I have made a commitment to three things: finding time for Blue Space (beach, sky), Green Space (earth, woods), and the responses I have to poets & writers. I seek to discover the art of being.
Today I feel surprisingly good. The giant question mark of yesterday is behind me. I have figured out how to set myself up for best productivity, as well as a schedule that fits. My energy is on high today because I took care of myself yesterday by doing the things that feed my heart and soul. This is quaranteaching, and it will have highs and lows. But that's okay.
Today I sat in a Zoom Writing Meeting with 16 other women from across the country.
A few weeks ago, this would have never crossed our mind, to pull this particular group together.
Now we know it is a necessity. Now we know how much we needed it.
During the variety of writing prompts we were given by our awesome facilitator, Laurie Kemp, I kept touching on pieces of grief. I kept having tears rise up in my eyes.
I kept tapping it down. I wasn't ready to be in that space, not quite yet.
But I knew it was coming.
After our two hours together, life went on. Around 6:30 I made dinner, listening to an old playlist I made back in 2009 on my iPod. I love revisiting these lists.
I put dinner in the oven, and then it arrived: the song that would make me cry. And it's message was clear. As I listened and cried, grieving what has already been lost, what is yet to be lost, I started thinking over and over... I didn't know.
I didn't know that every day I walked into my classroom I was walking into a field of gold.
I didn't know until that privilege was removed from my life.
When I began this #64Challenge project at the beginning of the school year, I thought I knew where I was heading. Boy, was I wrong!
Little by little, my sure path has disappeared. Now, in its place, is a whole new geography.
There is no map.
Today was about new pathways in leadership, teaching, understanding of my role, following the directions of others. It was a day of starting a lot of new things. It was about identifying the things I know, and what I have comfort with that is of value, and using those things to the carry me down the road.
When I read about the reading process, I learned about the new neural pathways that are formed as we read. Today, my neurons got quite a workout.
Today was not so much about feeling stressed -- my breathing was even, I didn't feel rattled. It was more about my brain getting a real workout.
By 4:30 I was dying to get to the floor, the speakers between my ears, and listen to some vinyl. This has become my new means of stress relief. It is grounding and meditating and discovering and remembering all at once, as I pull out old albums and give them a listen.
Today it was a progressive style rock band from 1971 Cleveland: Glass Harp. This was an album I obviously played a lot when I was 15, because I knew every stinking word! I got to the second last song, called "Garden" and heard these words that felt comforting:
The night is not forever
The sun will rise again
But when the night surrenders
The morrow will be our friend.
No one knows how long this "night" will last. But what I do know is I have a role to play with the children in my community. I commit to doing all in my power to find the best pathways through this terrain, mark the way, learn, and grow.
Yesterday we got an email telling us to be sure our desks and tops of our bookshelves were cleared off for deep cleaning while we are on break. I wrote back to my principal and asked if I had to clear my tables and countertop as well? I have a couple tables I use for staging my teaching materials and student supplies. My countertop contains my turn-in basket and book check-in/out materials.
Before waiting for a response, I began to find places for everything, not sure when I'd hear from Kelly.
To my surprise, she showed up. Came right to my classroom to help me.
That is a leader.
So sorry she will be retiring. Not likely to get another one like her before my career is over.
Ordinarily, I would be totally exhausted, crashed out, not willing to move.
But this year is different. I am full of energy. I'm committed to keeping my body moving, to get out in the sun and beautiful air, enjoy the last of this winter and the early days of Florida spring.
This past quarter was one of the easiest I've ever had. The curriculum I'm teaching, as well as the four creative writing classes, are keeping me from getting dragged down.
Then today, by happenstance, I took a slightly different pathway through my neighborhood. I didn't realize that I usually walk in the same direction in this particular section of our development. It struck me the minute I saw the yellow house with the purple door. Hmmm...I've never seen that before.
Then it was the frog menagerie:
The tall monkey pine, towering over every other tree and house. Noticed there were actually two of them in this area.
And my favorite, a lone yellow flowering tree. This is a tree I love here in Florida that only blooms in March. Unfortunately, most of them got destroyed in Irma.
What have I learned? It pays off to do things differently. My classes at school. My wardrobe. My walking patterns.
Inspired by David Kirby's "The Things I Can't Tell You."
I can't tell you what it must be
like to be a student these days
the constant online testing
and the expectation that
somehow an ice cream sandwich
is going to make you jump through
another hoop successfully
that if 10 classes aren't enough,
now you can take 12 oh yeah, and come to school earlier
because we need to raise
our standing, and it all depends on
you. I can't tell you what it
must be like to have a monthly
reminder that you can die in a
shooting and your life depends on
some kid who won't take these
things seriously. I can't tell you what
it's like to think a perfect day
involves nothing but video games,
the be-all and end-all of existence.
I can't tell you what it is like to have
my family crack apart, my father
disappear, my friend arrested for
threatening another kid on social media.
I can't tell you because as close
as I am, I will never be close enough.
And I can't say that's a disappointment.
The whole scenario is
scary and unstoppable.
I was going to wait on this, but once I typed up my poem, I decided not to wait.
This week we are doing Poetry Celebration. After a quarter of writing poems and publishing in a variety of ways, this week we read them out loud, cheer for each other, and eat brownies and cookies.
I gave the students a variety of video prompts to get them thinking. Sarah Kay "Hands." Lou Reed "Perfect Day." Joy Harjo "Remember." And this, the favorite, "Origin Story" performed by Sara Kay and Phil Kaye:
I have been trying to figure out what I would write and perform. Today I found inspiration from Joy Harjo, a poem called "Emergence."
Here is what I've written and plan on sharing with my class:
Inspired by Gary Snyder's poem "No Shadow." Originally written February 27.
I spent yesterday introducing the idea of nostalgia in writing odes. What has left a shadow? a remembrance? We talked about Sherman Alexi's "Ode to Mixtapes," and how it was about wooing a loved one. When I asked them how they let someone know they're interested, they replied with DM, sending a handwritten note, telling the person directly, or a lyric prank.
The idea of the lyric prank was interesting to me -- sending words of a song with no explanation. The person on the other end has to figure it out. I asked Who has used the lyric prank?
Johnny said he had. I asked him what song? He said, "I can't remember the title. It was an Elvis song."
I said, "Can't Help Falling in Love With You"?
His face lit up. "Yeah. That was the one."
I asked, Did it work?
And that was when the emotion exploded across his face. "Yeah. It worked."
So hard to believe it is almost spring break. I am not sure if it's the way things worked out with my classes and mix of students, or if it is simply because I'm in my 16th year, but it seems easier every day.
As long as I keep in touch with my spiritual side, I do well. I did fall off a couple weeks ago, and ended up being pretty crabby. With a couple of adjustments, it all smoothed out.
This "peaceful, easy feeling" has made it hard to come here and continue my challenge. I don't feel like analyzing anything. I just want the freedom of living my life with joy.
She is small in stature, but big in heart and humor.
Her first few poems were always about Shrek. I have outlawed her from writing anymore poems about the green swamp-dweller.
So, one day last week we did Crash and Burn (10 minutes of stream of consciousness writing), and she says, Hey, Ms. Sadler. I made a list of body part during crash and burn.
Cool, Amy. We will be getting into storywriting. Perhaps it will come in handy.
Tuesday she comes in and says, Hey Ms. Sadler. I wrote a poem over the weekend. It's about Jeffrey Dahmer.
Me (a bit surprised she knew who Jeffrey Dahmer was.)
She says, Will you read it?
So, I read it out loud to the class. It was about how Jeffrey would bring various body parts to school for show and tell, which culminating in his gruesome acts and the electric chair. The poem was full of her list of body parts, had beautiful rhyming, and was surprising and cool at the same time.
I cannot wait to see what happens when Amy gets into story writing next quarter. This is going to be good!
I began this year with such a crystal clear vision on how I was dedicating my teaching life to student mastery and creativity. And it worked for a several weeks. I was hyper-aware and making it happen and feeling the ups and downs of my new endeavor. I was keeping up with my challenge here, and feeling fully in my space as a writer and teacher.
Then the curriculum changes came. And my husband had a stroke. And my health took a turn for the better, which has actually taken some getting used to. I had a super busy January and February in my personal life. At school, I was getting used to the control needed to make four creative writing classes happen, along with trying some new things. The reading curriculum I am doing is decent -- I like it -- but I don't feel I have to think as hard about how I am doing things. It's all in the script. On top of that, I was finally invited to do a professional development at my school, so had to plan that.
Phew.
And its all a blur...really. I feel like I lost touch of some things. Like writing here, mostly, and my own personal blog. Most of my writing has been to create models for my writing students.
None of this is bad. Not at all. It is just so unusual to have a majority of a quarter go by and I don't have many touchstones. I'm feeling great and keeping up with eating better and exercise and seeing friends and reading, my lesson plans and general aims for my classes. And I'm sleeping super good.
Flying through my days, some light, some dark...
Still...something is different about how I'm moving through my days that is leaving me fuzzy. Nothing much stands out to me.
(I know this probably makes absolutely no sense.)
Nine days until spring break, and I know exactly what I'm doing with all the classes. There is some kind of tidiness in that. One that perhaps I'm just not used to?
Is it a blur because I'm more organized, more aware in the moment?
Maybe I don't need to be looking back to know it happened. Or to have documented it all.
