This is probably going to be one of those things that seemed like such a good idea in the middle of the night when I wrote it....
A seed was planted in my head not long ago that got me wondering about the American Dream. I don’t think this is hard to define. Not for me, at least; I overthink everything -- I mean everything -- so I’ve spent most of my adult life with a short mental checklist of things I would want to see happen someday. Life aspirations, you might call them. And they’re relatively modest. The list was never long to begin with, and at this stage in the game there are only two things left that need to be checked off. Time was there would have been three, but frankly I’ve hit a point where I know that realistically one of them probably isn’t going to happen, regardless of what I do to work at it, and despite how much I wanted it. So that third thing -- I’ve pretty much given up. If it turns out it happens someday, great. But I don’t think it will. And for the record -- don’t ask me here what the those two or three things are. If I wanted to name them, I would have. Anybody who really knows me should be able to figure them out. And the thing of it is, I can’t say conclusively that reaching any of these goals would automatically make my life any better.
Now, is this me complaining? No, not really. I’ll admit, there are times when my life feels like little more than the result of every bad decision I’ve ever made. But even when I squirrel myself down into that kind of self-pity, I have to admit I’m better off than a lot of other people. My life isn’t one that requires a lot of complaining. In fact, there’s a lot about it that’s truly great. But is it perfect? Not even close.
I think very few people are unconditionally happy with their lives. The luckiest of us have enough working in our favor to make most of the days more positive than not. But as I look around at the people I know, I see that everyone has some kind of drama to survive, or some kind of a hole they can’t fill, or some kind of crazy they’re forced to endure. For some people it's front and center, unavoidable, and all too defining. For others it’s deeper, just an undercurrent, something that can be mentally pushed out of the way for periods of time but is always there nonetheless. Even the most cheerful among us, the people who truly love life, have some kind of crazy going on.
So where does that leave the American Dream? I think the key word here is “dream.” I fired up the dictionary on my hard drive, and this is the definition I think applies the best: A cherished aspiration, ambition, or ideal; a fulfilled childhood dream, the girl of my dreams, finding a dream home, to paraphrase some of the examples provided.
Another way to say this: It’s the hope that we’ll someday achieve what we imagine to be the perfect life. So from that perspective I don’t think the American Dream is an ending. I think it’s a process.
And the tricky word in there... perfect? Yeah. We’re never going to get there. None of us. But each day at least offers the possibility that we might get a little closer. And as long as that possibility exists, then the Dream is still alive.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Episode 2: A Collison of Worlds
If you live in the same community where you teach -- as I do -- there are inevitable moments when your professional and personal lives cross paths. Some teachers can navigate these moments with precision and grace. Me? Not so much. I’ve gotten better at it over the years, but too often I feel as caught off guard by these encounters as the students or parents themselves seem to be.
If it’s a family I know and we have some history and we all still like each other, things are very pleasant. If it’s someone I recognize well enough to place them and there isn’t any open loathing going on from either end, we can at least acknowledge each other with a polite hello. Since I live pretty close to a big shopping area, this happens a lot. I mean, a lot. It’s the rare occurrence when I can go into a store and not have to turn into my teacher self for at least a couple of minutes, or run a quick mental evaluation on whether or not there’s anything in my cart I might feel self-conscious about. As the students get older, I often have to run their faces through the mental database and try to account for age, unless their body language makes it pretty clear they either don’t remember me or would rather pretend they don’t, which is usually fine with me as well.
Here are some of the more memorable out-of-school encounters I’ve had with either students or parents over the years:
*I have seen parents and students in both doctor and dentist waiting rooms. This usually goes okay as long as there isn’t a kid there who doesn’t have the social filter it would take to not ask a question like, “Why do you have to see the doctor? Are you sick?” Though it is kind of fun to see how mortified the parents are when that question slips out.
*I was out bowling with a group of my cousins one Saturday. Someone noticed a little girl a couple lanes over, bowling with a blindfold. She was one of mine. Never got the backstory on that, but she did see me when the blindfold came off and we shared a wave.
*Many years ago, students would frequently invite me to watch their games, or recitals, or plays, or whatever. This still happens some now, but less than it once did. My favorites of these events were the girls basketball games. When I showed up I’d quietly climb up to one of the back rows, looking to keep a fairly low profile so I could minimize the number of impromptu parent-teacher conferences that always seemed to happen. There were ALWAYS parents who would be going to town on their kids with some pretty intense bleacher-coaching, throwing out the same power phrases I knew these poor girls had to listen to at home while practicing in their driveways. This would continue relentlessly up to the moment one of the girls spotted me, pointed me out to the others on the team, and they’d all wave from the sidelines and call out a hello. I’d wave back as half the adults in the stands would turn to see where I was. From that moment on the more boisterous parents started behaving themselves. I loved it.
*Another frequent collision point is church. These sightings are rarely more than a smile or a wave, which is easy enough. But I did have one girl sitting up in the balcony on the opposite side who made her family rush through the crowd when the service ended so they could cut me off at the closest exit and say hello. I only realized later she had probably been watching me from the moment she first saw me, and hoped that hadn’t been one of the mornings when I’d slipped into a quick nap.
*Restaurant sightings happen more often than not. One night I saw a student from many years before who was in college by that time. I’d stayed in touch with her, somewhat; she had earned some service hours in my classroom as part of an internship program through her high school. The problem here? I was on a date. And I don’t think it went over well that I was smiling and waving to this pretty twenty-something co-ed in the corner as we were leaving. Because it was a first date that never reached a second.
*I go to movies a lot, so I often see students or families at one of the local theaters. Usually I’ll go in the afternoon to avoid the crowds and take advantage of lower ticket prices, but one day I got stuck in a line with at least ten people ahead of me and fifteen people behind. While standing there hoping I’d have time to get a drink and sit down before the previews started, an eruption of screaming startled everyone in the line. I turn to see what was going on and saw eight of my girls charging out of a party room, sprinting toward me with wide eyes and excited smiles. I stood there kind of shell-shocked, very aware of everyone in the line watching the scene play out while I heard about all about the birthday and was invited back to the party room for some pizza when a camera flash caught the corner of my eye. I looked up and saw the parents of the birthday girl, a mom and dad I got along with very well, standing in the party room door way, holding a camera, waving, and getting the biggest laugh out of my discomfort.
*Not every real-life meeting happens in my backyard. The most unexpected one I can think of was running into a former student and his family in the concourse at the XCel Energy Center following a Queen concert. Okay, yeah, Queen and Paul Rodgers, not quite the same without Freddie, but that’s the closest I’m ever going to get so I took it. We laughed about the happenstance of meeting up there on a school night, talked about how much we’d enjoyed the show and about how important of a band Queen had been for us.... okay, this was me and the parents mostly, but the dad had a mischievous grin when he elbowed his son, prompting him, “Tell him what your favorite Queen song is.” This teddy bear of a kid, probably in middle school at the time, looked down with a shy smile and answered “Fat-Bottomed Girls.”
*The capper event to all of this has to be an encounter I wasn’t even there for. My sister and her family took a Black Hills vacation one summer, with my parents tagging along. They were enjoying a summer evening at the motel pool when my parents got to talking with another couple while relaxing in the nearby spa. After they had all been talking for awhile, my parents’ side of the conversation, as I understand it, went something like this: “So, where are you from?... Oh really, we’re from Minnesota as well. Whereabouts do you live?... Coon Rapids, no kidding? We don’t live far from there. In fact our son lives there.... He’s a teacher. Where do your kids go to school?.... Really! That’s where he works! What grades are they in?” And soon they had pieced together they had me in common. Of course I heard about this from my parents as soon as they were home, and then heard about it again from the family they had met when school started back up a couple of weeks later. It was such an unusual moment that it’s something I’ll still joke about occasionally with these parents when I see them.
Again -- a lucky thing this was a family I get along with.
If it’s a family I know and we have some history and we all still like each other, things are very pleasant. If it’s someone I recognize well enough to place them and there isn’t any open loathing going on from either end, we can at least acknowledge each other with a polite hello. Since I live pretty close to a big shopping area, this happens a lot. I mean, a lot. It’s the rare occurrence when I can go into a store and not have to turn into my teacher self for at least a couple of minutes, or run a quick mental evaluation on whether or not there’s anything in my cart I might feel self-conscious about. As the students get older, I often have to run their faces through the mental database and try to account for age, unless their body language makes it pretty clear they either don’t remember me or would rather pretend they don’t, which is usually fine with me as well.
Here are some of the more memorable out-of-school encounters I’ve had with either students or parents over the years:
*I have seen parents and students in both doctor and dentist waiting rooms. This usually goes okay as long as there isn’t a kid there who doesn’t have the social filter it would take to not ask a question like, “Why do you have to see the doctor? Are you sick?” Though it is kind of fun to see how mortified the parents are when that question slips out.
*I was out bowling with a group of my cousins one Saturday. Someone noticed a little girl a couple lanes over, bowling with a blindfold. She was one of mine. Never got the backstory on that, but she did see me when the blindfold came off and we shared a wave.
*Many years ago, students would frequently invite me to watch their games, or recitals, or plays, or whatever. This still happens some now, but less than it once did. My favorites of these events were the girls basketball games. When I showed up I’d quietly climb up to one of the back rows, looking to keep a fairly low profile so I could minimize the number of impromptu parent-teacher conferences that always seemed to happen. There were ALWAYS parents who would be going to town on their kids with some pretty intense bleacher-coaching, throwing out the same power phrases I knew these poor girls had to listen to at home while practicing in their driveways. This would continue relentlessly up to the moment one of the girls spotted me, pointed me out to the others on the team, and they’d all wave from the sidelines and call out a hello. I’d wave back as half the adults in the stands would turn to see where I was. From that moment on the more boisterous parents started behaving themselves. I loved it.
*Another frequent collision point is church. These sightings are rarely more than a smile or a wave, which is easy enough. But I did have one girl sitting up in the balcony on the opposite side who made her family rush through the crowd when the service ended so they could cut me off at the closest exit and say hello. I only realized later she had probably been watching me from the moment she first saw me, and hoped that hadn’t been one of the mornings when I’d slipped into a quick nap.
*Restaurant sightings happen more often than not. One night I saw a student from many years before who was in college by that time. I’d stayed in touch with her, somewhat; she had earned some service hours in my classroom as part of an internship program through her high school. The problem here? I was on a date. And I don’t think it went over well that I was smiling and waving to this pretty twenty-something co-ed in the corner as we were leaving. Because it was a first date that never reached a second.
*I go to movies a lot, so I often see students or families at one of the local theaters. Usually I’ll go in the afternoon to avoid the crowds and take advantage of lower ticket prices, but one day I got stuck in a line with at least ten people ahead of me and fifteen people behind. While standing there hoping I’d have time to get a drink and sit down before the previews started, an eruption of screaming startled everyone in the line. I turn to see what was going on and saw eight of my girls charging out of a party room, sprinting toward me with wide eyes and excited smiles. I stood there kind of shell-shocked, very aware of everyone in the line watching the scene play out while I heard about all about the birthday and was invited back to the party room for some pizza when a camera flash caught the corner of my eye. I looked up and saw the parents of the birthday girl, a mom and dad I got along with very well, standing in the party room door way, holding a camera, waving, and getting the biggest laugh out of my discomfort.
*Not every real-life meeting happens in my backyard. The most unexpected one I can think of was running into a former student and his family in the concourse at the XCel Energy Center following a Queen concert. Okay, yeah, Queen and Paul Rodgers, not quite the same without Freddie, but that’s the closest I’m ever going to get so I took it. We laughed about the happenstance of meeting up there on a school night, talked about how much we’d enjoyed the show and about how important of a band Queen had been for us.... okay, this was me and the parents mostly, but the dad had a mischievous grin when he elbowed his son, prompting him, “Tell him what your favorite Queen song is.” This teddy bear of a kid, probably in middle school at the time, looked down with a shy smile and answered “Fat-Bottomed Girls.”
*The capper event to all of this has to be an encounter I wasn’t even there for. My sister and her family took a Black Hills vacation one summer, with my parents tagging along. They were enjoying a summer evening at the motel pool when my parents got to talking with another couple while relaxing in the nearby spa. After they had all been talking for awhile, my parents’ side of the conversation, as I understand it, went something like this: “So, where are you from?... Oh really, we’re from Minnesota as well. Whereabouts do you live?... Coon Rapids, no kidding? We don’t live far from there. In fact our son lives there.... He’s a teacher. Where do your kids go to school?.... Really! That’s where he works! What grades are they in?” And soon they had pieced together they had me in common. Of course I heard about this from my parents as soon as they were home, and then heard about it again from the family they had met when school started back up a couple of weeks later. It was such an unusual moment that it’s something I’ll still joke about occasionally with these parents when I see them.
Again -- a lucky thing this was a family I get along with.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Why You Should Always Listen to Your Dad
I had a mullet once. For about an hour and a half. But for the record I had never even heard the word "mullet" at that point in my life, so I can promise you it wasn't intentional.
I was in 10th grade or so, in the dead center of the 80s, a decade defined by so many forms of ridiculousness, including hair styles. I had asked Jan, the woman who had been cutting my hair since probably about sixth grade, if she could just leave it a little longer in the back than usual. I just wanted to try something different. I liked the way my hair hung down below my ears when it got longer, so I thought - why not give myself a head start?
When Jan was finished and spun me around, I had to hold back my shock. This was WAY longer than I had visualized. But she had done exactly what I'd asked, and even back then I was too non-confrontational to suggest I wasn't happy with how it turned out; this is a characteristic that has resulted in me living through far too many crappy haircuts in my lifetime, by the way. My mom gave it a neutrally appraising look, paid the bill, and we left.
It's just new, I told myself. I just have to get used to it. In another week, it'll be fine. Cool, even. Full-on denial here. I looked like I should have been playing saxophone in a Tina Turner video.
I went to my bedroom when we got home. My sisters weren't home and my mom went to get dinner ready before Dad got home from work. I heard him come in, and soon after was called to the dinner table. I went to the kitchen and sat down in my usual spot across the table from him. He looked up from scooping something onto his plate and saw me with my new haircut looking as artificially nonchalant as I could.
"No. Absolutely not."
"What?" I replied, with only the most timid of nods toward everything rock and roll had taught me about rebelling against parents when it came to haircuts. But it was pretty clear this wasn't going anywhere. Before dinner went any further my mother stood up and gently steered me into the bathroom, where she got out her hair clippers and quickly fixed me up to what I would have normally looked like after a haircut. Almost as if she had expected this was going to happen.
I was a little reflexively irked at the time, but deep down I was relieved I wasn't going to have to walk around looking like that. And this was only one of countless times my dad had been there to pull me back from the brink of my own bottomless well of teenage stupidity.
So, thanks for that one, Dad. And Happy Father's Day.
I was in 10th grade or so, in the dead center of the 80s, a decade defined by so many forms of ridiculousness, including hair styles. I had asked Jan, the woman who had been cutting my hair since probably about sixth grade, if she could just leave it a little longer in the back than usual. I just wanted to try something different. I liked the way my hair hung down below my ears when it got longer, so I thought - why not give myself a head start?
When Jan was finished and spun me around, I had to hold back my shock. This was WAY longer than I had visualized. But she had done exactly what I'd asked, and even back then I was too non-confrontational to suggest I wasn't happy with how it turned out; this is a characteristic that has resulted in me living through far too many crappy haircuts in my lifetime, by the way. My mom gave it a neutrally appraising look, paid the bill, and we left.
It's just new, I told myself. I just have to get used to it. In another week, it'll be fine. Cool, even. Full-on denial here. I looked like I should have been playing saxophone in a Tina Turner video.
I went to my bedroom when we got home. My sisters weren't home and my mom went to get dinner ready before Dad got home from work. I heard him come in, and soon after was called to the dinner table. I went to the kitchen and sat down in my usual spot across the table from him. He looked up from scooping something onto his plate and saw me with my new haircut looking as artificially nonchalant as I could.
"No. Absolutely not."
"What?" I replied, with only the most timid of nods toward everything rock and roll had taught me about rebelling against parents when it came to haircuts. But it was pretty clear this wasn't going anywhere. Before dinner went any further my mother stood up and gently steered me into the bathroom, where she got out her hair clippers and quickly fixed me up to what I would have normally looked like after a haircut. Almost as if she had expected this was going to happen.
I was a little reflexively irked at the time, but deep down I was relieved I wasn't going to have to walk around looking like that. And this was only one of countless times my dad had been there to pull me back from the brink of my own bottomless well of teenage stupidity.
So, thanks for that one, Dad. And Happy Father's Day.
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