snippets (spring wanderings)

april 10, 2019, 8:54 am (prologue)

Sitting, slightly chilly, in a classroom in my workplace, watching thirty juniors I don't know take a standardized math test. Florescent lights bear down on all of us, making my eyes burn, and I can't blame the kid who is hunched over his scratch paper- who I just gently reminded to focus, to no avail- sketching a drawing of a boy that is actually quite good. I'm proctoring with two other teachers- for some reason unknown to humankind. It's really obvious my presence here is unnecessary, and am wishing that my presence would have been allowed to make itself useful somewhere else, for example, my bed. (Especially considering I don't start working with my students today until 11:50). It's beautiful outside- spring has moved in and come upon us like a warm breeze, and it seems a real shame to be inside this grey room, goosebumps slowly materializing on my arms.

My pretty copy of I Capture the Castle is sitting to my right (which, I must confess I bought for a friend, but it arrived to me and it was so pretty I kept it for myself). I'm about half way through re-reading it, and oh, how Dodie Smith wakes up the writer bits of me! I have found myself desperately wanting to write- something! anything!- but have had absolutely no idea what to write about. But the thing with Dodie's incredibly delightful Cassandra, of whom I am certain we would be best of friends were she not only alive in a book, is that she just listens, and watches, and describes what she sees. It's impossible to read the book and not have your powers of observation heightened, mind-wheels turning to try to describe- to capture-I read a good portion of the book yesterday during my sixth period class. I usually pull students out to read aloud, but yesterday, because of the testing schedule, we had a shorter class, so I was just reading along with the students. I was trying to decide if I should blog, try to describe where I was, describe the classroom and my students, when a voice cut through my thoughts: "Ms. Alyssa! You are zoning out again!"Caught, in a private thought moment in front of the world. I laughed, but as my thoughts swam, this same student, my sweet fourteen-year-old friend, caught me thinking twice more before the end of class. Just watching, trying to find words to capture them, sweetest students in their day.

Ever since I was little, my head has been full of stories and narratives. (and our favorite artist student has given up his drawings and has succumbed to ultimate boredom, forehead pressed to his yellow scratch paper on the desk. Poor guy. I'm going to go wake him up.)

(I'm back-9:25 a.m. now. I got a good look at his paper, and surrounding the anime style drawings were phrases like, "I'm hungry" and "I'm the Fallen Angel. Fear me. Rawr." Oh boy.)Like I was saying, my head is full of daydreams, wanting to write (or talk) themselves into existence. When I was a child, I remember times where I would stand in my bathroom, staring at my reflection in the mirror and act out stories in my head- and out loud- of conversations I would imagine myself having with friends, or, once puberty struck, boys I would never dream of actually talking to in real life. Or sometimes, it was just imaginary stories that would flit in and out, phrases that I would employ, were I writing a script for the narrator of my life. Words, free flowing in and around, mind always vibrating a little with excitement-This is why Salinger and Dodie Smith are my favorite kinds of authors; it doesn't feel like they think too much before they write. They do some very lovely thinking, but they think as they write. They share it with me, like a secret between us best of friends. That's how I like to write too-later,

11:11- wait- 11:19(a.m.)Sitting cross legged in the sun on the top an old picnic table with obscenities scribbled in Sharpie decorating the surface. Three of my coworkers are sitting with me (but more conventionally, at the table rather than on it), searching for post-City Year jobs as the magic of spring signals our departure from San Jose.Pausing again. I want to enjoy the sunlight-

april 14, 9:04 am (hope)

Dining room table now. Jug of milk, pot of tea, half-filled bottle of water, and empty bowl of what used to be oatmeal in front of me. In the back of my mind, wracking through my grocery list, and the looming, frustrating chore of laundry that I always put off until the VERY last minute.

Oh, what joy it is to be alive- despite the laundry and empty bowl of oatmeal! In hopes of putting laundry off, I took Betty Ruth's little dog, Bandit for a walk this morning, and the flowers! The birds! The smells of springtime! What a joy, to be alive in springtime, in a place where it actually feels like spring! (My heart goes out to all my friends in Wheaton, where it is currently literally snowing.)

A quick caveat before I continue: A student (Joel, actually, if you read my last post) discovered this week that I have a blog, and he made a comment about how he thinks blogs are stupid because it's just writing about yourself and isn't that selfish and who really cares? I know he didn't mean anything by it, but it has put me in a state of a bit of writer's block recently. So, I suppose what I want to say is, I hope this blog doesn't feel selfish, and if you are here reading it, thank you very much.

Anyway. Doesn't spring smell like hope? The smell that awakes something in your innermost being, slowly stirring and ready to play. I've been thinking a lot about hope recently, how completely necessary it is for anyone to keep on.  I've been filling my weekends with activities- hikes, going to the beach, markets, and eating food with friends (part of the reason my blogs have been so few and far between), in order to keep on through the semester. But it's occurring to me (just now, actually) that looking forward to things is not at all the same as having hope, a deep hope that things will be alright- a confidence, that despite everything (and to no credit of ours), that blossom is going to explode out of the end of that branch, and that bright orange tulip is going to burst out of the cold earth.This week, my students in Ethnic Studies were studying social movements in America during the 1960's in conjunction with the death of Nipsey Hussle (an activist/rapper in South Central LA who was shot and killed two weeks ago). On their reflection worksheet, one question was "who/what gives you hope for a better world in your community?" So many of my students had such a hard time answering that question, and it made me do some serious thinking on what actually gives me hope.

Then, yesterday, I participated in an acting/clowning workshop at Berkeley Rep Theater with my dear friend from college. For clarification, clowning doesn't necessarily mean that creepy circus clown image that I know just popped into your head, but an acting technique that connects you to the innermost instinctual part of yourself, the child inside of you, that is run by your body, not your brain. The instructor wrote on the board a list of the things the clown requires/does not require, and the first thing on the "require" list was, you guessed it, hope. They need an irrational, pure, childlike hope that things will turn out perfectly, which is part of the reason we love the clown, I think.

As humans, I think we could all use a lot more of that deep hope- that confidence of things being alright that the clown needs, that is the reason he looks so silly and wonderful. And with Lent drawing to a close and Easter drawing near, what other hope is there? I grew up- as, I think, many of you also did- being told that Easter was so important, Easter is the reason we have faith, Easter is the reason we have hope, etc. Slowly, Easter becomes one a story heard about so often that it loses it's meaning. But friends, this year, hope (of Easter, for me) means more than usual- what would we do without it? The woes of the world, the failures of our own small existence, the blatant injustice we see daily in our country, and our own feeble-and often fatal- attempts to bring about some type of restoration between different communities would crush us. I've started to realize that the reason I can keep on is not by looking forward to a bowl of oatmeal every morning or a hike on the weekend (although that helps), but is because I get to live into the promise that God will absolutely make all things new, that Eden is not lost forever. That Jesus has appointments for me every day to participate in His kingdom. That Satan is real and fighting and God is fighting too. That Easter is less about me going to a beautiful place when I die, and more about Jesus bringing us all back to the Kingdom of God, now. (For more on this idea, stop reading, and immediately purchase Dr. Sandra Richter's book Epic of Eden. It will change your life.)And even for those that can't articulate what it is that gives them hope, something gives them the courage to do the meaningful and necessary work they are doing. I would venture that maybe- maybe part of it all is that he unconscious memory of Eden is still there, whispering "go on, my child, it will be okay." I may be crossing some theological line, but maybe the hope of Jesus is inside everybody whether or not they know it, manifesting itself in all the good things that give people the strength to go on. Maybe the Kingdom of God smells like spring. 

Bandit is barking like mad, and my pot of tea is empty now. My laundry still isn't done. I suppose I should do it, but I am leaving for church in forty-five minutes, and if I put it in now, it won't have time to dry. I'm also feeling very conscious of this post going on and on, so I will wrap it up here soon, but one thing more.

I remember when I started this blog, I had a grand speech about how I was going to tell all these stories of my adventures and the stories of my students and life at my work when really, all I have done is wandered through my thoughts with you again and again. There's this bit in I Capture the Castle where Cassandra says, "How arrogant I used to be! I remember writing in this journal that I would capture father later-- I meant to do a brilliant character sketch. Capture father! Why, I don't know anything about anyone!" Exactly, Cassandra! I don't know anything about anyone! But, and I think Cassandra would agree, writing helps makes sense of things. Granted, looking back on them does make one feel quite silly, but wonderful too. But that journey is a story too, isn't it?

Happy Holy Week, everyone. May it be full of singing and dancing and Hope. May God whisper to you in exactly the way you need. Thanks for reading, always.

-alyssa