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Renovation
It is change
It is messy
It is disruptive
It is frequently uninvited
It tears things down
It stirs thing up
Dirt. Dust. Debris.
Trying to clear the air to see what is what
It is letting go
And this is not always easy
But it is necessary for growth
For creativity
For evolution
First Year Slicer Day 22
“I’m not gonna lie, Miss” is what some of my students say when I share concern about missing assignments or attendance, so let me share my truth: I’m not gonna lie. I started this challenge super pumped to write and be a part of a writing community, and then I chickened out around day 14. I talked myself out of writing every day: I’m on spring break, I don’t want to do anything, I got a new puppy (which I did), I’m too tired, etc. For me, writing is the best way to process well, almost anything. And I began to process a lot. I realized that I felt overwhelmed by anxiety, so I took a step back. And now I begin again.
First Year Slicer Day 15 Gratitude List
1) Family (this includes pets)
2) Friendship
3) Connection
4) Good physical health (with the help of good health insurance and all that accompanies this)
5) Good mental health (with the help of good health insurance and all that accompanies this)
6) Willingness to grow and change (not always excited about it)
7) Books
8) The ability to learn
9) My students
10) Spring Break
First Year Slicer Day 14
Lucky Gonzalez
I read a poem by Beth Sanderson, What Have You Lost? She spoke of material things, like a book, lost button or favorite jacket as, “easy memories,” which block the door to the more painful losses in life. I lost my sweet puppy girl, Lucky, in December. She is a rescue dog whom I adopt from my sons’s 9th grade Algebra teacher. I was blessed with the love, loyal companionship and personal security services of Lucky Gonzalez from the Fall of 2010 until December 20, 2021. This creature blessed me beyone belief. She showed me what love and loyaltfy truly are. I miss her so much. Every day. Her sweet face. Her sweet smile.
She used to lie on the couch in the living room and stare out the window to bark at anyone who even considered walking down our street. Lucky was, like all of my family members, incredibly vocal.
We planted a jacaranda tree in honor of her. They grow from 30-50 feet high, and Lucky’s tree will feature brillant blue flowers when she blooms. We planted the tree in our front yard so that any human or animal who even thinks about walking down our street will know that you have to get by Lucky Gonzalez first.
First year slicer. Day 13
Shaista’s piece about empty-nesting 2.0 inspired me to pull out a piece I wrote 6 years ago when our first born left for college. I remember feeling overwhelmed with both joy and grief.
I miss you so much it hurts.
I’m not telling
You this
Because you deserve
To be Free
To live your life
To create your own
Journey.
All of your hard work
Has paid off
You’ve made it
You’re in COLLEGE
I am so blessed to be your mama.
I love you, my sweet, sweet son.
But I miss you so much it hurts.
Love,
Madre
First year slicer. Day 11
When you feel and recognize stress in your physical body and/or mind, an easy way to self regulate is to do legs up the wall. This pose helps your parasympathetic nervous system kick in to slow heart and respiration rates. If my low back is cranky, I like to put a folded blanket or yoga block under it.
See a more detailed explanation of this pose from Yoga Journal.
Tell me what you think about this pose. It is one of my favs.
You Make Me Feel Unsafe
The feelings are
Almost instantaneous
A boa constrictor
Inside the throat
Squeezing
Slithering
Choking
Tightening of the chest
Breath shallow
Wispy
Heart lurches forward
Heat spreading through
The body
Terror that must be muffled
Lightheaded
Trying to float above
And not feel these feelings.
You Make Me Feel Unsafe.
Slice of Life Challenge Day 10 First Year Slicer
Slice of Life Challenge Day 9: We have two more days until spring break. I am tired. I am thankful for the upcoming respite of reading, yoga, not rushing anywhere unless I absolutely need to, connecting with friends, and self-care that I have on my agenda. I am also searching for the perfect young adult novel to end the year with my junoirs and seniors. A few have requested mystery suspense. I just started Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson. I am open to any suggesions of your favorite mystery/suspense/I-am-sick-of-school-so-it-better-hold-my-attention titles.
Sending peace and hope to all.
Slice of Life Challenge Day 8
Note: I have the honor to and permission of the student to share part of his story.
“So far, I am not on speaking terms with my uncle after he snapped off at my mom and called her a bitch. I don’t have any respect for him after…My dad texted me about one of his friends sons and how he’s in this soccer academy. I was angry because he told me that. I’m better than him but he never came to one of my games when I play my mom is proud of me because I am on track to graduate.”
I read this annotation from one of my seniors today. I am catching up on assessing student annotations from our shared reading text, The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedeo. (Note: if you have not read this, even if you are not a fan of poetry, please read it). I know, I know…the teacher/reader in you may be thinking, “What does this reader response have to do with the actual text?” Nothing.
Seniors in our state, and maybe yours, are in that last stretch of trying to get graduation requirements met. If you are at-risk for not graduating, that probably means that your life in school at this point revolves around “make up tests,” a few of which I am listing here for your reading pleasure:
Algebra 1 EOC Retake
PERT Test: State Board of Ed just decided to allow this assessment, which more kids can pass, for just this year…I mean we have been in a pandemic for a minute, right?
FSA Retake: this is a 3 day assessment; seniors at this point may have already attempted this assessment up to 5 times since 9th grade; if you miss one of the 3 days of testing and do not make it up, your other 2 days of testing are null and void.
NCR ACT: this is the 2nd-3rd endeavor for many seniors; this test offers additional time irregardless of a 504 or IEP; hence, it is non-college reporting.
WIDA: This is a 3 day assessment for ESOL students; almost all of my ESOL students take this in addition to the assessments listed above.
I have noticed in the last few weeks that my students, especially my seniors, are looking super stressed. This leads to some shutting down and not submitting anything, even when assignments may be totally doable. So, I offered them an annotation alternative that week: just tell me what is happening in your life…what is stressing you out? what are you afraid of?” As a result, I got a decent number of annotations submitted, and as I read them, I am learning quite a bit about my some of my students.
But back to my senior’s annotation at the start: this student is usually the first or second to arrive in class. I noted that he had moved from sitting at the front of the row with his head up and participating, a feat for many humans during the last period of the day, to the back seat and putting his head down to sleep. I quietly checked in with him about my observations. He told me that he shared a room with his schizophreniac uncle who stays up most of the night, so he doesn’t get much sleep. I thanked him for sharing this with me and told him to put his head down whenever he needed to sleep.
You came to us
to teach about healthy relationships::
what they look like,
what they don’t look like,
how to recognize if you are in one
how to find support to get out of an unhealthy one
In Mr. Obi’s orbit you learn
how to choose yourself as the first relationship that you nurture
how to be vulnerable
how to create a safe space to be vulnerable in
how to respect the vulnerability of others
how vulnerability can
Actually be
A strength
In Mr. Orbi’s orbit you learn
That you deserve to be
Honored
Loved
Respected
Glad we got to be a part of Mr. Orbi’s orbit.
—Mrs. G’s classes
With my sweet pup on a walk this morning.
With my friend, who spends each day serving kids, teachers, admin. family and friends telling me how she was planning to honor her mother’s birthday. And listening to me.
With my husband, who packed my chair, bag and a cooler containing a bottle of fancy champagne and then dropped me off at my friend’s for a beach trip.
With the ocean, witnessed with two friends for a few hours of laughter and quiet.
With my son as he FaceTimed me from the farmer’s market where he was shopping, his eyes crinkling from the sun and his smile as he recounted his morning.
With my friend’s husband and son, home from college for the weekend.
With my daughter’s boo of four years as he told me about his day.
With my daughter as she told me about her day, throwing her head back as laughed..
With my friend who loves to serve others (again) telling me to check the settings on this blog so people could leave comments.
And with this wonderful community of writers.
I have purposely not watched the news in quite some time. After witnessing the attack on the Capital on telelvision last year, I decided I was done. I read my news each day (less triggering) and now have moved to reading it from the most nonbiased source possible. I am tired of division, hate, book banning, people trying to control other people’s bodies and sexual choices, and the conscious oppression of others because of a difference of melanin. I am tired of us as humans not really hearing one another, a skill at which I am working to become better. I am tired of humans using propaganda to manipualte and control because of their own personal fears and greed.
Yes, I did mention book banning. When the book Gender Queer was removed from the shelves of 3 high schools (including mine) in our district with no due process, I was in a state of disbelief. Book banning? In 2022? And then the fist book challenge came directly to our school. Our literacy committee has addressed two book challenges thus far, Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison (which had me laughing aloud—I read it twice) and Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime. And the parent challenging these books is now running for school board.
Despite all of the ugliness and negativity that I associate with attempting to ban books—and I highly recommend to all potential and current book banners that one actually reads and then perhaps rereads any text which you are considering challenging—a lot of good has come of this. I have had the priviliege of connecting with colleagues to do one of my favorite things ever: read and analyze young adult literature. I have reconnected with one of the smartest and most inspirational women I know, learned how to make a Tik Tok to start promoting great books, and I started a book club to read and discuss challenged books.
And I have realized how damn lucky I am. I teach the most amazing humans: kids who struggle with learning disabilities, with mental health, who don’t know if their electricity will be on when they get home, who live in poverty, who are surviving trauma, who are trying to navigate a new country and a new language where not everyone welcomes them. I have the privilege of working with a team of Reading teachers that have been together, some of us for almost ten years. I have a great principal and a new assistant principal who talks to me daily and has brought light into our school and classrooms with motivational speakers, mentoring groups, the best Black History Month our school has ever witnessed, and she keeps going: “What can we do to support our rising 30% of kids? What do you need? Let’s try this field trip for the kids. How can we make these kids feel seen?”
And I was connected with this writing challenge. I am reawakening parts of myself that I have been hiding for quite some time.
I have spent the majority of my life pretending that my mother didn’t die when I was six. That I don’t miss her. That her dying hasn’t affected me. But I do. So deeply.
204 minutes. This is the total number of minutes that my classes and I have meditated thus far this school year. 120 seconds per day before we launch into our daily agenda. I have found, through much trial and error, that guiding them through a structured breathing sequence is key to helping them be able to a) be away from an electronic device b) experience moments of stillness c) begin to connect with their breath. Peter Nestor’s Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art is not only a fascianting look at the study of breath but also an enjoyable read whether you meditate or not.
For some students, this may be the only time in their day in which they have mental quiet. In his book with Oprah, What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience and Healing, Dr. Bruce Perry states that almost 50 percent of children in the US have had at least one major traumatic experience. How many of the students in our classrooms are trauma survivors? Especially in our classes that are classified as “intensive intervention?” And childhood trauma has massive effects on the development of the brain and, consequently, how the brain directs the body to react to stress far beyond the experience of the initial trauma(s).
I have observed increasing levels of anxiety in my students, even prior to the pandemic. As I explain to my engineer husband who has no social media and does not believe in it, “Honey, these kids are living in two realities: reality and the alternate reality of social media.” Additionally, the academic pressure this year has been intense. And it feels as if so many people making decisions in our field are reacting rather than responding to the academic effects of the pandemic: purchasing new programs, forcing teachers to take new trainings to implement the newly purchased programs, raising graduation requirements, and neither asking for nor honoring the feedback from the teachers and school staff who are attemping to support kids. Yet the social emotional effects of the pandemic on our students often overshadows their ability to learn.
So, can you tell it has been a long day? But when Roger, a Senior who is over being in reading, kinda over everything, said to me today, “Miss, we didn’t meditate yesterday. I think we should do 4 minutes of it today.” And so we did.
If you are interested, I use 3 basic types of structured breath and usually let the kids choose which style they want me to lead them through that day: box breathing, resuce breathing and one that I made up. Happy to share if you would like more information.
7 Questions: This poem represents a “slice of life” recently when I had to tell one of my Seniors that she had not made the “magic number” for a test that would fufill a major graduation requirement for her. She immediately, and understandably, broke into tears. After talking with her for quite some time, giving her space (and tissues) to cry, I learned that she had just moved here from Puerto Rico in July. A brand new state/school/peninsula for her Senior year. During a global pandemic.
I knew that English was her second language . She was like many of my ELL students: quiet, polite, rarely asking questions as they navigate a brand new existence. I had begun to witness progress in her writing, mainly in that she was starting to actually submit her annoations for our shared reading text, The Poet X. If you have not read this amazing book, I beg you to!
The place I am with my second language (Spanish) involves me learning my numbers (I am now up to the 300s!) and, “Yo como manzanas…I eat apples.” My Senior is far more advanced in her second language than am I. The good news is that she has now fufilled this graduation requirement. :)
During our one-on-one data chat, I showed her that she had missed the “magic number” by 7 questions. 7 questions. Hence, the poem I wrote for her:
7 Questions
7 questions.
That is how many
Baby Girl missed on the test.
And all of a sudden,
Her smile slowly morphed
As she began to question her
Worth.
“I was beginning to believe that I was smart. That I was doing good,” Baby girl said.
You moved from an island
to a peninsula.
Away from Friends.
Away from Family.
Away from love.
Away from your voice.
Not smart?
You figured out how to…
Do a new school.
Pass 7 new classes.
Make new friends.
Communicate with new teachers.
Some nice. Some not.
All in a new language.
You are now finding a
New Voice.
Your Voice.
7 questions, Baby Girl.
Your worth
Your power
Your intelligence
Cannot be touched by
7 questions.
Love,
Mrs. G
My dad died a month ago. Grief is a mysterious process, and one to which I am no stranger. I lost my mother when I was 6, which pretty much defined my life. In fact, I have spent the majority of my life pretending that this actually never happened to me as a way to deal with that grief. Super healthy, right? But with my dad dying, it is different. He and I were estranged for much of my adult years, mainly because I chose to disconnect myself from the abusive person he married (and chose to remain with) right after my mother died. When you live in an abusive situation as a child, you think that it is normal. If you’re smart, like I was, you learn how to “handle” your abuser so that you are her target as little as possible. You basically figure out what makes them angry, and then spend most of your time preventing a blowup. As a child, however, you believe that your parent (my father) is going to protect you. It is devastating when they don’t. Despite the betrayal I felt from my father, I still loved him. He himself was a victim of abuse and never learned quite how to free himself from it. He tried a few times but always went back. I think that perhaps there is a sick comfort from being in an abusive relationship because it confirms the false belief that you are not worthy of love. In no way, however, am I excusing his abandonment of me. Despite being estranged, I held out hope that he would, one day, come back to me. He never did so, and, as my counselor pointed out to me, it’s like I am grieving him twice.
Grieving my dad is different than my mother. When my mother died, I was expected to simply move on and act like she never existed in order to please my new step-parent. No counseling was provided. No talk of my mother in a positive light took place. In fact, my stepmother would often tell me how much better of a mother she was than my own mother. I know--totally fucked up, right? During this grieving process, however, I actually have the tools of yoga and meditation to help me through. I am in relationship, thankfully, in which my partner doesn’t judge me for crying when I need to and gives space for the quiet that I enter into when I feel sad. My children have both been incredibly supportive, even though their grandfather ghosted them, too.
One area in which my dad did not abandon me was anything that had to do with physical exercise. He actually got a degree in physical education but never taught. He became a police officer instead. When I was in junior high, I played for the tennis team, so my dad would go play with me pretty much any time I asked. And I was not a great tennis player. In high school, I trained for cross country and he would sometimes run with me. I was a slow and steady runner. I remember running with him and when I got to the point where I’d want to walk, he’d say stuff like, “Just run up to that tree,” and then when we were almost to the tree, he’d say, “Let’s run to that light post up there,” and so on until we finished the two miles. One of the sweetest times with my dad was when I ran a half marathon in my thirties. He got up at 3 a.m. to drive me to Disney, which is where the event was. My husband and kids met up with him later, and I’d get to see them at different points during the run. For the rest of the weekend, my dad called me, “My daughter, the athlete.” It was one of the few times in my life in which he and I had space as a father and daughter.
I took a week off of work when my dad passed. I cried during my morning meditations, and still do when I need to. I went to hot power yoga and yin daily that week. Yin is a restorative form of yoga that is extremely gentle and meditative. It is the kind of yoga that I bring friends to when they are taking their first yoga class ever. For me, one of the best parts about yin is that it is a great place to cry. You can lie in legs-up-the-wall pose, throw a towel over your face, and just feel the emotional/mental release. And yin offers a quiet, gentle space in which you feel safe and not alone. I think loneliness is a dangerous part of grief because it is so easy to isolate yourself as you deal with the pain. Don’t isolate. Find a yoga class you can attend.
I am not “fixed” because of yoga and meditation. My grief remains. But I have been able to enter into the process of grieving rather than avoid it because of what yoga and meditation do for me: allowing me to honor who I am right here, right now. How do you deal with grief? I’d love to hear ways in which we can support one another in this process.
Let me begin with thanking those of you who read my first blog entry and offered your support and comments. I am so excited for those of you who are choosing to get on your mat! Please keep sharing your practice with this community; supporting and uplifting one another is my purpose for this blog. Now, let’s talk some yoga.
One of the many amazing aspects of yoga practice is that you actually begin to create space in your body, at a cellular level, in which you wring out old toxins and open up your body for something new, something better, something healthier, something that honors you. During yoga teacher training, we would repeat certain phrases during specific sequences of the practice. One of them was, “Create space for something new.” I felt like an idiot at times, thinking, “Why the fuck am I saying this over and over?” As the training progressed, the sequences came together and this phrase fit in seamlessly as a cue with specific poses (asanas).
But creating space goes beyond the physical body. Through my practice I am learning to create space not only within myself, but outside of myself, too. For example, allowing people around me to have space for their words and/or feelings...really listening instead of trying to “fix” their situation with my words. I struggle, however, with giving space to anger and grief. For me, I feel as if these two emotions often disguise one another, especially since it sometimes feels safer to be angry rather than sad. Both of these intense emotions often frighten me, especially if it is from those whom I hold closest to my heart. I would (and sometimes still do) either walk away, try to shut it down, or avoid it. I recognize that the habits I used to deal with my own anger and grief were to either smother them or release them in unhealthy and sometimes destructive ways.
Not surprisingly, depriving myself or others the space for strong emotions such as anger and grief has, at times, had a derogatory effect on my relationships. Why would I continue to do this--hurt myself and those I love? I didn’t do it intentionally. I did it because I lacked healthy tools to deal with life. Yoga is teaching me how to create space for my own emotions and the emotions of others when I am off of my mat. But this is no easy task. In fact, sometimes it fucking sucks, feeling anger and pain that I have stored for so long within myself...worried that these intense emotions will swallow me whole.
For me, an essential tool in creating space is my breath. I think that I may have spent the majority of my life literally holding my breath. I am still learning how to fully breathe...allowing for complete inhales and complete exhales in my daily life. Yoga practice and mediation have been my greatest teachers in learning how to breathe. Don’t worry...I’ll address my love/hate relationship with meditation in a future post.
Donna Farhi is a renowned yoga teacher and author. I studied her work during my training and here is what she has to say about breath: “When we hold the breath and try to control life or stop changes from happening, we are saying that we do not want to be moved. In those moments our desire for certainty has become much stronger than our desire to be dynamically alive. Breathing freely is a courageous act” (Yoga Mind, Body & Spirit, p.30).
Damn. Go back and re-read that quote if you skimmed through it. Not breathing fully is actually an attempt at control--at least for me it is. Breathing freely is an act of bravery. Giving space to my emotions/words and honoring others with the same space is a totally new way of living for me, and it is not always pleasant. Sometimes it can by downright terrifying. However, becoming conscious of the fact that I don’t have to control everything in order to keep those around me and myself safe/happy/sad/angry is allowing me...space...even freedom. Life is fucking life whether or not I delude myself with being “in charge” or “in control.”
I am grateful that yoga is teaching me how to breathe and “create space for something new.” Please share your thoughts on how you make space for yourself in the comments below because this is a process for me, and I’d love to hear about your experiences. Namaste, my peeps. Get on your mat, breathe, and create space for something new in your life.
Hello. This is my first foray into blogging, so be gentle. My purpose for this blog is to create a community in which readers can share their experiences with, well, life, which can be both joyful and really fucking difficult. I am a middle-aged mother of two amazing young adults and have been blessed with a husband who has stood by me for the past twenty-three years.
That being said, let's get real.
I have suffered from pretty severe anxiety my entire life, as well as depression in my late teens and postpartum depression after the birth of my second child. I have tried various coping tools, some healthy and some not so healthy. At some point I realized that exercise is my best tool for coping with both anxiety and depression. Now, I'm not one of those women who is a size 2 and eats clean every day--I try to but it doesn't always happen. I'm a real mom who deals with the challenges of working full-time (except for summers, which I have off due to my teaching schedule), raising her family, staying married, and figuring out how to keep my sanity in this thing called life.
I initially used exercise as a way to control my weight and still eat like shit. Food was definitely a way that I coped with anxiety. I mostly did aerobics (remember The Jane Fonda workout and step aerobics?), light jogging and walking. That worked until my mid-thirties, when my body and metabolism were like, "Hey. You may want to consider doing some things a bit differently because you can't keep this up and stay at a healthy weight." So, I turned to running, training for a 1/2 marathon and doing 5ks. My kids were fairly young at the time, and my three days a week of training were a way that I could release stress as I attempted to balance teaching, motherhood, marriage, etc.
I started to incorporate yoga into my training, as I began suffering from shin splints and later ankle and hip issues. I didn't practice at a studio because I thought I was too fat and not "good" at yoga. I used Yoga Download and downloaded a few gentle hatha practices on my Ipod (yes, I am dating myself). My kids used to groan when they heard the intro music as we listened to my Ipod in the car: "Mom! Please change it to actual music!"
I eventually had to give up running, as my body and orthopedist were both telling me that I needed to find exercise that was a bit gentler on my joints. So, I increased my yoga practice to three to four times per week rather than two. And I noticed some differences in both my body and my mental health. It wasn't perfect or a magic fix but it definitely helped me cope with my anxiety better. I also continued to use walking as my main form of exercise.
Skip ahead to about a year ago when I experienced a trauma that brought me to my knees. I had no fucking clue how I was going to survive. I was numb and terrified. I felt so alone. Two of my girlfriends both sent me the same article on how yoga helps with trauma. So, I went to a yoga studio where another girlfriend taught, Warrior One, and began to practice there. I immediately noticed that the studio had no mirrors, which kept me from looking at myself, telling myself horrible things about my body, and prevented me from comparing myself to others.
I was not in great physical shape. I could not hold chaturanga. I would get to class early and set up my mat in the back of the studio. I rarely spoke to anyone. I struggled to keep up in classes but the teachers at my studio are amazing. And in the midst of my crippling emotional pain, this was the ONLY thing that was getting me through. I usually went to class feeling my strongest emotion at the time, anger, because I was afraid I would fall apart at the seams if I let myself start to feel the pain underneath all of that anger. I cried during every class, but I left feeling maybe a smidge of strength each time I stepped off of my mat.
My girlfriend, who had recommended Warrior One to me, began encouraging me to apply for the yoga teacher training program there. I actually laughed at her. With every excuse I gave, she gave a counter-reason as to how this program would change my life. So, I applied, was accepted and began a 10 month journey that would change my life forever.
I know everyone’s life circumstances may not permit them to practice at a studio or participate in a yoga teacher training program. And yoga is not going to make my problems disappear or my life perfect. But yoga has become an essential tool for me in naviagting my life. Here is what I want to say to you: get a mat, find a studio or google a yoga workout, and comment in my blog about your journey. As my teacher Carol said last night, “Yoga begins when you leave your mat and go into the world.” Yoga is teaching me how to actually live rather than react to life. But, I’ll talk about that more later.