Reflecting on "results": Spiritual Journey Thursday

 

Our writing prompt for Spirit this month is a return to our One Little Word (OLW) chosen at the beginning of the year.  Ruth asks us to reflect:

"Was it a good choice? Has it been helping shape our thoughts this year so far? Would we like to recalibrate, refocus, or even choose a new word?"

I chose "Results" as my OLW for 2021.  In the linked Slice, I talked about repeating the same goals each year and never really reaching them.  I thought I had been planning, but I had really just been wishing; I needed to map out discrete steps to take towards those goals, doable action plans.  So I did just that--thought out the steps to take, gave myself a timeline for them, even visualized what each step would look like.  The three areas I focused on were health (mainly weight loss), financial fitness, and decluttering.  Here are the results so far:

Health--twenty pounds down, but stalled since April.  Still using food as an emotional crutch/ reward.

Finances--overall, more in savings and a little less debt.  Credit card balances haven't budged.  Still haven't done the steps I said I would do to move forward.

Decluttering--let's just say there's been a few feeble attempts.  Very feeble.  Like, not even noticeable.

What I've learned (once again) in the last five months is that writing stuff down, even in SMART goal form, isn't the same as doing it.  Yes, I revisit those goals each month.  Yes, I block out time to work on them, and then ignore my own plans.  Yes, I look at those deadlines as they zoom right on by.

When choosing my OLW for the year, I forgot to consider that "results" are not always positive.

"I have a hard time being accountable to myself."  That's what I wrote back in January.  

So the question is:  do I hold on to that OLW, double down and try to work harder on acting out those steps I so carefully planned?  Can I hold myself accountable in order to accomplish my goals?  After some thought, and with summer just around the corner, I say yes--an answer accompanied by prayers for determination, focus...and maybe a kick in the seat of my pants from a guardian angel or two.   

Tuesday Slice: Planning to fail

My summer doesn't officially begin for another week, but I am already planning all the things I want to get done, all the things I need to get done, in the very few short weeks I have "off".  (I use quotations because teachers know we are never really "off"--uncompensated work stuff still happens throughout the summer).  Cleaning and reading, learning and crafting, traveling and exercise and more cleaning are written down in colorful ink in my planner.

I already know that if I'm lucky, half of those plans will come to fruition.

I will sleep later, stay up later, and have less focus than I am planning on.  There will be days when absolutely nothing gets accomplished, except maybe a nap on the couch and coffee made.  There are sections of the house that may look exactly the same as they did on June 8th, my first day of "summer break".

After twenty-eight years in this biz with summer playing out the same way every year, I am okay with that kind of failure. This year, I planned every minute of every workday for over 183 days with a lot of pandemic pivoting and mindshifting, and accomplished an awkward, fairly successful version of a library program.

If my summer plans fall through, it means that my body, mind, and spirit needed something else to restore operating capacity for the coming school year.  The tank needs to be filled before the car can go...so I am planning to fail spectacularly this summer.  And that feels good.

Tuesday Slice: Remember to notice

The last days

of the school year

are filled with

deadlines and

summer plans and

to-dos and

ceremonies and

taking down and

cleaning up and

storing and

throwing away

the minutes 

seem to be

thrown away, too

I need to

remember to

stop

and

notice

the gleeful faces

the sad faces

the ones with plans

the ones without a clue

(because the clues aren't there to find)

notice them

call them out by name

tell them

"See you next year!"

and

"You will grow so much

in middle school!"

and mean it

really mean it

so the ones 

without a clue

find one 

to hold onto.

Tuesday Slice: Pain transformed

I was paid a professional compliment last week, in regards to the work I accomplished at a former campus of mine.  I was referred to as "a machine", meant in the most positive way; I got the work done, day in and day out.  I managed a program, built relationships, created a safe space for everyone in my learning community within our library walls.  

I ran with that image in discussion later, turning myself into a Transformer with library scanners for hands.  I couldn't stop laughing about the moniker:  Christine the Machine.  It fits; I do plow through my days--gleefully, I might add--taking care of library business in the same way I took care of classroom duties.  I think most educators do the same.

Still chuckling about it at home, an unbidden memory popped up.

In middle school, I experienced suicidal thoughts.

Serious thoughts about taking my own life.  I don't remember the exact circumstances.  I do remember journaling about it.  I remember feeling isolated, an outsider, not even on the fringes of any of the cliques that exist in those tumultuous in-between years.  I was called "Mrs. Einstein", "curve-breaker", "four-eyes" in the pejorative, and they were all true--I was smart, I did set the curves, I did wear glasses--so the barbs stuck, worked their way in to my heart.

I remember writing one line in particular.  "It's as if they think I'm a robot without feelings."

I never acted on those thoughts.  My parents had no clue about that episode until years later, when they found my journals while cleaning out the garage.  They were shocked, and saddened, until I told them that they were the reason I never made plans to end my life; I knew it would hurt them to the core, and they weren't any part of the reason for my depression.  I knew they loved and cared for me, and that kept me alive.

I wish I could go back and hug my thirteen year old self, and show her how far that robot has come.  She's transformed into a machine, working hard to create the same safe spaces her family provided for her, just when she needed it. 

Tuesday Slice: SLL/JLL

Trying to come up with a title for this Slice, I realized I could draw from the educational alphabet acronym soup.

I am a librarian for a host of kids who are ELLs--English Language Learners.  I am currently an SLL--Spanish Language Learner, and a JLL--Japanese Language Learner.  The first is out of necessity; I live in Texas, and a majority of my ELL students are Spanish speakers.  The second is out of love; my bilingual daughter married a Japanese man.

This is not my first attempt at learning other languages.  Italian culture class was part of the rotation in my DoDDS elementary school in Naples, and I was in an immersion program at an Italian school in third grade.  I took French in high school (because I was born in Paris, so why not?).  In college, I attempted extracurricular classes in Spanish.  Post-grad, I studied sign language for a couple of semesters in anticipation of nonverbal students in my special education classroom, and more recently, took advantage of "rapid Spanish" online courses offered through my school district.

As an Army BRAT, I was exposed to Thai, Italian, German, and French as we moved and traveled around the world.  

You would think some of it would have "stuck", but other than a pretty good pronunciation of the European languages (that helped immensely in choir), a few choice sentences (I can ask for the bathroom, train station, and dinner in German) and two or three random hand signs...let's just say my foreign language retention is weak, at best.  Even when I have retained a bit, just for awhile, my ears haven't been able to keep up with the rapid speech of native speakers.

The difference this time is a true need, a sense of duty to respect the languages, the cultures of these important people in my life. So maybe, just maybe, my daily Duolingo lessons will help me attain some level of expression and receptive understanding in Spanish and Japanese.  I'm just thankful they are almost completely different; I don't think I need to worry about confusing español with 

ひらがな.

Made for joy: Spiritual Journey Thursday

Carol Varsalona's prompted theme for this month's Spiritual Journey writing is apt;  "Blossoms of Joy", beautifully aligns with the May flowers our April showers bring.

I offer a Gaelic prayer from Mary C. Earle's annotated book, Celtic Christian Spirituality:

Fashioned for Joy

As the hand is made for holding and the eye for seeing, 

thou hast fashioned me for joy.

Share with me the vision that shall find it everywhere:

in the wild violet's beauty;

in the lark's melody;

in the face of a steadfast man;

in a child's smile;

in a mother's love;

in the purity of Jesus.

--traditional Gaelic, translated by Alistair MacLean

The riotous joy of an overzealous rosebush

    celebrating the sun's return after a frigid winter

Bright pink faces to greet us at the door

Bouquets adorning our table 

almost always, for fifteen years

And

tiny yellow florets 

promising a harvest of cherry tomatoes

a handful of red roses, white carnations, pine boughs

 walked down the aisle

a ceramic pink pram, filled with foliage

one of those plants now a tree, bent as it hits the ceiling

lilies at a funeral, white roses on the casket

an ivy that lives on

a circlet of baby's breath

to top a white dress and patent shoes and new rosary

anniversary and

new baby and

birthday and

corsages and boutonnieres.

Flowers bloom at the touchstones and cornerstones of this one, joy-filled and tear-stained life.

Tuesday Slice: Big thoughts

There are so many thoughts going through my head right now, but none I particularly want to flesh out this weary, May, pre-dawn morning.  They seem too big, too deep to be tackled before the requisite amount of coffee is consumed.  I'll list them here, just so you know:  the whitewashing of the history curriculum and attempt to erase social justice from the collective vocabulary by our state government, very nearly accomplished; the need for all students and their families to be seen in our school library collections, if only, and importantly, to save lives; the inequity caused by something so simple as lack of text in children's homes (and daily attention to it) at 0 to 3 years of age.  

See, I told you--big thoughts that call for deep diving.  But there's a sense of urgency surrounding them, too, that says we don't have time to go down under, something must be done now.

The only now I can face with any sense of confidence is the work ahead of me today, this week, this summer, lots of mundane details that I can list and check off.  But maybe, just maybe, there will be some chiseling moments in that work, chipping away at those big issues at my own little corner of the monolithic establishment.