A few words undeserved
Sometimes, you just got to improvise. Actually, life is just one big improv. Our attempts at perfection are vastly imaginary.
I got a few nice emails from readers saying they want to hear more words. Or just reaching out to see if all is well, swell and there is wind in my sails.
Can’t say enough how that matters to me.
I’ve been working now 30 or more days straight, right through Xmas, New Years and many other probable holidays, teaching far away in a camp for kids, 11 to 13. That reachable age, when you can make a difference. I’ve always loved that sweet spot, where you can touch eternity in some way.
3 meals a day in the cafeteria. Beyond that, just hours each day of kiddies being kids and you, yourself, imposing some kind of false order. But it all works out in some strange way. Outside my window, the ocean, the forever ocean, it keeps me grounded.
I got love to spare these days … I’m a millionaire.
Today in class I had a FREE HUGS lesson. I’m at that stage in my educational career, arc - I can do this and get away with it. Made a big sign and just gave free hugs. The kids got it. The administration, maybe not. But I will do what I will do. That’s the nice part of being in this spot of time and space - doing what you want to do (within reason and respect).
But I’ve been meaning to write but keep putting it off, saying, I need more time, more calm time. Evenings, I just fall on my bed and crash, bang, boom …
But tonight, managed to run to the local grocery store 5 k up the road (I’m well isolated, almost on the border with N.Korea - no car) and snagged a bottle of Chilean red. Then, after a few glasses, sat to write this. This prelude.
Here is the interlude. Hope I make it to the postlude … Deciding just to write, type, all be damned.
Responsible
Here’s a litle written from the hips.
A word of dance, read from my lips.
Here’s a piece of mind and wind off my soul.
A sharpness of taste that I haven’t yet told.
You think you know it all and then you’re sold
A slave on a ship, a poker player always ready to fold.
I’m not going to fool you with any words of truth.
It’s all a moment in time that dies without a semblance of proof.
I’m not going to ask you to believe me or agree.
I’m not asking of you nothing, not even to let it be.
There’s a wind that’s got to wind.
There’s a laughter that’s got to laugh.
There’s a love that’s got to forgive.
There’s a lot of a lot that is what we live.
You see
Rhyme has its reasons.
Men and might has its seasons.
But I can say what I want and
wear my broken halo without teasing
you who should do what is right but are
stuck in the mud of wrong.
Listen.
I’m not here to convince.
Just like I began, I ask you to
listen
and let the words do their magical things.
I’ve seen my share of broken men.
I ‘ve watched a few men die
on the sidewalks
before me.
So, I don’t need anyone’s approval, nor to ask for it.
I say that by way of introducing the end.
There are no answers.
Not even any responses.|
There is what there is and
the mere fact that you got to live with all that.
Can you?
Love, live, last.
DD
I like that motto - it is perfect. Yes, these kind of soft sell, what we call SEL - social and emotional learning lessons are important in education, especially early education. But I'm not a fan of directly teaching these things, it must just come out of the air and being of an educator, be part of their personal toolkit and not the set curriculum like "Ok students, we are going to learn how to be kind today). That never works, no matter the age. I'm hanging in there ... good to be back where I started. I've done so much teacher education that I needed to wipe my eyes clean and see the the whole anew again - a kind of metaphor for all our lives, we should live several and start over several times. We are better for it. Cheers!
I love the idea of life being a big improv, but also the idea that we're all riffing off each other, voices in the past and present, entering and continuing a conversation that started eons ago. I also love your free hugs idea and how the kids got it. So important. My son-in-law, a teacher, has a motto he uses over and over again, in the class and out: You matter. So simple and so profound. But kids get it.