The Tortoise and the Hare

I took a calligraphy workshop yesterday, and I learned a little more than I bargained for. I thought it would be a good skill to have--I have pretty good handwriting to start with, but I thought this might be useful if I wanted to make a 'nice copy' of one of my poems for a birthday card or whatever. I have always loved the look of elegant writing. I have always loved pen and ink and paper--as the contents of my supply closet will attest. So I signed up for a three hour introduction to pointed-pen calligraphy.

I am NOT going to go into the mechanics or a list of materials or try to explain what we learned...sorry, you'll just have to pony up for the class, or come visit me for a 'show and tell'. Let me just say, though, that I was not as apt a pupil as I expected to be. And the reason was that I tried to do it too quickly. The beautiful alternation of thick and thin lines, the smooth flow of letters and words, the elaborate capital letters and uniform lower-case...are not to be attained without deliberation and practice. I am not the deliberate sort. And I'm pretty impatient as well.

I therefore found myself vainly trying to slow down and pay attention, to focus on what I was doing, to think and plan ahead for the strokes my pen would make. (Is this sounding familiar?) This is the advice I am constantly giving  myself (and anyone else who might listen) about writing. Focus. Focus. Focus. Pay attention. Think. Observe. Think some more. There will not be a 'gem every time' (Boris and Natasha, from Rocky and Bullwinkle-- a favorite quote: "What you expect? Gem every time?") Nothing of value is achieved without sustained effort and practice, practice, practice.

And so, what I learned from my class is this: what I need to learn before I can produce that wonderful script is what I have needed to learn--not just intellectually, but in actuality--all along: to stop and pay attention, to clear away the distractions and focus on what I'm trying to accomplish, to attain a less frenzied pace that allows for observation and thought and the careful formation of lines and connections and boundaries. And beauty. Always beauty.

One of those days

Some days, I wonder whether I'd have been better off just pulling the covers over my head, shooting the cat, and refusing to greet the day. I've had a few of them this week.

• Jake has inexplicably decided that the new 'rise and shine' time for his humans is somewhere around 5:45 am. Needless to say, we did not reach this decision by consensus. 
• Furthermore, someone has maliciously posted my cell phone and home phone numbers on the bulletin boards of all call centers: political, credit card, general survey, and even CVS Pharmacy. Why the world has suddenly decided that my opinion counts, I do not know.
• My brain and my hands have spontaneously decided to disconnect, wreaking havoc on any small task I decide to undertake. I'm dropping, spilling, breaking and misplacing things in record numbers.
• I used to be able to cook. Somehow this week, pie crusts are turning out tough and uncuttable and the fillings aren't gelling. The cake I made today whispered (as I put it in the oven) that I'd neglected to add the second installment of sugar that was supposed to combine with the egg whites. (Let's see: that was 9 eggs that were sacrificed unnecessarily, not to mention the cake flour and whole milk that I had to buy because I generally operate with all-purpose and reduced fat varieties. Not to mention the fact that I had used so many bowls and cups and spoons that I had to run the dishwasher.) I guess it's a good thing JC was traveling this week. Otherwise, he'd have been totally disabused of his enthusiasm for my meals. Did I mention that this morning's bacon was the consistency of my shoe?
• And workmen. Ah, workmen. Our AC was due for its annual checkup on Thursday, and the technician called me at 9 AM, well within the 8AM-12 noon window they demanded. He was here, he told me, but couldn't find my house. Was it the 'orange' one on the corner? (There is no orange house on my block.) He could not see any number. As I walked outside to look for his truck, I saw the problem. His truck was sitting in the middle of the street, in front of my house, his gaze riveted on the pink house across from mine. His head was turned to the right, which explained why he could not see the black, eminently readable numbers proclaiming "500" directly above my door. I asked him to turn his head to the left and he would see the house, the numbers--and me,  gesticulating wildly to attract his attention.
• Eric (for that was his name) did his inspection and proceeded to catalogue his recommendations. I thanked him and told him that, as he was talking in the neighborhood of thousands of dollars, and since we'd observed no problems with the unit, I would get a second opinion before deciding whether or not to proceed. Signed the paper saying I'd heard him out, and ushered him to the door.
• Several minutes after he left, the phone rang. It was his company, wanting to schedule someone to evaluate my AC system. Uh, didn't we just do that? No, ma'am. That was the MAINTENANCE inspection. This would be a supervisor to EVALUATE the system, and was this afternoon all right? In total bewilderment, I said no. That I had better things to do than wait out their 4-hour window twice in one day. I politely said that if they HAD to come evaluate, they could give me a hard-and-fast appointment or they could wave goodbye to this particular customer of some thirty-five years. We decided on 8 AM Friday.
• To my relief, the technician who appeared Friday was a familiar face--James. As baffled as I, he said they had told him to come out to check Eric's assessment of the system. All of a sudden, it became clear that Eric had interpreted my intention to get a second opinion as requesting a second opinion from another technician in his company. Oh. Obviously, second opinions are acquired differently in whatever Latin American nation Eric had worked in before.
• James spoke English. James answered the questions Eric had not been able to. And basically, our AC system gets put back in its place on our priority list.
• Then...my sister called to warn me that mom wasn't feeling well and might possibly require a trip to Baltimore on our part before the weekend was up. Maybe. Just another thing to look forward to.

So. Still needing a dessert for tomorrow's dinner-with-friends, I have to decide whether to attempt the sugar-deficient cake a second time, or move on to something else entirely-- or maybe just throttle the cat and go back to bed. It's sounding better all the time.

Teacher Appreciation...

It takes a lot to make me cry. My students did it last night. You have to realize that I haven't taught since the '97-'98 school year. In June of '98. I put down my chalk--though at the time, I figured I'd come back after a year of R&R. I didn't. Instead, I took some network engineering classes, got a couple certifications, and ran my resume through a few job fairs. It got picked up, and I never looked back, except for remembering some of the wonderful people: teachers and students, and even some parents and administrators. And of course, the stories--funny, sad, or just memorable--that only teachers can tell. Put two teachers of any stripe in a room, and I guarantee you'll hear a few.

But, about last night.

I'm on Facebook, and I've accumulated a variety of friends there. Some former students have found me through my own posts, or through my daughters' pages, and I enjoy seeing what they are doing, seeing them with children of their own, jobs of their own, and reading about what they are thinking now that they are 'all grown up.' One of the things I missed when I left teaching was that ability to eavesdrop on the younger generation. Maybe that's why I am so taken with Facebook and its ability to keep me in touch, now.

Anyway, last night, I logged on and found that I'd been tagged in a former student's post. Turns out, this week is Teacher Appreciation Week, and my student/friend (who is now a teacher) took the time to write and post on my wall a lovely 'thank-you'. That alone was a gift beyond measure. But then, another long-ago student posted a comment. And another name--almost forgotten--appeared with a story. And another. And the amazing thing about this was that they were telling about little things that they remembered, and that I had forgotten. A comment here or there. A quick note on a paper. Stuff that I know I did, but never considered to have any impact. Yet, they remembered.

I guess that's the problem with teaching: you get up every morning and you muscle your way through the day's classes and you come home and grade papers and prepare lessons and agonize over all the ones who just don't get it (and who you think might never do so) and you wonder what else you can do, and whether you're just not good enough, or smart enough, or patient enough, or persistent enough. And you are tired. And your family needs you, too--to be all the things to them that you are to other people's children every day, all day: attentive, concerned,  involved, motivating, nagging, praising, encouraging, and all those million and one other things that are so important to raising children and young people to be the best they can be. I often told my husband that I wasn't much of a teacher, that my biggest asset was that I liked the kids that came through my door, and that that covered a multitude of my teacher-ly sins. I never really thought of myself as making much of a difference. He always pooh-poohed those statements, but I never listened. He wasn't there in the classroom to see.

So, last night, I was sitting at my laptop on the verge of tears, learning a lesson of my own from my students.

The most important things teachers convey to their students may not come out of their textbooks, or their handouts, or from that chalkboard or whiteboard or overhead, or even out of their mouths. Maybe it's more about listening, about caring, about really seeing the faces in front of you, and trying to help them along the way. It's being a surrogate mom or dad to kids who might not have one; it's being a drill sergeant, a priest, a psychologist, a doctor, a counselor, a social worker and whatever else the day calls for. I remember playing all those roles at one time or another--and never thinking it was anything special until last night.

For that I owe all my students a debt of gratitude--and my husband the opportunity to say, "I told you so."

So, to all you teachers who might read this, keep going! You are among the blessed people who build for the ages. Like the cathedral-builders of medieval times, you may not see what you have created. You might see only the endless day-to-day labor and the roughest of images before you, but you are creating wonderful edifices and your names will be carved eternally in their foundation.