This is hard.

A excerpt from conversation with one of the three GREAT teachers with whom I am co-teaching. Co-teaching in the half-assed, unfunded, unplanned, untrained model our school is currently experimenting with has made for the most difficult start to any year, ever.
"So, I'm not sure I like how this is going. I want you to have a greater presence in the classroom."
"Okay, that sounds great. I'm not sure how we can accomplish that."

"Well, what's working in your other classes?"
"Honestly, we're winging it all over the place. I'm not sure what's working. It feels different everywhere."

"Hmmmm, okay. Well, how about this...I don't like that you are off to the side and I am on a physically higher plane than you. I'd like you more integrated."
"I agree, it would feel more cohesive. Do you have any idea how to make this work?"
"Let's try this, there are two chairs. You take the one at the back. That way you are on the same level as me."
"Okay, if you're sure. I mean it might seem awkward with me sitting while you are teaching."

"It might, you're right. But let's try it. If it doesn't work, then well. We can try something else. And I mean, I know you; I trust you. If you were anyone else I might not invite them into the chair. You should be there. I mean sitting off to the side you are the most expensive staff assistant in America."

"I said that on the second day of school. Let's try it. We can keep working."

It wasn't a perfect fit, but not terrible. And to tell the truth, not terrible is pretty good lately. This shit is hard.

and then life happens (redux)

and we are forced to realize that life is messy and we are all imperfect beings, that the most important thing each of us can do is try.

Disclosures occur and sometimes what is revealed to you by the universe, your mother, your handsome friend, or former roommate causes you to reframe your own assumptions. One of the things that I know I forget is how complicated people are. Even people we know well...people whom we have believed we have "figured out" can surprise us, in both unpleasant and utterly wonderful ways. Other times information must be weighed, measured, and processed to determine it's relevancy to the whole.

I'm having a processing day; the reframing is happening slowly. But, happily as I'm processing, I'm realizing that what hit me first as a major piece of information is major not in and of itself but for what it reveals of the one who gave it voice. As is most often the case, gentleness and compassion are the most appropriate responses, no matter how difficult those may be.

my yard is no longer...

a blight on the neighboorhood. Or at least, not the front yard. (I'm the only one who can see the back.) I mowed, weeded, pruned and spread beautiful dark compost. I looked up to see, a few houses down, my neigboors, the whole family in the yard. The adults were sitting in lawn chair, the maybe 6th grade girl intent on her task, washing the car.

"Hey," I called down the street, "It looks like you got a pretty good gig going on there."

Mary Anne laughed, "She's our slave."

"I am not," The car washer paused long enough to protest, then resumed her work.

"How do I get me one of those?"

"Well," he said, "You just push that little button and wait."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Hmmmm, what button? and where? and probably most importantly, whose?

No rockets red glaring, but some fun pink fountains

I’m pretty indifferent to fireworks.

What I do like however, is watching people watch them.


The Fourth of July has never ranked very high among my favorite holidays or reasons to get together. I always remember being disappointed in the events as they actually unfolded. Happily, this year (and really the last several) was quite the opposite. At a party where I knew only a few people, I had a good time, surrounded by close friends and relative strangers who also turned out to beautiful, kind, funny people, who are examples of my favorite Portland stereotypes. It’s wonderful when people are both classic examples of what you think they will be AND surprisingly different. A happy irony.

Of course, this probably says much more about myself, as the one assigning those stereotypes and making those categorizations. Once I decided (about a year in) that I didn’t care that I wasn’t cool enough to live/socialize in Portland, people crackled to life both the stereotypes and exceptions. Amazing how much bigger the world seems when you are not overly concerned that you are not the center of it.