I ended a class today in a good space…sparring back and forth with a highly energized, slightly obstreperous third grader who exudes continual positive energy.

I am a touch more quiet and not given to jumping.

I don’t jump at all.

I asked him before we left the classroom, ‘Do I need to hold your hand in the hallway?’ He responded with great glee, ‘I would LOVE to have you hold my hand in the hallway!’

Jumping! Twisting around! So we held hands with energy as we walked back. The rest of the class draggled behind us…

So…there’s that…

The line between chemical and spiritual is a finely threaded one indeed…

In time, hard cold reality wins over rhetoric. If it is broken, it is broken…whether it be forced federal health care or forced educational policy curriculum; or forced administrative walk-throughs when districts are hemorrhaging the very teachers who hold the systems together by the most fragile of threads.

Incompetence at multiple levels, teachers streaming out of the field at record rates, updated google dismissal charts and grade level meetings. The weirdest gimmick is unexplained administrative leaves where really good teachers suddenly disappear, remain paid and a slew of substitute teachers enter and exit the building with abandon. The trick is waiting for it all to implode…

We are working in the middle of a Salvador Dali painting…everything and everyone is slowing melting down…dripping over the edges like exhausted clocks…

Sometimes, naming something helps in the effort to change things. Sometimes.

I exercise (not enough). I walk a thoughtful tightrope between chips and snacks, organic chicken, processed sweet cakes in fun, wrinkly crisp wrappers, salads…and when all else fails…I pop a few vitamins.

Everything goes better with strong, rich coffee laced with heavy cream. Everything.

It occurred to me that stubborn belly fat (not officially recognized) needs a name because, well… ideally it needs to change.

I am now the proud owner of my own ‘Pacific Rim’.

Carrying on…

I awoke and found the land changed; the view morphed into something new. The house being built next to ours seems to have sprung up overnight and now we are fully surrounded.

The land in great reluctance has surrendered another acre and I assume the heavy soil questions the ‘gifting’ of itself; as night shadows descend and the rains begin to fall and the turned over dirt is cold.

I rose and during the day’s journey I dusted the buffet belonging to my Grandmother; a piece of furniture more than one hundred years old and I wondered what this lovely piece of hewn wood has witnessed.

Wood and land, dust and soil and stone; watching humanity move and build and tear down and stomp around with passions and proclamations. The elements wait without comment for they were there on the very tip of God’s hand during creation and they will cover us as God closes eyes and they observe our lives and decisions…and they wonder as we dust and dig around and carry on with abandon…

On this brilliant Sunday morning as you sit quietly in a chair by the window, reading a study on Biblical texts and I sit more quietly in my reading room scanning a book about miracles, the gentle chimes blow against the wind on the porch and sing out the glories of a restful Sabbath day.

We have temporarily neglected the gathering of the faithful.

I stretch suddenly and rise to take a brief moment to scrub up a large pot left sitting alone in the kitchen sink. The pot is heavy and unwieldy and I struggle to turn it over and over under the gushing water, scraping off the crusty sauce from the delicious stew you cooked last evening. You look up briefly as the clanging of stainless steel against steel disturbs your concentration. We smile with no words and the water continues to flow as I scrub.

Such is this passage called life; when Biblical texts and miracles are necessarily interrupted by a dirty pot which wants cleaning. And therein blooms unabated, the steady frustration of this experience on Earth; that a mere steel pot would demand the setting aside of such high and lofty things such as theological texts and the promises of miracles.

For this detritus; the mundane objects of dirt and elbow grease and the daily requirement of food, serve as a goad, a necessary theology of the kitchen; a reminder that we are not yet home…

Overheard phrases in the school hallway such as, ‘If your voice is above ‘Ninja’…you’re going to the island and it won’t be a choice!’ fascinate me.

Count me in.

I have no earthly idea what’s happening but I’d like to join…either side…’Ninja’ or the island…count me in.

I pass a bubbly, wiggly, cheering line of kindergartners who have just exited the chaos of the lunchroom. They pass me and one raises his arms and yells out, ‘We are going to the gym! We’re going to the gym!’ In a flash, I raise my arms and respond loudly, ‘I never, ever have to go to gym again!’

Someone else shoves and wobbles clumsily in line and raises his arms yelling, ‘I’m going to jail! I’m going to jail!’ I answer again with raised arms, ‘I’m never, ever going to jail!’

They keep laughing and shoving past me and the line disappears around the corner. I lower my arms, look around and quickly enter the awaiting elevator.

As the door slides shut, I look up at the ceiling and think out loud, ‘At times like this, I consider that I may be either French…or just plain nuts…’

I stand up to leave the room on this first day of the week and I glance over at him; this scrawny, angry scrap of a boy. Thinks he’s tough. I know where he is. I know what he’s rolling with. He’s not tough, but the show is everything. It’s a hot mess.

As I look at him and walk by his table, he throws me the middle finger. That’s all he has to offer in this great big, vast, massive, beautiful and complicated world. That’s all he has.

Silly thing. If he thinks he can move me with that, he does not know what I am rolling with. I know where I am. I’m made of far sterner and gentler stuff. A character out of a lowly chapter in a Dickens novel; this poor boy.

I look at him and chuckle.

‘God bless you, T…’ I move out of the room while I feel him watching…

‘Tomorrow is spring? Tomorrow is spring’ he answers his own question. ‘Yes’ I nod. ‘End of the road, in theory’. All because the beaver didn’t see his tail’. Silence. ‘Or the chipmunk’.

I add ‘The groundhog didn’t see his shadow’. He nods. ‘Yes. We lucked out this year’. ‘Luck o’ the Irish’.

We enter the restaurant and he begins a friendly banter with the waiter. They chatter happily in Spanish. ‘I’m going to ask him where he’s from when he comes back to our table. I’m pretty good at guessing the sounds’. I ask him, ‘Where do you think he is from?’

‘The Dominican Republic’ he answers. ‘Really? The Dominican Republic?’ ‘Yes’ he nods vigorously.

The waiter returns. They start to talk again. I hear it this time. The Dominican. The waiter turns to me to translate. I do not interrupt him. Then he says, ‘But I’m only half from the DR. Here’s a challenge. If either of you guesses the other half, I’ll pay for both of your dinners’.

I’m slightly nervous playing this game as I’m the token Anglo here. Or is it ‘Angla’? ‘Um’. I’m silent. My husband pipes up. ‘German?’ Half German?’ The waiter says ‘nope!’ I offer up ‘Irish?’ What else am I going to say? Upon entering this establishment I noted I was the only white person in our section. Our server laughs happily at me and answers, ‘My people. Where did they all come from? They came in the surge’. He chuckles again. ‘You said that, not me’ I respond quietly.

‘I say what I want!’ he laughs again. ‘Your people…you know!’ And he rolls his eyes. I smile. It turns out the waiter’s other half is French. ‘Well, it’s hard to tell’ my spouse sighs. ‘I never would have guessed French. But I do recognize the sounds from the Dominican. They just say things a certain way. And Argentina and Brazil…that I’ve got. But all the others, I don’t’.

I look around the restaurant again. ‘French’ I offer. ‘Who would have guessed French?’ The waiter asks me about the generous tip and I tell him. ‘White guilt!’ He shakes his head. I chuckle. ‘I say what I want’. My turn. My husband and the waiter banter happily as we exit the restaurant.