School to couch pipeline

 

Yesterday, a friend posted that it was National Escape Day and asked where people would go to escape. Escaping from my life used to be a favorite fantasy. One of the first novels I ever wrote centered around a woman who picked up and left her "perfect" life. I didn't think my life was anywhere near perfect, and never seriously would have left my kids, but I have to admit that I longed to be someplace, anyplace, else. Of course, a major component of that was to shed responsibility. There was no reason to escape if I still had to fend for myself, go to a job, cook and clean and be tired all the time. No, my escape fantasy was far more womb-like: I could do what I wanted, meals would magically appear and dishes would disappear afterward. No bills, no money, just life.

The weird thing is, I'm as close to that old fantasy as I will probably get (outside of the nursing home) and I still get stressed out. Maybe the human condition is to always experience desire and/or lack. Or maybe that's just my human condition!

This week marks the second anniversary of my abrupt exit from the rat race of public education and the short, painful spiral into retirement. It was two years ago that I hit a wall so hard that I couldn't seem to recover, not with drugs and therapy and "lifestyle changes" and sleep, lots and lots of sleep. I walked out of school before the kids got there on a Thursday like any other Thursday, and I never walked back in. I couldn't stop crying and twitching, feeling hopeless and like I was down a deep, dark hole. I was basically non-functional. I slept like I would never see a bed again, but had frightening dreams of losing my students, failing my students, being upbraided, fired, reprimanded, jailed, of trying to teach while swimming in honey or molasses, of not being able to hear children's voices, of not remembering what to do next when expectant little people were grouped around me. During those first few weeks, I couldn't focus long enough to read and understand what I read. I wasn't attentive enough to drive safely. I didn't want to die, but I also didn't care if, one morning, I woke up dead. My therapist called it depression. I thought I had known depression before, but nothing like this.

Two years down the line, I've learned a few things. I've learned some warning signs, though I don't always heed them. I've learned to listen when someone I trust, especially my wife Jill, tells me I'm going off the beam. I'm still learning not to shoulder everything alone and try to fix things all by myself. I've learned to slow down, way down, and set aside the self-criticism that has been the hallmark of my life ---- at least part of the  time, anyway.

I'm grateful for that day in January of 2011. Sometimes I miss teaching, I miss the kids, I miss what I loved about teaching. I don't miss the administrative bullshit or the constant tug between how I believe children learn and how I was expected to teach. This week, spurred by our dismal financial situation (retirement has not been a good move, financially!) I started looking for a job in education. That's what I know, what I've done, in one form or another, all my life. I spent two days perusing websites, noting down possibilities, and getting teary and twitchy all over again. Nope --- TIME OUT!  Ain't gonna happen. JIll says so, too.

We mark the phases of our lives by events or changes, often unaware of the significance until much later. I stumbled tearfully out of school that morning fully expecting to be back the next day. I wasn't going to retire for five more years, or maybe two, but I had plans, I was saving money. That is not what happened, and two years later I'm glad it didn't. The past two years have been a remarkable journey, not least because of the opportunity to take care of my mother through the final phase of her life, being available now while she needs me most. I don't have the long view into the future, never did, but that's ok. I'm finally learning to live one day at a time.

As if there were any other way to do it!

I can pass

The Martin Luther King holiday brings up all sorts of ideas for me these days, especially now that I don't have to spend it writing report cards and filling out endless supporting documents anymore. Hail to the teachers ---- I know it's not YOUR holiday!

I've been considering white privilege, and other inherent, fish-in-water privileges that I accidentally had distributed to me at birth. (Only accidental if you don't believe that you choose which life you're coming into. For more on that, refer back to "Learning to Love", a few posts back.)

We had a very interesting testimonial-type sermon at UU last Sunday. Our minister, John, is my age and grew up in Alabama. Accident of birth, right? Ground zero --- right in the midst of the civil Rights Movement, but more or less oblivious. Isn't one aspect of white privilege to be able to be a self-absorbed teenager in Birmingham in 1965, and hardly notice what's going on around you?

White privilege can be described as believing that white skin is "normal" and everything else is other and bad. Hetero privilege can be described similarly. I know that the hue of my skin has given me access, entree, security that I didn't earn or deserve. Besides the fact that rural Iowa during the 1950s was the whitest place on the planet ----- how white was it? Even our bread was white! ----- it would never have occurred to me that there were people sharing the globe with me who did NOT have the kind of access and entree and expectations and dreams that I had, based on the color of their skin. White privilege made me clueless.

And hetero privilege? Ah, a horse of another color, so to speak. It's tricky, that. Whatever my internal inclinations, I was outwardly and thoroughly heterosexual for much of my life. Was I being "normal"? For a long time, I didn't know there was an alternative. I had no context, no way to conceive of another way --- and no way to label or enunciate my own stirrings or questions. I was so thoroughly straight, I took it ten steps further and carved my territory out of slut-land. If there were boys, I was there. I drank with the boys because the girls giggled and couldn't keep up with me. I most assuredly didn't like boy-things like sports, but I was smart and smart-alecky enough to hold my own with the smart boys, the ones who were more quick-witted than fast-footed. That was my domain; I would be taken seriously. And when you love a boy for his silver tongue and challenging repartee, (not to mention puns), can anything be more satisfying than the leap from intellectual to carnal pleasures? Leaping became my specialty.

I leaped into my version of wife and mother, unabashadly hetero-normal occupations. You could find me at the center of several female only societies ---- La Leche League, playgroups, nursery school, elementary education degree programs. My world was populated with women who were friends, colleagues, teachers, mentors, star-crossed lovers. But I maintained my unblemished position of heterosexual privilege. I was most assuredly normal. I had a husband. Or two.

It's been 15 years now since I jumped the fence for once and for all ---- no more dabbling and then ducking back under for cover, no more wishing and hoping and pining for my best friend. When I landed on the soft, far-greener grass of the other side and started to sort out the new norms, I quickly realized that cultural shifts are not all that easy. My hetero privilege was suddenly visible to me and abandoning it was a scary proposition. I didn't want to fit where I always had, and I didn't know how I would ever fit in my new place.

It's funny that I wound up with Jill. She's a "Gold Star Lesbian" (see your glossary) and nobody who lives in this century is going to look at her and think "Oh what a sweet girl, I wonder what her husband does." One look pretty much tells the story. She's all female (no doubt about that!) but she's a long way from being a girly-girl. She doesn't have the moves for it. She doesn't have that sort of energy.

Me, well I guess I can pass. Not like I used to back when I was young and curvy and cared and wore earrings. But I've still got the sensibility, when I want to. Plus I've got the resume --- I can talk about my kids, my pregnancies, marriages and divorces, all that stuff. If I want to, I've got a whole life worth of hetero stories at my fingertips and can speak that language as naturally as if it were my native tongue. Which it was.

On the other hand, I'm totally comfortable in my life now as a married dyke --- the dogs, the cats, the house, the Canadian wedding, the wife who does yard work and loves power tools.... I love my life now and feel more at home inside myself than I ever have, despite some hangover crapola about body size and aging. Bleh.

So the upshot is, I can pass and Jill can't. The thing is, I don't want to. White skin --- that's there for keeps. People make assumptions about who I am based on the color of my skin, and I can't do anything about that. But I can do something about the gay/straight thing, and this is what I do. I tell you who I am. Within the first few minutes of any conversation with someone who matters even a little bit to me, I slip in some identifying marker. I mention "My wife said this morning..." or something to that effect. I want you to KNOW who I am, who you're dealing with, and not make assumptions. I don't have any power over what you do with that knowledge, but you're going to know, whether you like it or not. I'm not willing to simply pass.

And that makes some people uncomfortable. "Why do gay people have to talk about it? I don't talk about being straight." ---- Really? You don't talk about what you and your boyfriend did over the weekend? You don't mention your husband's job or your children's school progress or make any of the many, casual references to family life that validate the "normalcy" of you and your relationships? That's all I'm doing, too, with a little added dollop of  "So there!" for good measure. I never said I'm not still a smart-aleck.


Glossary: Gold Star Lesbian=never been with a man  (Imagine that!)

Fire Burning Brightly

Now that I've spent time with my youngin's and their partners during the holidays, I'm feeling the generational divide in a new way. It's been growing on me, and this has put it in stark relief. It really started with my smart phone, though.

I tried. I really did. I had it for two months. I learned to use the touch screen, even though it was awkward and made texting so much harder for me. I even used the predictive text. Over time, I didn't miss as many calls from not being able to figure out how to answer them, and there were fewer times that I had to turn the damn thing off just to make it shut up. I read part of a Kindle book on my phone --- that felt like a win. I looked at facebook and even answered a few emails. But it was always like carrying around a really annoying stranger in my pocket.

I finally gave up and went back to my old phone. Ifelt as though I took off the high heels and put the sneakers back on. What a relief!

I lasted two months only because I was determined not to be that old person who couldn't adapt to new technology. But I've since realized that it was but a symptom of a larger condition. It's not just technology, it's everything and everyone. I'm shuffling along in my old familiar paths while new roads and buildings are being built all around me. And for the most part, I hardly notice them.

It sounds sad and pathetic, being left behind, but it's actually not. At least it's not for me. It's a very peculiar thing that I never understood before. I'm not what I consider old, by any means, but I'm definitely no longer in the thick of things. And that is all right. I thought, when I was younger, that it would be so depressing to start winding down. How could a person not spend all their time feeling regretful about what was over and done with, and apprehensive about the approaching end? There would be nothing to look forward to but decline and pain and death. That's what I thought.

What I'm experiencing, though, is quite different. I was watching and listening a lot last week with the kids, who are all in their thirties now. They're quick and witty. They speak a common language of pop culture that I know nothing about. They all have their iphones and a surprising number of their interactions involve the use of them in some way. I was on the periphery, which was a comfortable perch for me. I giggled at their silliness and competition, I listened in while they talked about their work, research, aspirations and travel plans. Their flames are burning brightly, which is as it should be.

Mine, on the other hand, is more of a rosy glow, a cozy stove on a winter night. While they are popping with ideas and innovation, I am in the stage of life more conducive to reflection and observation. Stepping off into blue sky is no longer appealing, but drawing connections and bringing thoughts together come naturally to me now. I'm not simply on the sidelines. I have contributions to make in the larger conversations, the deeper conversations. I have the privilege of being, as my mother was for me, a way-shower. I get to carry the lantern and illuminate the path ahead.

I may not know or care about apps and odd sounding musical groups, I may firmly eschew violent media in favor of comedy, romance, or explorations of the human tapestry. I can't hold up my end of table talk about the Walking Dead or Dead Milkmen (yes, they were dredged up at one point), but I do have a place and a voice in the life stories of the people I'm with.

I love the vantage point I have now. It's a little like climbing and climbing with eyes trained on the next move to avoid a misstep, and then suddenly coming to a high-altitude resting point. I can see so much more than I used to ---- I get the wider picture. I may be looking over territory Iwill never enter, but just being able to see it, and know that others are coming behind me who will use what we've learned and carry on, gives me satisfaction.

I did not understand how anyone, even if they lived to be 105, would ever be ready to let it all go, but I'm beginning to see it now. It was never mine to begin with. I really am just passing through. And while I'm here I not only get to do my part, whatever that might be, but I've been able to hang around long enough to re-order my priorities.

I love the fine bed of glowing coals I represent now, because without that foundation the fire would go out. So dance with the flames, all you youngin's, and don't be afraid of what's next.