We celebrated the seniors last night, and now summer is here. It’s time to recover. And boy, do I need to recover. It feels like there’s sludge in my shins and sawdust in my stem cells. I ache from overuse.
But the grass is newly green, the sky’s a sun-drenched blue, and the summer stretches out like a deck chair reserved just for me. It’s time to slow down. Time to feel the sun on skin, the clover beneath toes, and a heartful and houseful of family and friends.
I can take long walks and even longer naps. I can taste homegrown tomatoes and sip store-bought wine. I can float in the pool and lounge on the porch. I can read in a swing and write on the patio. I can bake with the boys and hold hands with my husband. I can host barbecue and pajama parties.
I can rejuvenate my mind, so I can prepare for my final year of teaching. I’ve got just one more year..
I was trying to calculate how many students I’ve taught throughout this journey. How many “babies” I’ve mothered in all that time. And from my calculations – and math is not my strong suit, so it’s probably an underestimate — I’m thinking it’s been close to 4,500. Forty-five hundred angst-riddled, hormone-fueled, drama-driven teenagers. Multiply that times the myriad of emotions and behaviors that fuel a classroom on any given day, along with hours of lectures and lessons and the number of assignments to grade and you understand why summer recovery is a very real necessity.
Teaching is exhausting. It’s challenging. It’s overwhelming. It is.
But it’s also feeling exhausted and challenged and overwhelmed and unbelievably proud with a heart bursting with love and gratitude for all your kids and their accomplishments when they cross that stage in late May to a cacophony of tears and air horns and applause.
If you do it right, it’s worth every ounce of energy. If you do it right, it’s your calling.
Hearts as good as grits and gravy, passions that run like over-easy eggs, my first block class of seniors is a heaping helping of Heaven Help with a whole lotta Gotta love ‘em thrown in too.
Scattered, smothered, and covered up – that’s what they keep me – along with on my toes and on my No’s, but oh-so-many Yes-es, too.
We should all be this way, their way, full of pushing ourselves and our limits, pouring our magic into this, our magic hour in this wild and precious world.
We should all be grabbing our minutes by the forkfuls, the spoonfuls, the plate and bowl and platterfuls, with hearts as good as grits and gravy, passions spilling off the edges like over-easy eggs.
This week was a rough ride. The kids are amped up on holiday vibes and election results. They’re practically vibrating. I’ve been shushing and redirecting and encouraging and fussing and trying my utmost to keep them focused and remember every day that I love them. I really do love them. But they are exhausting right this minute.
And I get it. Nobody is excited to be sitting in English class writing a perspective poem or a Great Gatsby essay.
This rowdy, raucous week was full of glad tidings for some and dark omens for others — the conversations running the gamut from Christmas carols and Thanksgiving-food-favorites to trending red and blue TikToks and tweets. From elation at the prospect of gas prices coming down to the horror at the slavery texts going ‘round.
Deportation headlines were tossed around like confetti by some, striking like anvils some others. There were book banning and family planning conversations. I even heard about the “her body, my choice” tweet that garnered thousands of likes.
And then there were the students who never even talked about the election at all. It hadn’t even been a blip on their Instagram algorithms.
And while I’m glad those students are innocent to the dark drama of politics, I’m sad too because I know they aren’t immune to the repercussions. My students are 17, 18, and 19-year-olds. So soon, they’ll be out in the very real world and learn what’s most important and essential to each-and-every one of their lives.
Through it all, I did my best to steer them back toward our task at hand: their education, their growth and understanding.
I teach literature. I teach other people’s perspectives. I teach how to walk two miles in somebody else’s shoes. I teach incredibly important lessons. But most importantly, I teach young adults. Young adults who will soon be grown adults who will soon, I hope, be intelligent rational, caretakers of our country. Because I really do love them all. And I really do believe in them all.
And Lord knows, we need intelligent, rational caretakers who can heal our nation and ensure all of us have the fundamental rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. All of us.
I’ve done a lot of things later than other people. Went back to school at 32. Began teaching at 35. Had twin boys at 48. Finished my first novel at 55.
Some people say age is just a number. Some people call me crazy. I would agree with ALL those people. Age is just a number and I think I’m insane.
There’s a reason folks have kids when they’re in their 20s and 30s. Kids run you ragged (and in your earlier decades you have more energy to run before you find yourself ragged).
Our family is currently in the raggedy-ass stage. From football to basketball to soccer and theater and dance… we’re coming undone.
And then there’s that teaching gig I have.
Because there’s also a reason teachers retire at 52. Students. So. Many. Students. Don’t get me wrong, I love them. I really, really do. But finding grace and patience for 160-plus 18-year-olds shuffling their way through senioritis in the last semester of the school year is almost more than a body can take.
Thank God Spring Break is arriving soon.
And then there’s that writing gig I have. If you can call it a gig. It’s more of a goal. A long shot. But I’m the queen of long shots. Everything I do is a Hail Mary.
I shoot for the moon. I go long. I have twin babies at 48. I finish writing books I began 20 years earlier at 55.
When I say I go long, I’m not kidding. My days begin at 5:30 AM and nearly every single second of every single one of them is devoted to tending twins and teaching students and doing laundry and cooking dinners and grading essays and loving the most wonderful and supportive husband this world could possibly comprehend. He keeps me sane.
He keeps me sane so I can then go edit my story in the small spaces in between the chaos. The smallest margins imaginable. But then, that’s where Hail Marys thrive. In the impossible spaces. The thinnest of margins.
Where my nerves and energy and patience live too.
But then, so do the miracles. That’s where they’ve been made manifest — in the impossible margins. Fueled by love and faith. So much love and faith.
Like this book of mine. All 400 pages of it. Made in the spaces between. The spaces I’m still using to whittle it down to perfection so its ready for an agent and the world. Ready to toss it out there into infinity.
I’m going long. May it find a place to land inside those thin, impossible – oh so possible! – margins. Because I may be insane, but I’m also blessed. With miracles.
We’ve got three more weeks with kids and then one more for post-planning, and I’m ready. This year nearly convinced me I didn’t want to ever teach again.
It’s just been so hard. To keep going. To make connections. To smile.
Nobody could see them anyway, hidden behind our masks. And for me, Miss Far-from-Dynamic-or-Charismatic-or-Entertaining… smiles are how I form connections with my kids. How I build relationships with them. One reassuring, genuine smile at a time. (But after the loss of two of the most important people in my life, the few smiles I had weren’t always even genuine.)
Some folks have a presence that commands, an energy that radiates off their entire being like they swallowed the sun and breathe its fire through their pores.
That’s not me.
I’m quiet and unassuming, and I easily blend into the background. But I am warm and I am safe. I’m steady and exacting. And so is my classroom. And smiles are how I convince students to take risks inside its walls, under my warm, watchful eye… and smile.
I’m a firm believer in rigor. I challenge. I set a high bar and watch my students struggle to meet it, with smiles of encouragement and with applause and constructive criticism, and the warm assurance that they are in a safe place.
But not this year.
This year, the rigor was softened — the only soft spot in the entire year.
It had to be. This year, the rigor couldn’t come from the classroom because the rigor was coming at them hard from life. For them. And for me. These are some of the toughest tests we’ve ever endured.
So the smiles were lost. From them. From me.
And we all feel lost. We all feel like we lost.
And we did. We have.
We lost loved ones. I lost my dad. I lost my aunt.
We lost our edge and gained a few edges we’re not proud of — edges formed from resentment and anger. And we nearly lost our motivation. (Some of us, sadly, did.) And our lights were nearly snuffed out.
Remember that old Sunday School song about hiding your light under a bushel? Well, with our smiles hidden under a bushel, the Satan in the form of Covid almost stole our light.
Me, I’ve tried faking it till I make it. Since my smiles are invisible, I’ve tried slipping them inside my voice. Packing my vocal chords as tight with tinkling, prismatic light as I possibly can and then practically singing each student’s name as they come down the hall. But the muffler slung ear to ear on my face acts as a soft pedal, tamping down my smile and energy. They meet me with their own, soft, tamped down greetings behind their own, soft, tamped down smiles.
And the connections have been slow. Or not at all. With almost all of them. Except, thankfully, for my study hall kids. My study hall kids make for an ideal case study on the importance and value of smiles.
Those kids, they get to see me smile. And I get to see them smile. And for an hour each day during lunch, they eat in my room, and I eat in my room, and none of us wear masks. It’s a small group of eighteen. And they’re all spaced out – each to their own five foot desk.
So no masks, and lots of smiles. And the relationships I have with them are flourishing.
But with my six other classes? Well.
We are not well and good. We are far from it. And we are all so thankful this year is drawing to a close.
No, this year has not been my best. And it sounds silly to say because I know no teacher thinks this year was their best. Nobody at all thinks this year was their best.
But I guess sometimes saying it helps. Sometimes saying it helps us move on. And I need to move on. I’m ready.
I’m ready to put this school year to bed and wake up and unleash my smile.
As school starts back, we have a whole new essential workforce hitting the frontline in the pandemic. Teachers were labeled critical workers by the POTUS. And that is as it should be. We are willing and able to meet the challenges ahead — especially with a dedicated and conscientious school system supporting us.
But I’m here to call attention to another group of critical workers out there — a group vital to the core function of society and the entire future of our great nation. A group of young, unsung heroes willing to do whatever it takes to succeed under strange and difficult demands.
I’m talking about our students.
The changes these kids are facing — and embracing — are enough to rattle the steadiest of veterans. Our school has opened on a hybrid schedule, leaving us at half capacity inside our walls, with kids reporting both in person and virtually at different times throughout the week. The hallways and stairwells have one-way signs, there are hand sanitizer stations every fifty feet, lunches are eaten inside classrooms, masks are worn when social distancing isn’t possible, and desks face one direction and sit six feet apart.
But these kids of ours — these superhero Gen-Z go-getters — they are taking all these hurdles in stride just to be here and be educated in far-from-ideal and so-far-from- normal conditions.
And they’re doing it with smiles on their faces. Not that I can see their mouths, thanks to the masks they wear so willingly — but I can see those smiles in their eyes. And they can see mine. Or I truly hope so. Because I love being with them again, interacting, forging relationships, watching light bulbs click on, discussions unfold, learning ignite.
Now don’t get me wrong, it’s far from easy peasy Lysol squeezy. Despite our school system creating one of the best re-opening plans I’ve seen out there, I’m not gonna lie, things feel weird. Because being socially distanced to keep us all together is messing with the normally exaggerated and wide-open personalities of my teen students.
I’m sure some of it has to do with the trauma of the past four months — the PTSD of losing classrooms and classmates and social lives literally overnight. And I’m sure a large part also has to do with the smaller class sizes and the masks we wear.
But y’all… I’m used to kids who like to talk. Who, if anything, talk too much most of the time. They’re teenagers. On the cusp of adulthood. It’s a confusing stage under normal circumstances. So they talk through their confusion in class A LOT… way more than they do at home. They feel freer to vocalize thoughts, feelings, dreams, and fears. And through their persistent chatter, formal class discussions, and best-friend heart-to-hearts, they learn who they are, what they know, what they believe, and where they stand in life. And I love that about teenagers.
Like, really. I’m not lying. Some teachers love it when their students are silent. But me, I love it when they’re not. When they feel comfortable and safe enough to give voice to their rapidly-evolving thoughts and feelings.
But this year, they are quiet. Eerily so — as if the masks are acting as mufflers.
And not just for them. Me too.
I teach because I love to make connections, to share literature and love and learning with young people so they know and understand their worth and potential. My goal is always to make a positive impact.
But this year, my impact feels muffled, like my best efforts are falling on… not quite deaf ears, but more like mute mouths. Our kids, I think, feel vulnerable and isolated and self-conscious.
But then, these kids are also brave. Brave and here. At school. In a brick and mortar building. Present and determined. They make me prouder than they’ll ever know.
I wish I could put into words how much I love them. How far I am willing to go to help them succeed. How much they inspire me to be the best possible teacher — because they deserve only the very best.
As our superintendent says, this school year should be seen not as a challenge, but as an opportunity. An opportunity to grow and become better at our craft. I want to be a better communicator and a better teacher — to bridge the social distancing distance and reach my students. And teach my students. And see them grow.
I will rise to that opportunity, and I will seize it with both hands (well-sanitized, of course).
Yesterday was my senior students’ last day of high school, and unfortunately it was virtual. It breaks both my heart and theirs. I came to know many from this 2020 class as juniors last year, my first year at Cartersville — and those of you who teach know how those kids you teach your first year (whatever “first” it may be) live in a special little place in your heart.
But this crew didn’t just carve out a niche, they climbed in and set up camp. And when we were all yanked apart eight weeks ago, my heart was left numb and aching.
I miss them like nobody’s business. They are a smart, fun-loving group, full of moxie and mirth, despite life being more than a little unfair to them.
Several of them I’ve had the honor of teaching two years in a row — last year in American Lit and this one in journalism. There’s one particular group of girls who’ve written about the impact coronavirus has had on their lives — everything from emotional turmoil to lost milestones and missing friends.
But while they do address the negatives, what I find profound and powerful is the grit and grace they’ve uncovered in themselves, despite the unforgiving situation. I find myself humbled and inspired by these young adults.
One bubbly eighteen year old with eyes blue as May skies and an outlook equally clear, explains how she finds comfort in the pandemic: “I completely lose myself in words. [I have a] need for music and reading. It’s a haven for me, a place for me to say and think what I want … It feels like a sense of worth to have what YOU need set down in writing.”
Ultimately, the one thing she hopes happens after this pandemic pause is that “the world can come together and act as a whole instead of being separated.” In the meantime, she wants the earth to “catch its breath and just be.”
Another student who never fails to maneuver through darkness in search of light inspires me more than she’ll ever know. This year was rocky for her, even before the shutdown, but she handled that upheaval with strength and resolve.
And now her year has been upended once again, but through it all, she’s remained optimistic. Sure, she has felt “down in the dumps,” but she also sees this as an opportunity to “hike, travel to beautiful gardens, walk, run, [and] work out.” She notes “how structured and unappreciative life used to seem, [when] most everyone took …everyday activities for granted.” Now, she’s determined to soak up the memories and moments until life resumes its normal pace.
A third senior with her own set of childhood ghosts has used her past to help her forge the future with confidence. She battled feelings of “not being enough” for a very long time, but along the way she’s gathered the wisdom to know better– and the foresight to know this pandemic will not beat her or her classmates.
“Seniors are strong and we will get through this. We might not finish this school year traditionally, but we are going to finish. You will not defeat our 2020 class. And we will be ready for wherever life takes us next.”
I don’t know about y’all, but I believe her.
And finally, a fourth senior, one with flawless hazelnut skin and an outlook far beyond her years blew me away with her words this week. She’s had a lot to juggle, caring for two young brothers at home and managing her own course load while her physician mother treats COVID19 patients. And though she admits to feeling proud of her mother, she has equal feelings of being robbed of her senior milestones.
“It makes me feel selfish, but people always say that the first step to recovery is admittance. So that means I’m not just dealing with the pain, I’m healing.”
I feel like what she says is just what this tenacious senior class is doing — dealing with the pain and healing. By seeking beauty and finding grace inside the struggle.
I would say I can’t wait to see where this world takes them, but then, the world’s not taking them anywhere. It’s definitely the other way around.
I miss them all. I miss the quiet ones, the loud ones, the eager ones, the sluggish ones, the class standouts and the class clowns, and every one in between.
I miss my their smiles — the wide-open ones, the small, sheltered ones, the barely-there smiles, and the gummy, toothy grins,
I miss their drama — the boyfriend/girlfriend kind, the hair’s-a-mess kind, the math-is-hard kind, the parents-just-don’t-understand-me kind.
I miss their stories — the dog-ate-my-homework, the truck-wouldn’t-start, the baby-brother-cried-all-night, the forgot-it-on-top-of-my-best-friend’s-car stories.
I miss their creativity. The artwork that brings me to tears,the presentations that give me goosebumps, the insights that blow me away.
I miss them bargaining over who’s gonna make the Quizlet, arguing over who gets the comfy chair, debating over which is better: Sweet Chili Doritos or Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.
I miss the small groups of dancers, ball players, and poets who convene in my room fifteen minutes before school every morning.
I miss my first period’s scramble to fit Stalin into our daily discussions and their impromptu Phineas and Ferb theme song serenades.
I miss my eighth-period gaggle of multicultural girls, chairs mashed eight-strong at a six-person table.
I miss the quiet kid in fourth period who whispers when he says a single word, and the rowdy one in second who has an Irish blush to his cheeks and a soccer jersey on every day.
I miss the boys named after Texas cities who stroll into class with their lanky legs and sheepish grins, and I miss the girls named after the seasons, with their calm, soothing ways and hopeful promise.
I miss my daily bear hug from my husband’s D-lineman and the sweet side-squeezes from my beloved Chipper girls.
I miss the red head who proclaimed himself “Testiculous the Great” while studying the Roman poets, and the mop-head who loves Joe Mama jokes.
I miss 10th grade boy humor.
I miss the dark, quiet beauty with the light dusting of freckles and the penchant for writing stories. I pray she’s doing okay.
I miss the awkward goddess full of frizzy curls and goodness who’s got no idea she’s a goddess yet. I pray for her confidence to continue to bloom.
I miss my golden-haired seniors with laughter in their spirits and spitfire in their souls. I pray their sunshine and lightning always stays.
I miss my students and I pray for them all. All my precious, quirky, needy, independent, oh-so-capable students.
These kiddos are inheriting the earth very soon — an earth currently coping with and recovering from the likes we’ve never seen. But they have what it takes. They have sunshine and lightning. They have passion and gumption. They have humor and grace and whimsy and wit. They have everything it will take to get through this and to get this world to a better place.
I miss my students, and I pray for them every day. Every. Single. Day.
It is autumn! At least, that’s what the calendar tells us. My car thermometer, on the other hand, says it is 93 degrees at 6:30 pm. We’ve had more than eighty days of 90+ temperatures in North Georgia this year. Enough is enough already! But supposedly it’s autumn, and that means it’s officially my favorite season.
I love fall for so many reasons. For pumpkin patches and apple orchards, for candy corn and nutmeg and cloves, for gemstone leaves and front porch scarecrows. Albert Camus proclaimed autumn “a second spring, when every leaf’s a flower.” And I tend to agree. I mostly love fall because it symbolizes new beginnings in all sorts of ways for my family: a new school year, a new football season. Fall is my absolute favorite!
Fall is the season of new school years: new faces, new potential, new energy, new passion. And even though we’ve already been in school for over seven weeks (this is the South, after all – we go back before the sunburns have even had a chance to peel), we still call this fall semester, and we’re still feeling fresh (sort of) when the autumnal equinox officially strikes. I have one-hundred- eighty sophomore students sitting in my seats and eager to learn (sort of). And while the challenges are great and the resources are slim, I still have a tremendous reservoir of love for my students and passion for my subject. So fall is my favorite!
And fall is the season of football, the game that seasons our family with a long, strong, complicated marinade. It is flavored with dynamic combinations, unexpected ingredients, raw emotions and daring outcomes — all served up on a spiral slice to robust and critical crowds. It is the sport that leaves me absolutely spellbound and absolutely spent… a complete and utter glutton for the punishment and pain, the pleasure and pride that makes up the season. As a football family, we wouldn’t want it any other way. So fall is my favorite!
And fall is the season for late afternoon drives in the countryside. Living in the country gives the boys and me ample opportunity to witness the glory that is fall: golden soybean fields, corn crops with buzz cuts, and barnyard nurseries – the farm animals are having their fall babies!
We pass a menagerie of livestock on our way home from school every weekday, and I swear, almost any given pasture on almost any given day has a new baby to ogle. Parker and Tate providing me with a running commentary of each fascinating new discovery. We pass a horse farm, a multitude of cow pastures, and even a field full of mama sheep and their newborn lambs. I bet there’s a dozen in that pen — little, bleary clouds scattered sleepily across the grass and under the pines. My breath catches at the sight of them every single time.
And fall is the season for hay bales. I’m here to say that I never knew how compelling hay bales could be until I had twin boys with a hearty devotion to tractors. There’s been a steady harvest in recent weeks. From one field to the next, the same scene has run its course and the boys never tire of talking about them. I dread the day when all of the hay bales are gone. It will be a dark day, indeed.
Fall is the season of long and languid afternoon sun, a sun that leans low to blind drivers and irritate my twins on rides home, a sun that creeps deep inside living room floors to butter bare toes, a sun that catches dust and pollen dancing in its rays for an undeniable reminder of allergy season – as if we needed reminding. The boys’ noses have had snail trails from nostril to lip for weeks now.
Fall is the season of baking treats and making memories. I used to spend hours in the kitchen when the girls were little, crafting fall festival Cake Walk prizes and bake sale bounty. Baking makes me dizzily, freakishly happy. It’s my mother’s fault. She baked a lot when I was a kid, her hair, frosted with highlights (and probably splatters of buttercream frosting, as well), pulled back from her beaming, beautiful face. The world felt warm and wonderful and safe and sound in the sanctity of her kitchen — and I guess somewhere along the way, happiness, beauty, warmth and womanhood all got tangled up with baking for me. So now when I bake, I feel like I’m Wonder Woman on a mission to cure what ails the world, one bundt cake at a time.
I made some banana bread last week, which went with Mike to the football war room, where the guys spend hours working on this week’s game plan. I hope it gave them a little lift in the midst of the Sunday grind. The process of making it and the comforting scent of it gave me one, for sure.
Fall is the season of my grandson Bentley’s birth. The little acorn is a fall fledgling with gangly limbs and translucent skin, who shimmers like wheat fields in the sun when he smiles, and his eyes are brighter than crisp autumn skies. So thanks to Bentley Boo, fall is my favorite!
Finally, fall is the season of change. Colors change, temperatures change, grades and teachers and wardrobes and weather… they all change. And in this hate-filled political climate, I pray that Camus is right. That autumn is a second spring – a season of new beginnings – an opportunity for rebirth. May it baptize us all under the shower of leaves, washing us clean of this long, hot, angry summer of hate and intolerance.
Let clarity and love, humanity and grace shine on us all. May we all feel welcomed and valued, respected and protected in this rapidly unfurling season of change.
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