“Who’s this?” queried my daughter.

“Cyndi Lauper,” I responded.  From the wireless Bose speaker in our living room, the carefree lyric emanated clearly, “Girls just wanna have fun!”  Placing my hand on the banister, I purposefully turned the corner and headed up the stairs to grab an armload of laundry.  Although I hadn’t looked back at my 8 year-old daughter’s face, I imagined it showing an expression of complete confusion – “Who’s Cyndi Lauper?” she probably wondered.

As I scooped up the laundry, another 80s song, “What a Feelin'” began to play on the Bose speaker.  Suddenly I felt myself transported back to that time.  The 1980s was the era I attended and graduated both high school and college.  Images of sock hops, my 1968 Volkswagen Bug, my 18th birthday party flashed into my mind.  Time used to pass so differently, I thought to myself.  Songs like, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” used to sound like an important claim from a daughter to her father.  Now I find that a year can pass and feel like the blink of an eye.  What is it about growing older that makes the passage of time feel so baffling?  Some have told me that perhaps it’s the lack of milestones associated with coming of age.  Maybe that’s it.

Arms now filled with clothes needing to be washed, I carefully made my way back down the stairs.  Life is good, I thought.  But for a moment, I missed those days of ‘Girls just wanna have fun.’ ‘What a feelin” has taken on a new meaning now.  But I suppose that is part of the journey…isn’t it?

Dear Reader,

I’m excited to see you!  You, reading this post right now . . . thank you.  I really am excited to see you.  Today marks the first day of the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Story Challenge 2020.  As I write this, I’m noticing a wide range of emotions bubbling up from inside me.  First, I sense pangs of trepidation– what if I can’t think of something to write about? What if no one reads my blog? Many of us likely experience such fears, yes? But across the years participating in this challenge, I’ve come to believe this:

Trust the Process.

Writers need a routine.  And that’s not just young writers; I happen to believe ALL writers need a routine.  The routine becomes a friend we can trust.  The routine grows to be one thing we can really rely on when things become difficult.  For me, the routine becomes my process.  Do I always produce great writing out of my routine?

No.

But that’s not the point.  The point is to write.  The point is to be a contributing member of a community.  The point is to grow.

As I pause here, I am noticing something else . . . another emotion? Anticipation. Hmm, yes.  Which, well, feels like a shade of happiness.  The joy of writing slices, reading feedback, enjoying others’ writing, sharing feedback . . . I so look forward to all of these phenomenon knitting themselves together into a larger tapestry of community.

And so, Welcome!  Thanks again for being here.  I’m not sure what the days of March will hold. I suppose none of us do. But I’m reminded of a wonderful Shel Silverstein poem:

Invitation
If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer. . .
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin,
Come in!
Come in!
- Shel Silverstein

from Where the Sidewalk Ends, copyright 1974

 

Balancing my old, green suitcase next to me, I scanned my surroundings.  A restroom must be nearby, I thought to myself.  As fate would have it, my search didn’t last long.  Across from Starbuck’s, I spotted the sign.

Wading through dupattas, yarmulkes, turbans, baseball caps, men, women, and children – the sea of diversity that is Newark Liberty International Airport – I finally arrived at my temporary destination.

Once inside, I saw it.  It was located just above the automatic hand dryer.  The sign read, “How was your experience?”  Just beneath this question were three round buttons: happy face (green), ambivalent face (yellow), and sad face (red).  Data, I thought.  They’re collecting data on . . . the cleanliness of the airport restroom? That was my best guess, anyway.

Immediately, I thought about the people who actually do the work of maintaining restroom facilities in an airport.  How hard they must work.  And I thought about those collecting and analyzing the performance data being collected on airline customers.  Of course, concurrently this made me think about the current state of affairs in public schools, how we as teachers are constantly being asked to collect data on our students. And I get it.  John Hattie says, “Know they impact.”  It makes sense.  We do need to know where are students are in relation to visions of high level work.

But I worry sometimes.  Like the restroom smiley and sad faces, have we gone too far?  Could someone lose their job if too many sad faces are pushed?  Has all this data collection removed some of the humanity we once enjoyed?

I pulled my hands from beneath the dryer and pushed the green button.  Who knows, maybe I helped somebody out that day.

I pulled the dusty white box from the shelf and lifted the lid.  “That lesson plan has got to be in here,” I thought to myself.  Expecting to find just file folders filled with old poetry lessons, I also discovered a small, faded manila envelope with my name written on the outside.  Curious now, I carefully pulled out the contents of the envelope. As I did so, I felt myself launched down a path of my teaching past.

In my hands, I held old name badges from previous schools, cards from colleagues thanking me for things I no longer remembered doing.  And then suddenly I felt the corners of my mouth turning upward in a smile as I came to a new item: a photo.  There it was.  I remembered it- me, nearly twenty years ago. In my white shirt and tie.  Smiling. Next to me was my old teaching partner, Amanda. In her black dress. Smiling.  Like me, Amanda was a teacher and a professional musician, as well.  As I held the photo, I remembered the first time my wife and I had visited her house; since Amanda didn’t own a piano, I had tried to play an accordion while she passionately bowed the strings of her viola.  I also remembered the teaching stations we had designed together at school to help middle school kids learn about the Holocaust.  I remembered the many laughs, the many tears.  And I remembered the fact that it has now probably been more than ten years since we have spoken.

Sitting alone in my classroom, I wondered how time can speed by so quickly? I wondered how it is possible to lose touch with someone we once found so dear to us?  How can that happen? How is that possible?

Removing my phone from my pocket, I snapped a quick shot of the photo and tucked it back inside the envelope.  I texted the photo to the number I had for Amanda.  Perhaps she’ll remember it, too? I wondered.

She did.

Gently pushing the spoon down along the inside of the white porcelain mug, I scoop a small pile of warm beans.  Quietly enjoying a simple lunch on the couch, I suddenly feel myself transported back to my mother’s kitchen. Bean with Bacon soup.  Campbell’s.  Out of the can.  I remember.

So good.

Funny how some foods can bring us back to times gone by.  As I place the warm, white pinto beans into my mouth – no, I am not actually eating Bean with Bacon soup – I suddenly taste the comfort, the warmth, the love my mom used to infuse into all of our lives.

This will be the third holiday season we have lived without my mom.  And like many of us who have suffered great loss in our lives, I feel the hole especially strongly around this time of year.  It’s a chasm, really.  There will be no plans made to pick her up at the airport. No home-made Christmas clothing arriving for my little girls.  No puzzles or singing with Tutu (as she liked to be called).  No, this year – like the last two – we will celebrate without her thoughtful presents, nor her beautiful presence.

But the Bean with Bacon soup helps. Well, the memory of it, anyway.  Somehow it helps to remember that she was here, I think.  Setting the spoon down, I look around my living room.  A picture of her with the girls rests in a black frame on the book shelf.  On the piano, a photo with her and Lexi sits behind the music rack.  On the floor, some toys she sent years ago lay scattered beneath the coffee table.  And thanks to the small porcelain bowl in front of me, the memory of my mom has come flooding back. So I smile.

Because of Bean with Bacon soup.