Hydration

It’s a heat wave. I’ve done this before. I’m pretty good at it.

This is not something to be messed with. I exchange texts with my husband. I ask him to remember to pack water for his commute home. He agrees. Now I’ll worry less. Worry is what I do. I’m good at that too.

I’m already drinking water because that is how I roll.

I think about people in my social circle and wonder about how they are faring. My mind rests on one person in particular.

I think about texting him. It would be succinct. It would simply say drink water.

I don’t send the text. I reign it in. It’s a long story.

I send the drink water message telepathically. Was this a kind of prayer? Who knows?

I use what I have because worry is creeping around the edges of things. I still worry about him. This is freaking annoying. But I know better than to argue with it.

I can hear you now. He’s not a child. He can be trusted to take care of himself. This is not always true. Sometimes very smart people fail to drink water.

Anne Lamott, a favorite writer of mine wrote something that initially came as a bit of a shock. She said, “Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should’ve behaved better.”

Lately her words have settled in more. The words and I are not exactly on a first name basis yet. You could say I’m slowly becoming acquainted with them. Which is fine.

But for this particular situation, Anne Lamott’s exact words do not quite fit. So I went ahead and adapted them.

Tell your stories. If people wanted you to stop worrying about them, then they shouldn’t have told you about the time they went sightseeing alone in a foreign country, fainted at the entrance of the hotel, created a hubbub, refused an ambulance, requested a bottle of water, drank it and realized they really should have hydrated sooner.


From the archives:
Yes, Please
Chicken Scratch
Check Back With Me Later

The sun it did rise again

Like when you make new friends but keep the old and the cream always rising to the top, things have their way of sorting themselves out.

But at two o’clock in the morning, when one door closes and another one hasn’t opened yet, you’re thinking that when one door closes it stays closed and another one closes and another one closes.

What if what doesn’t kill you doesn’t make you stronger but kills you just not all at once but a little at a time? And then once you’re good and awake you realize that what doesn’t kill you does makes you stronger and it will still kill you a little bit at a time because that is what life is and we all have an expiration date.

And then you manage to fall asleep but damned if you can remember the transition or what worked and what didn’t. The alarm goes off the next day and you’re tired from time spent awake last night but you have rested and slept some of the time and there’s some magic in that. And wouldn’t you know the very start of some burgeoning sorting is evident and you know that sleep, a little or a lot, is a sweet elixir. What life has taught you, namely to take  what you get even if it’s one step forward, two steps back is doing its thing and lifting you, if not to seize the day, at least to meet it where it is.


From the archives:
These Books Carry Me
Chicken Scratch
No Trophies

Overcast

I wake up miserable. It has no home. It just is. 
I don’t want to feel this way. I try negotiating. It stays put.

A while later I say okay, remember this. Part of life is being able to tolerate these emotions. I forgot this for a little while. I’ve been working on it but it isn’t second nature yet.

I feel better. But I also feel tired from all this work.

Then a third possibility emerges. I’m on the subway when that happens. If it weren’t for iPads I’d have a notebook and pen to write it all down.

Stay open. All emotions ebb and flow whether I work with them or just sit there doing nothing. Let the rest of whatever the day has in store lift me. 

Yes, there’s a chance it could put me lower. It’s possible that the misery is a premonition. Or that random bad things happen. But I can still have an eye toward the horizon. An unexpected kindness, an exchange.

Be a satellite. Let the day do its thing. It could end very differently than it began.


You might also enjoy:
Suffer The Words
The High Cost Of Being Me
No Trophies

The First Day Of School

I was impressed with Noah's new school. I was impressed with the home visit. I was impressed with the free technology workshop Noah participated in over the summer. I was impressed with the freshman overnight trip. I was impressed by the way these things were handled. I was also impressed that they had home visits, free technology workshops over the summer and overnight trips at all.

There were a hundred things to be impressed with at Noah's new school.

I was impressed with the email I had received earlier about what to expect the morning of the first day of school. There were clear directions for the students. There was a pleasant picture of what we would encounter, namely a 7:30 arrival time being greeted by staff members wearing special tee shirts. These staff members would then escort the students into the building.

I arrived at 7:30 with Noah. 7:45 came and went, with no staff members in tee shirts materializing. Noah was pacing about. He was asking what time it was at regular intervals.

I was not impressed.

On the plus side, the yard in front of the school door was filled with what looked like nice students. No one was creating a ruckus. No one was selling drugs.

I think of myself as a reasonably intelligent person. But I’ve noticed that I can be more literal that most people. This can be a good thing because I am always on time and take deadlines seriously. However, when something does not work out as planned, I find this deeply disconcerting.

And so it was with the first day of school. As 7:50 came, I began to miss Noah's previous school. Just as I was comparing the high school unfavorably with the middle school, a man began to approach me with friendly and winning smile. He extended his hand and introduced himself.

This was a good turn of events. Once I start socializing and meeting people I always feel better.

Are you a teacher? He asked. I explained that I am not a teacher. I am the parent of a freshman boy. I pointed to my pacing child.

I get this a lot. In all kinds of situations, people assume that I am a teacher. I must give off some sort of official and competent vibe that people associate with being a teacher.

I've never met a teacher I didn't like. So I take this as a compliment. However, there might be a darker side to being mistaken for a teacher so often. I've wondered if people think that I'm a teacher because I am caucasian. It's possible that people are having positive associations because of my White Privilege.

If I notice something that seems to fall under the umbrella of White Privilege, then it probably does.

The man said that he is the dad of a freshman daughter. He introduced us. When I saw you, I felt like you were an angel from heaven he said.

Although people mistake me for a teacher all the time, the angel from heaven thing is less common. Then again, I do seem to appear at just the right time for people. I can be very helpful.

She's very nervous, the dad said, indicating his daughter. She has no friends yet. She doesn't know anyone here.

He's nervous too, I said. So you can relate to me, yes? He asked. I nodded and smiled. I can totally relate I said.

I do think everyone would be more relaxed if these staff members in special tee shirts would come out, I said. It was almost 8 o'clock. We'd been out here almost half an hour.

The nervous dad told me that he is a Christian. Then he asked me to pray with him. I hesitated. I considered telling him that I wasn't comfortable with it.

Ultimately, I decided to stop over thinking it. Go ahead and just pray with the dude, I said to myself. I was afraid he would feel insulted if I said no. Also, in assessing the situation, which was more concerning by the minute, I felt that perhaps some divine intervention was in order. Doing something—anything—felt better than doing nothing, or worse, standing around complaining.

After a quick prayer, the nervous dad shared that he prayed for everyone at the high school, not just our kids. This was magnanimous of him. On the other hand, I confined myself to our individual kids. I also put in a good word for the staff to come out and escort the kids inside.  One of us took a broad and inclusive approach while the other was very specific.

Soon after, staff members in designated tee shirts appeared. There were less staff members than I anticipated. One of them had a deer in the headlight look, which interfaced badly with my own deer in the headlight look. It would have been better if one of us had not had that look. A deer in the headlights looking at another deer in the headlights is not a good thing.

Thankfully, a man in a suit appeared and seemed to have the entire situation well in hand. He said very reassuring things to the nervous dad and myself.

I joined all of the other parents who were gathered around a large picture window. We all cupped our hands in order to deal with the reflections so that we could watch our children go through the metal detectors. At one point, I lost sight of Noah. Fortunately the nervous dad saw him go all the way through, hesitate, then ask a guard for directions.

I then left and sent Jeremy a grouchy text about the situation.

I thought about emailing the principal about the experience we had in the yard and how the first day of school could be improved upon in the future. I even thought of putting my money where my mouth is and offering to volunteer next September. I would help greet families myself while wearing a special tee shirt.

 In the end, I decided against it. I did not want to appear to be a Looney Tunes. Additionally, no one wants to look like they're one donut short of a dozen. Finally, I did not want to give an exaggerated impression of myself as walking to the beat of my own drum.  My child was clearly going to be walking to the beat of his own drum for the entire four years of high school. I did not want to wear out our welcome there on the first day.

In a few hours time, I had a completely different perspective on the high school. Noah had a good first day. I received reassuring, informative and exciting emails from the school. The drop off the next morning had a different flavor. I was once again reassured and impressed. By the next day, the school had not only met the expectations I had grown accustomed to, but exceeded them.

I later realized that the problem the first morning was really with me and not the school. Sure, things didn’t unfold exactly as I expected. But once I chilled out, I realized that my child doesn’t need a perfect school. I’d taken care that he wouldn’t encounter any big problems at this school. Little problems, like waiting around on the first day build resilience.

He doesn’t need a perfect mother either. Which is a good thing, because he doesn’t have one.