The snow is piling up.  It was supposed to be leaving by now, melting and trickling down into the earth to feed the soil and replenish the waterways that seem so far away from where I sit.  The temperatures have slowly been rising and a season of change is seeping in, the decomposing leaves and dormant plant life beginning to sneak the scent of dirt and spring into the air.  Each recent morning I have questioned my choice to put on boots instead of shoes, and several days have found me outside without a scarf and, once, without a jacket.

But this morning the snow is piling up.  The flakes are thick and heavy and drag the branches down.  The branches that have just begun to bump with hidden buds waiting to explode.  The sky is cold gray and it is hard to delineate between the snow and the clouds, even though the brightness of the day is unmistakable, the hidden sun still making itself known.  It seems like there was an overnight conspiracy to slow us all down, to have us stop and appreciate the quiet stillness of our world…but that is not what I see when I look outside. 

I see each flake as another thing that stands in my way of doing what I want to do on a Saturday in mid-march. I want to clear the debris from the yard and start planning our summer landscape.  I want to put on sneakers and head out for a long, meandering walk that requires sunglasses and ends with my sweatshirt tied around my waist, with warm air grazing my bare arms.  I want to sit on our patio and do absolutely nothing except soak in the newness of spring and the promise of summer.  

But the snow continues to pile up.  Each flake is yet another thing that keeps me stuck.  Each flake, piling up higher and higher, buries my initiative.  I know that this is short-lived and that the snow will recede, making space for walks and long, unstructured days.  I know that each flake is not, in fact, another thing that I have to deal with, dispose of, confront….but sitting here, on my couch, I can’t help but feel the weight of my world mirrored in the falling snow.  There is so much that keeps coming at me, down on me, threatening to bury me.  And my shovel is so small in contrast.

5:10pm on Thursday and the sun is still visible just over the neighbor’s roof.  The neighbor who I know by his face and silhouette, but not by name.  Is it Mr. White? (or is that the name of our old mail carrier?) 

The dog clandestinely has found his way onto the couch, surreptitiously curling up next to me.  A moment of weakness for me and a flash of opportunity for him.  But the kids are not home and the main reason he can’t be on the couch is because he still, after eight years on this planet, does not remember that they are not his littermates.  

The children are at a friend’s house, forgoing a movie in a Real Live Movie Theater for the first time in almost two years for the comfortable, predictable chaos of four homeschoolers running amok…safely amok (is that an oxymoron?), but amok nonetheless. I know, because when they are here, it is the same.  (And the dog is definitely not allowed on the furniture then!)  

The eldest child–although he no longer fits that label–has just texted that he is leaving the skatepark and heading to his girlfriend’s house for a few hours.  It was not a request for permission; this is a shift that we are all getting to know in this new world of sixteen.  

My husband and I discuss our dinner options, wanting to want to try dining in at a restaurant for the first time in almost two years, but (like the kids) opting for upscale, overpriced takeout that eliminates the potential discomfort of being out in the real world.  We order, talk a bit about our days, trying desperately to tune in to the other’s lived experiences that are so foreign to our own, and then he leaves to retrieve the goods.  

I contemplate writing, but choose first to finish my transformation from school to home: taking out my contacts, putting away my jewelry, snuggling into my sweats and slippers.

As the hour pushes 6pm, I notice that the neighbor’s house now sits against the pink backdrop of the unimpressive sunset.  But even with its minimal fanfare, I spend a bit of time just watching the purples mush into one another, each hue fighting for primacy and each one losing.

The potential lies within me…always.

I have forgotten how clear I was, just a few hours, days, weeks, months ago. While the worlds around me swirl and storm, I am constant. I am the eye. Today, I am remembering the only truth I really know.

4:15…the alarm is about to go off, but I am awake and start the day in silence.

5 minutes becomes 10 becomes the whole pot of coffee. I have read, commented and started three different pieces of writing, all deleted and banished to the semipermanent realm of the digital garbage.

Switch gears. More coffee. Grades are due. I owe it to them to attach a number to the work that defies quantification.

Movement. Blessed movement. Out of my head and into my body. Muscles, balance, sweat…find the edge.

Rushing. Running late. How is that even possible??

Coffee shop… closed. (Yet again I wonder how a coffee shop can be closed on Monday mornings. What evil lurks in that decision?)

I beat the bus. Off site dialogue groups with students. Talking about difficult subjects. Facilitating and not teaching. They will go where they will go and I will follow, observe and wonder how come they don’t see what I see.

Lunch with co-facilitators. Simple until it isn’t. I am speaking. My voice is shaking. My eyes lose focus. I feel the heat fill my face. I am not clear. The words, my words, are failing me. How come they don’t see what I see?

Found time. An hour. It’s worth the extra 15 minutes to drive to get fresh coffee. I start with the news and then find Springsteen. Loud enough to almost drown out my thoughts. Almost.

Back at school. Checking off my “to-do” list. I am not giving the best of me. Every encounter is overshadowed by the things unsaid. Thank god all the interactions are with adults. They don’t see.

Union meeting. I try to find the balance between staying on track and allowing people to be heard. I am in charge but the locus of control seems elusive. I reveal too much and question how much is really too much. It was too much.

Heading home, finally, even after the meeting spilled into the parking lot. Cold mist comes in through my open window but it is not as bad as it is for the one standing in the rain. I breathe deep and continue to listen until they are done.

Home. “How was your day?” Dishes to be done. Dinner to be made. Children are predictable and settled in their own way. Husband is having his own day and I am failing to figure it out completely. There will be time. There is always time…. until there is not. (Remember that.)

Planning and grading and watching a movie with Kevin Hart and the Rock. Or is it The Rock? To be clear: I am watching the movie with two of the three kids and not with Kevin Hart and the (The?) Rock. They are in the movie. I sink in and laugh and forget.

Tired. Exhausted. 4:15 will come soon But….I forgot to write. Can I still push words together? What part of the story is worth telling? What part of the story is worth remembering?

Poetry Hides…In the worn sweater, threadbare and ineffective
			hanging with the memory of movement

It lingers…just out of reach, inside words I can’t grasp
				  inside lines that won’t form

It is buried deep within the embrace that lingers, long after you let go
						long after we returned to our lives
						    	after others filled that space

Poetry creeps out of my coffee cup
	alive with an agenda all its own

I see it clearly for a moment 		but then it escapes
barreling down the road
bouncing off guardrails 
				skidding through black ice 

	leaving behind the clarity of all that I don’t have to lose


Poetry hides…
			where it can do no harm.

Something is different.  I don’t know exactly what it is, but there is a familiarity around me that I haven’t felt in a very, very long time.  The wind is blowing gusty but the temperature is warm and there is sun filtering through the low clouds.  The snow has melted enough to see the brown leaves that were left behind last fall and the spring cleanup to-do list starts, unprompted, in the back of my mind.  But that is not it.

It is me, in my car, alone, running to and from our Synagogue, where my kids (and husband) are in person for the first time in almost two years.  It is me, in my car, alone, picking up a quick cup of coffee and a bagel, freshly baked and deliciously over priced.  It is me, in my car, alone, singing to the perfectly chosen playlist for this morning’s Blue Moon Cafe on TK99, shocked that I know almost all the lyrics to every song coming at me and lost, occasionally, in the memories associated with a particular guitar riff, drum solo or harmonic chorus. 

There is a hope that floats on the warm winds, bringing with it an energy that is permeating through my bones.  Arriving at the Shul, the parking lot is full; the greeters are in place (as is the plain-clothed officer, Tom, a constant reminder that the world is full of hate and evil) and there is the buzz of low conversations from kids and adults.  I keep hearing the same words with slight variations.  There are hugs and smiling eyes as we all move through the well-known motions of our Sunday School arrival.     

There is a strange comfort sitting in our Synagogue’s library with a few other parents, buried deep in my laptop and quietly sipping my now-lukewarm coffee.  I am likely the only one writing about us, but I am certain that we are all thinking about the newness of this rhythm that has taken us out of our homes and back into this space.  In many ways we are the embodiment of Spring, coming out from our winter hibernation that has lasted for the better part of the past two years.  

The Before Times don’t seem so far away right now and I stop to entertain the fantasy of longer days and communal living, once again.  I know that the forecast calls for a return to winter, a cold front barreling its way down from Canada.  I know that there is always the possibility of a surge or a new variant or a new virus altogether.  I am smart enough to know that this fake spring will be replaced with colder, blustery days…but I am hoping that our reemergence from the dark will stay. For now, I will go out without my jacket, greet my friends, embrace one another and appreciate the smiles that have been dormant for far too long. 

I have reached that point in the month of March when I see writing everywhere.  I hear myself talking, and I think that I am really talking in metaphor.  I find myself observing life as I am living it and I stop to think about what is there.  I listen to hear what is unsaid.  I look to find what is lurking in shadows.  I try to find the silence in the noise.  Loitering on the periphery of my everyday world, I observe and contemplate that world with as much distance as possible.  Would that be best written about with humor?  Are there pictures that can accompany that idea to give it some grounding?  Is that trite? Predictable? Derivative? Cliché? How close to the dark truth do I want to go today…or ever?

I relish the silence and the opportunities to fully sink into my contemplation.  In a life full of people and conversations and sheer movement, I appreciate the gift of being able to stop and recognize when the world has receded temporarily and I am left with the space to discover these hidden treasures, finding a way to capture their depth with my fumbling words.  Cherishing this, I have, ironically, lost the “writing” time.  My clock ticks a bit louder, reminding me that there is a sink full of dishes, a house with others in need of attention, phone calls to return and texts to read. I try to transform my thoughts into words that will attempt to communicate this moment. I see the inevitable failure in this Sisyphean task.

Tomorrow is another day with another blank page to fill.

I have not been one who nurtures plants very well. Sometimes they grow, sometimes they don’t. I don’t know if I have the right soil, the right amount of sun (doesn’t everyone need all day sun??), the right temperature…there really does not seem to be a whole lot that I do that predicts the fate of leafy greens that are brought under my care. There have been years when I have had so much greenery growing in my home that I felt my thumb just beginning to show its own shades of green, and there have been years when I have sheepishly thrown withered, brown stalks encased in dry, hardened earth into garbage bins and dumpsters. Throughout my adult life, there has not been a time when I have had some plants flourish while others died slow, neglected deaths; it really has been an all or nothing kind of a thing for me.

I wonder if my way with plants is also my way with students….following my instincts, watching to see what may work, attempting to read research and growing bored with the vernacular of the insiders who tell tales about their successful gardens. Sometimes the most neglected plants flower and show beauty that takes my breath away. Sometimes the plants grow in surprising ways, defying traditional conventions, challenging established wisdom. Although I have never picked up a student and tossed him or her into an equivalent receptacle, there have been far too many students who did not get the best of me. Not by a long shot.

It does seem that there is a lesson to be learned here, a lesson about community and environments and interconnectedness. A lesson about moderation and luck, about knowing when to interfere and knowing when to just wait patiently.

Let me start with a confession:  I have not been a good teacher this year.  Or last year.  Or, really, since some time in late spring of 2020.  I know that I am supposed to cut myself some slack, be gentle, find grace, recognize that we are all in the same boat (or at least weathering the same storm), but, really?  I just have not been a good teacher.

Today, I asked my students to give me some feedback.  Being the good eighth graders that they are, their first question was, “Is this graded?” When I explained that not only was it not graded, but that it was going to be completely anonymous, there was a little buzz in the room.  I got nervous.  I gave them a bit more insight into my motivation, explaining to them that I often ask students at the end of the year to give me honest feedback, but that this was the first time I was doing it mid-way through a school year.  I told them that between the major capital project that is decimating our school and displacing our learning space on a regular basis, the last almost-two years in a global pandemic and our most recent move to optional masking, the time felt right to reassess and rethink how we —how I— do things.  

The responses began to come in.  Had this been a giant mistake?  I had to start to process it.  I was way off on so many things!  I had planned a read aloud (there were only two students who thought that was a good idea) and, apparently, the “dynamic” slide decks and interactive activities from (Insert the name of Big Corporate School Resource for Nonfiction Material) were really dreaded worksheets!  All they wanted was time to write, read and talk to one another.

I sat in front of my computer, reading through their comments.  They were gentle, but they were honest.  

A colleague and a friend sat down next to me.  She retired two years ago and now comes in to "selectively sub" for those of us she truly likes.  She has known me for almost twenty years and she knows what is in my heart.  She began to read my computer screen. I told her about my experiment, about how I had become a worksheet teacher.  She laughed and listened to me talk through the students’ responses and my reaction to them.  She quietly drank her coffee and heard me wondering out loud about how I could have gotten to this point.  She thumbed through her well-worn appointment book and watched me mine through the data, trying to find nuggets of myself, of the teacher I used to be.  There was not much there.  I was deflated and on the edge. I closed my computer and sat quietly across from my friend.  

Finally, she said, “Amy, they just want you.  They just want to be in your workshop, but they don’t even know what that is!”

Workshop, true workshop, has not been a part of my pandemic teaching life.  First, it was impossible to replicate through zoom.  Then, it was too disparate during the time of the Hybrid Disaster.  Finally, masking and social distancing kept us from conferring and holding one another's papers.  There are so many reasons why I have drifted so far away from an authentic writer’s workshop, but the truth is that it is hard.  It takes so much of me to make it really work.  I haven’t had a lot left to give, but now I feel like I don’t have a choice.  As my friend pointed out, just giving them the space to provide honest feedback gave the students renewed ownership of the classroom.  It was a first step and I feel like it is impossible to stop this momentum.  

((with thanks & apologies to Sherri Spelic for the inspiration!)

Commiserating with March…

When the rain falls, I dip.
As the sun shines, I rise.

Gray clouds loom on the horizon
Darkness is always swirling inside me.

Days grow longer and evening stretches
On this other side of mid-life.

The trees are brown and bare
Life is hiding deep inside them

I am gray with deep lines.
My body tells my story, incompletely.

March enters like the roaring lion
March exits like a gentle lamb

I have been here, roaring gently.
Perhaps the roar should grow louder?

…the weather shifts.