Clarity

   I have an issue with this.  

   When I was a young teacher, my administrator’s critique more than once was my clarity. They wanted me to put things like “teaching points” on the board at the beginnings of lessons. They wanted this so that they, and students could better know where I was going and judge me on how fast and efficiently I got there.

   I have to admit, much of my issue with this criticism had to do with the way I liked my lessons to unfold. 

   Fellow teachers know, you’re never teaching one thing. We teach with our lessons, yes. We also teach with our management, our character, our attention. We are differentiating for every individual and much of that has to do with that individual. I can do a dance for the ADHDers, I can fold in the complexities for my gifted to descry. I can redirect to emotional stability my bullies while supporting my bullied. And I can teach some societal point dreamed up by the latest Bill Gates for its utility.

   That’s teaching.  

   You can teach only what you grasp 95% of.  

   So here’s why this matters here:

   If you're reading this you likely know me. That alone is your investment. Maybe we’re friends, or family. Maybe we’re coworkers or ex-coworkers.  Maybe we’ve never even met in person, but this place is my workspace. If I ask you here it’s to share. The pool of readers is rapidly decreasing in this world, so good on you if you’re here and trying. Hopefully, I’m able to give you back something of value.

   But let me be clear, I’m not aiming for clarity. If you aren’t sure where I’m going with this, know in the very least this now, you are not alone. I don’t either!

   I’m obsessed with weirdly particular nuances. I’m inundated by the consequences of my own choices.  I’m also probably the happiest person I know. And I’m literally laughing out loud right exactly right now.

   I started this blog 16 years ago when my kid called me “Daddy” and it struck me funny. Now it’s just a place I’ve grown comfortable playing in. I spent almost a lifetime pissed off over the burden of having to wear a bra. I started off lost, vulnerable, and slow. And now I’m an NYCer without the patience for 3 seconds of anything I’m not 100% invested in. I viscerally “get” the touch and go.

   Thing is, I’ve read many of the primary sources used in eastern and western philosophy. I know the Bible. I’ve jumped out of planes and I’ve swam in the open ocean surrounded by wild sharks. I’ve come for Adrienne Rich’s wreck and not the story of the wreck. But I’m not here to teach what I know nobody really knows. I like the questioning. I welcome the uncertainty. I know that’s where all good begins.

   My point is that this has become a roller coaster. I grab from here a publish other places, or just post in here anything I feel like polishing but not leaving in a journal. I’d love comments but recognize that not everyone wants to leave one or can figure out how (fyi if you have advice on that a comment on how to comment is more than welcome!) but don’t expect a teaching point here. Right now, I’m on vacation.

Ghosts in the Attic

   It’s very difficult to talk about death. We are all in different places of our trajectory of dealing with its stark reality. On one hand, there’s often much to process. On the other, it can be a slippery slope into the past - which in a very real sense - doesn't even exist. 

   This back and forth between melancholy and anxiety or past and future feels like being rocked in a cradle by the universe. We can add to the momentum until we make ourselves dizzy, or we can relax, let go and just dream.

   My wife’s family has been grappling with some reconnections, complicated evolutions, and delicate boundaries lately. It’s not often easy for me to know my place. But it’s summer so Amy and I, while still busy, have more time and energy than we’ve had in a while.

   - At least, that’s what I thought when she put up such little resistance to my father-in-law’s request to visit yesterday. It’s not that they don’t visit often, but her willingness to commit was unusual. And I’m in summer mode finally and all about putting up as little resistance as possible to life.

   I have been asking if there really is life after death. It hasn’t been a deep inquiry, just a ‘what’s next in the agenda’ kind of thing. See if you can follow what happened.

   Yesterday during the visit with my in-laws my father-in-law seemed brighter than usual; brave, and talkative. He - and I cannot stress this enough - very unusually started sharing some recent memories about is son, my brother-in-law’s, passing. That was when my mother-in-law told me about a dream she’d had of her estranged sister.  Apparently, she saw her sister standing with her husband in front of their old home welcoming my mother-in-law in. She described meeting her sister’s eyes in a way they hadn’t in years and how vivid the dream had seemed. It suddenly washed over me what it was time to do. I had been sitting on news of her sisters’ passing that I hadn’t time to figure out how to properly deliver. It has been years since they spoke, since they lost touch, and since my mother-in-law had started getting the inclination to go find both her sisters. The last time they had discussed this I’d begun looking into where they were and had found that they’d all passed away seemingly just after quarantine. Was this her sister’s way of reminding me and assuring me this would be a good time to let my mother-in-law know? I wasn’t sure, and was reluctant for a number of reasons, but, when the moment seemed light and right, I did. My mother-in-law took the news gently and seemed accepting of the message (which I believe has to do with how clear things look from that side). In the end, I’m glad it happened the way it did. Even with all the complication, it felt miraculously easy and carried so many other assurances with even if just for the fact that it all felt so meant to be.

   Last night, I had this dream. I was a child in a house I knew to be mine, but I sensed something in the attic. I was assured it was my imagination.
   Then I was older. I heard the noises again in the attic - there was a familiarity. I’d explored more of it and it seemed similar to a house my wife and I used to rent. My mother-in-law was there gazing up at the attic with a smile. I found a door to a hallway that seemed like an apartment we used to rent and it lead outside to a house I lived in as a teen (I was really undulating around my life!) I suddenly saw the people in the attic. They stood, but looked pale and dead. A man, a woman and a younger female child. I asked if they were dead and was told they weren’t, they’d just forgotten to breathe.
   I told them to. They did, and came crashing into my room above my bed where I still was with my mother-in-law, but there was no mess. I was my own age, not scared and almost amused when they all got up and gently left.

   Kinda fitting right?

   Guess I got my answer.

Honest pet peeves, coincidences of infinitesimal probabilities, and a GPS for this universe.

 Pet peeves.  We all have them.  Some people hate when walkers or drivers are proceeding slowly or stopping in front of them. Some people get visibly infuriated if you accidentally bound in somewhere others are coming out of like a subway car or an elevator.  Some people leave dishes in the sink to “soak.” Some people don’t like exposed feet.

   I have a few.  And they’re coming to my attention and they don’t seem healthy.  I am not honestly recording my best self here.  I am however, honestly recording.  Having made some difficult decisions lately to refocus my own energy and honor my own time and space more attentively, I can feel things flowing even more than usual.  And that right now feels right, and fun, so as my youngest would say, “trus.”

   But like when someone repeats… I mean look, I’m a teacher.  Repetition is everything to a teacher. I get it.  I live it.  And maybe that’s part of it.  What peeves me about it is when I got it, and I know you know I got it.  Because repetition is important in teaching, but it can also be a kind of filler.  It’s like clearing your throat to give yourself time to think while gripping the mic with both hands.

   We use repetition in teaching to reinforce, comfort, support, ease… to give each other space to get comfortable.  It’s the settling in before the real push of rigor and challenge.  I used to have a problem with this (I still do!)  My administrators would sometimes criticize my clarity and ask for teaching points to be spelled out.  But I like newness.  I like surprise.  I actually long a little for spontaneity.  Life has enough repetition to my mind.  Still, I have learned that not everyone is always paying attention (indeed hardly anyone in any given moment really is!) and repetition is necessary to call back, remind, lay foundations, and realistically manage expectations.

   My oldest has autism.  Earlier today we leaned a little on this to navigate a little bit of that.  Actually feels a little meant to be all things considered.  I was driving home from work today when I thought of an old friend.  It is with real gratitude that can convey the speed with which this thought lent itself to a phone call, which connected us within minutes - more than just our voices!   My friend happened to be about a minute behind me on the very highway I was taking home.  This is despite the 3-4 hours or 150 miles regularly between us, and 5 months or so since we’d even last spoken.  He and his family were coincidentally traveling down to see his parents who happened to live on the other side of Long Island from me.  But he and I hadn’t even met on Long Island.  We met up near the Canadian border decades ago at school.  We’d stayed in touch, yes, thanks to modern technology.  But I had never even yet met his 6 year old daughter!

   The coincidence of my thinking of him, honoring that intuitive hit, minutes before his passing so geographically close was felt by so many more people than just us for so many other reasons.  I’d literally been texting another friend minutes before expressing a longing for a real coincidence to share.  I mean I like coincidences, and I have begun to really feel an ease through life managing gratitude with transparency, expecting coincidences feels a but new.  But burdens and stresses seemed to release as a result of this one story.  We actually all joined for dinner this evening almost out of respect for just how coincidental this was.  Now my friend believes that it’s arrogant to believe some god or the universe cares whether we met or where we eat dinner, and perhaps he’s right.  And my kids always think I’m hippy dippy… But there’s a truth and a process that really mattered here.  I think it is a GPS.

   So my kid - the one with autism - had this day uniquely free.  It’s been months for him of daily school toils, test preps, Tae Kwon Doh events, proms and Bat Mitzvahs.  He’s had responsibilities to attend to every single day throughout this last term of his junior year.  It has been a lot but he’s handled it all. Emerging with his nearly perfect GPA, honors and art shows, most never even see his real struggles and triumphs.

   However, he’s a grounded, funny, but routine oriented kid so that when I mentioned this story and my friend and brought up a possible spontaneous dinner plan - I could see my son was rattled.  I tried to head it off by suggesting a place nearby that he likes.  I gave him the “out” even though he knew I wanted him to come and meet my friend and his family.  I helped him manage his anxieties and conveyed my expectations.  We discussed all of this on the way to the restaurant beforehand.  

   What followed was a beautiful dinner, a lively conversation, a solid positive memory, and a tasty meal shared with new connections.  Practiced honesty, honored intuition, a coincidence that felt like a conversation with divinity, and happy, boisterously shared evening.  We all have pet peeves when we think we want to be somewhere we haven’t gotten to yet.  Or when we’re made to feel discomfort. But what if we embrace exactly where we are exactly while we’re here as riddled as we are with imperfections as we all always are at any given moment?  What might we find and who might this afford us opportunities to share ourselves with?

   In other words…

   …another pet peeve.  Some of my best people lean on this one and its power over me likely drives my insanity, but when someone drops this little phrase it pings my ADHD like a doozy.  I start spiraling with this cyclical internal dialogue that goes something like ‘in other words?  Did I ask for other words?  Were you not satisfied with the first words you chose?  When someone uses this I feel they are again gripping the mic which… I guess is exactly what I’m doing here.

   So, here I am looking for space to speak, to exist, to express.  Maybe to hope that someday someone will listen, (or at least read) this blog.  I could do this in a journal but the Net offers just a little more transparency somehow.  I explain this away on the basis that I was orphaned, like every Disney story worth its weight and indeed Disney himself.  But I know this because people write books and movies about Disney.  Nobody’s writing about me but me!  LOL

   But what if the reason I’m not interested in other words is telling.  What if I really need to assess my investment in the first words?  Or what if you do?  Maybe I ought to stop looking in this direction habitually and turn to see if there are other things to let in?  There are lots of changes I’ve made recently and I’ve noticed others around me making daily.  There are stresses I’ve felt responsible to attend to, but maybe thats just the old illusion of control?  Maybe I really need to put my money where my mouth is, and trus that whatever I care about but let go of, will be ok.

   But anything worth preserving should grow from honesty - for better or worse.  It should weave from the personal and stretch to the universal.  We are, after all, universally struggling with imperfection, and perceived separateness. If there is a God, we might be a part of Them or if we are gods then we might remember why, but in the end it’s connection that redeems us all.  And that connection requires fallibility, vulnerability, forgiveness and support.  It requires all these things, over and over.  In other words, look, live, laugh, love, trus.  Then rinse.  Then learn.  

   Then repeat.