Mandalas & justice for Rambo
Today ended with me telling the story of a hamster I had, as a kid, named Rambo. In an act of neglect, I forgot I left Rambo in the basement play kitchen and thus, if you ask my students, caused his death. “You neglected him to death,” a student told me. When I said, “Hey, I’m innocent!” they laughed hard at my protest. They wrote “Justice for Rambo” on the whiteboard, on a piece of paper, then on another piece of paper that was tacked onto a wall of the classroom. I let it go on because they were laughing so hard, and it was silly kid laughter, utterly genuine, totally joyous.
When you spend approximately 8 hrs/day with the same cohort of approx. 15 kids you learn a lot about your students and they learn, as it happens, a lot about you. “Like water,” I said to a student as he entered the room this morning. He imitated a one-legged martial arts pose, replied, “Bruce Lee!” kicked at the air and took a seat. This is how we roll in the morning. We cut right through the formalities and go straight to metaphors and Bruce Lee.
The school day was actually great. We took a nice, long walk. We ate snacks, made mandalas, talked about poetry and rap, about bullying, about love. If you imagine me serenely seated in a room with a baker’s dozen middle schoolers, you’re partially correct. There were a few serene moments. Mostly, restlessness, random questions and inappropriate observations, endless bathroom requests, questionable hygiene practices, thinly veiled expressions of profound boredom. You know, middle school. These years, for the human animal, are always fundamentally the same regardless of the context in which they take place.
“This is your life right now,” I said to my students during a conversation about money where a student ventured something to the effect of “life doesn’t really begin until you start working.”
“Not true,” I countered. “Actually, this is your life right now.”
I might know how they receive this. I vaguely remember the adolescent angst I once carried with me in my heart. Can’t always hear the good stuff over the babbling hormones and change and necessary chaos.
And I’m trying to be more aware of this myself, these days. I can get caught up in “if only” thinking. “If only ______ was happening/not happening” or “if only I could _______ then everything would be fine.” Or “If only I had/hadn’t ________ none of ________ would happen.” Blanks everywhere. Ifs sloppily scattered throughout my mind. And this is my life. Right now.
When I remind myself of this, my days are infinitely easier. The hard moments aren’t snags on the road to my life, but part of the texture of my life itself. Each day, particularly this week, I am trying to go out with a sense of excitement, wonder, and humility. This seems to lead to greater happiness in my day, no matter how challenging the day may be.
Tomorrow will be challenging. I have to get up early, get myself over to Ye Olde Cancre Centre, get labs, see the good doc, get infusions, return to work so my students and I can string our mala bracelets (kind of the whole “point” of this week) and build out our found object mandala. Challenging. That’s it. The day will be challenging.
And then there’s grief. I was wondering this week why I was having such a hard time “adjusting” my mood in the morning, and I remembered: I lost someone very dear. Moreover, this death came at a very strange time in everyone’s life because it’s a strange time in our nation’s life or “challenging” if you will (and I know you will).
There’s a line early in The Odyssey where Telemachus tells Athena-in-disguise that his mother had “told” him that Odysseus was his father. And in that “told” is I think a little of what I’m feeling right now: that disorienting sense of trying to wrap your head around something that you cannot make tangible.
Fall break is next week. I will spend the lion’s share of my days in California, visiting dear Betsy and her family. I’m driving solo and stopping halfway out to spend one night in Joshua Tree. I’ve always wanted to see the Joshua Trees. Then on to Ventura for time by the sea. Now I’m laughing because this sounds exactly like an excerpt from a blog featured on Dateline. Imagine Keith Morrison saying, “she said she was going to California to visit friends . . . “
And on that note, reader, be good to yourself and others.
Send me some strength for a la mañana.
Enjoy some levity:
