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When A is for Anxiety, Part One: Sitting in the Belly of the Whale

10/29/2015

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I recently started a new job, which is hard enough – among the top five stressors an adult can experience in life – but the difficulty gets multiplied ten times beyond the norm when a person starts a new teaching job in particular, as I have.
 
OK, I made up that ten-times-worse number.
 
Maybe a new teaching job is five times more challenging, or perhaps it’s one-hundred percent more anxiety-inducing than standard career moves. Quite possibly the agony of being a first-year teacher all over again increases a person’s stress level so exponentially it cannot be measured using standard algebraic equations. I might need to study Calculus to explain the reality bend I’m experiencing.
 
My levels of anxiety and fatigue recently spiked to previously unknown levels. As a result, I began a quest to understand and address an enemy that is invisible but ubiquitous.
 
This is my dispatch from the front lines of the war on stress.
 
Not long ago, about one month into the school year, I found myself tapped out from the demands of my new job: new colleagues to get to know, new rules and procedures to follow, new surroundings to navigate, new students to understand, new classes to master.
 
I was working 60-70 hours per week without ever feeling caught up on my to-do list. On the contrary, every day of hard work only seemed to put me farther behind. One step forward, three steps back.
 
I’ve been in this situation before. Having changed teaching jobs more than once after marrying and moving cross country twice, I could write a book on how to survive the first year in a new position. Well, honestly… no, maybe not a book. More like a cliched internet meme accompanied by a picture of boxer Rocky Balboa doing chin-ups! It would go like this: Gut it out, push through, fake it till you make it. Cue the music.

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IMAGE SOURCE: Hurtinbombs.tumblr.com
And I tried doing that, except my body wouldn’t toe the line. The more I tried to contain my stress, the more it welled up. The less attention I paid to it, the more it demanded my notice.
 
One day I had what I’ve come to recognize as a full-blown anxiety attack – something I’d never experienced before (although I’d had a mini-version a few days earlier, I now realize). My chest clamped down, as if a huge weight sat on it, while inside my adrenaline went haywire – surging like it would if my child’s life were in danger. The combination of inward pressure exploding out and an outside vice clamping down made it hard to breathe.  My heart raced. 
 
I was scared, and I didn’t know what to do. Instinct took over. In the middle of a Tuesday afternoon, I reached out to four friends via instant messages and texts. No big deal, right?
 
Wrong.
 
These were people I either hadn’t seen in more than a year or whom I’d never before reached out to in a way that wasn’t related to work or the friendship of our kids. But they were people I respect, trust, and care about, even if I don’t always make time in my busy life for keeping in touch or getting together.
 
Somehow, I didn’t let self-doubt stop me. I didn’t second guess or overthink it. I just stuck out my arm like a drowning person. Strangely enough, I gathered my courage from a lesson I’d just taught in my junior English class.
 
Only the day before, we’d been discussing  Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey in relation to Beowulf, the epic poem of monster slaying and good versus evil dating back to 700 A.D.
 
Scholar Joseph Campbell spent a lifetime studying similar myths from various time periods, from all over the world, and chronicling their commonalities. His classic book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, set out the archetypal pattern of a hero’s story – the struggles and means of triumph all heroic stories share.
 
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek,” Campbell once said of a theme he found repeating across vast differences of time place, and culture. 
 
Looking at Beowulf through this prism allows us to see how it connects to the Star Wars films, for example, or a Disney movie such as Big Hero 6. More importantly, studying Campbell’s “Monomyth,” as he called it, lets us look deeply at what it means to be human.
 
In Campbell’s cycle, a hero starts in the Ordinary World, receives a Call to Adventure (which he might at first refuse), finds a Mentor, is granted Supernatural Aid, discovers Allies, suffers Setbacks, and ultimately finds himself in the Belly of the Whale, so to speak. A low point. Near death.
 
More trials ensue, and more Reconciliations and Atonements occur, but in the end the hero returns with an Elixir of some sort, a boon for his people.
 
“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life,” Campbell said in a 1988 television interview with Bill Moyers on PBS. “Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.”
 
That Tuesday afternoon of high anxiety, I understood that I was in the belly of the whale, the abyss, and I knew to reach out for allies. I’d already experienced my supernatural aid: Having watched several video clips of Joseph Campbell in recent days while preparing for class, I’d felt he was speaking directly to me. He said: “Follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.”
 
I felt blessed when all four of my friends responded immediately to my call for help. I’ve since met with each one for long, meaningful, heartening conversations – all different but illuminating in their own ways. It was hard to express my gratitude to them for the relief I felt in making genuine connection. Maybe this is my attempt at conveying that now. 
 
Next week in Part 2: One Elixir I’ve Discovered 
VIDEO SOURCE: Joseph Campell Foundation
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Ghosts of Summer Past and Present

6/9/2015

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Summer is childhood, or maybe it’s the other way around. Either way, I have the most vivid memory of one day in a summer when I was about six years old. The longest day. It seemed like it would never end.

My friends were playing at my house. We wore bathing suits and bare feet. Wrinkled beach towels baked dry in the sun. Bikes lay every which way. The hose snaked from the spigot out to an open area where we had run through the sprinkler earlier – the best kind of running-through sprinkler, where water sprayed straight up like a fountain and then tilted back and forth as if bowing to audiences on either side.

Sometimes we sprinted straight through the fingers of water, or we cartwheeled across the spray. Other times we darted sideways underneath the water’s curved arch to see if we could pass through without getting wet. Or we had fun trying to angle ourselves to catch the water’s arc in our mouths.

Now we sat in the shade of the covered cement porch that stretched across the front of my white brick house. Waiting. And waiting. How much longer will it be, we wondered. It’s supposed to arrive today, but when? Why can’t it just get here?

Sitting there in the shade, gazing down the street toward the entrance to my neighborhood, I tried to will that delivery truck to appear. The Toy House truck. Somehow I knew I sat at the edge of a dividing line. Before and after. The fun we used to have versus the bliss we would soon experience. Life without a pool and Heaven with one.

I’d picked it out myself. Round, plastic, about five feet in diameter. Blue with cartoon fishes all over it. And the best part: It had a built-in slide.

Time stood still that day, the sun high in the sky, as we waited for that truck. It’s frozen in my mind.

But not in reality.

Now decades have passed, and yesterday was the first day of summer at my house – for me, a high school teacher, and for my two kids – Carmen, 16, and Isaac, 12.

Yesterday we were out of sorts. The weather was gloomy and muggy, sometimes stormy, and we didn’t have anything to do.  I think we were tired, or too used to having a daily schedule decided for us. We finished reorganizing Isaac’s bedroom, so he has the “man cave” he’s always dreamed of. But it didn’t feel like summer. Deadlines still loomed in my mind – of work I must get done, a grant proposal to write, reorganized classes I need to plan.

Today is different, however. Today is Tuesday. Today is the second day of summer.

Today it’s sunny and calm, and Isaac’s friends are over to play, and the windows are thrown open. Outside, I listen to the chatter and laughter of neighborhood kids who’ve gathered to fill water balloons and spray each other with the hose. Our cat saunters across the yard to see what’s up, gets wet, and bolts toward the safety of lush, green woods.

The play only stops for lunch. Then it’s on to something else: riding bikes and scooters, or playing basketball on the neighbors’ court, or venturing to the hideout – a clearing inside thick brush and trees next to the pond a half-mile behind our house.

I had a moment this morning when time again played games with my perception of reality.

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This was by far the best sprinkler for running through.
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Now it's a Toy House delivery van, but back in the day we waited for the Toy House truck.
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I couldn't wait to have a fancy pool at my house.
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We finished Isaac's new "man cave" on the stormy first day of summer.
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Kiwi loves summer, but she's not sure about all the water.
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Today has been an ebb and flow of play, laughter, popsicles, and joy.
I stood making breakfast in the kitchen with the window open, listening to the breeze rustling the trees out back, cutting strawberries in the sink, smelling lemon muffins baking in the oven. I paused to appreciate the beauty around me, knowing this is the best of my life – simple pleasures of an ordinary June day. There is nothing better than experiencing that realization in the moment, to consciously stop to notice life is wonderful, as it’s happening. 

It reminded me of another summer morning from my youth, a first day of summer from when I was Isaac’s age, about 12 years old…

It was the first Monday of freedom, and I reveled in sleeping late for the first time in a long while.  I wandered downstairs around 10 a.m. to an empty house. Dad was gone at work. Older siblings were off doing who-knows-what. My younger brother still slept. But I wondered where Mom was. On a school day, she’d be hard at work in the morning, making breakfasts and packing lunches. Just a few mornings before, the kitchen had been a bustle of activity. 

Now the only sound was the rustling of trees in the soft, June breeze. Curtains swayed next to open windows. 

“Mom?” I called out. 

“I’m out here,” I heard in the distance, and I knew immediately where to look. 

I slid open the back glass door and stuck my head out to find Mom on her knees, digging her old hand trowel in the dark dirt of her bare garden, in loose capris, a sleeveless shirt, and gardening gloves. She liked to work in the morning shade, and she was late with planting. Running a home with six children didn’t leave much time for her pursuits, but she always found a way to plant and tend her beloved gardens.  

“Do you want me to make you something for breakfast?” she asked, wiping a dirty glove across her forehead. 

I stared at Mom in her favorite place, doing her favorite thing – knowing we’d soon be eating fresh tomatoes, strawberries, and cucumbers, and enjoying her sweet zucchini bread. “No, thanks,” I said, and I experienced one of those moments. 

I was aware right then that life was exquisite, and my senses became heightened to the sights, smells, and sounds around me. My mind's eye snapped a picture, and I'll keep that beautiful image forever.  Mom in the garden. June morning. First day of summer. A day that seems like it will never end. 

Then the Toy House truck comes around the corner. And that summer day stretches to eternity.
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An unusual source of inspiration

5/12/2015

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 I teach eleventh- and twelfth-grade English, and Friday is the seniors’ last day of high school. Needless to say, this week is a swirl of heightened, tangled, stormy emotions. It’s the I-can’t-wait-another-moment anticipation, mixed with I-don’t-know-what-to-do-next anxiety, poured into we-finally-made-it excitement, topped off with what-if-I-fail-miserably-at-life-and-end-up-living-in-a-gutter fear.

Absolute joy one minute. Pure panic the next.

So, yeah, it’s fun!

What better time for an assembly aimed at inspiring the upper classmen? It came today in an unusual form: nationally renowned children’s author and singer-songwriter, Barry Louis Polisar. My Creative Writing class won the visit through the Jackson District Library’s Young Poets Contest.

I have to admit… When I heard Vandercook Lake High School had won this visit, I briefly considered donating it to our elementary feeder school. Polisar was described in a Washington Post article last month as a rock star of the elementary circuit – “one of the most famous musicians of the children’s music scene… Bob Dylan, Steve Martin, and your grandpa rolled into one.”

Polisar writes goofy poems about lost pants and mean teachers, sings songs about asparagus and underwear. Audiences love the classic, “Don’t Put Your Finger Up Your Nose.”

Cool, but maybe not what my young adult students wanted to see at this important juncture in their lives. Or was he exactly what they needed?

The thing is, I told them in the past two days, that anxiety, panic, and dread you’re feeling about the uncertain future won’t help you one bit. It’s a wall you have to get through, over, or around. Fear closes you off, blocks your path, stops you from moving forward. The key is to step out, look up, and open yourself to possibility.

That’s one thing I’ve learned in my life. It takes courage, but it’s ultimately the most joyful thing to follow your heart – even when you’re not sure where it’s leading. We all are feeling our way through life, strengthening our selves and lifting our voices as we grow.

And Barry Louis Polisar has a wonderfully funny, delightful, off-beat story to share. He went to college thinking he might become a teacher, took classes he was interested in, eventually cobbled together a bachelor’s degree, and started playing guitar. When a teacher friend off-handedly asked him to sing for her young students, a career was born. That was forty years ago.

Now, Polisar travels the country visiting schools and fighting against a culture that he fears is losing its sense of humor and irony – one wacky song or poem at a time. He takes questions from the audience, and tells the story of how a catchy tune from his 1977 album was plucked from obscurity to become the opening song to an Academy Award-nominated movie in 2007, Juno. Titled “All I Want is You,” it’s a toe-tapping crowd pleaser, for sure.

He’s a five-time Parents’ Choice Award winner and has written songs for Sesame Street and The Weekly Reader. He has been a regular musical performer on The Learning Channel and the star of an Emmy Award-winning television show for children.

He’s not wealthy, he tells students, but he’s rich. He writes and performs for his job but hasn’t worked a day in his life. He finds ultimate satisfaction in creating new work and seeing it connect with audiences, he said.

I found satisfaction in watching him work his magic with my teenage students today (not to mention with every adult in the room). Afterward, I asked my students what they thought of this most unusual assembly, and the response was overwhelmingly positive.

From Allori: “This is one of my favorite assemblies we have ever had… It made me feel better that someone who has his life so put together didn’t know what he wanted to do at first. He made me feel inspired.”

Samantha: “Everyone responded with smiles and giggles as he sang.”

Lily: “He made me think I could go anywhere even if I’m set on something else.”

Cordelia: “He made common everyday life seem so extraordinary. He taught me that even after you grow up you can be a kid at heart. He also taught me that no matter what situation you’re in you can still make it fun.”

Luke: “Today’s assembly was amazing and probably my favorite assembly I have seen at Vandercook. I loved how he shared his stories of just going with the flow and it showing him where he was destined to be. I loved his songs and stories.”

Rasheed: “He was a really cool dude… Just the fact he enjoys and loves what he does makes him a very interesting man. His songs also made me laugh.”

Jordan: "He was a funny, goofy guy. If I had the chance to see him perform or tell a story again, I would."

And there, my friends, are some great examples of the joy I find in teaching.

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Book Launch Contradictions

4/23/2015

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Today my latest young adult novel, FAULT LINES, is finally available in ebook form. In a few days, the paperback goes on sale.

Releasing a new book is a contradictory experience. Communal and lonely. Exciting and anti-climactic. Fulfilling and empty.

Happy and terrifying.

The thing is, I write teen novels because I vividly remember that time of my life. And not because it was all wonderful, though it wasn’t totally awful either. It was contradictory, like launching a novel into the ether. I could feel safe, loved, and joyful with my friends one minute and the next become completely vulnerable in the midst of – well, let’s call them “less supportive” peers.

I stayed pretty quiet to keep out of the mean kids’ line of fire, but it didn’t always work.

I still remember being in my high school library one day, looking at books in the stacks of shelves, when I heard some girls talking bad about me. Trashing my looks, my clothes, my general personality. When I peeked through gaps to see who was talking, I saw two girls I barely knew, rarely spoke to directly, never hung around with.

I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. It was an epiphany for me, a freeing one. I realized some people would dislike me for no good reason, it had nothing to do with my actual worthiness, and I could do little to change it. More importantly, I discovered their words didn’t hurt all that much, had no bearing on me one way or another.

So here I am some years later, feeling a bit like that girl in the library stacks: a swirl of insecurities, hopes, and certainties. The teen Brenda is reminding me of the lesson from that day: Go ahead and be yourself; some people will like you, and some won’t, and that’s OK.

I happened serendipitously across this quote from writer and scholar Roxane Gay this morning: “We are all small points of light within the constellation that is the writing world, but we do better when we shine brightly.”

And I knew to take in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

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Commencing countdown, engines on

3/15/2015

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I'm counting down to the launch of my second young adult novel, FAULT LINES, and I couldn't help but think of David Bowie's Space Oddity -- because it seems unreal to be sending another book baby into the universe.  "I'm floating round my tin can/ high above the moon/... and there's nothing I can do." 

There is a lot to do, and it seems big, yet "I'm feeling very still/And I think my spaceship knows which way to go."

FAULT LINES is available now for pre-0rder. Those pre-publication e-book purchases can help me have a successful launch by boosting my visibility on the first day of release.  Additionally, I've scheduled a Goodreads giveaway of two signed paperback copies of FAULT LINES to run right up to my April 23 launch day. Click on the link to enter!

To celebrate novel 2, I'll be giving away Kindle copies of novel 1 -- THE TWELFTH OF NEVER -- for three days over at Amazon: April 2, 3, and 4. Several book sites will be promoting that deal, and I'll post more details here as those dates approach. 

Wish me luck! "I'm stepping through the door/...floating in a most peculiar way/And the stars look very different today."

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Drum roll, please... my new YA cover

2/24/2015

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I wish I could have a drum roll playing as I reveal this most personal and public thing, the cover for my upcoming Young Adult novel. If I could have arranged such musical accompaniment, I wouldn’t choose a loud crescendo on a snare. Instead, I’d want the softness of jazz brushes rustling a cymbal. Shimmering like broken glass and wonder.

I love this cover, and it’s one I agonized over. The designer, Keri Knutson at Alchemy Book Covers, offered me several choices which I narrowed down to two. Only one was this abstract. I almost went with a more traditional cover, displaying a teen girl’s face, but my daughter Carmen convinced me to go with this image that spoke to my heart. Its simplicity says everything I want it to say about my main character’s broken life, her search for blame, her journey toward hope. Oh, and there literally is a shattered window in the first chapter, from which the rest of the story flows.

It’s a thrilling moment to share this most perfect cover for a story and characters I’ll soon be releasing into the world. Watch for Fault Lines to be released at the end of April!

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When Joy Reveals Itself Like a Gift

1/14/2015

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I’m normally not one to bother with sweepstakes or prize drawings, but this week I entered a contest online – and realized I’d won even before I pushed the “submit” button.

At first I wasn’t going to do it – for reasons beyond my general aversion to wasting time on long odds.  It was noon Sunday, and I had a million-plus things to do across my many roles in life: teacher, wife, mom, sister, daughter, writer, alpha dog.  Especially teacher. It was the end of the semester, and I was behind on grading heading into semester exams. Cue the burial.

Add the fact that this contest had been going on for six weeks, and 11:59 p.m. Sunday was the deadline to enter, and not much could convince me to spend my limited attention even considering the idea.

Not much, except for my son, Isaac. He’d seen the contest advertised on one of his favorite television shows, Animal Planet’s Treehouse Masters, where a group of builders led by expert Pete Nelson build fantastical getaways in the trees – better-than-my-house structures with six-figure values. Isaac dreams of building his own private getaway.

And lately more than ever, Isaac has been dreaming of getting away.

A sixth grader, he’s had a rough transition to middle school – not in any big sense such as grades or friends or fitting in. He’s a straight-A student with good friends and a great sense of humor. Kids and teachers like him. Instead, he’s endured on-and-off anxiety, mixed with a little sadness, the cause of which is hard to pinpoint. At times, these dark feelings have felt big and hard for him to manage. “You know, Mom, I mostly get my personality from you,” he said casually the other day, as I struggled to keep my legs from buckling at his insight.

I’m sorry, I thought to myself. I didn’t want you to inherit my worrying nature, my tendency to over-analyze, my propensity toward self-doubt. But I didn’t say that. I told him something else that’s just as true and important: “Yeah, but when you and I learn how to fight through our worries, that makes us stronger than other people. And then we’re unstoppable. Don’t forget that.”

He nodded doubtfully.  

A few days later, I was feeling my own gnawing anxiety – grading student work at the kitchen table, drawing papers from what seemed an inconquerable mountain beside me, when Isaac asked about entering the Treehouse Masters Ultimate Giveaway. The prize was a treehouse, to be built in the winner’s backyard for an episode of the show. Entering the contest required a video to be made and uploaded to YouTube.

I told him no. Too much to do. He tried to push past my objections a few times but gave up when it clearly wasn’t working. He returned to his bedroom. I tried to continue grading, but it only lasted a few minutes. I felt his disappointment burning in my chest.

Without debating the wisdom of my choice, I agreed to help with the video – and I persuaded my daughter, Carmen, to join in. A high school sophomore, she wasn’t hard to convince; Carmen has a few treehouse fantasies of her own. “I’m thinking a movie theater with walls that are totally made of bookshelves,” she proposed.

Isaac and I swooned, and we added in our own imaginings of cubbies for writing, and other spaces for playing and listening to music. An arts theme emerged for our treehouse, and a video trailer was born.

A video that took the rest of the day to make and edit. We even were shooting bits of video when my 84-year-old dad showed up for Sunday dinner. He sat at the kitchen table reading the newspaper, periodically peeking over the top at us as we mugged for the camera, played back our bloopers, laughed and reshot.

“Take five!” he shouted one time as the camera started rolling and we were having trouble keeping straight faces.

By nine p.m., we uploaded our video to YouTube and filled out the entry form with descriptions of us, our dreams, and our fantasy treehouse, and I went to bed as visions of bookshelves danced in my head.

I’m no fool. I wasn’t expecting to win. In other entries we watched on YouTube, people shared elaborate sketches and photographs detailing very specific and off-the-wall visions for their treehouses. Other people had touching personal stories that made them deserving of the prize.

I won something else. I gratefully received an afternoon of silliness and belly laughs and joy with my kids that opened to me like a perfect gift. The universe reminded me to slow down, look up, widen my view, loosen my grip, let go. I listened, and my son watched, and we spoke a language beyond words.

Oh, yeah. And here’s our contest entry. 

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Holiday Thank You Notes (Fallon style)

11/29/2014

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Ah, the holidays. You’ve got to love them, right? Since we’re now immersed in this wonderful season of good cheer, I have written some thank you notes in the style of Jimmy Fallon.

Dear Black Friday,

Thank you for making me feel perfectly content about sitting on the couch all day doing nothing.

Dear Thanksgiving food,

Thank you for tasting yummy and for making it imperative that I get a workout routine going before it’s too late. I have an appointment for an equipment orientation at the YMCA this morning at 10 a.m.

Dear Christmas lights,

Thank you for twinkling and not blinking like the desperate “OPEN” sign at the second-hand store with the empty parking lot.

Dear fuzzy-on-the-inside wool socks,

Thank you for being the best present I ever bought myself to put in my own stocking last year.

Dear snow,

Thank you for falling and making a soft white blanket on top of everything as opposed to rain, sleet, or hail. You are beautiful, no matter what they say. Words can’t bring you down. Oh no.

 Dear cheesy impulse-buy items strategically placed in racks where I must stand while waiting to buy other items,

Thanks for teaching me to be strong and for showing me that I can pick you up, smile, discuss your many amusing qualities, and then put you back down and keep my hard-earned money for something good.

Dear Christmas cards,

Thank you in advance for single-handedly destroying any good feelings I have about myself when I fail to sign, address, and mail you for the eleventh straight year.

Dear December,

Thank you for flashing by every year in a frenzy of shopping, frosted sugar cookies with sprinkles, band concerts, bad sweaters, and family gatherings. You are tiring but fun and ultimately wonderful.

Enjoy the season!
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I Believe in Love and Hate

10/6/2014

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My eleventh graders will begin writing This I Believe essays today, inspired by the 1950’s radio program in which legendary broadcaster Edward R. Murrow presented “the personal philosophies of thoughtful men and women in all walks of life.” The idea behind Murrow’s popular program was to spotlight inspiring ideas by ordinary people. In introducing the program in 1951, he said: “People of all kinds who need have nothing more in common than integrity—a real honesty—will talk out loud about the rules they live by, the things they have found to be the basic values in their lives.” I wrote one to share with my juniors. Here it is…

They say only a fine line separates love from hate, and I’m sure my mom believed that to be true from all the ways I mistreated my little brother growing up.  My belief runs a little deeper.

I saw Jimmy as an intruder, a thief who stole Mom’s heart. He had pale white skin that stretched over bony arms and knobby knees, white hair that lit like a halo in the sun, and the longest eyelashes ever on a boy. An adorable toddler, he talked a baby-talk language all his own. “Isn’t that cute?” everyone would say when he called water “wa-wa” or he renamed our older sister Janet “Na-Na.” When I imitated him, Mom told me, “You’re too big for that.”

My jealousy burned. Sometimes it flared out of control. Like that night in the bathtub.

Three-year-old Jimmy sat still in the cooling, cloudy bath water we shared, examining the rounded edges of the used soap bar like it was a previously unknown species of animal. I’d offered him a new way of looking at it. Irish Spring as toothpaste. “If you chew it up real good, you won’t have to brush your teeth,” I said.

The bite he gnawed out of the corner looked like a crescent moon. He chewed and chewed, and it bubbled and expanded – right down his throat. Then it came back up. Violently. Mom rushed in at the sound of his screams, not exactly a relationship-building moment between me and her.

Then there was the doggy donuts escapade. “Good as the real thing!” I told him, shaking the box of rock-hard, multi-colored pet treats. Jimmy hesitated, having been burned before, but I convinced him that I wouldn’t trick him again. Sadly – or fortunately – he was never the wiser. He actually liked doggy donuts.

Maybe I could have gone on like that forever. In some ways, I did. But then along came Tom, the boy-next-door gone wrong. We were both ten. Jimmy was eight. Tom shot him with a BB gun from point-blank range for stepping through the roof of his snow fort.

When Jimmy came home whelping like a harpooned baby seal, I lost my mind. Seriously, I understood from that moment why “temporary insanity” exists as a defense in criminal trials. I discovered my inner Mafia Boss. That’s my brother he’s messin’ with, I thought to myself. And that’s the message I delivered personally to Tom in such a menacing tone, fingers flying, eyes popping, that he did not say a word in return: “NOBODY messes with my brother. NOBODY.”

The same went for the bully who made him cry on the elementary school playground. And the neighbor lady who wrongly accused Jimmy of smashing her Halloween pumpkin, when all he did was bump it from its perch while trying to ring her doorbell.

Once I carried Jimmy all the way home across a wintry golf course – trudging in my snow boots and snowmobile suit – after he hurt himself sledding over an icy ramp on a plastic sled.

Through it all I discovered that I loved my little brother with gusto. I still teased and tortured him on occasion, but when it really mattered I helped him, comforted him, protected him. I loved him more fiercely than I hated him.

Sure, there’s a fine line between love and hate. But this I believe most strongly: Love wins.

I believe love is bigger and broader, more expansive and alive, than any hatred ever could be. Perhaps there’s a fine line between, but there’s a world of difference on either side.

The radio version of This I Believe was revived for a time by National Public Radio in recent years. Now it's a non-profit organization with a regular podcast. To read or hear more, visit the website. 

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Top 10 Reasons I Recommend Teachers Sprain Ankles on the First Day of School 

9/7/2014

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10. No one expects you to look fashionable and pulled-together on crutches.

9. Other teachers give you fake smiles instead of death stares when you hog the copy machine.

8. Students only have sympathy for pain they can see.

7. Limited mobility explains the dishevelment of your desk.

6. Everyone pity laughs at your jokes.

5. Giant clumps of students blocking entire hallways while talking to friends will actually move out of the way when you approach.

4. You can demo your fantastic creative writing abilities after tiring of honestly answering the question, “Ohmygosh, what happened to you?”

3. The principal will personally give you a wheelchair ride to your car at 4 p.m., after the swelling explodes from the stupidity of you stubbornly putting weight on an ankle sprain all day.

2. Someone might loan you one of those leg-up scooters for the second day of school so you can fly around the building before discovering neither the steering nor the brakes works well at high speeds.

1.  You now have a legitimate excuse for yelling at students in the hallway, “Move or die!”



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