Feels like I’m falling
I came back from Iqaluit a week ago and, although I was a little tired because I’m not used to the joy of playing with small children all day and, in spite of the fact that I arrived home with pretty severe muscle spasms down the right side of my body, I’d had a great time away. A lovely loving adventure. Now I was home and it was time to really buckle down and get my presentations for Nairobi drafted. I checked with them to find out if the July 30th deadline for submitting handouts was flexible and they immediately sent back that really mid-August would be fine. Still, I’ll be away again from July 31st – August 8th so that means the pressure is on. I gave myself Tuesday to get laundry done, mail sorted, and generally get settled back in (I’d gone almost directly from the cottage to Iqaluit so needed some home-again time). Wednesday I’d start working.
Meanwhile, while I was in Iqaluit, I found out that this blog had been recognized as one of the top 25 blogs on retirement. We spent a few days checking (we really meaning my sister Molly and son-in-law Andy) and so now you’ll see – if you scroll down and look at the right-hand side of the page – the award stamp. You’d think that would have been an ego-booster and should have added to my readiness to get down to work.
Wednesday morning arrived. I got up around 9:30 and headed straight to my computer – coffee in hand – to continue work on the first draft of Day 1 that I’d worked on at the cottage. At first things seemed to be moving along as they usually do when I’m trying to create a learning experience and then … TV. I retreated from writing, feeling a bit lost about where I was going. A lot of TV. Another attempt at development in the mid-afternoon led me straight back into the arms of TV again. Seems the phrase I heard a lot on a lot of different shows was “fire in the hole” and that was always followed by an explosion of some sort. I was starting to feel that way.
Thursday, Friday and Saturday were pretty much replicas of Wednesday. This afternoon, avoiding sitting down at the computer for another stare-at-the-screen-and-wonder-what-I’m-doing session, I went outside to weed the garden. Having been away for a few weeks there were lots of weeds to pull. At least that was a challenge I thought I could meet! And so I sat quietly pulling out weeds, focusing on pulling them out one at a time, slowly and gently. Somewhere in that process it came to me. What I wanted to do was spend the time in conversation and experience with a group of teachers with the goal of having them come away from the day seeing their job a little bit differently than they had before. I was getting caught up, though, in the old “messaging” thing from my Ministry days; I was worrying about what the great “they” wanted me to be saying and I wasn’t trusting my belief in experience as the basis for learning not lecture. I need to remember to be clear from the beginning that the day I will share with them will likely not be the day they expected. From time to time there might be PowerPoint slides but they weren’t going to form the constant background to the day. I wanted them to relax, to dig into their own thoughts and experiences, and spend the day exploring how teachers and students can acknowledge and support each other’s specialness.
Planning for Day 2, however, is still leaving me feeling like I want to get into Alice’s head and see the world from many different perspectives. As she says: “I knew who I was this morning, but I’ve changed a few times since then.” The day is on Schools That Nurture Harmony and Peace. The thing is with everything that’s going on around me, near and far, I do feel like I’m falling into a place where peace is no more than an abstract concept. We seem, on every level, to be moving away from peace. I’m hoping that some of you will help me out a little bit here and send me your thoughts on what it is we have to be teaching children if they are to grow up and understand how to live in peace with others. What needs to be different in our schools for a different outcome? I’m hoping your ideas will get me going.
Truth is I’m a little bit afraid here. Okay – truth is a lot afraid. Maybe what’s happening is that I’ve been out of “the field of education” for a couple of years and I just don’t have much to say anymore? Maybe my brain is wearing out a little faster than I thought it would and I’ve lost the ability to organize a whole day of thoughts?Maybe in some weird way – this is what my mother keeps telling me – I’m exhausted? Whatever it is I’m not crazy about how I’m feeling.
I have one more work-week to make some significant progress. Then I’m off to Santa Fe to celebrate another birthday, attend some wonderful operas, spend time with some dear friends, and do some early morning hiking and afternoon reading by the pool with a Margarita in hand. I’ll have only one week to work when I get back before submissions are due. I’m trying very hard – not very successfully though – not to panic, not to melt down.
Still, it feels like I’m falling.
Well done on achieving an award. Sorry I will not be home next week to read the next sharing of your journey. Perhaps I’ll be sharing a Margarita in Sana fe. We leave on Saturday, would you believe my challenge at the moment is to pack for 5 weeks – hand luggage only!
By the way I know my daughter in law Elaine will really love sharing with you ideas on the schools place in nuturing harmony and peace, Elaine and Michael run a great preschool in Boulder where they mix the age groups unlike here where they are generally segregated, to help foster the ideal of older children nuturing the younger and the atmosphere in the school is special and very caring.
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Sylvia Bereskin Reply:
July 26th, 2010 at 8:41 am
Can’t wait to meet up again in Santa Fe. How should we contact you? We’ll arrive very late on July 31st. I will look forward to talking peace education with Elaine and Michael for sure.
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Written on the run – sorry about the spelling.
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Sylvia Bereskin Reply:
July 26th, 2010 at 8:42 am
Hey, here’s a good sign. I didn’t even notice spelling errors. Finally the red-pencil teacher really is retired!
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Sylvia: I think we all experience bouts of uncertainty and indecision. Work gives you a structure and goals that must be met and retirement offers possibilities and opportunities for structure and timelines or not. it means you need to chart your own course more often and that is emotionally draining. As an educator, summers gave me time to re-charge but also time with nothing to do and that type of time was not always welcomed. I have been learning to pace and to choose and I think you are still re-charting your course. Knowing your passions, it will all work out. Not surprised about the recognition, bev
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Sylvia Bereskin Reply:
July 26th, 2010 at 8:40 am
Thanks for that Bev. It has been a quite frightening week and words of support make a lot of difference.
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Much congratulations on the blog award. I am very proud and thankful for this site. I do think maybe you should listen to your mother a bit. You know they are usually right. Squeeze in some rest and down time. One does not have body spasms down ones side for no reason. Thanks for the little view of your creative process. I often find doing something like gardening and pulling weeds allows my mind to wander and come up with new ideas, solutions, thoughts. Going down that rabbit hole can be scary but trying to get a new perspective can allow us to come up with new stuff. I read heard somewhere that one way of wiping out prejudice and racism was to have our children who are not in a very diversified school to be exchange student for a part of the year in another school that is within the country or state/province because it’s experience and exposure that really changes those/affects them more so than just knowledge. Anyway it made me think of peace and harmony and all kinds of possible similar exchanges and not just in schools. Maybe in workplaces, business, city/rural areas but at a more local scale rather than national. Hope you enjoy your next trip!
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Sylvia, as my yoga teacher of long ago said, “relax into the position”. Fear is the other side of excitement. When Alice fell down the hole, she fell without injury – she must have relaxed into the position. And though a Margarita is not nearly a magic mushroom, you need to do just what your mom said – in my experience, they are always right! I hear my mother’s voice saying “You can do it, just give yourself some space”. Maybe put it on the back burner of your wonderful, beautiful mind.
Our son is developing a sense of peace within himself through travel, having experiences he must handle on his own. He is building his self-esteem through being and doing, and if we can create the circumstances for children to do that more, I think we will achieve more peace. That has to engage parents as well as teachers, I believe, and what teachers have done for our son in the past to help him find his peace is believe in him and his potential, one day at a time. It means keeping the big picture in mind and at the same time focussing on the present and the one step that we can take in this moment. You will get there.
See you in September.
Julia
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