25 in 25

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today I give to you 25 things I've learned in the last year in order of how I think of them.  This will, I hope, make you as wise as me someday:

1. Healthy food tastes better when you're 25 than it did when you're 20.  In fact, it tastes so much better that given the choice between ice cream and red peppers I will almost always choose peppers.

They always welcome me like this.  No joke!

2. Night is still infinitely preferable to morning, but there's a switch that goes off in your brain on your 25th birthday that suddenly makes 2:00 AM very very late.  Also, several years of a regular work schedule will make it impossible for you to sleep in past 8:00 AM, which, when you're still childless, is just unfair.

3. Sometimes you still don't feel like you could possibly be a responsible adult.  Like when you walk around your old college campus or when you go to IHOP in your bloomers after a show.

4. The stranger the food combination looks on the menu, the better it will probably taste.  (Pear and gorgonzola cheese on pork.  Trust me.)

5. That being 25 and single with (two) good jobs means that you have the incredible luxury and privilege of traveling wherever you want, including Disneyland.

6. Also, going to Disneyland is always fun, and no matter how old you are the Peter Pan ride will always make you want to cry a little and walking down Main Street will make you want to skip.

Still pretty sure my letter got lost in the mail.  That's alright.
I'm fine getting it late.  

7. Flying a kite is magical.

8. How important it is to shut down your email when you leave work.  People will understand if you don't answer until morning, and if they don't, they're probably going to be just as big of a jerk at 10:00 PM as they are at 8:30 AM.

9. That seeing a teenager succeed and say something awesome or do something kind or have ridiculous amounts of potential is incredibly rewarding.

10. Also - that I definitely picked the right career path.

11. That a part of me will probably always live in Neverland, Hogwarts, Narnia and Avonlea.  I'll never completely say goodbye to Sherwood or Camelot exactly.  Also I'm not going to try to.  I like my imagination, thank you very much.

12. That not all adults act like adults in the good way.  There are still plenty of oddly petty and grudge-holding people out there.  I don't want to be one of them.

13. That I have some serious work to do if I'm ever going to get to all the books I want to read and re-read before I die.  Also, that there better be books in heaven.  There is no end to the number of times I want to read Anne of Green Gables.  Or Little Women.  Or Sense and Sensibility.  Or. . .

14. There is almost nothing better in this world than hearing beautiful music played live.

15. That I have a pretty incredible set of parents and siblings and extended family.  For the most part, we all get along.  That's so, so rare.  And so lucky.

Alarm = little panda.  Me = big panda.

16. That your work environment can be a living hell with the wrong boss - and heaven if you have the right one.

17. That letting go is sometimes more important than holding on - especially when it comes to annoyance.

18.  That spending all morning devouring a good book is not wasted time, even if it means you're behind on a hundred other things.  You'll be happier doing the rest if you took the time to get away.

19. That my day is infinitely better when my bed is made and I feel pretty.  Taking the time I need to get ready in the morning is worth it, even on Saturday when no one really sees it.

20. That I will probably never be anywhere on time in the morning.  Mornings are the devil.

How I read books.  No joke.  More than one at once.

21. That taking yourself on a date somewhere you like is time and money well spent.  The company is infinitely better (and better looking) than the jerk who ignores you at the symphony or the boring one at the bookstore or the creepers.

22. That no one is immune of an identity crisis.  No one understands themselves as much as they pretend to, and generally you win out by giving people the benefit of the doubt.

23. That I can keep learning without the help of professors and assignments and classes, but it takes more discipline and it's important to surround myself with smart people who can help me talk through ideas.  I still can't learn as well as an island as I can with a group.

24. There is very little in this world that a fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookie can't solve.  (Especially with the ratio of cookie to chip is in favor of cookie.)

Now I want one.

25. I am more capable, more smart, more kind, more gracious and more talented than I sometimes give myself credit for.  I can do hard things.  I can do more and be better.  I am not a failure.  I am flawed, but not wasted.  Weak, but not powerless.  I have the power to be better than I am, but what I am is still pretty good.

Oh Say, What is Truth?

The word "true" gives me a headache.

Growing up, I used the word like I was handing out Halloween candy - freely and to anyone (or anything) that came to the door.  "I know the scriptures are true" I would say in testimony meetings.  "I know the church is true".  "I know the prophet is true".  The word "true" was applied to dozens of things and ideas and people and I felt it.  I felt it.

As a child, I designated truth as anything that was not false.  It was a clean, nice, straightforward definition.  The answer was either right or wrong.  The choice was either good or bad.  There was no middle ground when it came down to it.  No room for a "but what if. . . ?"  There was no grey area in which truths and falsehoods could co-habitate.  It was all or nothing, baby.

When I was in high school, I took a World Literature class from a fabulous teacher.  One unit that still stands out in my mind was a unit where we read several creation stories and flood stories.  Nearly every corner of the world has these stories, we were taught - and our job was to guess why.  We read the story of Noah and the Ark compared to folk tales involving turtle shells and Zeus' angry flood to get rid of the extravagant Bronze Age, and others.  The flood stories fascinated me especially.  It made sense that so many cultures would want to know where the beginning of everything fit - but flood stories?  According to how I'd been brought up, Noah and his family (and their menagerie) were the only survivors of the flood.  Shouldn't there be only one story?  Only one truth?  What if there had been many different flood interpretations - were those stories still valid?  Were they also true?

Later, in college, I took an Anthropology class from a professor who had grown up more or less in a mortuary.  Her father was the mortician and she had found the experience so interesting that she had gone on to study birth and burial rights with an emphasis on East Asian experience.  She told dozens of stories including one about a family who had a dead body in the back room of their house for ages until they could afford an expensive funeral for her - they had ancient royal blood in their family and, though they were impoverished now, had to provide a certain standard of funeral.

The story that stood out to me most, though, was one about a woman she met who had converted to Christianity.  Christianity was rare in that particular location where Buddhism and other local belief systems reined supreme, so my professor had asked the woman what it was that had told her that Christianity was right.  "I had a great pain behind my forehead," the woman had responded, pointing to a spot between her eyes.  "And I knew it was true."

Come to find out, the woman had been raised to believe that great spiritual experiences give a person headaches.  It was a far cry from the "warm fuzzy feelings" I'd been told about all my life.  But since I, too, believed in Christianity - could I also stretch my beliefs beyond fuzzies and into headaches to conduits of truth discovery?  Where were headaches in scripture?

Then there were bigger problems: what about truths that weren't "real" per-say?  If truth and lies are the equivalent of non-fiction and fiction, then it suggests that anything that doesn't exist in the concrete, tangible places isn't true, or at least cannot promote or produce truth.  This doesn't seem quite right either - Christ himself taught through parables - fictional stories that represent good virtues.  I had myself seen hundreds of movies and books, listened to hours of music, pretended to be someone else in theater - some of these experiences made truths clearer to me than any "real" experiences.  Were the truths taught via. Jane Eyre or Ender's Game or Charlotte's Web any less valid than truths learned from the time I spent not reading?   

One of my classes has just finished reading Life of Pi, a book based on the premise that the stories we tell - about our own lives, and about our faith - are part of what bring us to God.  The character Pi Patel is thrown into rather horrific circumstances that involve being stuck on a lifeboat with a tiger.  At the end of the story when Pi has finally reached land and the authorities are questioning him, he tells them two versions of his story: the one he's told the entire book, and a rather more disturbing one.  Although it is never verified - it is suggested that this second more awful version is the "true" version.  The version that has been told the entire book is the version that Pi has been telling himself to help cope with the awful things he has seen.  It is a story that enables him to try and move beyond tragedy - it is the story that allows him to understand the meaning of his experience and what he can learn from it.  In much the same way that we, when faced with things we don't understand, try to predict why God might be "doing this to us", Pi has constructed a highly symbolic tale that he determines is more true than reality because it is the story that changes him more.

One parent disagreed with this analysis.  "Pi's fabrication does not relate a more profound reality," he wrote.  "The story was not about truth, but about storytelling.  The problem I see with it is that if the truth doesn't matter, then any story is as good as any other story.  Or any story is as meaningless as any other."

"No!" I wanted to shout.  "The truth does matter!  It is everything."  And then I would, if I could, tell him how much I need stories in my life.  How much we all do.  How stories of Mormon Pioneers remind me of my heritage, and stories of my childhood make me laugh, and how stories of a desperate prostitute doing all she can to save her child inspires me to never give up and how stories of magical wardrobes teach me about the purpose of my life.  I would tell him about how the Book of the Dead teaches me not to fear dying, and the writings of Confucius teach me to be patient with myself and others, and the stories of Peter remind me that even flawed sinners like me can become great. That the Olympics remind me of the essential qualities of human goodness and that Claire de Lune taught me how to feel.  I would tell him that the story of springtime bursting into life again after an awful winter is awe inspiring to me.  And I would tell him, more than anything, that all of these things have brought me closer to God.

I don't fault this parent for being frustrated with the end of Pi, but I do ache for him.  I ache because, from my perspective, the world is full of stories.  From how we interpret the events around us to less spontaneous, more artistic and refined variations - they matter.  And they change us, and they make us better.  And they teach us to empathize with perspectives that are not ours.  Is that not a less limiting definition of truth?  Truth is more - so much more - than simple exact reality or total fantasy.

Read the Instructions Exactly

Dear World -

Today my students are sitting in a nearly silent room taking a state test.  It's very exciting.

Yesterday we had ethics training on the proper way to administer a state test.  For example, I'm not allowed to distribute colored candies to my students suggesting correct answers to them.  I told them this, and they laughed.  I'm glad they laughed - it meant they know me well enough to know that I wouldn't ever do that.  I hope they see me as an honorable person.  So no candy.  I am, however, encouraged to bribe my students with bonus points or prizes for doing well on this test.  "They won't do well any other way," the government says.  "Teenagers need to be tricked into learning" is what I hear.

I was livid.

I also had a conversation recently that bewildered me a bit.  "You don't have your class rules posted," the individual said.  "No, I don't." I replied.  "I don't need to."

"They should see the rules.  It's helpful for them because then they know what is expected."

I don't need to post rules in my classroom.  I don't have class management problems.  Instead of posting rules, we post values.  Each year we select a quote from a poem or essay that matters.  We post them in the classroom and every year we add a new one.  This year the quote is 'Carpe the heck out of your diem.'  Last year it was 'I am a part of all that I have met'.  One year it was 'Live like a champion today'.    I don't want to set a ceiling on expected behavior, because I want them to do the unexpected.  They don't rip up my room because that's not the kind of student I expect them to be.  But sometimes the administrative world of teaching doesn't quite get that.  "If rules aren't posted, how do they know?" I can see them thinking.  "Teenagers are always looking for a way to goof off.  Posting the rules fixes that."

Clearly these professionals don't see what I see.

I told my students about those thoughts today.  Reminded them (as if they needed reminding) that there are people in this world that think very little of them.  That think they have so little integrity and honesty that they won't do anything without a cheap, tangible, sugary or point laden reward.  I told them that I think better of them than that.  That I trust them.  That I love them - each of them - for the wonderful individuals they are.  I told them to kick the test in the face because they are the kind of people who should do everything to the best of their ability because it's right, not just when they feel like it or when they care, but all the time.  Even during state tests.

I've been aching for them lately.  For me too.  Because although I carry myself with confidence, I feel like I'm still flying by the seat of my pants most of the time with this teaching thing.  There are still many topics that I don't present as well as I could.  Subjects I'm a little more vague on than I would like to be.  Ideas that I struggle to communicate well.  I'm still learning, still so new at this teaching thing.

It's hard, teaching.  It's such a strange balance of instinct and study.  Every now and then I get emails from parents wondering why I don't teach a certain topic a different way.  "Clearly," they tell me, "This would be so much better".  Maybe they're right.  "You should start an after school writing club," another parent suggested.  "Not everyone is as good at writing as you."  Yes, I think.  I know that.  I read more of their writing than you do.  Maybe I should start a writing club.  Maybe that would fix it.  Or maybe your kid should pay attention in class.  Or maybe I picked vocabulary the day I taught certain lessons that just didn't connect.  Or maybe the kid came in from lunch tired from a full stomach or frustrated because of an argument with a friend, or tired from a late night baseball game.  Or maybe my instructions were confusing and I could have been a little more clear.  Maybe somewhere between the kid and me it's just going to take a few more tries.  Maybe it was a perfect storm of all of the above.  Who knows?

Oh, how I wish that teaching were as easy as giving a state test.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if all I had to do was read the instructions exactly on how to teach a topic?  How to understand each student?  How to communicate with each parent?  How to talk about each book?  It would be so much easier.  So much less stressful.  It would make so many more parents happy.  It would produce wonderfully predictable results.  "If you take my class," I could say, "I will turn you into THIS."  But it isn't that easy.  I'm an imperfect person still trying new things.  Sometimes I connect better with one student than with another.  Sometimes my class changes lives.  Sometimes - hopefully not as often - it stresses and frustrates them instead.  Is that a sin?  I don't think so.  It's unfortunate and inconvenient and downright frustrating - but that's life.  I can't be everything for everyone.  I'm not that good.

In the mean time, I keep trying to move forward.  I pray that my students will be patient with me as I try to figure things out.  That parents will forgive me my imperfections and that God will help students to learn when I fall short.  I do my best.  I try to learn from mistakes and get better each time, because I owe it to them.  They deserve the world.

Please - for me - the next time you see a teenager you know, please tell them how wonderful they are.  And remember that with few exceptions, their teachers are honestly trying to do what they think is best.  Maybe what the teacher is doing isn't best.  Maybe for some it is and some it isn't.  It happens.  But they mean well.  No one in their right mind would enter this profession otherwise.

The Young and the Beautiful

My birthday is coming up.  It isn't an overly significant birthday other than the fact that it marks a decade of dating failure to celebrate.

When I was sixteen I had my future figured out.  I'd go to college and get good grades, of course.  But I would also date regularly because I'm hott like that and I would have my pick of the boys because I'm smart like that and I would be married when I wanted because I plan like that.  And I would be young and beautiful and fresh faced in all of my pictures and everyone that came to my wedding would congratulate me on my wonderful success of graduating head of the marriageable class.  A++ to me.  And years down the road my beautiful, smart, well planned children would look at pictures of that day and talk about how awesome and young and Audrey Hepburn-esque I am.  Extra credit, small child.  Extra credit.

Reality, as you know well oh regular reader, has turned out somewhat differently.  I'm at the point in my life where the Mormon community will breathe a sigh of relief if I ever get married at all.  "That was a close one!" they will say.  "Dodged a bullet!!" they'll add.  "Thank goodness they found each other.  How wonderful."  If I do get married, it won't be purely an occasion of celebration.  It will also be an event tinged heavily with relief.  "Glad that's over." they'll think.  "You finally made it!" they'll write on the cards.  And my pictures will feature an "older" dress because the younger styles will look weird and pretentious on me.  (Business suit, anyone?)  My friends with their 3-4 children will come and I will smile awkwardly back.  From where I sit now, I totally wish that elopement was a culturally acceptable option for an overaged Mormon woman still navigating blind date waters.  Then I could disappear for a year and everyone could just forget the whole thing ever happened and treat me like normal.

So.  In the name of trying to forget not really significant birthdays that are still a little bit significant in the not so great way: I am laughing at this, very appreciative of the advice offered here (especially the part about giving me dating advice if you got married at 18.  Completely different ball game now, y'all), and thanking my lucky stars that I am, on the whole, happy as a social menace (thanks a ton, Brigham).  I'm quite content with my independent ability to grow old while traveling instead of changing diapers and cleaning up vomit volcanoes.  Look on the bright, bodily fluid (and fart) free side of life, right?  Of course right.

Justice

When I was a freshman in high school, I remember walking into choir one day and hearing rumors about one of the cheerleaders.

"I hear she's suspended," one person said, pointing to her empty seat.

"No she's not," another student nearby piped in, shaking her head with an all-knowing scowl.  "She's pregnant.  She's going to that special school."

Pregnant?  "Well!", I thought, "I wouldn't put it past the girl."  She'd always been a bit of a pain to work with from my estimation.  Didn't seem that bright.  Didn't seem that put together.  Of course she'd managed to wind up somewhere stupid.

Fast forward a few months.  I'm on an overnight trip with my show choir and there's a girl vomiting.  As a certified, life long member of the emetophobia society, I'm freaking out.  I'm steering clear.  "I don't want to get sick!" I say to another choir member.  "I'm washing my hands like crazy."

"She's not sick," my friend tells me.  "She's hung over.  Don't feel sorry for her."

I didn't.  I was furious.  How could she be so stupid?  She totally deserved what she got.  Hung over and whining about it?  What a moron.

When I was a teenager I had a decently simplistic view of bad things happening to people.  I wasn't quite so extreme as Miss Prism from The Importance of Being Earnest who claimed that the good end happily and the bad unhappily ("that is what fiction means!").  I knew from my own life that bad things happened to good people.  No one is immune.  Some people were stupid and brought troubles upon themselves more often and more readily than others, but that was their fault.  Some people just had rotten obstacles to overcome and that was just a testament to God working in mysterious ways. . . whatever that meant.

To be honest with you, the justice in the universe hasn't ever really eaten at me as much in my life as it has this year.  I can study Holocaust literature and, perhaps horribly enough, find the poetry in the story that God is weaving in his universe.  Sure, the Holocaust was horrible; but how wonderful that the world now has so many examples of the triumph of the human spirit in the face of incredible odds, right?  Isn't that a blessing?  It's so easy for me to write off the crap of the world as just another step on the hero's journey.

But it's getting harder.

This year has been, more than any other, full of inexplicable injustices on people around me that I know and love.  It's been an especially hard year for some of my students.  I've seen so many of them struggle with illnesses and family drama and friendships that aren't easy any more.  I've seen them given challenges that adults would crumble under.  That I would crumble under.  It's breaking my heart to watch.  The world is in front of them and so full of possibilities.  Or it should be.  "Why is this happening to me?" one student said, looking completely exasperated.  "I'm going places with my life.  I have plans.  I am smart.  Shouldn't this be happening to someone who is destined to a life of flipping burgers?!"

Yes.  Yes it should.

To have students come into my office seeking refuge, understanding, help, a listening ear - I feel completely unprepared and unqualified to offer anything.  Every time I open my mouth to try and offer whatever advice I can I feel young and inexperienced and completely moronic.  What do I, with my healthy, safe, convenient life know about helping them with their struggles?  With my family that is whole, with my finances that are secure, with my job that I didn't even apply for?  How can I help?  Everything comes out so trite and pithy and easy.

But I can't turn them away.  I can't pass them off to some counselor.  Because, somehow - and I'm not entirely sure how this happened - they learned to trust me, and I can't give that up.  I can't break that. I owe it to them.

They don't prepare you for this in school.  They don't talk about this on the stupid state test I had to take to upgrade my license.  They'll warn you a little about how you'll love your students and want to do anything for them.  They don't warn you at all about how they'll worm their way into your own dreams and heartaches.  How their successes and failures will hit you too.  How an uncertain future for those who deserve so, so much more will make you wish that you had done more with your own life and question the judgment of God.  I heard all these stories about your biological children.  But what about the other ones?

In Memorium 55 - Tennyson

The wish, that of the living whole

No life may fail beyond the grave,

Derives it not from what we have

The likest God within the soul?

Are God and Nature then at strife, 

That Nature lends such evil drams?

So careful of the type she seems,

So careless of the single life,

That I, considering everywhere

Her secret meaning in her deeds, 

And finding that of fifty seeds

She often brings but one to bear,

I falter where I firmly trod,

And falling with my weight of cares

Upon the great world's altar-stairs

That slope through darkness up to God,

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,

And gather dust and chaff, and call

To what I feel is Lord of all,

And faintly trust to larger hope.