Maintaining Calm Seas.
The upper class teacher felt a tad ill in the morning and asked me to sub in until first recess. I canceled my class with the 6th graders and proceeded to sit in her chair surveying her classroom. All too soon the bell was ringing and students were filing in with confused looks on their faces upon seeing Miss Nellie in the head chair. “Your teacher will be in at first recess.” I said a few too many times. They nodded and soon the classroom filled with murmured conversations. Program practiced filled most of our morning to the delight of the substitute. At some point in the morning I glanced up to a paper decoratively arranged on a wooden clipboard. Maintain calm seas, it said. What a quote for a teacher! It really seems like sometimes the waves are very choppy and not calm at all. How can I maintain calm seas? That little thought gave me ponders for the rest of the day. How peaceful it is when I can maintain calm seas with my classes and inside myself!
Winter has arrived in our little hamlet. The temperatures have plummeted below freezing and sometimes in the mornings, my car door is frozen shut. The snow flurries are beautiful to watch from the safety of a warm classroom. The ponds are starting to freeze and the children want only to skate. The Christmas chaos hasn’t even felt that chaotic just yet. Gifts have been boughten and warm winter clothes acquired for cold nights of caroling. Oh the fun of singing as small puffs of steam escape and rise toward the stars. Sometimes, the most fun part of the caroling evening is sitting in the back of the bus having conversations about food, in particular, fries. “The Wendy’s fries are pretty amazing!” “The Freddy’s fries are good if they have a lot of seasoning.” “Steak fries are the best. Crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside!” “What about Burger King fries?” “I only go to Burger King for the crown!” It was definitely decided that we were all very hungry. “I just want to go to Wendy’s and get some food and eat it in the warm car in the parking lot and then go home and take a hot shower and go to bed!” That sounded pretty spot on. Later on in the evening, sitting around a fire unthawing and eating soup wasn’t so bad. Also Ispy is actually kind of fun! (With the right people:) If you need to entertain youth, just give them Ispy and Tintin books. At least that works when they are wore out after caroling in the cold for three and a half hours.
How often do you put up a facade? If I am having a rough go of it, I will often cover it with being very talkative and laughing a lot. I will make jokes and be sarcastic and loudly proclaim over this and that, but in a moment of silence, my face falls, only for a second, and if you notice these kind of things, you will see that I am hiding something. Something that I don’t want to burden someone else with. Maybe it would be better to be upfront about the situation and talk about it with other people. Why does that just seem to be so difficult? I don’t want them to see that vulnerable part of me that is lonely in a room full of people. I want them to see the bubbly person who is a joy to be around and not the sad person who feels like they are always failing. Sometimes I look around at my fellow youth and wonder who else has a false front because sadness lurks behind the walls. Do I even realize that everyone is struggling with something? Together, we will fight the battle to the gates.
Life moves at an astonishingly fast pace. It seemed to only be October and now we are rushing through December with reckless abandon. If only life would slow down a bit so we could catch our breath. But life just goes on, and we must only live in the moment.
“Everything turns out in the end, no?”
☺