Lull

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.




Another wonderful thing.  My dad sent me e-cards that were specifically meant for teachers at the end of school.  And they were funny.  It made me remember that for all of the times when I feel so pushed into the ground by society and perception and miscommunication, there are a lot of people who do get teaching, and the pace of it, and how not to annoy teachers with stupid jokes about not working hard. 

And these people were waiting for this day along with me, and are all about marking this closing with me as well.  (My dad is awesome.)  Doing this today...all of the small things in the big quiet school...helped the closing and the end. 

And then I got home from an afternoon with my mom in downtown Stillwater, also wonderful (and spontaneous and unplanned), and found my renewed teaching license in the mail.

I have been waiting for this for a long time. 

It's been that still small thing in the back of my mind all spring.  'Don't get so busy that you forget to renew your teaching license.'  I had to wait on a few things, and it was driving me a little crazy inside.  I've heard horror stories of that happening, people forgetting, or something going completely wrong out of left field, and it's been one big scary fear in the back of my mind.  The irrational one.  But still sort of legitimate, because no matter who you really are or aren't in the classroom, if the state of Minnesota says you can't teach, then you can't teach. 

I checked to make sure that I had, in my hazy, busy stupor, really checked the right box for my degree (yes, thankfully) and then took a few seconds to stare at the year 2017.  It feels like a long time from now, and I liked that. 

I am so, so happy that I have a license to teach for another 5 years.

I always say this, but teaching is so human and raw and painful sometimes.  It's also so noble and compelling and interesting.  I've really seen both sides of this job this year, as always, and now the summer before me is meant for the piecing together of what has occurred.  As it comes.  Nothing formal.  I'm sick of formal.  I'm sick of high heels and step-by-step process, the bell schedule, late homework, reminding kids to do things.  Even the horse race bugle call that serves as the 5 minute warning bell before school was losing its charm at the end.  It was time for a change.   

Now that I know a little more about the seasons, and teaching, I know that there will be time...on these road trips, on my porch, on the lake....to piece together the intensity of what has occurred.  It was the 5th year of teaching.  So says the state of Minnesota.  So says LIFE.

And I sit here, happy and tired, and I know that I finally figured out what I am like.  Deep down, as a teacher, as Miss Christians.  You don't get that understanding overnight.   I knew it before, but this year, from all sides, I finally finally lived it.  Nothing in the name of perfection, not ever that, but with intention, and on purpose.  I know that that's wonderful, and I am grateful. 

And that is a very new and astonishing and exhilarating sort of a thing.

I mentioned seeing my mom today.  That was not only good, but as soon as I saw her, I knew it was necessary.  I've kept a lot of thoughts inside in the midst of the chaos, in the business of planning the D.C. trip, in the stress of almost being done...the close but no cigar kind of pace I'd been living.   Today I shared my thoughts with my mom, and at the end got teary and didn't want her to go.  Like I was a 4 year old.  

It was a little bewildering, but not really.  You're not supposed to keep it together all of the time, and I've been doing this for everyone lately.  I know I have to do a big thing in the next week when I take 51 middle schoolers to Washington, D.C..  (Heck, if I didn't, I know that everyone at the airport would be sure to remind me of it as they watch the students follow me in one big line through the terminal.) 

It's big and kind of serious, and also shockingly fun.  It's all of that LIFE I was talking about.  I know it is coming, I know I can do it, and I know it will be good.  But I also know what it takes out of you in its intensity. So the very next thing is to ask for your prayers.  

I feel that on a trip like this, I pray almost constantly.  Subconsciously, gutturally, and deep down in my spirit, whenever we're doing anything.  It is extremely meaningful to know that people I love are praying for me and my students too....it helps in decision making and in not feeling alone, even in big city crowds.  Please and thank you...pray for me this week.  For life and clarity of mind, sound judgment, safety, and peace for anxiety ridden children.  Many of them have come to me separately and told me they are nervous.  I can see it in them, though in 8th grade it's so important to them to hide this, and it is a big them for them to do this too.

I'm reminded as I so readily ask for prayer that too often, as C.S. Lewis says, we are comfortable in the slums when God longs to give us a holiday by the sea.  So I go one step further, though it initially feels awkward, and ask you to pray for the thing that is rattling around inside of me.  Pray for exceptional things to happen in our lives.  

Exceptional means unusually good or outstanding.  And that sounds like a very nice word to accompany the trip to Washington, D.C..