Rain, Rain
I swore to myself that I would not write about the weather, after all what could be more boring than writing about the weather for God’s sake? Maybe talking about the weather and that’s exactly what everyone in Boston has been doing for almost two weeks now. That’s because New England is proving Mark Twain wrong this month. You remember what he said? If you don’t like the weather in New England just wait ten minutes and it will change, or something to that effect. Well, we’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting and all we’ve gotten is rain. I admit that sometimes it changes to mist or fog but it’s all basically the same soggy mess!
A few weeks ago, my class read one of my favorite short stories, All Summer in a Day, by Ray Bradbury. He imagines Venus as a planet where the sun appears for only two hours every seven years.
Thousands upon thousands of days compounded and filled from one end to the other with rain, with the drum and gush of water, with the sweet crystal falloff showers and the concussions of storms so heavy they were tidal waves come over the islands. A thousand forests had been crushed under the rain and grown up a thousand times to be crushed again. And this was the way of life forever on the planet Venus…….
We talked about what it would be like to live in a place where it was forever raining. We all agreed that eventually we would go mad. None of us could conceive of a life without sun. In the story, Bradbury describes a class of nine year olds who can’t remember it at all. Only one of them, Margot, who had come to Venus with her parents when she was older, remembers it. The constant rain had, “washed out the blue from her eyes and the red from her mouth and the yellow from her hair. She was an old photograph dusted from an album, whitened away.” The other children bully her because she once lived on earth and knew the sun’s joys. When the sun’s two hour time finally comes after seven sodden years, they lock her in a closet out of sheer spite.
I know it’s ridiculous but I’m beginning to feel like Margot. The rain has washed all the color out of me and left me wanting to do nothing but sleep. I walk to work each day and see the white and pink crabapple flowers that had recently filled the sky now covering the sidewalks in a dripping, slippery, mess. None of the dogs being walked want to stop to say hello and sniff my hand-- they keep their heads down, determined to finish their walks and go home. I put my umbrella up and then feel silly because I’m the only one with an open umbrella, so I close it only to feel the mist settling on my shoulders and soaking my coat. This morning I wore a hat and kept my umbrella open for extra measure. I was tired of arriving at work looking like a drowned mutt.
Since it’s May the City of Boston has long ago shut off the heat in all of its buildings, so there’s the added pleasure of being not only damp but cold as well. It reminds me of winters in Israel when it would rain for weeks and the cold would settle in your bones for days. Yesterday it was so cold in my classroom that my chalk kept breaking against the board in my shivering hand. We decided that the warmest place was the elevator and I seriously considered moving the class in there. Today I’m wearing a turtleneck sweater but it’s not really helping.
I’m so sick of listening to myself complain. I keep reminding myself that our trees look absolutely lush, our fuschia is a crazily budding invitation to hummingbirds everywhere and our lawn, or what passes for a lawn at our house, is as green as it’s ever going to be without putting down astro-turf. I’m also grateful that we’re getting this weather now and not in June, because each year after Memorial Day I plant my impatiens and geraniums and would hate to lose them to a deluge. That happened one year when, after I had spent more money than I care to remember, all of my plants were washed out by a rainy June and I had to replace them all. Hopefully this rain will be a memory by next month.
And I keep reminding myself to be grateful that I do not live along the Mississippi where I could lose my home at any moment to a cresting river. Nor am I in the midst of a draught where wild fires are threatening. I am here in New England where all we are living through is a mildly uncomfortable dampness and lack of sun. Surely I have some backbone in me to withstand these minor discomforts?
That’s what I’d like to think of myself but in reality I am miserable. And if the sun came out now I would behave like the children in Bradbury’s story, “squinting at the sun until the tears ran down my face, putting my hands up to that yellowness and that amazing blueness, breathing that fresh, fresh air and savoring everything.”
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Saturday, May 14, 2011
The Ideal Life
The Ideal Life
Part of being a trainer who teaches teachers, is supporting them when they go back to their classrooms to begin implementing the techniques that you have taught them. You exchange e-mails, speak on the phone and then eventually visit their classrooms to see them in action. It’s always a nerve wracking experience for a teacher no matter how many times you insist that you’re only there to help them get the hang of the new methods. When someone is sitting in your classroom taking notes, support is the last thing on your mind.
I know. I’ve been there countless times. And though I’ve gotten to the point where it doesn’t bother me much, there’s still that flutter in my stomach that screams, “You’re being judged and found wanting!” So I always visit with a smile and laughter, heck I would strew flowers and candy before me if that would make the teacher feel calmer. I thank everyone for inviting me into their classroom and then I try to melt into the woodwork.
I’ve enjoyed making the rounds watching talented teachers and eager students. The last lesson that I observed was in vocabulary. To an outsider teaching vocabulary sounds like a piece of cake. They envision the usual, “Here’s a list of words, use them in a sentence and there’s a quiz at the end of the week.” The words are learned for that week and then completely forgotten. Students consider them “test” words, not to be confused with real world stuff.
This new method helps students make the words their own—to use them, play with them, experiment with them, everything but forget them. One of the exercises involves much class discussion as the students use them in their own contexts. That day the first word that the teacher wrote on the board was, “ideal”. She explained that it meant, perfect. She told the students that she lived just a few blocks from the school and so it was an ideal location for her--she could walk to work. Then she turned to her class and asked them to describe their ideal home or job.
The room became very quiet as each student thought for a moment and then it burst into life. They couldn’t get the words out quickly enough. One woman described her house in the suburbs, where it was quiet, surrounded with grass and flowers and had a white picket fence. I couldn’t help but think, yeah just wait till you’ll have to mow that lawn, paint the damned fence every year, trim the hedges and put down mulch. Another described a mansion complete with swimming pool. Yet another added a gym and a movie theater to their mansion insisting that it would be ideal. The homes got bigger and fancier with every telling.
Their ideal jobs were all about little work, late start times, vacations, and of course tons of money. One woman finally spoke up and told the class that her ideal job was to have one, and when she finally got one, to work hard and feel that she earned her salary and maybe did a little good for the world. They were all quiet after that.
What a perfectly rotten word: ideal. It’s been the bane of my existence for a long time now. If only this would happen, or that would change, everything would be perfect. If only I got that job, that apartment, finished that degree, got the raise, lost the weight--you know the litany. I’m always out there ruining what could be a wonderful time with, perfect. It happened again this Mother’s Day.
As you know, my mom now lives only a few minutes away from us instead of across an ocean, so now we can celebrate all kinds of, “firsts”. The first time we’ve spent birthdays together, the first Thanksgiving, the first spring, the first Passover, and of course the first Mother’s Day. Do I relax and enjoy them like most people? Of course not. I have to make it ideal. No turkey is juicy enough, no cake is sweet enough, no flowers are fragrant enough. I haven’t spent any of these firsts with my mom for forty years so now they all have to be perfect to make up for all the lost time.
I outdid myself on Mother’s Day. Early on I decided that this day would be all about mom. I planned a meal composed of the dishes she loves, searched for the most beautiful roses, made sure we had champagne and orange juice for her favorite mimosas. I anguished over the card, the gift the cake the everything. This would be perfect if it killed me. And it just about did.
I was so tight that day you could see me quiver. Nothing was too small to obsess over. That evening I was the perfect wreck—exhausted, depressed and ready to cry. I thought about the day before when mom and I had spent a perfectly lovely, lazy day getting our nails done and having lunch—impromptu and relaxed.
It was an epiphany—maybe even the perfect epiphany. Maybe, just maybe, I could banish ideal and perfect from my vocabulary along with the guilt that accompanies them. Because as my dear friend, Nancy told me, “Guilt is self indulgent when you really have nothing to feel guilty about.” The most perfect advice I’ve ever received.
Part of being a trainer who teaches teachers, is supporting them when they go back to their classrooms to begin implementing the techniques that you have taught them. You exchange e-mails, speak on the phone and then eventually visit their classrooms to see them in action. It’s always a nerve wracking experience for a teacher no matter how many times you insist that you’re only there to help them get the hang of the new methods. When someone is sitting in your classroom taking notes, support is the last thing on your mind.
I know. I’ve been there countless times. And though I’ve gotten to the point where it doesn’t bother me much, there’s still that flutter in my stomach that screams, “You’re being judged and found wanting!” So I always visit with a smile and laughter, heck I would strew flowers and candy before me if that would make the teacher feel calmer. I thank everyone for inviting me into their classroom and then I try to melt into the woodwork.
I’ve enjoyed making the rounds watching talented teachers and eager students. The last lesson that I observed was in vocabulary. To an outsider teaching vocabulary sounds like a piece of cake. They envision the usual, “Here’s a list of words, use them in a sentence and there’s a quiz at the end of the week.” The words are learned for that week and then completely forgotten. Students consider them “test” words, not to be confused with real world stuff.
This new method helps students make the words their own—to use them, play with them, experiment with them, everything but forget them. One of the exercises involves much class discussion as the students use them in their own contexts. That day the first word that the teacher wrote on the board was, “ideal”. She explained that it meant, perfect. She told the students that she lived just a few blocks from the school and so it was an ideal location for her--she could walk to work. Then she turned to her class and asked them to describe their ideal home or job.
The room became very quiet as each student thought for a moment and then it burst into life. They couldn’t get the words out quickly enough. One woman described her house in the suburbs, where it was quiet, surrounded with grass and flowers and had a white picket fence. I couldn’t help but think, yeah just wait till you’ll have to mow that lawn, paint the damned fence every year, trim the hedges and put down mulch. Another described a mansion complete with swimming pool. Yet another added a gym and a movie theater to their mansion insisting that it would be ideal. The homes got bigger and fancier with every telling.
Their ideal jobs were all about little work, late start times, vacations, and of course tons of money. One woman finally spoke up and told the class that her ideal job was to have one, and when she finally got one, to work hard and feel that she earned her salary and maybe did a little good for the world. They were all quiet after that.
What a perfectly rotten word: ideal. It’s been the bane of my existence for a long time now. If only this would happen, or that would change, everything would be perfect. If only I got that job, that apartment, finished that degree, got the raise, lost the weight--you know the litany. I’m always out there ruining what could be a wonderful time with, perfect. It happened again this Mother’s Day.
As you know, my mom now lives only a few minutes away from us instead of across an ocean, so now we can celebrate all kinds of, “firsts”. The first time we’ve spent birthdays together, the first Thanksgiving, the first spring, the first Passover, and of course the first Mother’s Day. Do I relax and enjoy them like most people? Of course not. I have to make it ideal. No turkey is juicy enough, no cake is sweet enough, no flowers are fragrant enough. I haven’t spent any of these firsts with my mom for forty years so now they all have to be perfect to make up for all the lost time.
I outdid myself on Mother’s Day. Early on I decided that this day would be all about mom. I planned a meal composed of the dishes she loves, searched for the most beautiful roses, made sure we had champagne and orange juice for her favorite mimosas. I anguished over the card, the gift the cake the everything. This would be perfect if it killed me. And it just about did.
I was so tight that day you could see me quiver. Nothing was too small to obsess over. That evening I was the perfect wreck—exhausted, depressed and ready to cry. I thought about the day before when mom and I had spent a perfectly lovely, lazy day getting our nails done and having lunch—impromptu and relaxed.
It was an epiphany—maybe even the perfect epiphany. Maybe, just maybe, I could banish ideal and perfect from my vocabulary along with the guilt that accompanies them. Because as my dear friend, Nancy told me, “Guilt is self indulgent when you really have nothing to feel guilty about.” The most perfect advice I’ve ever received.
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