Exceptional happened.
It is a week later (now posted a few weeks after THAT) and I am now in the beginning, again, of life post-D.C.. It is slow in coming to me, as I have forgotten a lot of things that didn't revolve around the trip. All around me in the apartment is evidence that I have been busy. Nothing is in total shambles, but I have work to do in order to make my apartment seem like a hospitable place to be. Currently, windows open, rainy weather here, it is a quiet summer shelter for a very tired me.
'The third time is the charm' is technically true when I consider leading the trip. I've been to D.C. 4 times in the last few years, but the first time, I got sick. Really, altogether digustingly sick....I couldn't go to school for four days after the trip. I had pink eye and maybe some bronchitis? Certain elements of that trip are a little hazy, but really, the morning we woke up at 3:00 am to meet luggage and parents and kids at school, the pit in my stomach was gone.
What a relief.
Today two really wonderful things happened. Maybe we could say three wonderful things. Or maybe as I'm sitting down to write about it, I see the rest of a long line of wonderful stretching out in front of me.
I finished all grades, all quarters, all year updates. Finally. I am done with it.
Yesterday was such a huge mix of everything all at once...I think I was just partly there amidst the craziness of signing yearbooks and ending it with the crowd. But today I sat in the quiet, quiet school, finally finishing those last small things at my trusty desk. And it was the real closure I had been waiting for.
To mark this, I had a dance party in my classroom. Probably some couldn't imagine me doing this, but I blasted music, and it felt appropriate and good and funny to be dancing like a maniac in the place where I have literally stood to teach all year. Heather sent me an e-mail that said she imagined me running out of the school throwing paper and screaming, and I suppose this was my version of that kind of joy.
It was another one of those nights where I stayed super late and the custodians swept around me and I kept working. The next thing, the next thing, the next thing. I made myself eat, and not completely forget I had a body that needed some care, and I kept repeating things to myself about how the perk of teaching really is the long summer day in July where nothing is time sensitive.
My good friend, Stacy the English Teacher, came in and helped me sort out of my tired brain when the things I had to organize for Friday just weren't making sense. She could tell. We've gotten into a pattern of knowing when I need to do something concrete and the abstract side of my mind just won't stop getting in the way. Yesterday she literally said, 'Is there anything I can do for you in a concrete way that would help you sort anything out?' And I knew exactly what she was talking about. And she knew that I knew that she knew. (Thanks, friend.)
T-minus....
4 more days of school
6 more days until the D.C. trip
10 days until my summer break begins
I've been very calm and unaltered about the end of school....something I've deliberately practiced in order to make it to the end and not flake out as a teacher. I HAVE to be diligent about their grades. But today is the last big push. If I can grade like an efficient maniac today, I feel like I'll be golden. I've been living like this....'every minute counts, but I'm still praying and still calm' for a long time, and it seems like I'll never stop living like this.
I can't believe it's been 20 days since I wrote on this blog. The hiatus has not been self-imposed. The schedule I've lived out, both at school and in LIFE in general has kept me away from whatever it is that sends me to type in this white open space that eventually becomes a blog post. I last wrote about being a part of something very early and very still.
And I am happy to report that, despite the intensity of the life I'm living, there have been moments for 'very early and very still'. I'm drinking coffee out of a mug from Molly and the windows are open, and I love spring. It's nice to live on the third floor, as I've said a thousand times before, because when you go to the window, you first see the green of the trees, and when you really sit down to listen, it's the rush of the breeze that you hear before anything else.
Every year I find that the most simple things in the spring are the most steadying to me. Basic please and thank yous, color returning to nature, the creativity of different kinds of flowers, my old worn out desk shoved up to the window, marking a place of inspiration for me. And despite temporarily intense stressors at school, there is also the magical moment every year when I realize I have planned out lessons to the end of the year, and that they will WORK. And they will run themselves. And I need to keep up with them and it will all be ok.
Yesterday in my life the feeling of of being swept up and rushed along was no longer the order of the day. There was a sincere and relevant time for things, and it made me feel that the momentum has come back. My work makes sense again.
I sent out the big 'D.C. info in May' spiel....the info we need, the timing, the import of it all. That ship is in motion, and it's relieving that it's not all held by moi any longer. It's out there for everyone else to navigate. I find this kind of cozy and relieving...it's their trip after all. I also made a giant project at the end of the day that took a million years to type out, revise, and structure. But at the end of it, I said, 'Good job, Jessica. You're going to use this for 5 years and it's actually not going to fall apart in front of you.'
It's the happy reality of the 5th year teacher to be able to look at the things you create and anticipate the direction it will take.
I'm just going to say it. I have needed inspiration for a while now. This season in teaching, this last month, is really tough, and I haven't found my momentum for it. I find that this is kind of horrible. What an awkward feeling to try and shake in such a lovely season like spring. I think any teacher reading this right now might feel it....it's not specific to me. But it's a lethargic, dull place I want to hold loosely, if at all. Movement, please.
I had a few experiences over the weekend where people I knew well said something back to me about myself. We do not often see ourselves the way others see us. I was introduced at a bridal shower, in front of a bunch of people I didn't know, as a very inspiring person and teacher. And I certainly did not feel that way. I felt sort of schluppy, and very paper-ridden. Paper-ridden! What sort of adjective is that for a person? But right now it's the only one I feel.
The upswing though, after admitting this feeling (and just a feeling) of a season...I have found this inspiration.
'The third time is the charm' is technically true when I consider leading the trip. I've been to D.C. 4 times in the last few years, but the first time, I got sick. Really, altogether digustingly sick....I couldn't go to school for four days after the trip. I had pink eye and maybe some bronchitis? Certain elements of that trip are a little hazy, but really, the morning we woke up at 3:00 am to meet luggage and parents and kids at school, the pit in my stomach was gone. 
