Writing, Reading, Reflection

The last three weeks have been overwhelmingly busy at work. I’ve been at work or meetings for work until at least 6 every night.  Several things have occurred at work that are like tiny whispers I need to process.

For one, I had kids staying for tutoring on Wednesday. One of the boys is, to use his term, “connected”. He is writing his autobiographical essay about his first time getting arrested. As I prodded him, he unloaded his life history. Another boy who was there for tutoring just listened to the exchange. He didn’t utter a word until the other boy left. Then, he said, “Ms. Lock you should be a counselor. I’ve never heard an adult talk so easily and so non-judgmentally to a kid. Do you realize what you got  him to say to you? Do you realize how much he trusts you? That would never happen with another teacher.” As I listened to him saying this, his eyes were filled with tears. I thought for sure he was going to cry. No kidding. His comment was one that caused me to stop and think about my purpose in the world. My principal tells me daily how happy he is to have me in the building teaching reading and writing, but I’ve often wondered if that’s what I’m really teaching. I find myself connected to the kids on a level that is much deeper than simple reading and writing.

I think this in tandem with the comment I posted a few days ago about art therapy is really begging the attention of my next career move. Of course, last week I had a kid email me from high school after he’d watch the segment on Oprah about the book/movie Into the Wild. I was at school, of course, and had the tv on watching it, too. We’d read sections of that book last year, and when he saw Sean Penn talking on Oprah about the movie version of the book, the student thought of me and headed straight to the computer to tell me. That was one of those moments, too. He took the time to email me.  However, there was more of that “cosmic whispering” going on when the student looked at me and said I needed to be a counselor. Couldn’t I do that and incorporate reading and writing?  Couldn’t I take all of the knowledge I have and roll it into helping kids be better people?

Two weeks ago, I was talking to a girl about her book and she veered off to her own homelife. She’s a sexual abuse survivor, she’s been placed in protective custody several times, her mother no longer wants her–because she chose the boyfriend who is the sexual predator over her daughter. Now the girl lives with her dad, who hadn’t seen her in nearly five years. She’s entered his life a stranger. A teen age girl, displaced, hurt, unwanted and he’s struggling to take care of her. My conversation with her was no longer about her book. It was about telling her that I understood. That I knew how she felt, that I was there to help her in any way I could. Ever since then, she’s been in my classroom each morning. Sometimes she curls up with a book; sometimes she chats about what she has for breakfast; sometimes she talks about how hard it is to not see her mom; sometimes she just wants to hear about what I did the night before. This is a girl who has straight A’s and because of that gets to leave school five minutes early at the end of the day as her reward and chooses not to leave so she can stay in my room and help me clean up.

The culmination of these whisperings came yesterday. I was at work, of course, when Oprah was on. The writer of Eat, Pray and Love was on there. Her story is much like the story I’ve been writing about self discovery. Two things were said: You cannot see yourself in moving waters, so you must be still and Oprah added a bible verse to the effect that “be still and you will know God.” These are the things I know. These are the things I hold true and yet the last three weeks have been about moving, moving, moving. I’ve taken little time to sit and listen. To be still.

I know what I need to do, and now I must do it. In the craziness of my life, I’ve neglected the things that matter–being still, listening.  I’m carving a new space for love, which is wonderful, but I must not neglect that space for being still and listening either.

My job in the next few days is to be still and listen to those whisperings. Am I being told to try something new? Am I going down a new path to a job/career that would allow me to intertwine all of my passions? How do I do that? Should I?

Let’s listen and see…..