Hygge Summer

This is my (sort-of) first teacher summer.

For the past six years, I've been working jobs with two weeks of vacation a year. One week for a camping vacation, a day or two for a kid's field trip, a long weekend, and a couple of days at the holidays, and that's all there was. When I had a vacation day, I felt like I must use every. single. second. because there wasn't a second to waste; I knew that if I didn't refuel my tank, I'd crash and burn, and I also knew that I had limited time to use my one "wild and precious life" and so I'd better get crackin'.

It seems that those days are over.

While I returned to teaching for a million reasons after my fourteen year absence, the primary reason being that teaching feels like going home to myself in the best possible way, I think I had underestimated how weary my work schedule had made me, and how incredible having a summer off would feel.

I have done some good things: I've gotten some little projects done, I've worked on physical fitness. I've read more. I've written a little. I've connected with friends.

This luxury of time - and knowing even in the midst of the longest vacation of the year that there are still other vacations awaiting me in other parts of the year - has change my body chemistry. I wake up a little in awe that this is my life, that I get to enjoy the gift of time in my life.

The best parts of my summer don't at all resemble a checklist. The best parts of my summer have looked slow, simple. I am having a child's summer, in some ways: I awaken when my body chooses (about 6-6:30am most days), I eat when I'm hungry (and not on some schedule), and I spend most of my time outdoors. I go for long walks and some hikes, I've swum in the ocean and in a lake, I've gone to the beach more times than I can count.

Today, I went to the library for the first time since, well, I can't remember the last time, but I no longer knew my library code so I had to get a new card. I thought about going downtown to the big, shiny, strange building with the red wormhole hallways and the diamond shaped glass everywhere, but instead, chose to go to my local library, a tiny little Carnegie Library not far from home. This library is so small that I spent an hour or so, and scanned the ENTIRE non-fiction section. I admired the brick work, the heavy wood doors, the light fixtures, the big windows. I sat in a cozy chair in close proximity to a fan (nobody to speak of has air conditioning in Seattle, and we're in a heatwave!), and I skimmed a book on hygge.

Reading the book in the comfortable, hometown library, no ticking clock to hold me accountable, my mind was free to wander, to pause, to ponder, without a race to the finish, without a drumbeat of orders (to, perhaps, go faster, accomplish something, remember the grocery list...) interfering.

Hygge is a relatively modern concept given to us by the Danes. The Cambridge Dictionary says this:

hyggenoun [ U ] 

UK ​ /ˈhʊɡ.ə/ /ˈhʊɡ.ə/

​

a Danish word for a quality of cosiness (= feeling warm, comfortable, and safe) that comes from doing simple things such as lighting candles, baking, or spendingtime at home with your family:

The high season of hygge is Christmas, when Danes don't hold back with the candles and mulledwine.

I think that, perhaps, it is the Danish version of simple living that we Americans have attempted but completely bungled.

In America, there's Real Simple Magazine. As far as I can tell, most of Real Simple is a product ad in disguise, encouraging me to spend thousands of dollars on making my life more simple. According to the articles, I should spend large portions of my life organizing my closets with boxes and light up clothing rods and matching baskets, and this would simplify things somehow. This is the American way: we try to buy our way out of problems.

I just don't think that matching baskets in my closet or laundry room are going to make me feel like my life is simpler. Sure, that sounds pretty, but life altering? Hardly.

What I want isn't rows of pretty boxes. Okay, I kind of want them, but what I KNOW is that even if I have rows of pretty boxes in my perfectly organized laundry room, and a vase of fresh flowers in there too, it won't actually make me happier.

And I really, really want to feel deeply, spiritually, wonderfully happy.

This summer, I've been reconnecting with the slower parts of me. I read an entire book in a single sitting, while at the beach. I've gone for long walks, not in exercise clothes, but in sundresses and flat sandals. I've eaten scads of nectarines and Rainier cherries and strawberries and other summer fruit. I've made jam. I have hosted a dozen "happy hours" at my house, usually just with one or two friends, sitting in the shade and sipping rose' wine. I've made pancakes (served, of course, with more summer fruit, and that home made jam). I've grilled, and grilled, and grilled. I've slept in the woods. I've dangled in a hammock. I strung garden lights across the garage, and I hung some candle lanterns under the deck. I've sat under those lanterns with friends, and I can't think of anything more hygge right now.

Today, in the library, sitting next to an old man who was dressed in slacks and a button down shirt with a tie, and a trim, polished older woman who was reading the Wall Street Journal and Cook's Illustrated, I browsed the entire book of hygge, checked out a Japanese cookbook and another beach read. I felt the fan cool my skin, and I sipped my home made iced tea, ice cubes rattling in the insulated flask. That felt pretty hygge.

I know that if I didn't ever work, this would become dull and I'd have to come up with some project of purpose and meaning. But, because I do work, and I work hard, and because life is so often complicated and messy, I've been just soaking up this downtime and loving every single second of it. I've started to hear my own voice a bit louder. I don't feel frenetic, or worried, or anxious. I feel peaceful, and hopeful.

For the rest of the summer, my goal is to find ways to take this feeling with me.

I can't spend everyday cozied up in a public library, or reading on a beach, or lounging in a hammock. Not every day allows for a couple of hours in the woods and on the beach, and not every day is sunny. I know this as well as anyone. However, I am convinced that I can take some of this with me.

I am determined to love my life, this only life that I am given. A life of quiet desperation is just not for me.

To keep this feeling going, I have a few ideas. On the easy end of the spectrum: I need to read more, look at screens less. (I read the old fashioned way, with books made out of paper.) I love reading, but this year with my mind so occupied with my new job and the worries of having a daughter start at two different high schools, I lost my way. I've realized that it's okay to read a bit of fluff - a book on hygge, a beach read - in addition to the more serious things I'm drawn to, and that with that permission, I won't be too tired to read such relaxing pieces. I need to keep spending time outside, and yes, I know that in Seattle in January the sky hovers inches above our heads and it's dark when I go to work and dark when I come home again, but I also know that morning stars are beautiful, that I have good gear (no bad weather, only bad gear: that's what Gore-Tex is for). The chill of the air, the rain, and the dark are just a different way to experience the world, and have their own kind of beauty, and they fill my soul, too. These two things alone will likely sustain me better than the year before.

This summer I packed my car with beach chairs, blankets, towels, and what I jokingly refer to as my "emergency picnic" - an insulated bag that I've packed with a cutting board, knife, enamelware dishes for two, crackers, and shelf-stable jars of dolmas, eggplant dip, bruschetta. (The idea is that I have the basics, but with that foundation I can throw in a bottle of wine, a baguette, some cheese, some fruit, and voila' - gourmet picnic, no fuss!) I've decided that I never, ever want to miss the opportunity to have a picnic, and on one of those lucky moments when a friend and I bump into one another, it is just too wonderful to miss a chance to pop down onto the beach and stick our toes in the water and enjoy dinner. Such moments are more frequent that one might think, because I make them happen.

I want to be the person who stays up late to see the stars, who walks on the beach even when it's raining, who always invites the friend in for a visit. There are a dozen kinds of tea in the cupboard, wine in the wine rack, and I can rustle up something from the fridge - so come in.

Today, I'm not dreaming of big accomplishments. I'm not plotting my novel, or how to elevate next year's AP scores, or how to drop 15 pounds, or some giant house project. Today, it feels remarkably important to dream small: candlelit dinners, board games, walking outdoors, important and unimportant books, cups of tea.

I'm bringing it to work, too. I found a chair with a free sign in my neighborhood, and I hauled it into my classroom and tucked it in a corner next to the big bookcase full of pleasure reading books. I took the framed picture of a woman reading out of my attic and hung it next to the chair, and then I found a lamp with a free sign. I purchased a little metal and glass table designed for outdoors ($7.50!), brought in a Harry Potter Marauder's Map blanket, and my hygge corner - designed, hopefully, to help students love reading, and to have a cozy place to hang out sometimes, but also for me to curl up and read or grade - is complete.

It is a hygge summer, and I am delighted at the prospect of a hygge life. I think it's mine for the taking. I think I - and millions of Danish people - am onto something.

Small

I have always longed for a grand, larger than life kind of life. When I was born, my beloved grandfather instantly took to calling me "little princess" and I took it to heart. I was relatively unfamiliar with Disney princesses, but, because I was born in Canada, I was quite familiar with the Queen. To me, being a princess meant world travel, always looking sharp, exploring the ideas of the world, being extremely well read, and participating in the gentlewomanly pursuit of helping the poor.

(Castles and jewels and ballgowns were a bonus, of course, but the Queen and her court that I saw in the news growing up wore sensible dresses and sensible shoes, and were constantly showing up at some ceremony or another and giving public speeches, accepting flowers from small children and smiling at all of the townspeople, meeting with government officials and listening solemnly.)

The minute I could, I fought to escape my small life - untraveled, not terribly well read or educated, not exposed to the worlds of ideas available through the news or books or experiences - and to broaden my horizons. Despite the protestations of my parents, I left the family business, and I went to the biggest college I could access (the University of Washington), and found a job to put me through college at the most cosmopolitan, big company I could find (Microsoft). I lived on Top Ramen and I kept my heat turned off even in a snowstorm that shut down the city, because I couldn't afford to pay for it if I turned it on....but I still managed to put together my pennies and buy a ticket to Europe and spend a summer exploring part of the bigger world. (Back then, airfare and a Eurorail pass aside, I budgeted $50 a day for the trip, including food, accommodations, entertainment, and souvenirs. I sometimes stayed in youth hostels, and sometimes took overnight trains to my next destination, sleeping upright in my seat, to save time and money.) I saw castles, cathedrals, museums, architecture, and art that I'd only ever seen in books before. I swam in the Mediterranean in the moonlight with a handsome Australian; I hiked in Switzerland; I met people from all over the world and listened to dozens of languages around me. At first, I felt terrified - this was incredibly foreign and unsettling - and then I felt at home. At last I felt that I was in the world made for me.

I was able to return to Europe a few times. My world got bigger; I finished my undergraduate degree, got a job working with incredibly smart people who came from worlds bigger than mine. Deciding that life wasn't for me (the people were fine, but I was in software sales, and nothing interests me less!) I went back to school, trading in my economics degree for an English degree, and following it up with a masters so that I could teach, and my world grew again: now I was immersed in the world of ideas, traveling time and space to soak up all of the humanity, art, and philosophy that was available to me. My world kept growing.

It came to a bit of a crashing halt, however, when I got cancer and my marriage fell apart. (Side note: on the outside, it probably looks like cancer hastened the end of my marriage. I think that the reality is that it was doomed from the start, and cancer only revealed the truth, didn't create it.) My world shrank, first to hospitals and shrinking budgets, and then again when I found myself a single mom re-entering the workforce after years of being a cancer-stay-at-home-mom. My world got tiny. It was all that I could do to stay afloat, to keep the wheels of my life turning, to stay on top of the basic tasks of housing myself and my daughter, making food, getting her homework done.

I'm sure it would have been difficult for anyone. For me, aside from all of the obvious pains of a body recovering from cancer and a life healing from divorce, watching my world shrink was a source of horror that amplified the rest. As my daughter grew, I realized that I did not have the ability to take her to see the world, to broaden her world and grow it for her in a way my parents had not for me. Aside from trips to my office, I felt like my world had shrunk down to the size of my neighborhood, a lovely place, but so, so small.

I wish I could tell you that this story had run its course, and that the final arc of the story is that I got it all figured out, and that I had a trip to South Korea planned for the spring and a trip to New York in the winter and then a return to Europe...but this is not the case.

I'm a single mom, and I'm a teacher who is low on the pay scale because of all those years I was away from teaching. I've managed to hold on to my big old house - purchased in 2001 when my life was oh so different - in a good neighborhood, and I pay all of my bills, but my paycheck dictates that my world is not so large. I rarely get a chance to go on an airplane, to stay in a hotel, to leave my small corner. There have been times when this made me claustrophobic.

However... Yes, of course there is a however.

Several things allow me access to the greater world, and to a return to my childhood fantasies of the big, big world that awaited me in adulthood.

One is reading. I read whatever I can get my hands on, from as many different perspectives as I can, and my sense of the world grows with every word. I travel back and forth in time, across continents, across genders, across socio-economic lines, and I get to see the world in all its glory. While this may be a mirror of the world and not the world itself, it shows me my place in this world - I am a part of the big picture, I am a citizen of the whole world, not just of my corner. I also read the news, subscribing to the Washington Post and the New York Times, big city newspapers from the other side of the country, talking about Big Ideas. Thanks to the internet, I dip my toe into The Guardian and The Sun and Al Jazeera; I follow political leaders like Trudeau, Macron and Merkel, and I see what they have to say about the world, and my world grows as a result. (I try not to be too Euro-centric, but I'm working on it.)

The other is making my small place in the world the biggest it can be.

While I may not be able to cross continents and sit in opera houses, while I may not be able to experience trekking in Nepal, while I might not be able to stand at Machu Pichu, I do have the spaces nearby, and while others speak casually of them, I am determine to suck the marrow from life in the spaces I am granted. I try to remember that I live in a world class city (Seattle), that I am surrounded by extraordinary beauty with our mountains, oceans, and lakes, and I try to remember to soak it up. I have become an avid backpacker, hiker, and camper. When my small tent is high on a mountain and the stars come out, I am certain that I have discovered nirvana; when I view the milky way from this vantage point, it is the earth that seems small, but I am a part of the stars, exactly where I am meant to be. I may not be able to go to the Louvre or the Prado, or to stand in Red Square or Tiananean Square, but I can go to the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Seattle Art Museum, the Frye. I may not head to Broadway to see the latest, but I have learned how to find tickets the day of show for a reduced fee, or, thanks to Teentix, to go on a Sunday for just five dollars with my teen daughter.

I teach children (high schoolers) whose worlds are, in some ways, bigger than mine: they come from all corners of the globe, and on average they are a very wealthy community filled with Important People; they are more widely traveled at 16 than I am at 48. I've realized that they expand my world, too: they share tales of their adventures with me, and I learn, but more, I share tales of the world with them, and they start to notice how big my world is - so many ideas! - and they grow, too.

I write this from the sofa of a cabin overlooking the most gorgeous view in the San Juans, thanks to a beloved friend who regularly invites me to share in her fortune at owning such a lovely spot. I sip my morning coffee out of a hand painted mug made in Portugal, I see the boats fishing in the bay in front of us. It is a small place, a little niche in the world, tucked into the side of a hill, away from the hustle and bustle of the world. It would be easy to say that it is small, insignificant, unimportant. Perhaps it is.

But I don't think so.

Sitting on this sofa with the morning sun streaming in, surrounded by the happy clutter of a family vacation spot, I have been thinking about the world and my place in it, and I feel a part of the world, no less significant than if I were a regular at Buckingham Palace. Writing to you, here, I feel immersed in the world of ideas, a contributor, and I think perhaps that I'm not so small and insignificant after all.

My world is grand because I want it to be. My world is magnificent because I take the time to haul my tent out of the attic, to find a spot where I am close to the stars, and to bundle up against the cold to really admire them. My world is grand because I always have a book in my purse or backpack in case I have a little downtime. My world is grand because everywhere I go, I'm interested in talking to new people, hearing new stories. My world is grand because I am unafraid to dive into the sharp cold of Puget Sound, and because I have as many picnics as possible. My world is grand because I have opinions, based in knowledge, about economic theory and social justice and what to do about the great Pacific garbage gyre. My world is grand because I know interesting people who do interesting things, and who struggle and let me peep in at their struggle to share it.

I still want to go back to Europe. I want to go all over Asia. I want to see those prayer flags strung from mountain tops, and I want to sit in a cobalt and white courtyard looking over the Adriatic, and I want to wander the moors, and I want to see the Lagos that Chimamanda showed me. I want to be a regular on Broadway.

In some ways, I am, simply because I ponder the possibilities.

My life is not small.

I have no idea what an outsider sees when they see my life, but my life is not small. My inner life is bursting, hopeful, filled with ideas and wonderings, and my body is eager to wander. (Yesterday, miscalculating distances, I went for an eight mile walk/hike that took me to a beach filled with sea treasures like chitons and sea stars; I gazed at the incredible beauty of clusters of madronas; I took pictures of the pebbles at the edge of the shore, smooth and polished and in so many colors. Thank goodness for a body that will allow such adventures.)

I will suck the marrow from the life I am given. Instead of waiting for some windfall, some big adventure, I will create adventure where I can find it. I will rent a kayak by the hour and see what the bay looks like from out there; I will head to the library to see what treasures await. I will sip my coffee as I stare out the window, and ponder how I can help the world to heal.

I know people with more who have much less.

I still think, someday, somehow, I will find myself hut hiking in the Alps, visiting monks in Nepal, attending La Scala, a regular on Broadway. It's still possible, and I'm not giving up on it. But meanwhile, I refuse a life of quiet desperation. I am going to boldly lap up all that is placed before me, finding the joys large and small that are available to me in life. I will not squander the possibility that I already have enough, so that I might truly experience what is placed before me.

Perhaps my small life is quite grand, after all.

Independence

Happy Fourth of July, everyone.

This morning I fell down a Twitter-hole, but for once I don't have any regrets. Somebody posted the Langston Hughes poem, I, Too, and then I wanted to read Whitman and then I found some new poems, and all of them were celebrating America and recoiling from the broken promises and rejoicing in the hope of promises one day kept.

(To fall down the same rabbit hole, check out https://www.poetryfoundation.org/collections/145066/july-4th-poems and https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poems?field_occasion_tid=1812 and don't forget to read this brilliant, heartbreaking speech by Frederick Douglass: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/)

While Angelica Schuyler sang it best thanks to Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton:
https://mrbrentweaver.wordpress.com/angelica-schuyler-hamilton/

(key passage at 1:35)... I have always felt, well, confused by my role as a woman in America.

When the Founding Fathers said that "all men are created equal" they did not mean it, and nor did they expect anyone else to believe it. Thinking people knew what they meant. Men was not code for humankind, although we like to pretend that that was their intent. No, men meant men, and it did not mean women. Men meant white-Christian-men-of-property-and-class, land owners, the educated. Those who fell outside of those descriptions, by gender or skin tone or finances, were not considered fully human. If a woman was lucky enough to be born white and wealthy, and have a good marriage with a husband who valued her opinion, she might expect to have some influence within her own household...but even this feels optimistic and slightly foolish to me. Women knew their place, and even when they were allowed to speak up,speaking up meant they needed to tread softly and tiptoe around the male egos in their lives. I know this is true because I read history, but also because though we've had vast improvements, movements like #MeToo have proven, if nothing else, that women are expected to take what is dished out to them or else; certainly that has been my experience. Modern women are expected to celebrate their equality, but are penalized for asking for raises; we are taught to come home from work and make dinner and clean up and care for the children and to express undying gratitude to our husbands if they deign to put a few dishes in the dishwasher or change a diaper or read a bedtime story, nevermind that there are pots that need to be scrubbed and lunches made and school paperwork to complete and, well, you get the idea. How many women have heard a voice call from the sofa to the kitchen, "Oh, did you need something?" in oblivion of the truth of how dinner lands on the table each night?

Of course, it was worse for women who did not have the advantages that the founding fathers assumed when they wrote so beautifully about equality. Sally Hemings was three years old when the document was written; thirteen years later she would be impregnated by thirty-six year old widowed man (he was married to her half sister, by the way; Sally Hemings was born a slave but was 3/4 white) and Declaration author Thomas Jefferson in 1789. I wonder what it felt like to Ms. Hemings to hear Jefferson speak of equality and the pursuit of happiness, when she was a slave and a concubine who had to fight for the freedom of her children and who was forced, because of "propriety" to hide in back rooms?

Our American roots are full of hope, grand ideals, optimism, eloquence, and the promise of joy, but they are also home to mold and rot. The same people who declared our right to a pursuit of happiness so solemnly and hopefully did not see most people as people.

I recognize my own privilege.  My race, class, and education protect me from many of the sorrows of the world. When my blue eyed, fair skinned daughter goes out into the world, I know that police will leap to her aid if she requires it; I expect to be admitted to any place I care to go without a second glance. I can jaywalk without fear (suspecting that a "oops, sorry Officer!" and a smile will be enough). And yet, because my sex means that I am less likely to hold high position, to receive the salary I deserve, to be acknowledged at the conference table or the political position, or to walk down the street free of harrassment, I have a hint of what it might mean to have further erosions into my sense of equality. Because I know the bitterness of not being quite equal, I can speculate what someone without my privilege might experience, and I feel rage.

Rage.

Not a slight disappointment, not frustration, not confusion, but white-hot-burns-the-world-to-ash RAGE.

How dare we do this to people? These are somebody's children. I'm a mother, and there is almost nothing I would not sacrifice for my daughter's safety. How do parents bear it when they send their black boys into the world, knowing that they can be shot for holding up a phone, that the police will be called if they mow the neighbor's lawn? How can they bear it? I know that they cannot. I can feel the bile in their throats as they are forced to go about their business, eating and sleeping and working and trying, knowing that this is how the world works.

When I got married, my father told me that he was glad I was marrying a white person. Even then (another lifetime ago), I was shocked, horrified. I often contemplate the comment, which he made in a thoughtless, offhand, unimportant way. I look at my own daughter, and contemplate her far-off, future spouse, and I think of his words, and how it felt to hear his words, and what I might say to my daughter near her wedding day. Repulsed by his sentiment, I see it differently. I see that my daughter might marry a black or brown man (or woman - why not?), and that my grandchildren might have dark skin, Afros, slave heritage. I imagine the love that I feel for my daughter and the love that I will feel for my grandchildren, and I imagine holding these future, beloved grandchildren and staring into their beautiful, dark eyes, and though these children are imaginary, I want to protect them with every fiber of my being. I feel fierce and protective of my daughter, and of her someday children, her someday spouse. I want to look my grandchildren in the eye and tell them that I have helped to shape that the world that they live in, so that they feel safe and loved and welcome.

So, even though it's not personal, it's personal. I have no idea who (or if) my daughter will marry; she is a high school student with hopes and dreams but with no clarity about the future and she's still working out high school romance, let alone life-long partnership; only time will reveal her path, her love, her family. Still, the possibility exists.

America was created in great part by Thomas Jefferson, by Martha Jefferson (lacking formal education, a widow already when she married Jefferson at 24, half sister to slaves), by Sally Hemings and her six children from a man who owned her and never married her, though they lived together. Thomas Jefferson's choices were the ones that shaped the nation, but Martha and Sally's stories are just as important, true, and relevant to the America that we live in today.

Martha loved her husband, the documents show. Her husband, who crafted the nation with no place for women, loved her back, perhaps never even considering the idea that his beloved wife might be his equal, deserving of equality in the workplace, the voting booth, the court, the bedroom, the home.

It is the tension between Jefferson's words and actions that continues to define the tensions in society today. We are a country of great ideals that has failed to live up to those ideals. We are optimists; we like the ideas behind the words, and so we continue to refer to them, to hold up the words as proof of what we're capable of. The words offer comfort, a child's story before bedtime, soothing, hopeful, but because we are not children, we know that the author of those words gave them as fiction, not the non-fiction that we long for. We know that the phrasing, though poetic, intentionally leaves out a minimum of 50% of the population. We know what he said, but we know what we know, and that his words are tinted more with politeness than truth. I do not think that Jefferson likely changed a diaper, and I wonder if he knew a woman's anatomy well enough to be a decent lover, or if his wife was required to put up with his bumbling because that was just expected. Did he see his wife as an equal in intellect and potential, or simply as a person placed on the earth to make his own life more pleasant?

When Thomas wrote "all men are created equal," I wonder if Martha thought, "Me, too." I wonder if Sally thought, "Me, too." I wonder if these women were bitter when they heard the words, or if they shook their heads and thought, "if only you really understood!" I wonder what their children thought? I wonder if Martha's children knew, in that way that children have of knowing, that Sally's quarters were connected to Thomas'. I wonder if the Brady-bunch style children saw their family resemblances as sibling-cousins. I wonder how Thomas treated his second-six children behind closed doors, and if there were ever Christmases around the tree with all twelve of his children. (I think I know the answer to this, as do you, but the history books do not reveal the answer.)

While the #MeToo movement is about men's sexual aggression toward women (and, just for the record...#metoo), I think it's an apt description of the political uprisings we see now, in 2018, from those who believe in Jefferson's words and see the obvious disconnects to how we actually run our nation, our communities, our businesses, our homes. Our country will continue to be a hot mess of poverty, racism, sexism, and the cruelty and injustice that arise from those horrific truths, until we can reconcile the irreconcilable. Our country was founded in beautiful ideals, but the people who wrote the words down and crafted the ideals didn't really mean what they said.

All men are created equal. Me, too.

Footnote:
A simple, short explanation of the relationships between Thomas, Martha, and Sally is here: https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/jamie-stiehm/2010/12/06/thomas-jefferson-and-his-women . While some sources declare only Jefferson's white family (!) as here: http://faculty.montgomerycollege.edu/gyouth/FP_examples/student_examples/truc_huynh/family.html others more accurately present his entire family, which, should you be wondering, has been confirmed via DNA testing. Monticello now acknowledges Hemings' role in Jefferson's life, and her quarters have been unearthed (next to Jefferson's bedroom...of course) at Monticello: https://www.monticello.org/sallyhemings/ .

Island Time

Hello again!

As is so often the case (and surely I'm not alone in this), sometimes I get lost. I get caught up in the commute, the onslaught of junk mail and paperwork and errands and the need to unload the dishwasher, mow the lawn, and return the phone calls. When this happens, I forget to do the things that inspire me: I forget to read for pleasure, I forget to stand at the ocean's shore, I forget to write. I forget who I am really, trapped by my own busy-ness.

This year was a special one in my life, a turning point, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I returned to the career that means the most to me, that inspires me, that reminds me of who I really am (and not who I think I'm supposed to be, or who someone else wants me to be). I watched my daughter navigate not just the beginning of high school, but a mid-year transition to a second new school. (Not for the faint of heart, that.)

I was so wrapped up in becoming who I want to be that I forgot to be who I am. I was so busy becoming that I forgot to just be.

No regrets.

Some years are like that, and offer challenges that demand full time attention. Early this year I realized that I only had two goals for the entire year, and that the rest would just have to wait: 1) I needed to be the best mom I am capable of being for my daughter, and 2) I needed to figure out how to be a decent teacher again. While I believe in balance, and self care, and political action, and, well, yard work...this wasn't that year. Holding tight to my two goals was all I could manage.

Initially, this gave me anxiety. But what about this small thing, and this big thing, and this incredibly important thing? What about that? I was raised to think that it was my job to Do It All With A Smile, and I was actively acknowledging my limitations, to not just not get everything all done, but to refuse to attempt such a fool's errand.

But here is what I've learned from such an enterprise: it was liberating. My house was a little grittier than I'd like it to be, my body is much softer than I'd like it to be, I didn't write at all (this blog was as much writing as I tried, and the last entry was February 11th...!). A younger version of myself might consider this a failure, a weakness, a series of mistakes, a shame and an embarrassment. My wiser self considers it a grand accomplishment.

This year, I put my soul into my two missions. I helped my daughter to navigate a rocky year, and I saw her rise up, and I saw our relationship navigate some bumps and bruises and become stronger than ever. I taught with more heart than I knew I had, swallowing my pride at my newness on countless occasions, open to the needs of the students and the advice of my peers, but also listening to my internal voice about what gifts I had to offer. I was startled by the results: though I knew I'd enjoy teaching again, I didn't know that I would love it with a tenderness and joy that often took my breath away. I didn't know that the students would recognize that love, and reflect it back to me.

I am exhausted but giddy. I have changed my life's path, again, turning my ship in a new direction, uncharted. (I do not know many who have taken such career risks at my age.) I feel young again: the world is full of hope and possibility, I can grow, and I can't see the future but it feels fresh and new. I am no longer in the fall of my life, but in the spring once again, when things are fresh, new, and filled with possibility.

I am on the first week of my summer vacation, and the startling realization that I've actually pulled this thing off. Not only did I survive my first year, but I thrived. I may have only had two big goals, but I feel like I hit them out of the park, and I'm delighted. Deciding that I could not do it all (for the first time in my life) meant that I was focused and that, possibly, I did better than I hoped for.

Hurrah!

But to everything there is a season, and I have no desire to stay put. If my waist gets any bigger I'll need a whole new wardrobe, and if I don't do some house projects then I'll hate walking in the front door. If I don't write, I feel my soul withering. And if I don't spend lots of time in nature, I can't breathe. And politics? It's a mess, and people are being hurt, and if I don't take my white-hetero-middle-class privilege and do something, then I won't be able to look myself in the eye. It's time.

One of the blessings of my new life is that I get resets built in. As a teacher, I have a definitive cycle each year: a new year means a new crop of students, a newly revised curriculum, a new chance to be my best self. And the end of the year means a chance to regroup, to breathe, to do some self care, and to set some new goals.

In my last jobs, I had two weeks of vacation a year. It wasn't enough time to do much: a couple days of chaperoning field trips, a couple of days at Christmas, a long weekend, and one week of camping, and my year was done. I never quite caught my breath, ever.

But now I'm on island time.

I write this from a cabin in the San Juans, a little slice of paradise. The cabin is owned by a dear friend who is generous with her invitations to share the space, and I've been coming here at least annually for more than twenty years, usually for a weekend at a time. But with my daughter off on an adventure with friends (mountain biking and river rafting, and staying in a cabin in Oregon), I find myself on the first real week of summer truly living on island time.

I'm ready for clean food - the fruits and vegetables of summer call. I'm ready for long walks and hikes, and, when my body feels ready, long runs. I'm ready to dive into the sea, and let the cold, bracing water remind me that I'm alive. I'm ready to read one book after the next. I'm ready to think about life, to reflect, to ponder.

We all need time and space for island time. I'm well aware that it might be a necessity for a balanced and happy life, and that many people never get that space. I think about the clients at the food bank where I used to work, and I think about children separated from their parents and living in converted Wal-Marts filled with kennel like cages, and I know how incredibly fortunate I am. I will not squander my fortune.

The summer is new, fresh, and unknown. I am on an island, writing this from a sofa, sun streaming through the windows, music playing. I've had several cups of coffee, I've got a view of the sea, I found a space to write something, and the world is full of possibility. Today I'll hike around a lake, I'll walk around a beach, I'll read a book, I'll have long chats with one of my dearest friends. In the back of my mind, I'll still be thinking about how I want to shape my life, who I want to be, what I can do to be my best self. But right now, what I want most is to remember how lucky I am, to slow down, to ponder with lasting amazement that...

I did it. I created a new life for myself. I changed my path, and, as Frost reminds us, "that has made all the difference."

And now it is time to slow down. Island time!