Brake for pedestrians!

Philly drivers tend to be pretty crazy, not unlike DC, NYC or Boston drivers. However, coming from DC, I'm a bit spoiled in the sense that even if cars honk at me, I know they will begrudgingly stop. Not in Philly. Today, while running an errand with a friend, we scooted behind a car, and the car almost backed into us without even noticing. In DC (where we both were raised) the car would have laid on the horn, but would have stopped. We hightailed it out of the road, shrieked, and looked back to realize that the driver had no idea he had almost hit us.

If you want the elevator to come, you have to push the button

Today at the doctor's office, I was waiting for the elevator to go down to the first floor. The doors opened, the elevator was full, and I decided to wait until the next one came around.

I was waiting for a couple minutes when an elderly gentleman came and stood beside me.

"Young lady," he said. "Are you waiting for the elevator?"

"Yes of course," I said, somewhat impatiently.

"Well, young lady, unless you push the button, that elevator isn't going to come anytime soon", he replied.

We both laughed a bit, and I agreed with him that it would be impossible for the elevator to come unless I pushed the button to actually call it. I had pushed it the first time, but when that one hadn't worked out, I had forgotten to push it again. It was one of those moments which immediately resonated with so many other areas of my life.

How badly do I want that elevator to come?

It's gray??!!!

There comes a time in every woman's life where she finds her first gray hair.

For some, it's in their early 20's. For some, it's not until their 40's. For me, it was today. I was sitting in the car with my friend, on our way to a hike, looking in the mirror to see if I had rubbed in my sunscreen, and suddenly, I found it.

I shrieked and pointed it out to my friend. Without skipping a beat, she reached over, and pulled it right out.

There are many reasons why I love this particular friend. But in that moment, I loved the fact that while I was mired in shock and disbelief, she immediately took action.

"That's just the beginning," she said cheerfully. She started talking about how many gray hairs she had found in her own hair. Listening to her, it suddenly didn't seem so bad.

$87.50

I'll freely admit that I am not the most organized person in the world. I lose things more often than I'd like; the greeting cards from a couple days ago being the tip of the iceberg. I'm also not always the best about returning library books on time. I've had to pay a couple dollars in fines on past occasions.

Yet this week, I gave a scathing lecture to my 3rd graders about responsibility when over half of them suddenly didn't have their library books to return to our school library. "Someone must have stolen it!" they protested, but I was in full-on teacher witch mode, and instead of going to the library, I made the entire class read silently for half an hour. I sent a reminder letter home to the parents that the school policy is for the kids to either replace the book or pay $6. When a kid came in the next day with $6 worth of quarters, I felt pretty bad.

Today, standing in line at the public library, I couldn't help but overhear the conversation between the librarian and the customer in front of me.

"$87.50!" the librarian said.

The man shrugged.

"I don't have to pay it now, right?" he said.

"Well, you realize you won't be able to check out any books until do, right?" the librarian asked sternly.

"Alright, alright," he said, as he ducked out the door.

In retrospect, my students and I both seemed pretty responsible in that moment...

From the mouths of spiders...

While reading Charlotte's Web by E.B. White to my 3rd graders today, I noticed that this book is pretty darn philosophical. Sure, on the surface it may be a cutesy story about a spider saving a pig's life (sorry for the spoilers), but really, it's a study of human nature.

During one conversation with Wilbur, Charlotte compares the  spider's web to the Queensborough Bridge. I can definitely see the resemblance. Charlotte boasts that it took humans 8 years to build that bridge, but that she can spin an entire web in just one night. Wilbur asks if bugs are also caught in that bridge. Charlotte replies,

"They don't catch anything. They just keep trotting back and forth across the bridge thinking there is something better on the other side. If they'd hang head-down at the top of the thing and wait quietly, maybe something good would come along. But no - with men it's rush, rush, rush every minute. I'm glad I'm a sedentary spider."

I paused for a moment to re-read that line aloud to my students. I asked them if they thought that people always rush, rush, rushed every minute, and they agreed. They thought there should be more time to just play or read.



Like Charlotte says,

"I know a good thing when I see it, and my web is a good thing. I stay put and wait for what comes."

Wow. This little spider really made me think twice about my rush, rush, rush life. I am constantly rushing. Mostly it's because I'm late. Yet if I really think about it, it's because I'm afraid that if I don't hurry, those good things won't come.

I really need to take Charlotte's last piece of advice to Wilbur; "Never hurry and never worry!"

Crazy flowers in the dark

Today was kind of a crazy day. I worked for my family program until 9:30, making my work day 14 hours long. I purchased greeting cards for two families in the program, promptly lost them, had to go buy replacements, and then found them. As I said in my broken Spanish to the custodian when she asked how I was; "Un poco loco". Yes, I was a bit crazy today. Notice that I can't even put the effort into finding synonyms for crazy right now.

So when I dragged myself home at 9:30, having formed blisters on both of my heels due to my feet being unused to wearing shoes without socks, I was not in the most friendly mood. I got close to my gate, and noticed other people walking in.

One woman just moved in downstairs, and I had met her previously. Her husband and daughter were new to me. I tried to muster up some enthusiasm and a warm greeting. It may have fallen a bit flat.

"Do you want to see the flowers we just planted?" her daughter asked. She may have been around 9 years old.

The first thought that popped into my head was that it was crazy to look at flowers in the dark. But then I noticed the look on her face, and the way she was practically bouncing up and down with excitement.

"Sure, let's see those flowers!" I said. She almost dragged me across the courtyard, and we looked at the flowers. I couldn't see much, but I told her they looked beautiful.

The joy on her face at that moment made the stresses of my day float away. I realized that maybe if I look hard enough, it's really not that crazy to try and see flowers in the dark. 

Making amends

Five years ago, I taught a very difficult student. Believe me, when I say difficult, I mean it. This particular young lady made that year miserable.

It wasn't that she was a behavior problem. In fact, on the contrary, she had the outward appearance of being a model student. Yet when my back was turned, I always felt as if she was making fun of me. Often she would bring up a completely inappropriate topic with such an innocent face that I could never really pinpoint why I felt she had done it on purpose. Even when she would say something as seemingly nice as, "Tr. Julie, looking fancy today", I was convinced she was secretly ragging on my clothing choices. When I made a mistake in front of the class, I felt as if she was adding it to a growing list in her mind. Her comments would stay with me for weeks afterwards. 

In short, she was a teacher's nightmare. She was that one student who just got under my skin. 

She graduated and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I got more teaching experience and grew a thicker skin. I taught her younger brother (her opposite), and would cautiously ask about her from time to time. One of my colleagues reported that she was doing well at her high school. She was suddenly helpful, respectful, and a student leader. I had made my peace with the situation - so I thought.

Then, she got cancer.

Well, first her mother died of cancer. Her older sister had previously died of cancer. This student and her brother were taken in by legal guardians. Their entire lives started falling apart.

Suddenly, my former student was hospitalized. My entire school started rallying around her family. Staff took trips to the hospital, made them dinners, and started donating whatever they could to help out.

I made several dinners, and made a couple of donations. I signed the cards and contributed for the flowers. 

Yet I couldn't bring myself to visit her in the hospital. I knew it was the right thing to do, but our weird, tension-filled interactions from years past just stayed in my mind. What cutting words would she have for me, I thought, if I walked into her hospital room?

She's made an amazing recovery, and has now been cancer-free for a year. She's a senior in high school, heading off to a bright future at St. Joe's on a full scholarship to become a nurse.

I had coffee with her today. She had come by the school a couple weeks ago to see her old teachers, and I hadn't gotten the chance to talk to her. I felt like I needed to just come clean and apologize for not being there when she needed support the most.

The young woman I had coffee with today was completely different from that manipulative student of years past. We joked about how awkward and uncomfortable our relationship was, she admitted to kind of being a jerk, and I apologized for letting it get to me. She very gracefully dismissed my insistance that I should have come to visit her in the hospital, and said she was happy we were in touch now.

The sly, sneaky, provoking student was completely eclipsed by this sweet, compassionate, determined young woman. I couldn't believe it had taken me 5 years to be able to put my petty insecurities aside. After all, she was 14 when she was in 8th grade. I'm quite positive that few are their best selves when they are in middle school.

It was and continues to be a truly humbling moment.