Escaping Tunnel Vision

 

In June, I began reading the book pictured above that was on the New York Times Bestseller list, with the idea that there would things to implement in my classroom. Needless to say, my life got interrupted and I only recently got back to it. I decided to keep reading it for my own sake, rather than my students’, and I’m glad I did.

In his book, Grant takes us through all the ways we think in shallow ways, or make arguments that don’t work, or lean toward our own biases. He talks about concepts like challenge teams and motivational interviewing, which caught my attention. His approach is easy to follow, with great examples, and lots of graphics.

I picked up the book once I got home from the hospital, and eventually I was taking it to read when I visited Jim since he was mostly sleeping. The text energized me and made me think in new ways.  I credit it with helping me through the difficult decisions I had to make regarding Jim’s care. It has caused me to turn to people to help me think things through, something I don’t think I typically did enough, unless it was with Jim.

The other night I woke to go to the bathroom, and found I was having a hard time getting back to sleep. I decided to finish the last 20 pages of the book. One of the chapters was called “Escaping Tunnel Vision.” There were two quotes that I ended up marking.

I realized that for years, I have been living a kind of tunnel vision, and for a very good reason. My husband was ill, and in a very slow decline, and it was demanding more of me — more of my time, energy, worry, and anxiety. I had gotten to the point I thought I would never want to travel again, that doing something just for fun seemed long ago and far away. I think this was preying on my mind more than I knew. I just thought it was where I was in life — but now I see it was the situation, not necessarily who I had become.

The tunnel vision was necessary, don’t get me wrong. I had to put first things first, and I will never regret I did. And now I am thankful I had this book in hand to help me see my way out.

Reading the last few chapters was exhilarating. Here were two important quotes to me:

At work and in life, the best we can do is plan for what we want to learn and contribute over the next year or two, and stay open to what might come next. 

Our identities are open systems, and so are our lives.. We don’t have to stay tethered to old images of where we go or who we want to be. The simplest way to start rethinking our options is to question what we do daily.

I believe Adam Grant has provided a blueprint for me as I forge a new life without my husband and enter retirement. A lot of people ask if I will sub, and my immediate response is NO. It feels like “been there, done that.”

I have felt for a long time, and REALLY feel now, that there is something else waiting for me. Something that will be fulfilling in a new way. I have no idea what it is, but since Jim’s passing and finishing this book, I feel like I have escaped the tunnel. And I don’t think this is disrespectful to Jim. If I know him — and I do — he is cheering for me from the other side.

On Saying Yes, Part 3 (Finding Refuge)

On Monday I read Mary Oliver's essay called "Some Thoughts on Whitman." This is the one that brought everything together for me.

Mary focuses heavily on Leaves of Grass, spotlighting "Song of Myself," which is his most notable poem. Most people recognize these words:

I celebrate myself

And what I assume you shall assume

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

 

For years, I've looked at this poem as a celebration of the individual. And isn't that the way it is always promoted?

 

But I saw it reflective of Thich Nhat Hanh:

 

I take refuge in the Buddha.

The Buddha takes refuge in me.

 

These words Mary offered on Whitman's writing resonated for me:

 

Out-circling, interest, sympathy, empathy, transference of focus from self to all else; the merging of the lonely single self with the wondrous, never-lonely entirety.

 

Noting all these things in my journal, I came to a much needed revelation:

The practice of staying connected to everything has been calming.

I do not feel alone. That is huge.

Just a few days earlier I expressed how alone I felt. But I'm not feeling that now.

*

Yesterday I spent a few hours with Jim at the cancer center while he got his chemo. Last time I was there, I felt stressed and alien. I looked at other people there, listened to them, and felt I was in a strange lonely world. 

But yesterday was totally different. I felt the healing environment. I felt connected to the people there, not separated. The people we communicated with were positive and alive and present. 

 

And it didn't feel lonely.

I've let this experience in, which is what I needed to do.

*

Mary concludes her comments about Whitman with this:

Brawn and spirit, we are built of light and God is within us.

If I have to say anything about the moment I am living in, it is that. 

 

Unifying the light and dark is the best way I can describe it. 

 

Scared and lonely has no place in the refuge of God.

Without judgment or avoidance, I say a clear and resounding YES to this calling, this emergence, this never-lonely entirety.

The Women

I've been hearing of novelist Kristin Hannah for years, but it wasn't until this book I decided to make her a priority. My friend Laurie sent it to me after a short text discussion about being on long list at the local library to get the book in hand. It is already number one on the New York Times Bestseller list, and I am so glad I got to read it so shortly after its release.

The story follows a young woman in mid-1960s California who voluntary signs up to be an Army nurse and is sent to Vietnam. It is trial by fire for this woman, as she is there during the escalation of the war, and the events such as the Tet Offensive. Much of the book takes place after her return from Vietnam, and what she encounters, and how life takes many drastic turns.

I appreciated that Hannah's research into this time gives it the accurate feeling I remember about that time. I lived in a world where the war was regularly shown on television, and as a middle-schooler during the time of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, I was well-aware of the feelings about the war. The generation gap was a real thing, but as an admirer of Kennedy, I believed in his stance against the war. Years later I would learn MLK was speaking out against it as well, which was creating new enemies for him.

 

My dad's cousins were drafted, and came back changed men. PTSD is real, and they had many struggle which affected them the rest of their lives.

The war loomed in my high school years as well, as the draft threatened my brother and the young men I knew. All though out The Women, Hannah gets these details right. The way she describes the general feelings of the nation, especially young people, rings true to me. This goes right up to the Peace Accord of 1973 -- the year I graduated from high school. I remember we all knew that the agreement had been made and there was quite a party on New Years Eve 1972 when we felt free of the yoke of Vietnam.

 

The sad part is that the Vietnamese kept fighting, and the war didn't officially end for them until The Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. Sadly, that was right after my little brother died, and I wasn't even aware of what happened on that day until three years later in a movie theater when I was watching a film called Coming Home, the first of many films about the war and the aftermath.

 

*

The Women ends in 1982 when the memorial in Washington D.C. was dedicated for the 58,220 American lives lost, called The Wall.

 

I first visited The Wall in Washington D.C. by myself in September 1990 when I was in town for a conference. But it would be 1993 when it would take on even greater meaning for me.

In 1992 I met my friend Iris, and in January of 1993 her son took his life. We became fast friends after that. Iris is seven years older than I am, and had served in the Air Force during the time of the Vietnam War, although she never went there. She is a veteran of those times, so when we visited Washington D.C. in November 1993 for a conference, the monuments took on a more significant meaning than just my coming-of-age memories.

 

We drove to D.C. on November 11, 1993 (Veterans Day), and that day was significant because the Women's Memorial had been dedicated that day, giving recognition to the ones that were so often forgotten. (A common refrain in the novel is the many times the main character heard There were no women in Vietnam. In fact, there were over 10,000, eight who lost their lives.)

We had not been able to get tickets for the opening event at the conference, so that gave us the morning to visit the monuments. Given that it was Veterans Day Weekend, the mall were very busy, and we felt like something so large and significant. The amount of decorations was mind-boggling.

It was the Women's Memorial that took our breath away. The emotion on the faces is something to behold. I remember how much we wanted to just stay there and talk to people, and just BE. It was a gorgeous morning, and the timing was perfect.

 

 

On the back of the photograph below I had written that the man's name is Leroy and he was part of the Walk of the Warriors. He was having vets sign his flag, and Iris was happy to do so. (As an aside, this is the gift of good old photographs...I would not even remember what this was about if it wasn't written on the back of the photo.)

I looked up Walk of the Warriors and learned it was ignited by the Navajo Veterans Administration to honor their vets, in particular their women, and was timed for the dedication of the monument. Read more here.

I highly recommend everyone read The Women to understand more deeply what happened during that time, and why I continue to pray for peace as the real resolution to the problems of the world. And if nothing else, while reading it you will certainly be entertained by the celebrated storyteller that is Kristin Hannah.

Strange Synchronicity

 Over the past couple of weeks, I've been reading a book called The End of Summer by John Lowry Lamb. I learned of this book through childhood classmates. John was in my class at St. Mark's from first through fifth grade, and had recently passed from a heart attack. He had published this book in 1995 and it appears to be his only published work.

 

The book itself is a bit somber, focusing exclusively on a 12-year-old boy whose parents die in an automobile accident. The narrative takes us into the thoughts and experiences of Nick, as he grapples with losses in his life.

What struck me most about the book was personal. That is, I found myself paying attention to his writing and the things he referred to along the way. For example, John Kennedy. We were in class together the day JFK was shot.

Beyond that, I think of the fact that he and I had the same writing instruction, the same teachers. Maybe this is a "writerly" thing, but I couldn't help it. He learned the way I learned, writing papers with a fountain pen, diagramming sentences, outlining textbook chapters.

The End of Summer has a fairly satisfying ending, and immediately afterward I went into my studio to get some things done on my computer. I picked a legal pad that had been sitting on my computer table for quite some time. I don't know why I suddenly noticed or cared to investigate at that moment a folded up page that was folded and clipped to the pad. I had--and still have--no recollection of why it was stored that way.

I opened it up and found a piece of writing, I assume from me since I tried searching lines and came up blank. I'm thinking it was some kind of exercise, and perhaps I thought I'd be revising it.

At any rate, I was rather stunned when I reached the end. This is the entire piece, which I will admit doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, especially because it feels like it picks up in the middle of something, but this is all I have:

Stopped to notice

the filtered sun

was like a pillow

 

I thought maybe it would

make the bleeding stop ---

a gold strand reached down

 

I sent letters of

unexpected love

but I found they just prick and sting

 

Then, the most

eloquent music

in the still night

 

Then I knew in the lavender light

It was the wistful end of summer

 

 

 

Fearful Heart, Silent Voice

 #DearParker

Response to "The Student from Hell"

Quotes from the text:

The way we diagnose our student's condition will determine the kind of remedy we offer. (42)

Our assumption that students are brain-dead leads to pedagogies that deaden their brain. (42)

The silent and seemingly sullen students in our classrooms are not brain-dead: they are full of fear. (45)

Their silence is born not of stupidity or banality but of a desire to protect themselves and survive. (46)

I try to teach their fearful hearts, and when I am able to do so, their minds come along as well. (47)

Behind their fearful silence, our students want to find their voices, speak their voices, have their voices heard. (47)

A good teacher is one who can listen to those voices even before they are spoken...making space...being aware...paying attention...honoring...not rushing...no coercion...empathy. (47)

Dear Parker,

Here is an aspect that is so real to me, yet has often escaped me in the wake of competing demands.  I'm getting this message from more than one direction -- the idea of the fear a student carries into the classroom experience being paramount in their minds, and how it colors all their actions. My mode of operation has often been to placate the fear -- not necessarily focus on moving them beyond it. If they say they don't want to talk or read out loud,  I say okay. Yet, at the end of last year I started to think I'm not serving them, and began to gently push in some areas. Since then I've found a few ways we can consistently do things to move this process along. Now that I'm embracing the idea of their fear informing everything, this has surged to the forefront of importance. 

 I know fear isn't limited to them. I have my own series of fears that show up. I'll be addressing that as well!

I spent a good part of last year afraid of some of my students and because of that, I was unable to reach the rest. It was painfully awful. I first saw their attitudes as armor, as Brene Brown says, and that was true. But it wasn't easy to figure out how to get past the armor.

Thinking of it as FEAR -- False Evidence Appearing Real--I believe I can get beyond it. It makes it more a common, singular emotion, rather than several different. Young people come in not knowing if they can be successful, if they will have a voice, if they are good enough. They carry with them any failures from the past that brought them down. They internalize the negatives. My job is to gently move them forward, chipping away at fear through the right combination of activities and time. The most productive direction from the Day One. Building a classroom community to support them wherever they are, one of mutual dependence -- the balance of everyone doing their part. I can honestly say, it hasn't been like that the past couple of years.

Time will tell. But in the meantime, I am going to keep this in the upper part of my mind as I enter the next school year.

hms