Looking Forward

I appear to be at a point in my life where everything is pointing toward the future. For the first time I am thinking seriously about saving for the end of my career. Retirement is looming just off the horizon. At home I am cultivating a more natural environment with native plants in the yard and thoughts of planting for food in place of flowers. This is a frame of mind that demands planning not just sustaining what is already there. But more than any other aspect of my life, future dominates my thoughts of family. I am becoming a grandmother and it really does change the way you think about yourself and the world. A child on the way is the belief that we as a society are going to figure things out, that we believe there will be a nurturing community that will grow this baby with love into adulthood. I vividly recall these thoughts from 32 years ago. People say odd things to pregnant women and I recall several people telling me that they wouldn't "want to be bringing a child into this world today." It must have been Cold War talk but by the time Maria and Dave came into being I had rationalized that every generation must say that and it meant nothing. I knew that love would keep them save. Being a mother was the most incredible thing that I ever did. To this day I believe with my whole heart that they are the best thing that ever happened to me. As they got older and I knew that my work was done, I relaxed into my life and realized that no matter what happened from here on in I would always know that I had seen the best. There couldn't be anything better than witnessing the growth of babies into real people. It was just such an amazing thing to be a part of. I distinctly remember telling my parents after my son's high school graduation that if I died today, it would be fine. I had done everything I wanted to do. They, of course did not agree with that idea and I am just now beginning to understand why. I know that nothing will ever compare to being a mother but I am just starting to process what becoming a grandmother will bring to my life. It is definitely a swing of the head toward the future. Suddenly I have no issues with taking sick days for baby shower preparations and helping after Baby Girl comes home from the hospital. Everything falls into place. School takes on more of a feeling of work and loses the power that it has exerted over my life for the past 20 years. I still love my job but everything is suddenly different. All thoughts and plans for the immediate future are centered around the birth in April, hanging out with the new family this summer, everything that is to be. I want to see it all. I want to see Mama Maria and Daddy Bill with their hearts open wide holding that bundle of joy and knowing that they will never ever be the same again. I want to see her smile and laugh and walk and talk. I want to see her Uncle Dave melt into her and I want to see her Grandpa Ralph discover once again the joy that life holds. I want to meet her and know her and be important to her. I want to read with her and garden with her. My thoughts go from cuddling with this tiny baby to playing in the park, to baking cookies together to Easter egg hunts. One morphs into the other just like memories of my own children's happy times blend one into the other. Perhaps it is because at this point in life we know how quickly it all passes by that I don't want to miss a moment of it. I am focused on the future right now but somewhere around the middle of April that will all change and I'll be all about the moment that the CGs introduce Baby Girl to her world. We will laugh and cry and shout for joy and no one will ever be the same again.

A Very Welcome Break

Last week was a rough one. Behavior in the classroom got worse and worse as the days went on. Thursday I wrote my first referral. If I were to be completely honest I would say that it actually made me feel better. When a kid yells at a teacher at 8:15 in the morning, you know that you're off to a bad start. So writing a synopsis of what just happened and knowing that the VP gets to handle what happens next is slightly cathartic. The reality is that although I pride myself on being a Love and Logic teacher, there comes a point when love isn't making it anymore and all that's left is the logic and the consequences of your behavior. I was extremely pleased when 2:54 rolled around on Friday afternoon. I didn't actually run out of the building but I was pretty motivated to get those spelling scores in the grade book and be on my way to meet my friend to share our favorite chardonay.

This is my favorite break of the year because there is no holiday surrounding it. So it is just a time to breathe. On day 2 I already feel so much better. I am amazed at how other jobs and activities can be so rewarding. You can actually see what you accomplished. Teaching just doesn't lend itself to sitting back and looking at what you just did. My weekend thoughts have been filled with things like "Hey I cleaned out that closet! Doesn't it look great? "I pulled those weeds and you can actually see brown between the green now. Amazing." No, in teaching we are so time oriented that we just go from one chaotic event to the next. About the best I can do these days is reflect on how much better my lesson went for the second class than it did for the first. Well, that's something.

My weekly schedule is generally jam packed and starts every day at 7:30 with a before school reading class and ends at 4:00 with correcting, entering grades and preparations for the next day. It is amazing how quickly I can switch gears. My agenda for this week looks something like this:
Meet friends for coffee
Meet friends for lunch
Dentist appointment for teeth cleaning
Toyota recall appointment
Help my daughter move out of her classroom
Make final preparations for her baby shower
Breathe!

I Don't Even Know What I Don't Know

Year 1.6 and counting.

I am more than half way through my 2nd year in middle school and am so often taken by surprise of what I still don't even recognize as holes in my knowledge. On one hand I don't want to be too hard on myself but on the other I feel like I really need to figure it out pretty darn quick if I hope to make a difference in these kids' lives. Moving from primary to middle school is a huge jump on so many levels. The biggest difference is the information that is forthcoming from students. Primary kids dump everything in your lap, even things you don't want to know and you actually try to dissuade them from telling you. Middle school students keep everything, and I mean everything hidden away and locked up with a swallowed key.

I feel like this week has been another "AHA" moment. We started the week with the latest fad of "I Love Boobies" bracelets. I was astounded to discover that the ring leader at our school was a girl and firmly backed by her mother, filmed on the news saying that it was simply a "fun" way to beat breast cancer. How much fun is it for developing girls who already have self image issues to endure the torment of boys yelling "I Love Boobies" in their faces? What is the message being sent? It is far from the goal of ending breast cancer.

Event #2 was coming to face to face with the decision not to teach READ 180 next year. For some reason I couldn't get the woman in charge to understand my perspective on the curriculum, testing data, student identification or the fact that I hardly know what I'm doing with the "regular" kids let alone the mixture of characters that have been placed in my care with the directive, teach them to read. I wouldn't say that I feel like a failure but the word inept certainly comes to mind.

The crowning blow was a discussion we had at our team meeting about a student who is for the most part checked out in all of her classes. To me, she had the mannerisms of a pretty severely learning disabled student who has learned to just say nothing. After several minutes of discussion the VP said as simply as can be, she just appears to be a typical abuse victim. What?! What?! Is that what abuse looks like in middle school. Huh? No, I really don't know what I don't know.

Every day I learn. Last year I learned about failure and that it was the student's decision to fail or succeed. It wasn't about me at all and there was absolutely nothing I could do to change the outcome. I'm miles ahead of where I was a year ago in that department. This year is all about the why of failure. I know I'm starting to get it but it is very very humbling.

“The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,”

J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivers her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association.

Text as delivered follows.
Copyright of JK Rowling, June 2008



President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.

The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this.

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.

These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.

Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension. I know that the irony strikes with the force of a cartoon anvil, now.

So they hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown.

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.

So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working at the African research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to speak against their governments. Visitors to our offices included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had left behind.

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him back to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just had to give him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard, and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, people who have been kind enough not to sue me when I took their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.

So today, I wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
I wish you all very good lives.
Thank you very much.

Am I Becoming My Grandmother

Looking at this picture, it is still hard for me to believe that this beautiful cake came out of my kitchen. It all began a few nights ago when I was pondering my team partner's birthday and was in a bit of a quandary about what sort of cake to bake. She gave me a few suggestions and off I went on my internet search. What did I ever cook before the internet? When I first saw this gorgeous thing on line it looked completely out of my league. But the more I searched and reflected on the meaning of real food and the connection between food and friendship, the more I began to think that it was doable, even on a school night. And so it came into being.

The instant I poured that chocolate glaze over the peanut butter frosting, and my hand guided the spatula over the edge of the cake creating that waterfall of decadence, something came to life inside me. I didn't know what it was going to taste like but I somehow knew it was going to be heavenly and that I would be changed by it.

I have always been a good cook, not great but good. I've always attributed it to the fact that I am basically a rule follower. Give me a recipe and I will follow it. I'm not one of those people who adapt or tweak them, I just do what it says. Lately a few things have happened to make me reevaluate my abilities as a cook. #1 I have become known at Buchser as an excellent baker. It was funny at the beginning because that was simply never how I was defined at any other school. Someone else had that role. I was always a part of a group that shared recipes and talked cooking but I was never at the top of the list. Last year I laughed about it but this year it is a more serious mantle that I might now be ready to take on. #2 While my sister was in the hospital with her hip replacement last summer we were chatting with our favorite nurse. She asked which of us was the best cook and my sister immediately responded that I was. Once again I laughed at this because I just had never thought of myself as a better cook than my big sister. I have also recently had a few conversations with my daughter and mother about my great love of Thanksgiving dinner and the important role that my grandmother has played in my life. I still think she is one of the most amazing cooks that ever lived. I would give almost anything to eat one of her dinners just one more time.

This morning I woke up and one of the first thoughts in my head was that amazing cake. I just can't wait to make it again. I laughed it away and then began to think about how my view of myself as a cook is changing. It is an evolving vision. By the time I got through my morning routine the thought had moved from that cake to asking myself, am I becoming my grandmother? I quickly laughed this off as well. I don't ever remember seeing my grandmother take a bite of her own cake and moan, yes moan, about how good it was. I clearly have a long way to go before I achieve "Grandma" status.

Analyzing Hope

A new question has arisen. From whence does hope come? How do we give birth to it, grow it and somehow sustain it indefinitely? Why are some people filled with it while others seem to be left with none? I used to label teachers as positive or negative but now I see it is something much deeper. We who live in hope are those who believe that kids and their parents can change and those who seem to be without hope have become calloused to the miracles, the big ones and the little ones that simply start with today.

I have a student who I have been with for 3 years now and yet I remain ever hopeful. There is no way I can explain that except to say that that is why I do what I do. How could I possibly do this job day in and day out if I didn't believe that kids can change, if I didn't believe that what I do and say matter? The amusing part is it doesn't take much for me to grow the seed of hope in my heart. All I need is a smile, a raised hand, a picked up pencil, a completed assignment. That's all! The rest will come on its own.

And why are others so sure that the miracle will not and cannot happen? Perhaps it is just what they choose to look at and focus upon. They concentrate on the accumulation of days when assignments have been left blank rather than this moment when because a circle of adults showed they cared, it changed. They see the few that have failed rather than the thousands that have thrived.

I am thankful that I do my job within the embrace of hopefulness. On Monday I will again do all in my power to get a smile, a raised hand, a picked up pencil, a completed assignment. I know that it may or may not happen but I also know that it is the possible. That is hope, believing in the possible.

180 Days is Plenty!

Today I started the second half of my second year with a fascinating student. More often than not, as that child walked out of my room last year, I could be seen shaking my head, wondering what just happened. I chalked it up to it being my first year in middle school and not really understanding what these organisms really were. I looked forward to a second chance with this student. Year 2 meant there was a paper trail. And the 7th grade teachers did everything you would want them to do - asked questions, held meetings, set goals. The student was put on medication and I was ever hopeful. Well, once again, as this kid walked out of my room this morning, I was shaking my head. So I guess, one year is probably enough.

Thoughts Rumbling Around

I am fascinated by how individual thoughts rumble around inside my head. Sometimes they inadvertently find each other and come together to form a new and deeper perception of the world around me. But sometimes an event way outside of my own little world propels them into each other, creating a massive collision and I have no alternative but to wake up and pay attention.

Last weekend a friend and I were having a typically light-hearted conversation about how in our teaching experiences the good kids don't seem to rub off on the bad ones but the opposite often does occur. There's something about the socialization of young children, that if you have a group of well-behaved 4 or 5 year-olds and insert one not so well behaved, the angels will very quickly start experimenting with the language and actions of the devil. It almost never happens the other way around. Why is that? Why are we humans, even such young ones, so tempted by being bad? So there is thought #1.

Thought #2 comes from a reminder from the book, Stones Into Schools, of the number of children that were killed in the earthquake in Pakistan because of poorly constructed schools and now the criminal collapse of hundreds of buildings in Haiti killing tens of thousands of people. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I would find value in the American system of building codes. But that is exactly where my thinking led today.

Evidently humans cannot do something simply because it is the right thing to do. We have to have rules to follow. Just as young children seem to choose being bad over being good, so do builders and the government that controls them. Add to the mix, corruption and greed and there is no turning back. There are many pieces of our building code that are just plain silly but in my book, silly trumps death any day.

The visual images of Haiti's desperate and pervasive poverty have torn my heart apart for years. And now to watch in living color with commentary, the death and destruction that has occurred because of a country's reckless abandon of concern for the safety of its own people, I am besought with confusion. I have always had trouble understanding evil in the world but this must be it in the flesh. And we as Americans are not blameless. We have bankrolled and turned our backs on the corruption in that country for decades.

Day after day the death count continues with no end in sight. I wait for it to get better, to heal itself. Money is coming in and supplies are purchased. But just like every other disaster, they are not delivered to those in need. Concerns are expressed that people will riot when the supplies are distributed. So we wait. For what? The potential rioters to die of thirst, I suppose.

My deepest hope at this point is that the money that is being generated can be the agent of change. We cannot allow that money into the hands of the current corrupt government with no strings attached. It is the only possible ray of hope in this entire debacle, that out of death will come life. A new Haiti. A Haiti where a child will be born and loved, not sold. A Haiti where children will be educated and contribute to the global future. A Haiti where poverty is history. A Haiti where the government redefines itself as caretakers not murderers of its own people.

We as humans, must stop turning our backs on these countries in turmoil. This chain of events has happened too many times. We know that it's going on, whatever it is. We feel sad. All hell breaks loose and then suddenly we are ready to fix the problem with money, doctors, aid, and anything else our money will buy. I am so grateful that there are people throughout the world that are willing to stop their lives and run to the aid of those in need; the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF. For the first time this morning, I wished it could be me.

At the crux of it all remains that question of good vs evil. Small children struggle with it at a sub conscious level but as adults, there must certainly be a clear knowledge regarding the end result of the decisions we make. When we shortcut building construction out of disrespect for safety, someone, sometime is going to suffer for it. They are going to die. The visual images of human bodies buried in the rubble of collapsed buildings must be emblazoned on the minds of those responsible for building the new nation of Haiti.

Connecting the Dots

I recently viewed a commencement speech by Steve Jobs that planted a seed which quickly became an aha! sapling. He talked about connecting the dots of our life events and the importance of remembering that we don't know where those dots are going until we get through them and can look back. I get that. My life has had a series of dots that created nothing more than concentric circles because I wasn't willing to let go of what I thought I wanted. I appear to be learning my life lessons and getting better at letting whatever is supposed to happen, happen. This little Connect the Dots message reverberating in my brain just brought understanding to another recent question. I have been telling all my friends that this school year is somehow different. I have changed. The word I used to describe it is aging. I am calmer. I am not afraid to just sit and I actually revel in it. Weekend goals do not get accomplished and it no longer matters to me. I leave school when I'm tired, not when I'm done. Now, no one agreed that this was in fact a sign of aging. Everybody had a different opinion because aging appears to be a "bad" word in a certain sector of people - mostly those over 55. No it isn't aging. It is finally being where I was supposed to be. This is me being in balance, being able to focus on the important things in life because the energy isn't being diverted on forcing life to go my way.

I am a middle school teacher. It is only now that I understand that statement to its fullest. I don't bring the fervor to it that I did to primary because it is where I am supposed to be. I don't need the extra energy, it all comes naturally.

I am about to become a grandmother. There is nothing about that fact that scares or intimidates me. It is where I am supposed to be.

I am a homeowner. I'm not sure how I have kept the financial pieces together in my life over the past 10 years but somehow I am still here in this little house on Fremont Street, paying my mortgage, property taxes and insurance. Perhaps this too is just where I am supposed to be.

Yes, I am aging. But that is not the explanation for my recently acquired skill at sitting on the couch for long periods of time. It is indeed, where I am supposed to be.

Someone Else's Shoes in my Footprints

I recently had the most unusual feeling during a conversation with a dear friend. Over the years she and I have had many chats about her husband and the challenges of marriage in general. But as the conversation took a turn for the worse she pulled out a copy of "Too Good To Leave, Too Bad to Stay" my personal Bible in deciding when enough was enough in my own marriage. All I could do was hug her and say "no, no no." But as we continued to talk I had the odd feeling of someone being inside my head and speaking my words. As she continued I began reliving my own pain and as I shared pieces of my story the tears returned. It has been 11 years but my pierced heart felt like someone had just ripped it open again exposing the gash to the open air just like it was the first time once more. The feeling of never mattering, never coming first. I nodded my understanding, my empathy, my shared sadness. It was the only time in my life where I could say, "I know just how you feel" and we both knew it was true.

I don't often feel myself worthy of giving advice. Even when asked, I am hesitant to share my views. Who am I to suggest to someone else words or actions that could unalterably change their own personal journey? I can tell my story but I can't put someone else in it. But here was someone who really did seem to be living my story and the most deeply painful chapter of it. If I could alleviate some of that pain or even just authenticate the feelings, it was my duty, my obligation to share my perspective. So for the first time in my life I am leading the way. I am taking it upon myself to check in with her, to see how things are going, to get together and talk through the hard parts. It feels good and right. I am happy to be her refuge in this very difficult storm. It is the reminder that no matter the twists and turns of life, be they joyous or sorrowful, they are all best shared with those who love us.

Happy Birthday Dad

My dad's birthday is on December 29th, not the greatest time of year to think about gift giving. Usually I do his shopping along with the Christmas rush but this year it seemed to be more than I could handle. I just couldn't think of anything to buy. I sent an email asking for ideas and it was suggested that I write a letter to my representatives telling them to stop spending our money. So here is my gift to my dad.

Dear Representative Honda, Senator Boxer and Senator Feinstein,

On Christmas day there was a small article in my local paper, San Jose Mercury News, entitled “Congress Raises Debt Ceiling to $12.4 Trillion.” As a teacher who scrimps and saves to make ends meet each month, this got my attention. According to the paper, this measure was needed as a result of the out-of-control-budget deficit that is predicted to tip the scales at 12.1 trillion by the end of this year. Senators who were interviewed for the article all agreed that they did not want to vote for the bill but saw no other alternative. For several months now, that has been the bottom line; we see no other alternative but to continually increase our nation’s debt and hand out money that isn’t ours to give.

So the end result is that our government has once again voted itself another blank check with no concern regarding from where that money will come. This is a lesson that we teach our children from adolescence into young adulthood. You can’t spend money that you don’t have. When it’s gone you are left with two choices, you can either spend less or make more. The only way the government can make more is to increase taxes and fees and they don’t seem capable of understanding how to spend less. It is always more, more, more; more regulation, more government, more taken out of Medicare, more people added to the system, more spending above and beyond inflation, more pet projects, and more unfunded liabilities. When is enough, enough? When do we say stop? For me it is today. As my representative, I am telling you to stop the out of control spending!

For the first time in our nation’s history, we are almost certain to leave a country that is less, not more than what we received, to future generations. We are no longer respected on the world stage for what we create. The world now sees us only for what we can repay. We are debtors. We owe China 23% of our national debt and Japan 21%. We are quickly approaching a point where our Gross Domestic Product will equal our national debt. This is a very frightening position in which to find ourselves.

Our debt must now become the number one focus for our government officials to address. It’s not health care or crime or even national security. The ever-increasing public debt is the most important problem that we as a nation are facing. We can’t afford the current programs that must be funded let alone the new programs that are being voted in. When you return in January, the number one item on the agenda must be to cut spending. We cannot continue down this path of spending our children and grand children’s money. We are leaving for them a financial disaster that none of us would want to be a part of. It is time to make the tough decisions and make cuts. No more handouts to banks or car companies or anyone else that is supposedly too big to fail. There is no such thing. The only thing that is going to fail in this economic disaster is the hard-working men and women of America. There will be no other alternative than to increase taxes to pay for the debt you have created. And I for one cannot afford one more hit before I will be forced to make my own tough decisions.

The futures of the American citizens rest in your hands. Put yourself in the place of the more humble working class. We are just barely holding on, working hard and paying our bills month-to-month, hoping that the small amount of savings that we can steel away will sustain us in our retirement. We don’t want to live off of our government but it seems that now we will be the ones saying, “I see no other alternative.”

You have choices to make. They are not easy ones but there is no other option left but to make them and to make them now.

Going Mexican

The Giannini family went Mexican for Christmas Eve this year. It started off as a bit of a joke that ended up being a seed that planted and started to take root in my little brain. Tamales for Christmas... great idea. That means not having prime rib two days in a row. Being someone who rarely eats red meat anyway, the thought of an alternative was very enticing to me. That meant a search for the best tamales in San Jose. This was an adventure I greatly enjoyed in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The answer for us was found at El Azteca on 28th Street. The menu took hold - tamales, enchiladas, Spanish rice, beans, corn pudding - and we were ready for the trial run.

The end result was that everyone agreed that this could be the beginning of a wonderful new tradition. There are many advantages to the Mexican meal on Christmas Eve. I LOVE Mexican food so in all honesty, this would probably work for me any day of the year. Cumin and red pepper sauce have a tendency to warm the nostrils even before you take a bite. We loved the warmth of the spices in the air as well as on our tongues. What could be better to warm your spirit on a cold and dreary winter night? In addition this meal included my two favorite beverages in the whole world - Mexican hot chocolate and margaritas. The clincher for me was that it was definitely cheaper and easier to prepare than prime rib. During the time of year that we need desperately to conserve both money and energy, what could be better?

Cookies: The Ugly Step-Child

It is Christmas time, a very big time of year for the lowly cookie. Much like merchandise in the stores, if they don't make it in December, it's not going to happen for them. Cookies have never been my favorite dessert. If you lined up a cake, a pie and a platter of cookies I would always take the cake first and the cookies last. Cookies are the everyday where cake is special.

Over the years, I've tried to make friends with the cookie. When my kids were little I did the cookie thing at Christmas year after year trying to duplicate my own childhood memories. There was the Swedish Spritz, complete with a cookie press and all the trouble of decorating them, cut out sugar cookies, chocolate crinkles, jelly filled thumbprints and pecan sandies. But as the years have gone by I am as close as I have ever been to banning Christmas cookies from my oven door.

First of all, they are just a lot of trouble to make. Cookie batter is thick and hard to manage. It will burn up a portable mixer in no time at all. It is the #1 reason to invest in a KitchenAid mixer. A recipe of cookies will make 5 dozen tasty treats but that's 5 times of loading and unloading a cookie sheet. My favorite time saver as a young mother was to make a recipe of chocolate chip cookies and spread it all out into a jelly roll pan and bake it. TA DA! Cookies are done in one fell swoop! I did this long past the point that it was necessary for me to save time simply because the repetition of spooning batter on and scraping cookies off of a cookie sheet bored me. A batch of cookies takes hours where a cake is in and out of the oven in 30-40 minutes.

Cookies have a tendency to become dry and crumbly within minutes of their exit from the oven. Now, I will eat the crumbs of almost anything but 9 times out of 10, cookie crumbs go in the trash. After all the work of baking those things, you put them in a bag or cookie jar and as it comes toward your mouth it starts to fall apart. That doesn't happen to cake or pie because it's on a fork. Try forking a cookie and see what happens.

Cookies have a feeling of the ordinary. The action of spooning cannot compare with the drama of pouring batter into cake pans. There is a specialness to cake that just isn't there with cookies. It is light and airy where cookies are flat and solid. We take care of cake. We layer it and frost it and even try to make it look pretty on top. Not cookies. One of my favorite cookies of my childhood were Chocolate Frosted Cookies. Why? They had the soft texture of cake and frosting on them - yes, every one of them.

There's a reason Christmas cookies make a great Christmas gift. You look at them and you see the hours of dedication that went into just making them, let alone decorating them. Well you won't get cookies from me. I'm a bread, cake, nuts, and fudge kind of girl at Christmas time. Did I make cookies this year? Yes, one batch of Chocolate Crinkles and only because I remember how much my family likes them. It is the reminder of how homemade is filled with more than a recipe and ingredients. This we do for love.

So on Thursday night, I will set the cake aside and let the lowly cookie take center stage.

Dear Santa

This week my son asked me for a Christmas list. My first reaction was that I didn't really want anything. I had everything I needed. But then, of course as I thought about it I was able to come up with quite a variety of things - there's my Amazon wish list, Italian pottery, those cute little yellow dishes I have my eye on at Sur La Table, and of course the predictable sweater or pajamas that is always on my wish list.

The whole wish list idea stuck in my head and I started thinking about things I really want.

Dear Santa,
I know that you are busy fulfilling all the Christmas wishes of the good little boys and girls in the world. But I'm a little worried about the other 364 days for our children. Perhaps you and the elves could look into a few other areas. Here is my Christmas wish list for 2009.

World Peace
I am one of those products of the 60's that is always dreaming of world peace. I have read enough that I understand the psychology as well as the politics of the necessity of war but I refuse to accept it. Perhaps we could just start with the absence of war and see where we can go from there.

A society that values children
I am constantly appalled at the lack of attention that is given to our youngest members. We open their minds to violence, sex, and greed at lower and lower ages. Too many parents are overworked with no energy left for raising children so the kids are left on their own. There are no longer advocates for our babies that are growing up way too fast. And yet we are shocked that they are committing unfathomable crimes and we are left with no option but to try them as adults.

Clean air and water
As I said, I am a child of the 60's and this is more residue. We are making progress in this department but there is still a long way to go. We need to start functioning in the day to day with our grand children's and great grand children's lungs in mind. I want Baby Girl to enjoy the wilderness as much as her Grandma Tere does. I want her to have the pleasure of eating fresh tomatoes and strawberries grown in her backyard for her own children.

I want our parks to stay open. I want the homeless to have jobs, food, clothing and shelter. And while I am it, I want world hunger to end. I want people to respect one another; to just be nice. I want an end to racism and gender discrimination.

Now, here is what I will be giving for Christmas this year:
Warmth - both physical and emotional
Smiles
Laughter
Love - the unconditional kind
The sound of Christmas music
Kitchen smells that will seep into the heart to be reborn again and again
Pumpkin bread, fudge, spiced nuts, and red velvet cake
A chance to create new family memories around our Christmas Eve dinner table
Total commitment to living in the moment so I can enjoy each one deeply and completely.
A promise to let the Christmas spirit live long into January and maybe even a bit longer.

Santa, I'll do what I can to be the change in my little corner of the world. And as you're out spreading the Christmas spirit maybe, just maybe, 2010 together we'll begin to grow the dream of becoming the best that we can be.

Merry Christmas, Santa. Enjoy the cookies and milk.
Love,
Tere

Giving Birth to a Grandmother

I am encroaching upon a new role in my life. I am being redefined. I am very soon to receive additional responsibilities in my job description of Mom. I will have a new title and even more fun. I'm about to be known to the world as Grandma Tere. Up until this point I have just felt happy about witnessing a new generation in the making. I love watching and listening to Maria and Bill talk about the new family they are creating. But lately I have become much more emotional about it all. There has been a softening of my heart that somehow matches the softening of the body that comes with age. I cry more than I ever have in my whole life - at movies, TV shows or just looking at Maria's changing body and thinking about the life that is growing inside. I see babies and toddlers everywhere. I watch them with so much more intent now and wonder what is going through their heads as they learn to navigate the world they have found themselves a part of. It is all I can do not to start talking to strangers' babies or grab their toes and give them a loving shake. My favorite is seeing them in the grocery stores still in their footed jammies, babbling away. It makes me smile, no matter what else is happening in the world.

As the new C-G develops, I begin to ponder the kind of grandmother I am about to become. I remember two of my grandmothers and they played a very important role in my childhood. Although they were very different, I appreciated both of them and still only think of them with love. One spoiled me terribly and would have given me anything I ever wanted if my parents hadn't intervened and the other has been an extremely important model for who I have become as an adult. She taught me that food speaks love and that the effort put into homemade only makes it better. I can't imagine grandparenting like either of them did but a mixture of the two might be nice. I can't wait to see this baby and talk to her and figure out the grandmother I will be.

I am learning that just as parents want to give their very best to their children; so do grandparents I want to make a difference in this child's life. I want to fill her with love and guide her journey in this life. I have learned so much in life since I was a young mom and want so badly to share it.

I am also filled with strange little feelings about the beginning of a new generation. I never was concerned with whether or not my kids had babies. I only hoped that any babies who came into the world would be wanted and loved. I have just seen too many who weren't. But now I find myself rather amazed at the birthing of a new generation. It means that we believe the world is good and that we trust the people in it to support this new life. It is the belief in the future; the knowledge that we will overcome the struggles we face today leaving a land of plenty for those who come after us.

So, welcome little Miss C-G. Welcome to this world. Welcome to this family. We will try to do our very best to create a world of beauty and kindness where you will know that you are loved and will be forever more.

Words are useless

I am in the midst of watching Joseph Campbell on DVD with Bill Moyers. He hits my greatest challenge of language right on the head. The things that are most important to us, the best things in life, those that transcend us can't be named. We are unable to talk about them. There are no words that can communicate what is a thought or feeling which is beyond our physical being. So when I attempt to write about feelings that run deep in my heart like the deep abiding love I have for my children or the passion I have for my profession, I am left wanting. When I talk about the more emotional events in my life, I often say, I don't have words for it yet. And I really don't. But I continue to attempt to define it. I have to learn to be content with saying, I don't have words for it. And now I can add, this is one my best things in life, it transcends both me and words.

Coming Together

It has been a bit of a rough fall for my children. There is no real beginning to the story; it just is. For several years they have been distant from one another. As a rule, we all came together for holidays but the rest of the year felt a bit like a void. As the mom, it was very difficult to witness. I love them both deeply; more than words could ever say. I understood each side of the story and ached for them both. As much as I love being a mom of adult children, at some point you can't mother anymore. You can't make your kids to talk to each other or apologize and say they're sorry. They're grown-ups with spouses who protect their great loves with the fervor that runs deeper than even a mother's love. Maria and Bill's baby announcement on Thanksgiving was thrilling and I loved being a part of it. But back in the recesses of my heart was a giant hole because it was the first Thanksgiving we had not all been together as a family. Things had come to a head and there appeared to be no turning back. It is always good for me to remember that despite the strength of a massive oak tree, given a powerful enough wind, it can still bend and break. The late days of November passed and a wind began to blow. Each of them put forth the effort and they came together. I don't know what was said by either of them and I don't need to know. The greatest gift that they could ever give has landed in my lap. They have both summarized it in the same way "I think it went well." My only response has been to finally breathe out all the worry that had accumulated around my heart and breathe in the possibility of being a family again.

I am simply thrilled that they sat together in a room and let down their respective walls allowing the deep wounds to be seen by one another. I just know too many people that have fought with siblings and died without reconciling. They lived their lives out to the end and most of them couldn't remember what the fight was all about. How sad. I didn't want that for my kids. And I didn't want to negotiate the mind fields of celebrating holidays and birthdays and births and deaths around a feud. A giant weight has been lifted from me. If I think about it very long I cry. I cry for what could have been lost; the chance for Dave to be once again loved unconditionally by his family. The chance for Maria and Bill to introduce their baby to her uncle Dave, who I know will fall madly in love with the little meatball the minute he sees her. The chance for us all to be a family again.

Christmas has come early. I need nothing more than this; but to see my children at the same table, eating and drinking together, smiling, laughing, and yes, even arguing - all the things that a brother and sister do to bind each to the other. I know that in my own life, my brother and sister have kept me grounded with the constant reminder of who I am and where I came from. We laugh about old memories and new, our parents, our kids and the trials that life can bring our way. I want that for my children; a love of their shared history as well as the joy of spending their futures together, side by side laughing and crying, knowing that life is better when we are together.

Thanksgiving

It feels very strange not cooking Thanksgiving dinner this year but the extra time allows me the time to think about the purpose behind the holiday, giving thanks.

Top 10

1. My family. I am grateful for each and everyone of them from my 101 year old grandfather to the grandchild who is on her way. They continue to guide me along this journey and through my joys and sorrows helping me become the best that I can be.

2. My friends. Many of my friends have become synonymous with family. They are the safe place where I can be who I really am with no concern of judgment.

3. My house. It is much more than a shelter; it is my refuge. In year 3 of the remodel, I still smile the minute I walk through the door every single day.

4. A job that renews me everyday where I am respected for all that I bring to the table be it strengths or challenges.

5. The ability to live in northern California where everything is beautiful every day of the year.

6. My dog, Jack who is the true embodiment of unconditional love.

7. My good health both physical and mental. I have felt a glimmer of my impending age and witnessed the pain of mental imbalance. My health is the #1 thing that I take for granted until it is lost.

8. Clean air and water on our beautiful planet Earth

9. Food, especially cheese and chocolate

10. Love from all those who have touched my life in little and giant ways teaching me over and over again that I am worthy of it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A Wake Up Call

This week has been one of those when I have realized that I was put on this earth and placed on this path for a specific reason. I am here to support kids. Along the way I do a little teaching but it's really about supporting kids. That support comes in many shapes and sizes. Sometimes it's a little kick in the rear to jump start their academic career and make them realize it's all up to them now. Mom isn't here to hold your hand or help you figure out what you think or why you think it. It's your turn to stand up for what you believe. At other times that support looks a lot like counseling; questioning, giving choices, leading them to new ways of looking at the world. But most often that support looks a lot like mothering. Sometimes that's all we can do is just show these kids that they are loved for who they are and share the vision of who we believe that they can be.

I've said many times this year that my current team of students are quite a pleasure to teach. I personally believe that 99% of that is attributed to me having a sliver of an idea of how to go about teaching middle school English. Although it is an amazing group of kids there are several who are clearly in need of our loving support. There is one who definitely has issues with impulse control that has resulted in some academic issues. Then there is one with serious anger management challenges. We also have a little group of girls who have made some less than productive choices about attendance. Sometimes that's tardiness and others it's not showing up at all. Then there is the girl who challenged me on her class report card which has led to a much better relationship between the two of us. The magic potion on most days is simply a smile and greeting from me as she enters the room. There is the girl who was caught, in the words of the counselor, sucking face with a boy but evidently a little more than kissing was going on. I have a student whose mother thought I was humiliating her kid who I am just now beginning to soften up around. And now there is a student who following a call home thought he would get away with calling me a liar. Too bad about the invention of the speaker phone. We also have a student who I believe is clinically depressed who if left to his own devices would literally do nothing all day. And finally today was the revelation about a student who is living among drug sellers, according to rumor has a 19 year old boy friend and has been avoiding school.

Where do you put all this while going about the business of teaching the state standards of English Language Arts? This all comes before anything else. The smile, the how are you doing, the it's nice to see you today, the what do you need right now, the tap on the desk to reboot the brain. But what is more stunning than realizing that the face of illegal neighborhood drug sales and mental illlnes is sitting in my classroom is listening to the way that some other teachers respond to it. There are days that the hardest thing I do is have lunch in the faculty room. Kids are called names; lazy, slugs, rocks. They are ridiculed. They are kept from learning because of an over indulgence of punishment for a silly thing like chewing gum. I'm not sure how these teachers come to work everyday if they think so little of the students in the chairs. I am blessed to be working with a partner that is like minded. It could be a very lonely job without her.

So tonight while I am lying in bed as my brain unwinds and before I drift off to sleep I will "see " these kids in my mind and think once more about ways to support them, ways to give them what they need that they are not getting anywhere else. These are the faces of middle school students today; truancy, mental illness, illegal drugs, gangs, sexual behavior, language barriers. It is overwhelming on one hand but so simple on the other.

Joys in Life

On the 28th of November I will celebrate the anniversary of one of the greatest joys of my life, the birth of my daughter. Your first child is such an unbelievable experience. I didn't think anything could ever compare to the state of euphoria I felt. Then we took her home and the fun really began. Your heart sings with every new accomplishment. I'm talking about little things like a smile, or a turn of the head as she recognizes your voice, her outstretched arms as she reaches out for the first time. Being a mom was and still is the greatest thing I ever did. Then my baby grew up and I once again experienced that pure joy when I watched her get married. Those are tears that took me by utter surprise. I didn't realize how emotional it would be to watch your child promise herself to the man of her dreams. She had found her great love and was ready to begin her happy ever after. What more could you ask for?

And now here I am again experiencing joy I never saw coming. But this one will last a long long time. My baby is becoming a mama and I am constantly being taken by surprise with feelings of joy. Even though I knew every step of the journey I was still overcome with emotion when they made the announcement that there would be another C-G in the world. At the time I told her I couldn't wait to see her all round but I had no idea how true that would become. I love listening to her talk about the pregnancy, the baby, and the family they are becoming. I love just looking at her and marveling at the life she is creating. Every time I see her, she looks different so as we hug our farewells, I hold her just a little longer than I used to so I can hold on to the image, much like I did as she was growing up. I had no idea it would be so much fun to watch your daughter become pregnant and it has absolutely nothing to do with anything grandma related. It's all about her. I'm not sure I know what all of it is but I know there's something to sharing the stories of motherhood. It is a bond that women share that is hard to put into words. I just feel so lucky to be able to share it with my baby who is going to be such a wonderful mama. I can't imagine the emotions that will erupt the first time I see her holding their beautiful baby in her arms. That must be the greatest thing a mother can ever see, motherhood being passed on and knowing the joy that she is feeling because I have been her.