a false mirage of “having it all together.”
8. I am being the real me. Authentically. & that is something I was scared about, but it’s working so far. I model emotional literacy. There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t mention something about SEL.

I know there will be times I mess up & withdraw from my colleagues’ love banks. & I will own that. But for now… I’m focusing on the deposits.

HOME-less-or-more-ness

_{Photo by Leah Kelley on Pexels.com}

“Where are you from?”

It’s such an easy question to ask, and, yet, such a hard question to answer.

Our response goes something like this: “Well, our last post was Brazil, but we are originally from the United States.”

“Oh, where abouts?” trails along next in the conversation.

And in that moment our story of home-less-or-more-ness unfolds.

We were both born in Illinois: near St. Louis (Dave) & in Chicago (me). Dave’s parents are still in the same area, but my parents are gone & my family is spread out in the states. But we always considered Colorado our home. That’s where we were owned a home (as much as one can) & where our soul felt, well, home-more.

We are home-less right now. Just a few days ago, I laid in bed in the second hotel we’ve stayed at since transitioning to Kuala Lumpur, waiting for our new apartment-home to be ready. It was a slow morning, soft light peaking through the city-blocking curtains. And even though we’re in a high rise, the declaration of the birds outside announced they were present. And immediately my heart was drawn back to my last home, a place where we fed the birds on our porch, a place where parakeets sauntered in their funny two-beat way across our rail, a place where when the bananas weren’t there on time in the morning hours, our steady, feathery guests let us know of their unhappiness–loudly. I realized I would never again hear the yell of the sun-bellied Hercules bird.

And I was. so. sad.

What is this… this… homesickness for a country I wasn’t even born in.

Where are you from?

I am from Brazil, acho que.

This morning the gentlest cover of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” played. I love this song. I love this version. And I love my Mom. I think of one particular time when we visited her home state of West Virginia. We were descending in our typical family van down a winding road that had trees bowing in reverence along the side. Maybe we were going into some holler. And I kid you not, she was singing along at the top of her lungs to what was playing on the radio, “Take me home, country roads, to the place, I belong, Weeeeesssst Virginia, mountain mama, take me home country roads.” A tear followed the curve of her cheek like our trip-worn van followed the curve of that country road.

I didn’t get it then. Why was she crying?

Or maybe some part of me did, not yet having the language to process it.

I get it now though.

HOME-less-or-more-ness.

Nostalgia is an ache isn’t it? It’s like all the bones in your body pull together, as if their unifying-Braveheart-crying-moment is enough to be a magnet for the way things used to be.

Nostalgia is the ache for home–not in place, but in time.

But so often, as I’ve learned with my third-country students, home is often only considered a place, an origin–at least conventionally. Where are you from? Insert clean, simple answer here please.

But home is not clean, it’s not simple.

HOME-less-or-more-ness.

The less of home. The more of home. It’s messy. It’s complicated. It’s dynamic. For some it’s 12 places, each post 2 years. For some it’s brutally painful with manipulation and trauma. For some it’s a country that drove them to a country that doesn’t welcome them. For some it’s loss. For some it’s a filtered-Barbie-doll-house, empty except for echoes.

What, though, if we consider the question that started this musing, “where are you from?”, as the quintessential essence of what home is.

It is a story. Told to others, with others.

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Here’s some related stories:

the untethered expat: culture shock

sharing poems, sharing stories, sharing lives

The House That Built Me

In Honor of Mom–September 2013

Me & Steve Barkley: A Teacher Podcast

Check out my conversation on Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud about Quality Learning From Agency and Motivation.

This was inspired by my Edutopia post Boosting High School Students’ Sense of Agency and Motivation.

numbers & numbing: the math of mourning

Grief sucks.

Sometimes it just hits you in the gut like a concrete punch. And it leaves you breathless.

I am feeling breathless.

8 years ago today, as Facebook so faithfully & poignantly reminds me, we took my Mom to her favorite buffet out “in the boondocks.” (We probably drove that far just so she could get gas for 3 cents cheaper a gallon. Oh Mom …)

She had just been diagnosed with her third round of cancer. And decided decisively she wouldn’t fight it.

2 days later we held her dying hand as it paled against the sterile hospital sheet.

At the end of July, we had to put our feisty & funny furry girl down. I can’t even write about that yet.

Not even 7 days later does Facebook remind me that 5 years before we had to put our Spooner down.

It’s too much isn’t it. In a decade, we have lost both of my parents & all of our pets. 5 deaths.

What in the actual f***!?

I vacillate between 2 extremes: 1, throwing myself a pity party & 2, hosting a bash celebrating the mercy that I haven’t become a bitter bitch.

At least on most days.

Today I’m a bit more pity party. Today the punch is real. Today the breath catches.

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on listening

That infamous Verizon commercial that is inevitably & unintentionally quoted once a day (at least) around the world is echoing in my head lately.

Can you hear me now?

But I guess really, my question is maybe a bit more cutting than that:

Are you listening?

Does anyone know how to reallytrulydeeplymeaningfullypresently listen anymore?

Is that even a thing?

Is the art the gift of listening dead?

Sometimes I feel like I’m living in the computer.

The world of posts & shares & likes & Podcasts & TEDtalks: in other words… a person’s uninterrupted & uninhibited output.

Like, duuuuuuuuuude, take. a. beat.

Breathe.

If you know me, then you know my love language is listening. If you don’t know that, then you don’t know me.

If you want to get in my heart’s pants, then shut up and listen.

OMG, and if you ask a deep question & then poise yourself to reallytrulydeeplymeaningfullypresently listen… ugh, let’s just say I’m a whore for ears.

Woo, is it getting hot in here or WHAT?!

I’m lonely.

–There, does that cut all that awkward listening-as-sex talk?–

I’m ashamed to admit I’m lonely.

I don’t know why. Brene Brown & I are working on that. (Not personally, but a roundabout-way-of-me-financing-her-books.)

What’s so wrong about being lonely?

Does it show a failure on my part?

Does it show a lack of lovability?

Does it show a selfishness?

Does it show a bitter & brutal introversion that will triumph, sadly, no. matter. what.?

And how does it connect to this decay in societal standards of listening?

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I am a good listener. I am empathetic. I can 100% ensure a conversation is 100% about you through sexy follow-up questions (see what I did there?!).

And, I am wondering, if my loneliness might be a consequence of this. Do I hide behind being a good listener? Is my empathy a perfectly-crafted, looks-good-on-the-outside, vulnerability-avoidance technique? Do I make it 100% about you so that it is 0% about my shit?

I’m reading this amazing book that fell into my recommended list from the library-sky, at the perfect time. A tiny miracle really. I didn’t know I needed it.

But, gosh, it’s got me. It gets me. I feel seen.

And challenged.

Right now, I’m sitting with & listening 🙂 to this:

So, that’s it for today.

Thanks for listening…