Mea culpa, Mea culpa

I don't do much, sometimes
I don't lose sleep
I don't always bring home piles of papers
to grade
I don't call all 130 sets of parents, always
I should,
I should I should I should.

If I am asking them to work their hardest,
then I need to be working mine.

Despite not losing sleep, I'm still tired
and I don't know
I don't know how to care a lot
without caring too much
without being frustrated and hurt
when they don't care in return
I don't know why I don't work harder,
but I should,
I should I should I should.

If I am asking them to work their hardest,
then I need to be working mine.

I've heard sage wisdom, of protecting oneself from burnout,
of striving for sanity for sustainability,
but I think I have
spent so much of me
building walls of "sustainability"
that I can't see past
the burning brick.

I guess I could be working harder.

(I wish I wanted to. I should I should I should.)

October Endings

I haven't written in a while.

And this makes sense:
when your soul is tired, when your heart is tired, when your body is tired, there is sometimes nothing left to give — let alone to write.

And this is what I demand every day:
that my students write.
- despite everything, in spite of everything, because of everything, for everything — that they write.

And here I am, stumbling over one, tiny blog post.

Things I am learning.

Called to walk through suffering. We are called to walk through suffering. Not against it. Not above it. Lately, my "incurable optimism" is appearing to be more and more like realism that has never known suffering. I am the ultimate wimp, but God is so good. So strong. And the only reason I have made it through some of these days.

I have never been an angry person, but I think I have always been angry. It's like I was just waiting for the moment that my anger — at all of it: our unjust educational system, our own mistreatment of each other, our brokenness and hate — would have something to hit. Something to target.

And there all of you are. Beautiful, and shining, and fierce, and fighting, and some days it takes everything in me not to scream, not at you, or to you, even, but for you — it is not you're fault you are like this. But from now on, it will be.

So tired.
I am so tired.

Will you please keep fighting? Will you fight when I can't?

Sunday Evening

The resounding silence of us,

hanging up.

After we have spent the last six hours

floating through all of eternity,

waving “Hello, there!” to pterodactyls and

the Appalachians and

hammerheads and

the Empire State Building and

robots and

teleportation devices

we are still experiencing

the sun and the moon

three hours apart.

What stretches longer?
The distance of miles or the distance of hours?

For us, it may be miles:

The warmth of your palm pressed against my face

is the span between a small ant

and its mate on the other side of a 

basketball court.

For us, it may be hours:

Your laughter jostling mine on a park bench

is a half-empty coffee mug

left on the kitchen counter

from two mornings before.

Whether it is miles, or hours,

I do not know,

but I do know the feeling

of climbing toward

the moment we meet again

five days from now

in an over-polished airport terminal

amid the buzzing of overhead P.A. systems and

men waving goodbye to the ones they love and

women waving goodbye to the ones they love

we will be two Pacific salmon,

swimming to the upper reaches of river,

only to give, and give, and give,

and one day — some day,

die.

Things That Are Important

1. Laughter
2. Hands
3. Roads
4. Learning
5. Warmth
6. Cold
7. Fire
8. Grief
9. Words
10. Words
11. Words
12. Words
13. Words
14. Words
15. Laughter.

Writing with you feels like pressing my hand against a window, you pressing back from the other side of the pane, and the glass between us suddenly dissolving into thin air — our palms kissing warmly, exactly as they should.

Cell Phone Lifespans

We throw around the word "dying" so often these days. I wonder what life would be like if these situations were actual, literal instances of death:

[Beep] My phone is dying. (Do cell phones go to heaven?)
[I'm hungry] I'm dying.
[Laughing] I'm dying!

*Shudder.*