A Good Risk

“and sometimes a drop
of a thousand feet seems like
only the next step forward.” (excerpt from poem at end of this piece)

At that moment, it was simply the only thing to do. Frustrated that I didn’t know any more than when I sat down to meditate and pray in earnest 30 minutes earlier, I finally stood up, walked into the next room, and without any thought, booked a flight to France for Saturday. It was Thursday morning.

I don’t remember this scenario romantically, as in love prevailing. Honestly, at that point, love didn’t seem to have much to do with the situation. It felt more like I gave in and got out of the way. Life was on a course and I stepped out into the flow and moved with it. Or perhaps I just stepped off “a drop of a thousand feet as only the next step forward.”

Bill and I had separated, and then divorced, over 10 years ago. For the last several months he had been installing printing presses in France, and knowing my love for the country and fluency in the language, had called and invited me for a visit. “What will that look like?” I had quizzed him nervously, wondering where I would sleep and what it would feel like to be together again after all those years.

“Well, I guess I don’t know,” Bill answered matter of factly. “I sure don’t have it all figured out.” Yep, that was Bill, still putting things out there with no pretense or fanfare.

My school was on fall break, or about to be. Teachers still had progress reports to complete before our three weeks off could begin. I mentioned to a few friends at work that I was heading to France the day after tomorrow and noted the surprised looks. “Now explain the situation to me again, how this came about?” several people queried. No one had met Bill before; most didn’t even know his name. I shrugged, and mumbled this and that. Like Bill, I sure didn’t understand what I was doing. It was risky, and believe me, that nagging thought continued to surface all the way over on the long flight to Paris. What the hell was I doing?

Arriving in France I began to relax little by little. It felt good hearing the French language wrap around me and slowly letting my own voice shift from English to French. Without delay, I found a bus ride to Paris’ busiest train station, and was soon wandering around looking for Bill, realizing I had no earthly idea where we were supposed to meet. He was so shocked when we spoke on Friday and I informed him that I was indeed flying out the next day, that we failed to arrange an exact meeting place.

Shoulder to shoulder with the crowd, I felt myself again began to let go. Did I have a choice? What I thought I knew, or knew I didn’t know, didn’t seem to matter. My heart was thumping strongly as I wondered and walked, my mind clicking ahead as my hastily packed bag rolled behind. I strained to see above the hustle and bustle of the French until a noticeably white haired man standing taller than the rest hollered across the tops of everyone’s heads, “Darlin’!”

Darlin’??? I hadn’t heard that term of endearment for over a decade, but every single cell in my body responded alertly, “Hey, that’s me!” Muscling our way through the masses, we finally connected, smiling and hugging awkwardly. But this wasn’t the time or place to talk; having both been lost and looking for the other for well over an hour, we were already quite late for our train to Lannion.

Settled into our seats, the words still didn’t come. What could we really say at that point? It was as if we were both out of breath from that precipitous drop of a thousand feet, and who in the world knows how, here we were on the next step forward. Bill carefully and tenderly slipped his arm around me and I laid my head on his heart. We rode in silence as the train rocked toward Bretagne in northwestern France. Our respective journeys for more than two decades had been long and rocky, and though we were both exhausted, there seemed to be a growing awareness in each of us that we were on our way home.

(This is a poem – found on a Texas poetry calendar in 2000 – that I used on a letter I sent out explaining to friends and family I was going to take a year sabbatical from teaching, and asking if anyone knew of a place in the country where I could house sit for minimal to no rent for a year.)

Wile E. Coyote's Lament by Larry Fontenot

A drop of a thousand feet
and the canyon becomes
a coffin.
Nature's ability to swallow
everything whole
gives it power.
Poised at the top,
I have exhausted memory
searching for a charitable way out.
All I feel
are the best of times,
a simple loss
of a thousand
dreams
floating past
on the back of
Colorado breezes.

I have hiked and died
a thousand times
in this country.
All the things
I thought missing
I found in simple flowers
braced against the wind,
bushes
lodged in the lip of a cliff,
streams
rubbing up against muddy banks.
But even here,
among a solitude so forgiving,
something desperate calls,
and sometimes a drop
of a thousand feet seems like
only the next step forward.

That Duck

The wood ducks have arrived at Rocky Mountain Lake! There they were yesterday, floating nonchalantly among the coots, mallards, gadwalls, and shovelers, resplendent in all their beauty. This was no ordinary group, mind you, as some common golden eyes, buffleheads, along with a pair of canvas backs and even a fleet of hooded mergansers were also close by. It’s as though they all descended on the frosty lake the same chilled morning. Bingo! This is why I walk more than for the exercise.

I remember arriving at a YEA (Youth Employment Academy) staff meeting several years ago announcing in glee that I had seen the wood ducks on my walk just that morning. People looked at me with expressions that communicated, so what? I attempted to explain my excitement at how elaborately colored these little marvels are and the adorable hairdo on the males, but eyes glazed over and yawns erupted.

I mean, look at the picture! An artist can’t even replicate the details of color and lines that look like they’ve been applied with the tiniest of paint brushes. These bursts of color rival the painted buntings of Texas. And what do you think of that brushed back ‘do’?

Later that morning my office mate, Shawna, thanked me for telling her about ‘that duck’. I figured she was just trying to ease my discomfort for being recognized as a twerpy bird lover. “No, no” she insisted. “I’ve noticed how pretty the ducks are at a lake near my house.”

Shawna, she was still reeling from the unexpected deaths of both her mother and not soon after, her sister. I liked thinking she might be walking and soaking up some nature for comfort.

We had been working together ever since I moved to Denver almost six years ago. First stop, PS1 Charter School where Shawna’s title became HOS, or Head of Stuff. And boy, was she. She handled hundreds of details, never losing that gorgeous smile of hers amidst the chaos that was indigenous to PS1. Then we headed to YEA, Shawna again handling a multitude of office details while I taught reading and writing to youth in a culinary program and to high school drop outs trying desperately to catch up on literacy skills.

The day her sister died Shawna’s dog ran out of her house and was hit and killed by a car. Too much was happening, too soon and too fast. She told me this story swiveling side to side in her office chair, in a somewhat disconnected and numb manner, indicating to me that she was simply trying to survive overwhelming pain.

YEA closed down, and Shawna and I were soon colleagues once again with an alternative licensure program, Teach and Lead (http://www.teachandlead.org/). Shawna came on board later than I did, once Karla and Lisa, the directors of Teach and Lead, realized that Shawna was not doing well and convinced her to come to work for them. Months had passed and I didn’t recognize her at first, she had become so thin. Although her face still lit up whenever the subject of her daughter Evelyn arose, the light faded too quickly when she started trying to make sense out of any work that had been asked of her.

During my scurries in and out of the office, Shawna routinely reached out and hugged me so fiercely for so long that I sometimes became uncomfortable. She was holding on, almost begging. Regrettably I let myself believe I was too busy, all those things to do, places to get to. How often I hopped in my car, Shawna having even followed me out to it, feeling badly about driving away from this woman in such pain. I was at loss as to what else to do, as were others at work. We all talked at length with her. Counseling had been arranged and medical help encouraged, but Shawna remained entrenched in her grief.

At the end of this past May Shawna died of a respiratory infection that turned into pneumonia. She had retreated to home in the last few days where she wasn’t answering calls, was no longer reaching out. It seems like she gave in and let go of the weak hold she had on life, leaving so many of us with memories of her once healthy laugh and her dazzling smile. She was indeed one of the most striking women I have ever seen.

Shawna came to mind yesterday when I spied the wood ducks. “Thank you for telling me about ‘that duck’,” I remembered her saying.

“They’re here, Shawna!” I found myself announcing out loud. “Can you see them?”

Graced Land

Let me tell you at least a half dozen things about Graceland.

Owls live there. Probably great-horned owls. I’m not sure because I’ve not spied them yet through my binoculars, but once one flew over me at sunset, flying low with a soft swoosh of its grand wing span. I sat breathless letting the sound soak through me. I knew. That night the hoos started, and then another hoo answered, and I lay there listening to their conversation, back and forth, feeling like an eavesdropper as I drifted to sleep.

The winds can rock that 25’ trailer the same as they used to rock my Dad’s 25’ sailboat. Gusts make that big hunk of metal come alive, and when the air slips under the tin roof, the entire thing bellows. Chimes I hung outside pick up their clanging. The entire valley sounds like a giant is blowing into a bowl.

Coyotes claim this valley as home. Even in the dead of winter I crack the window in expectation of hearing their funny yips and yaps and occasional howls that say. . . what exactly? Food here! Come hither! Or, stay away! Or, this is our valley, our home! Blessed be!

The mountain is part of my archery practice. Fifty to 75’ from my target, I stand poised, arrow going from quiver to bow string, feathers smoothed, I turn to face the mountain. Tall, still, stately, I’m reminded to breathe deeply and not think, just be. Slowly my head turns to my target, I take aim, and release. Hold the stance, breathe out, suspend judgment. It’s not about where the arrow lands; it’s the practice of focus.

Hiking is easy at Graceland. I usually start with a stroll down to one of the roads in front of the trailer, looking at scattered bones, cleaned crisp from a night of coyotes. Once to the road I turn and wander straight either west or east, later to back track. I feel held in the bowl of the San Luis valley with mountain ranges all along the periphery. The wind sweeps across the grasses in the flatlands, horses roam wild, and red tail hawks hang suspended high in the sky, occasionally dipping in the currents.

Mornings are my favorite time. The trailer warms up as the sun rises, rays entering the windows to the east, right where the bed is. Often I have coffee ready to steep, wait for the water to heat, and soon have it steaming from my cup as I sit curled in a sunny spot in the corner of the bed. A book, a pen, and paper in hand, I wait to see who will show up/what story will appear. (http://www.storycatcher.net/)

We can arrive here at dusk, like we did last night, and slip into the trailer as easily as slipping on an old pair of favorite house shoes. It fits us just right and is oh, so welcoming cozy and an easy set-up.

An old Layton trailer on a spectacular spot where you can see 50 miles straight into New
Mexico. I found the trailer on Craig’s List, “clean and in good condition.” The owner offered to deliver it even, yet once he arrived on our raw land he appeared stunned and uncomfortable. “Just leave it here? No water, no electricity, no road to travel?” I’m pretty sure he thought it was an awful waste of a damn good trailer.

Throw on a solar pane, keep the propane tanks filled, don’t forget to bring the water, add a porta-potty to the haul, and Graceland, as we are fond of calling our valley spread, becomes just that: graced land. Owl and coyote calls, forever views, and a bright stretch of the Milky Way all leave us speechless every single time we show up, distinctly special ways of reminding us, “Welcome home.”

Why another blogger?

The year was 1995 and a teaching colleague and I were desperate to survive the overwhelming press of our school days. Although she taught in the actual school building and I was in a temporary classroom, a healthy walk away, we vowed to have lunch together regularly. We decided to take turns making one another lunch as a way to ease the pressure off at least one daily chore for the other every other school day.

Since my room was further away from the confusion, noise, and drama of the actual school building, we held our lunches there. With placemats, dinnerware, and even a candle, lunch became a formal gourmet event that we carefully planned and looked forward to smack in the middle of every crazy day, even if we only had 20 crushed minutes. In our relief from the pressure of our work, we soon found we weren’t talking shop during that time. We acknowledged, however, that were we to talk about methods, curriculum, or seek counsel from our shared 30+ years of teaching experience, it could be incredibly valuable for us both.

The solution became to write in professional reflective journals, as we soon named them. We each bought two composition books, writing regularly in one, then after handing it to the other to read and make comments in, we would write in the other. We were constantly passing our journals back and forth, and discovering that this form of reflection and communication offered immense rewards. We felt listened to through the comments of the other; we welcomed a sense of relief as we developed habits of pausing, writing, and reflecting about what we were experiencing in our classrooms. The struggles in teaching can so easily become overwhelming. This seemingly innocent move to write so we could simply relax and enjoy our little lunch ritual opened wide a window that offered a deeper understanding of our beleaguered teaching lives.

So convinced we became of the value of our journaling experiences around our profession, we soon created workshops for other teachers in the Houston Independent School District (HISD). Rice University sponsored our workshops through a partnership with HISD and The School Writing Project. Participant teachers began speaking of the same relief and improved understanding of their teaching lives. Clearly, this seemed to be a powerful reflective tool that could help sustain teachers in education.

I was at the end of a Master’s program in Multicultural Education at the time, and our reflective journaling was helping me to implement stronger and more equitable teaching practices in the learning environments I shared with my students. In essence, my journal allowed me to research my own teaching. My own personal experience and that of the teachers in our workshops soon became the foundation for my Master’s thesis - A Journaling Expedition: A Group Of Inservice Teachers Use Professional Journaling To Explore Their Own Teaching.

It’s been almost ten years since I completed this research, and the explorations have never stopped. Teacher journaling groups have continued in Houston, and using a professional reflective journal is a practice I encourage in the teacher education program where I now teach (teachandlead.org). Since I regularly ask teachers to share excerpts from their journals with me, in turn I have wanted to make some of the reflections on my life and teaching available to them. Hence the creation of this blog.

First and foremost I consider myself an educator, even if I am no longer in front of classes on a daily basis. One thing decades of teaching has impressed upon me is that the healthy condition of a teacher’s inner self is critical to her/his success in the classroom. Ultimately, the kind of person and citizen we are comes through so much more loudly than any curriculum we teach or any teaching method we use. I’ve heard before, “What I am is what I teach.” This forces those of us in education to consider how all aspects of our lives affect our experiences in the classroom. I’ve come to believe everything we live ultimately surfaces in the classroom in one way or the other, whether spoken or not. I hope that's how this blog will go - offering stories that have helped shaped me as a fellow educator, or simply as a fellow traveler on life's journey.

My Last Teaching Job Almost Killed Me

My last teaching job almost killed me. In the first spring of my of four and a half years at PS1 Charter School, I had a routine doctor’s appointment. My doctor announced that they couldn’t let me leave the office until my blood pressure went down. “What?” I asked incredulously. “I don’t feel a thing.”

“It’s the silent killer,” she explained. Blood pressure? There was something that had never entered my reality. Maybe it was the move from Houston’s sea level to Denver’s mile high. I reached for my grade book, stuffed full with a pile of papers to grade.

“No,” the doc said seeing my intentions. “You need to sit quietly and rest. Perhaps even close your eyes for a while. If your blood pressure doesn’t go down, it means a trip to the emergency room.”

Good God, I thought. How did I get here? This wasn’t a mountain worth dying on.

Within a week I had a new routine. Instead of jumping up at 5AM to grade papers, I pulled out my journal instead. Before getting dressed, I took 15 minutes to meditate. I made extra trips to the grocery store to insure a stash of healthy foods available for school and home. I gave in more often to my old yellow lab, for long, lingering evening walks. I began BP medication. I learned to live comfortably with the idea that I would never get everything done that felt necessary for my work.

A teacher’s job begins before the crack of dawn and ends well past dark. There are always piles of papers to grade. Sunday evenings our guts churn if we haven’t planned the week ahead. The “Bonanza Blues” those older among us used to call it. As soon as the theme song from the old western “Bonanza” came on, we knew the weekend was over and it was already past time to sufficiently plan out the week. Oh, Lord.

There’s nothing like standing in front of a class of 25 plus students without a workable plan of what you want to teach them. They may not choose to read what’s assigned, but they will read us like a book, and if we are wasting their time, they won’t hesitate to rip out the pages and flip every vague intention we had in the trash. Pronto.

I had been hired in May of the previous year by the outgoing principal at PS1 Charter School . I visited the school several times, taught a sample lesson, and met with other administrators and teachers. At one point in the final meeting with the principal, he left the office abruptly for something. Gone for almost 30 minutes, he seemed genuinely surprised to see me sitting in his office on his return, as if he had forgotten our meeting was still in progress. After a few moments of thought, he fumbled around in a drawer for a contract, grabbed a pencil, and filled in the details of my hire, perhaps as an apology for keeping me waiting, or simply as a reward for my tenacity. As I signed it, in pen, he commented how the school needed people “exactly like me.” I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I was banking on a friend of mine, Karla, getting his job for the following year, and I was willing to gamble.

I had met Karla in the previous fall while traveling during a sabbatical year. “You’ve got to meet this woman,” one of my closest friends persisted. “You two think in similar ways about education.” Karla had been the principal of a charter school in Durango where Nancy’s children attended and where Nancy had been a board member.

On my last fall evening in Denver, Karla and I hastily arranged a meeting time and place. Although I expected to be there only 30 minutes or so, late afternoon soon led into early evening and then later. Lisa, another educator, had also come and the three of us happily discussed our work experiences, philosophies, struggles, and dreams. I mentioned then that I was considering Denver as my next home, but still had eight months of sabbatical to ponder that move. Whatever I decided, these were two women with whom I definitely wanted to stay in touch.

The end of that sabbatical year arrived much too quickly. Having been selected as one of three finalists for a fellowship year of research and teaching with the Southern Poverty Law Center/Teaching Tolerance organization (http://www.splcenter.org/center/tt/teach.jsp), I had placed way too much hope in soon moving to Montgomery, AL. After an intensive interview and long wait, my hopes plummeted when I was not chosen. It took a call from a close friend in Denver to get me up and going again. Carolyn, knowing me well since the ninth grade, wasn’t afraid to give me a hard push. “Get up here and interview, NOW.” I immediately began setting up interviews on the way to, and in and around Denver, with public schools, private schools, and upon Karla’s encouragement, with the charter school where she was presently teaching, PS1.

Within days my truck rolled out of north Texas, bound for Colorado. First a stop in Taos to visit Mary, another close friend and soccer crony from college days. Might as well interview on the way I had thought, so I talked to the high school principal there, finding myself unexpectedly walking out of the school in the midst of my interview while on my way to the department chair’s room. It clearly wasn’t the right place for me. Nancy wanted me to interview in Durango, so I did, but an instant migraine in the high school there propelled me on to Denver.

PS1 kept calling, for no apparent reason that I could fathom. Other more logical choices presented themselves in Denver, but the creative yet crazy environment of PS1 kept my interest. A charter school – I hadn’t yet done that. The students and staff there piqued my curiosity. Karla was interviewing for the principal position, and I held out hope of working with her. I knew from experience that working with a strong, visionary principal offered an experience like no other. I was bumping 50 at the end of an amazing sabbatical year and it was time for something different.

Soon after the penciled contract, I attended the end-of-the-year PS1 staff party. I was the only new hire for the following school year at the party, and over half of the school’s teachers from previous years were leaving, and celebrating heartily. During some formal announcements, the advisor/teacher that I would soon be replacing stood when his name was announced, walked intentionally into the pool, crossed its width, got out dripping wet, and gave a full body hug to the person handing him some award for his years of teaching performance, never blinking an eye. Performance is the key word here; this guy was a regular Robin Williams, and I was going to be taking his place. I was going to be taking his place? I sat beside the pool in the intense mile high sun, watched, wondered, and hoped against all hope that I would survive the coming year.

By September my new advisees were revolting. Who was this Texas talkin', due-date-settin' English teacher that wouldn’t let them take smoking breaks like their previous advisor, and who certainly didn’t make them laugh like he had? They were crazy mad, and I came home daily feeling like a worn-out punching bag that had been swinging from the ridiculously high ceilings in the old warehouse environment that was PS1. Karla, indeed the principal, encouraged me to hold steady, saying the tide would soon turn.

We made it through that fall with the devastating experience of 9/11, students learning to actually edit their final pieces and turn in work closer to due dates, and parent/student/teacher conferences where I sat speechless as a few parents and their student/teen complained loudly and bitterly about my style and expectations. I carefully listened, patiently stood my ground in some areas, and made some critical changes in others.

By winter break I was breathing more deeply, but late January changed that. One of my biggest resisters/turned ally committed suicide several days after storming out of the school during an attempted mediation between her and a friend. Although I frantically searched the streets and alleys for her that evening, she remained out of sight by all until slipping home several days later, carefully arranging the scene of her death, then consuming more cocaine in her small body than Chris Farley did with his suicide.

Rarely do people realize upon entering into the teaching profession how often they will need to handle intense, overwhelming grief that arises from the loss and absence of students they have come to care for deeply and sometimes love. I wept for Marna in classes, in the assembly held for her, at her memorial service, later at a park bench dedication, and alone at home for many a night. What, if anything, could I have done differently? Marna, who once walked straight into our advisement and stood on her head in the middle of the room. Yes, she got my attention. On Halloween, she dressed like an angel, complete with a halo and wings, but without a slip under her white gown. Someone pointed this out to her and she was mortified, until she slipped into the janitor’s closet, closed the door, and donned a long white plastic garbage bag as an undergarment. She emerged, always beautiful, and now confident and indeed looking very angelic. Hers was a strong and willful energy, who could replace bitter resistance and complaint with a tender acceptance and the sweetest of words. We felt a big, gaping hole in our advisement, our small school, and our hearts with her absence.

Goodness gracious, I recall hearing my southern granny say when terribly upset, just surprised, or simply frustrated. It could be that something awful happened, or that she burned a pan of biscuits. It didn’t matter. Goodness gracious! They always seemed like an odd couple to me, goodness and gracious, but over time have come to make complete sense. Oh, that goodness will hopefully come out of whatever present experience elicits the exclamation. And gracious, if only one can be just that for whatever might be there to learn during the most challenging times.

About a month after Marna’s death is when I went to visit my doctor. In retrospect, I understand how my body had handled all it was able to, and a valve was about to blow. Even the previous year of rest and sabbatical musings weren’t enough to prepare me for the intense experience of the ensuing year at PS1. I had no regrets, my choices had been clear. With intention I had opened myself up to a journey of exploration and growth, and life was now tossing me the strongest of warnings to slow down once again, and live carefully. “Move at the pace of guidance,” as one of my mentors counsels. Goodness gracious, I found myself saying, over and over, like a welcome prayer that helped me to keep my head and my heart intact, and allowed life, and my teaching, to stay on course.