How Am I Doing?

 In general, the question "How are you" is a space filler that isn't intended to elicit an honest answer. To be honest, in the bad old days of my mental health crisis, that question made me feel awful because I knew how sick I was. There are better questions to ask. 

Every once in a rare while, "How are you" hits in the deepest, most sincere way. I'm president of my local teachers' union. The district endured a self-inflicted staffing crisis that took a lot of energy to address. We're also getting ready to negotiate a new contract and dealing with the Omicron surge.We've been teaching remotely since the end of the break, which has been smart, but isolating.

One day this week, a member sent me a text that moved me to tears.

It hit me so hard. Look at all of those hats I wear. If I think back to 2014, I 'm shocked that I'm even still alive. I'm stunned and proud that I'm coping as well as I am.

Oddly, very few people have sincerely asked me this question. About three people on my team regularly check in on me and I love them for that.

In fact, I don't know how to answer. I'm busy. Crazy busy. My house is a wreck. I stay home because of Covid. I don't share any of that with folks because my non-union friends don't need to hear about all the crazy in my work life. If I shared all of that, no one else would speak. I don't want to share all of it with my union friends because they're already dealing with a level of the same crazy I am. I just have more of the crazy because it's my job to try and fix some of it. I'm the dumping ground for the crazy.

The question that regularly runs through my mind is should I actively seek out someone to whom I can vent? The president just before me encouraged me to find someone to fill that role. It feels odd. Who wants to hear about all of the bullshit that I deal with on a daily basis? How do I not bring that person down? I guess that there's a skill to venting. I can learn, but I still worry that no one really wants to hear about all of it. I guess those old insecurities like to hang around for a long. Still a work in progress.

Maybe that's how I'll answer that question - I'm still evolving.

A Sense of Awe

 I took a walk by the river today. It was pretty cold, the type of weather I normally avoid. I have a couple of health issues that don't really like the cold, so I usually just watch the winter outdoors from inside, under an electric blanket.

I've let worry make my decisions for quite some time. Bah. That hasn't made me any happier, or healthier.

Today, I let that drop. The sun was so beautiful and inviting that I bundled up and braved the cold. I knew that my back would hurt and my bladder would betray me. I chose not to care. January is usually a long, cloudy month. How could I pass up the beauty that was mere steps away?

I live in a condo along the Detroit River. In the winter, I see the ice floes that come from somewhere further north. From the balcony, they look cool. My walk today took me up close to the river and cool is not a strong enough word. Amazing. Awesome. Those kind of work. Why had I never bothered to walk out there and see them before?

Standing on the walkway along the river, I experienced the strangest sensation. Without moving, I watched the ice floes and I felt like I was on a boat that was moving through the ice. It was a little disorienting, so I started walking. I needed to feel like I was on solid ground. 

I walked, felt the sun on my face, and froze my fingers trying to take a few pictures. Eventually, I returned to the area where I had felt like I was moving. That feeling returned again, but this time I embraced it. I'm sure that there is some scientific reason for that sensation - I don't know it.

I was left with a sense of awe. Experiencing awe is good for us and I know that my mood was vastly improved after my walk. I was also left with the realization that even when we're trying not to change, we can't avoid change. I stood perfectly still and the ice continued to flow past me. The sun was shining on the ice, I'm sure melting parts of it that would then refreeze in an altered form.

Logically and intellectually, I know that change is inevitable and all around us. Today was a reminder, however, that hit me in my soul, not my brain. It was a truly beautiful reminder that I think will move me a little more often from under the blanket back to the outdoors.

Another Poem

 I'm a bit surprised by how much I've been writing lately. Maybe I'm writing so much because my school district is online right now to avoid Omicron. In person, when my students are working independently, I wander around the room and engage them in conversation about the task or subject, asking questions that, I hope, spur on critical thinking. While they're working independently online, I kind of just stare at the screen and remind them to ask if they need help. That leaves me some time on my hands and what better to do with that time than write.

I'm also participating in a 5-day Mindful Writing Challenge. I also wrote with this challenge last year. I'm sitting down everyday, intentionally writing. That makes a huge difference.

I won't share the prompt that I'm given, but I do want to share the poem that I wrote for Day 1. I usually write fiction and only dabble in poetry. Since the pandemic hit, I have found myself writing a lot more poetry. I don't know why. I do know that I've struggled with fiction since the pandemic has started. 

As I said, I want to share the poem I wrote for day 1. This is the first love poem I have ever written in my life. I hope you enjoy it.

To My Friend

The impossible jubilance in your smile

blossoms hope in my heart that

maybe,

just maybe

love is growing in the orchard of our friendship.

I have lived too long in the shade of loneliness;

I can't read the signs,

if, indeed, there are signs.

The warmth of your kindness burns away the shadows,

leaving the tantalizing sweetness of

our conversations

on my tongue.

This is a Hostage Situation

2020. 2021. Now 2022. Three years of Covid. Three years because we are being held hostage by people who won't do the bare minimum to try and reduce the spread of this pestilence.

It started when Donald Trump downplayed the disease and its spread. He admits on tape to downplaying it. Cult members won't care, besides they're mad at him because he made complimentary comments about the Covid vaccine and admitted to having gotten the booster. It's that mentality that keeps us mired in this pandemic.

We are being held hostage by two forces: greed and anti-intellectual, right-wing ideology. 

More of the world needs to be vaccinated. That's just not happening. Wealthy nations are buying millions of doses for their citizens, while most of the countries in Africa are well below 40 percent vaccinated. Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna are making a combined $65,000/minute in profit. They'll continue to make big money as they will need to continue to tinker with the Covid vaccine to address emergent strains of the virus.What needs to happen is for these companies to release their patents and let other manufacturers produce the vaccine and increase the global supply. Luckily, it looks like there is a new vaccine recently approved that could be made more quickly, less expensively, and without the patent restrictions.

The other force holding us hostage are the self-proclaimed "patriots" who refuse to wear masks or get the vaccine. There are far too many of them. They possess a stupid amount of guns. Finally, they've demonstrated over and over that they will scream and pout and plot to kidnap and execute Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan. Only eight states have a broad mask mandate. Eight. That is not enough. This is why the country is in the midst of yet another surge. 

Maybe it ends soon. Maybe not. We've handled this whole mess poorly and my expectations are low.

David Bowie

Today would have been David Bowie's 75th birthday. I don't get terribly sentimental when celebrities die. David Bowie was different. He was a rock n' roll god whom I actively worshiped. My best friend Monica and I shared Bowie mix tapes and discussed his perfection endlessly.

I can't listen to Bowie without thinking about Monica. She died in a car accident about five years after we graduated from high school. I was crushed. I still get a little emotional about it. Every year, on Bowie's birthday, I listen to as much Bowie as I can, have a little cry, and remember my friend.

I thought right now might be a good time to share my ten favorite Bowie songs, in no particular order.

1. Moonage Daydream

2. Changes

3. Let's Dance

4. Rebel Rebel

5. Scary Monsters

6. Under Pressure

7. Look Back in Anger

8. Breaking Glass

9. TVC15

10. Young American

This is the list today. It will probably change later.

How to Love by Thich Nhat Hanh

 I'm thinking about the poem I wrote and shared the other day. Before I wrote that, love had been on my mind a lot lately. It still is.

Just before the Christmas break started, I stopped in at 27th Letter Books to look around. Someone had told me about the store in the summer. It's spacious and friendly with a great variety of books. As usual, I had no idea what I was looking for, I just knew that I was looking for something. I found a book by bell hooks (this is probably a week before she died) - all about love: New Visions. I had read essays by hooks, but none of her books, so I decided that I needed to change that. I bought the book, went home, and promptly devoured it.

It deserves a more thorough and mindful reading than I think I gave it. I plan on reading hooks' book one more time and discussing it here. No matter how quickly I read it, it really sparked something inside of me. It sparked a realization that I've probably been "loving" all wrong. My life-long version of love has probably been more lust, with me accepting the time someone spends in bed with me as, at least, affection.

The thing is, in general, no one teaches us about love. That's an idea that hooks mentions several times in her book. Some time in kindergarten, some weirdo relatives starting asking if you have a boyfriend/girlfriend. That's not an invitation to love, but it sure does shape our views on companionship. So much, that in my life, I continually choose someone just because he's willing to stick around for a while, insuring that I'm not physically alone for a bit.

Reading all about love took me to a little book I have by Thich Nhat Hanh called How to Love. It's a small book with big ideas about love.These are ideas I wished we openly and actively discussed instead of encouraging five-year olds to roam the playground, looking for romance. For example, Hanh suggests that there are four elements of true love: loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. He states that, "if your love contains these elements, it will be healing and transforming."

Healing and transforming sound beautiful, so why don't we teach children how to cultivate those elements in all their relationships, romantic or not? Instead, we get to middle school with the caveat, "all kids get teased/bullied sometime."

At 54, I've become romantically invisible to men. That makes me feel quite sad, especially as I'm just learning about these concepts now. It would be great to put them to use. I can, of course, apply loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity to all relationships I have, which is a worthy endeavor. 

The big challenge will be to cultivate these elements toward myself and not just to others. I am worthy of compassion and joy and loving kindness and equanimity. I may not always believe it, but I am. We are all.