Into the Storm

When I was in Michigan a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit the Henry Ford Center. I was unexpectedly blown away to see all the cars that basically shaped the twentieth century, but I was also really impressed with the mission to carry on Ford’s legacy of innovation and creativity. The day we were at the center, we saw a glass blower and a weaver. The center embraces that art is the birthplace of innovation.

I learned that there was a high school on the campus. Just because I was so intrigued, I looked it up and saw there was an English opening. It felt like a dream job, high school English in a place focused on the power of creativity. While I was in Detroit, I put in an application.

The Henry Ford Academy called to offer me an interview. Of course they did, because this is how my life works. I have to say, at any other time in my life, I would have been over the moon with a chance at such an opportunity, but I declined the interview. For the first time, in a very long time, I am happy. I feel like I am exactly in the place I need to be.

I finished my first full week of the new school year teaching middle school language arts at Harrison K-8. I am happy to report that I didn’t have any panic attacks and that none of my days ended in tears. My teammates are wonderful and everyone has been warm and welcoming. So far the kids have been great and I am enjoying my days. I come home and have the energy to go for a walk, or ride my bike, or work on a project. I am so used to just surviving, that this new feeling of contentment is hard to trust. But I am trying to soak in this new place of joy.

The first unit of the literature series that I am to teach is about childhood. As I have been preparing for the unit, I have been reflecting about the year when I was in sixth grade. I remember it as my favorite year of school. Ironically, I was at Harrison then too, the old, original Harrison site when sixth grade was still part of elementary. The new wing had opened the year I was in sixth grade, so my classroom was brand new and had a feeling of modernness that the rest of the building didn’t have. I was so excited ti be in a new space.

I had the best teachers that year. My home room teacher discovered that I could type and she let me skip spelling and work on my stories. She told me that I was a born writer. She also taught us art, not crafts with construction paper, but drawing with perspective. She laughed aloud at my comic strips about sarcastic soccer balls. I wonder what happened to those; I would like to read them again. My reading teacher handed out McDonald’s gift cards for perfect tests and completed book summaries. Most of the work was independent and I blazed through it, so I could just read. I remember reading Gone With the Wind that year and The Outsiders, and Summer of the Monkeys. I kept my family in free fries, milkshakes, and apple pies. My math teacher had a big booming voice and he told stories and showed us how math was used to build skyscrapers and highways. He made me care about math for life.

Sixth grade put the whole idea that maybe I could be a writer or an artist or maybe a teacher in my head. I was always a good student, but sixth grade opened up my thirst for creativity and pushed me to excel. Because I became so invested as a student that year, my parents made a decision to send me to private school in seventh grade. So while all my friends were talking about going to school downtown with lockers and bells and sports, I was getting ready for uniforms, nuns, and meeting girls from all over the world. My years in private school are a story for another day, but I often see that leaving public school at the end of sixth grade was a road that probably took me to an entirely different destination than if I had joined the kids at Canon City Junior High.

I did eventually walk through the halls of public middle school, but as a student teacher. I was teamed with mid-career teachers who were passionate and having fun everyday. All the middle school teachers would crowd in an old supply closet for lunch and laugh and joke. It honestly felt like a big family. Everyone was warm and welcoming and went out of their way to help me. I felt supported and part of something great. Maybe that’s why middle school has always felt like home for me.

When I left teaching middle school, I was ready for a change. Art was a good fit for me, but I never felt completely comfortable at the elementary level. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the kids and made some life long friends with coworkers. I know I influenced literally hundreds of kids, but there were always things at the elementary level that made me feel impatient and antsy. I used to think that part of me had a middle school rebel brain that couldn’t be turned off.

My years of personal trauma have left me shattered and shell shocked inside. For a long time, everyday felt like a battle. I got up and tried to push all the feelings, memories, pain away, so that I could move ahead. But pushing away the fog just made it swirl around me more, trapping me, confusing me about the path forward. Traveling through the fog and trying to teach lead me to a place where I didn’t think I could move anymore. I felt frozen in a space with danger all around me.

Even though, I have spent a lot of time working on healing, I am not there yet. I was so scared to go back into the classroom this year. I didn’t want to be frozen again. When I stepped into the middle school at Harrison, I was embraced with warm, exuberant, vibrant welcomes. It reminded me of how I felt when I first stepped into a middle school setting all those years ago.

On the first day, I sat in the cafeteria at the “new” Harrison, next to my old middle school colleague and listened to my new administrator talk about the theme of the school year–Into the Storm. He told us that American bison stick together and meet storms head on, while cattle turn away from storms and often get lost or separated from their herds and don’t survive. I know he was making a metaphor about facing the school year together and meeting the challenges head on, but the metaphor was exactly what I needed. It made so much sense to me. The fastest way to get out of the storm is to go through it. Stay close to the herd. Feel. Experience. Run to. Not away. Go through. Not around. Get to the other side. Reach for the sun.

Into the Storm. A metaphor for a new way of traveling.

Last night I went to the high school football game. Just inside the gates of the stadium were three men who were part of the original middle school team when I student taught. They each have given me advice, served as my mentors, made me laugh, made me feel welcome. I went over to say hi. They greeted me with hugs and huge smiles, and it felt like a sign for me. They were there at the beginning when I was starting my journey and they were there again last night, cheering me onward.

Maybe the eye of the storm is calm. Maybe that’s where I really am. Maybe the wind and peril and confusion are still out there. I don’t know. I just know for the first time in a long time, I feel like there might be an end to the storm. I have found my herd again and I know the path forward.