I like change, lots of it. For work, for my personal life, and for the learning that accompanies it whether I take it at the time or have to learn the lesson later. My career thus far has spanned teaching English/Language Arts in four different school buildings, one private school, two middle schools, two high schools, and a plethora of different people. During this tenure, I have been classified as a teacher, teacher leader, literacy coach, and administrator. Much of what I learned about myself, then, is that I love to work with the less fortunate, the humble, the ones who crave learning. The biggest difference between teaching at a private school was the sense of entitlement and I’m ever grateful for the learnings I acquired from a simple, old janitor named Allen. When I left that building I digested much of the attitude of those teachers and sorted through it to discover that kids are kids and my job doesn’t change just because the population does.

Leaving that school I went on to work at the highest poverty middle school in our district and gave as much as I gave previously only to discover that for those students there was such an appreciation for my efforts. Their parents expressed it, too, and it was then I studied the amount of triumph of those students was proportionate to how deserving they felt. What a sobering thought, but that’s just the reality of it.

Recently, I ran into two of the private school teachers who asked what I’d been doing in the six years since I had taught with them. I rattled off  the litany of accomplishments and what I’d been busy with and we chatted cordially. We were, it needs to be said, in the middle of a department store and I knew it was the kind of polite conversation one has when catching up with acquaintances.

“So, you went over to teach at School X. Hmmm. How was that?”

Her meaning wasn’t even thinly veiled. She wanted to know, “What’s it like working with poor kids? With lots of Black kids? With those heathens and hoodlums who only come to school to fight and wreak havoc?”

It was to be a polite conversation. This really shouldn’t ruin it, but her tone set my blood to boiling in a matter of seconds. So I began the process of heaping burning coals on her head.

“It was great! I loved it there!”

“Yes, but was it different?”

I hated the way she said that word. Different. It crossed my mind to slap her right upside the head.

“Absolutely not. Twelve year olds at one school are the same as twelve year olds at another. They all have the same basic needs and deserve an education. They are all teachable.”

“Oh.”

Not the answer she wanted, I assume. Not what she hoped to hear that perhaps I feared for my life on a daily basis and that I’d been caught up in a fight or two and had to put someone in a headlock. That was, of course, true. But she was positively dripping with anticipation of hearing this. She nearly drooled to get The Goods On Poor Public Educators.

“So, you left there. Where are you now?”

I was under the impression, what with all her salivating, that she already knew. She had heard that I pretty much followed those Poor Kids to the high school where I am currently a guidance dean so I offered it up to her minus any fanfare.

“Oh. WOW. You’re there?” There was no way she wanted to hide her incredulous response. She reminded me of the viper news reporters chomping at the bit to get a juicy story.

“Yeah, I love it. It’s great.”

“Well, I hear bad things about that place. What are YOUR thoughts on working there?”

While I am ever conscious of the fact that I represent my school, my district, my city, and my career in education I know that I am to always be positive. It pains me to give anyone ammunition with which to shoot all educators. Yet, here I was in the middle of a store browsing the aisles for sweater sets. My arms were full of a couple of outfits and I had yet to try them on and didn’t want this to ruin my day.

But I didn’t even have to reply to her.

Out of nowhere a woman came around the corner. She had been listening to our conversation on the other side of the dress rack and came to confront the woman to whom I was speaking.

“What’s the matter with you!? Am I to understand that YOU’RE A TEACHER? There is nothing wrong with where she teaches or works or whatever she does there. My daughter went there and just graduated and I was skeptical of sending her there because of PEOPLE LIKE YOU who bash everything in this town when you don’t know anything about it. Why don’t you take your ass over there and see for yourself? My kids have gotten great educations at both those schools this lady just mentioned!”

It occurs to me that, obviously, I am This Lady.

But This Lady, the one who rocked my world by coming to my defense and the defense of all whom I care to represent, was now my favorite person on the planet. Would she balk if I kissed her full on the lips? Would she hate it if I picked her up and twirled her around the store? Could I send her on an all-expenses paid cruise to the Caribbean?

This Lady, me, will forever be grateful for that bitch slap moment when I didn’t have to sigh and explain myself ad nauseam about why I do what I do. The relief I felt after watching this stranger unleash on former colleagues was thoroughly satisfying.

To The Lady who saved me from having to defend my passion for educating ALL STUDENTS: you are my heroine. I didn’t even buy a dress or those sweater sets. You also made me restructure all future “polite conversations.”

Hope that you can be wrapped up in God’s arms as He paints a picture for you in the sky.

Be encouraged that such colors are even possible and found in nature.

And then? Well, just share them with a friend and have a nice day.

In a 12-step program I practice, we tell newcomers if they stick around a while, they’ll eventually hear their own story. Some seriously doubt it. They are the ones who think they can’t be helped as others have, because, you see, they aren’t like others. We call that being terminally unique, and I suffered from it when I was a newcomer. The main symptoms are martyrdom, loss of perspective, and  a wildly distorted perception of your own part in the grand scheme of things. It’s also been aptly called “the belief that you are the piece of shit the world revolves around.”

For people thus afflicted, hearing someone else give voice to the very thoughts they have been thinking, the very feelings they have been feeling, is the miracle cure. Someone else’s truth can set you free.

If you know where to go for the good stuff, if you hearken to authenticity, blogs can be like that sometimes. Like sitting at a table, hearing story after story. You might react, you might judge, you might get bored. And then, there it is, your story. Or a page from it, at least.

This happened to me last night, reading  Cafe Mama. I’ve gotten to know its author, Sarah, just a little. Enough to guess that we don’t have much surface stuff in common. But when I read this passage, from December, I wished I could run down the street to Portland and give her a big hug:

The only people to whom I am expressly not writing this blog are certain of my in-laws. Why? Because they use my words, often out of context, to dig up dirt on me, and by association, my husband. No one cares about this dirt except other members of the family. So it swirls around like water in a clogged sink, angry and poisonous, sticky and yet bound by its own porcelain borders, sometimes splashing out into my life in the messiest of ways.

(December 13, Losing Grace) 

Some of that same brackish water has backed up into my own life this past year, and I am surprised to admit that it has given me pause. I suppose I have been spoiled by an overwhelmingly supportive community of readers and a string of lucky breaks. It would be naive to expect it all to be a lovefest. But as the writing goes further, and reaches more of the people I want it to reach, there are other, less welcome people, who latch on.

They are so much like each other, their emails to me could all be written by the same person. The details—the specific grievances—change, but they are all in the same key. Each has penned a drama with themselves in the starring role. Each is utterly convinced that what I’ve written is all about them. It would be funny, if they weren’t so obviously sick and unhappy.

I thought I’d moved through each incident with as much grace and detachment as I could muster. They seem to come nested in each new level of success or exposure for my writing, and I’ve shaken them off as tests of my commitment to it. But my hands have not been as loose at the keyboard recently, in spite of my mother’s emailed encouragement to never let anything keep me from writing my truths.

Sarah’s words would have had no fire in them for me if I wasn’t feeling a little chill. The truth is, as big a girl as I am, it’s unnerving to realize that not everyone who is reading means well, or is well.

“…you need love and compassion and grace,” wrote Sarah to the poisonous people she wasn’t writing for. “You need what I do not have today.”

Neither do I have what my ill-wishers need. Though they look hour after enraged and lonely hour, they won’t ever find anything in me or my words that will fill whatever it is they are missing from their lives. 

I do wish them love, compassion and grace. I hope they find it somewhere. And mostly, I wish them a seat at a table where, if they stick around long enough, they’ll get to hear someone tell their story, and realize their own truth.

Everyone needs a haven - a place of refuge in times of trouble, emotional or physical difficulty. I learned early on what my source of refuge was…whose wing to find shelter beneath.

As a child I had a very active imagination. My parents learned early on to protect me from things that negatively stimulated my imagination, like scary books or television shows and movies. If not, without fail, they’d wake to screams deep in the night.

During third grade I experienced nightmares nearly every single night for a few months. As I look back at it now I believe it was likely tied to anxiety and a specific teacher. We went through much the same thing with our oldest daughter, Emelie, her 1st grade year. Night terrors, bed wetting and a severe change in personality ended up being the result of a method of discipline (shaming) a particular teacher was using in her classroom at school. We pulled her out and all our lives became more peaceful almost overnight.

My third grade teacher despised me; nothing I could do was good enough. I remember wondering if she enjoyed torturing me. Third grade, for some reason, wasn’t a challenge. I’d finish my work and grow bored; I became a bother to those around me. Other teachers gave me extra worksheets, allowed me to help them staple packets, grade papers or run errands for them, but this teacher wanted me to sit still and be quiet.

The year dragged on and every day after school I’d have to deliver a report to my parents of my behavior for the day. A single, black stamp - smiley face or frowny face sealed my fate for the evening.

I hated that teacher. I hated that year.

I also hated the nightmares that began that year. I dreamed of a man with a machete that was coming to cut me up piece by piece. I would pull the covers tight over my head and tuck them all about me, so as not to let anything in. A tiny little “breathe” hole was the only thing I allowed and I would wait - as still as I could be - and listen. I tried to fall asleep before my parents went to bed, but if I didn’t…I’d lay awake listening - hearing sounds I mistook for him.

Sometimes the fear became too unbearable and I would scream out for my parents; a blood curdling scream that had them running (at first) or walking (as the months wore on) to check on me. They were tired - at their wits end.

I was terrified to go to sleep.

And then, one Sunday at church our Children’s minister offered a challenge. Whoever could memorize the 23rd Psalm and say it from memory into the microphone at Children’s church, would get a 2 lb. bag of peanut M&Ms.

Chocolate has always been a major motivator for me, so you can bet I got busy memorizing that scripture.

As luck would have it, my 3rd Grade teacher had a Bible on her bookshelf. It took a bit, but I finally found the nerve to ask if I could use it, and to my surprise, she agreed. I would finish my work, retrieve the Bible, and write the 23rd Psalm over and over.

Day by day, line by line, I memorized the 23rd Psalm.

A couple of Sundays later, I stepped up to the microphone at Children’s Church and recited the entire passage. And yes, I took those M&Ms home.

I didn’t realize then how that passage would impact my nights and my days, but as God’s Word does, it touched me to my core.

Surprisingly to me, it came to mind as I staved off nightmares and I begin to call for my parents less and less as I drew refuge in the words,

“Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”

In class, I would write the passage over and over on paper, practicing my handwriting and trying desperately not to get into trouble.

“He leadeth me beside the still waters, He restoreth my soul.”

And later in life, when I first set out on my own and spent nights alone in an apartment, I would pray the Psalm until a peace came over me and I could rest.

“Thou annointest my head with oil. Thy cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Refuge.
Mine is rooted in my faith.
Do you have a refuge?