Sarah, Plain and Tall

9:38 PM. A day of traveling tired. We tuck in our little one as we pull blankets and pillows from suitcases. “Where’s Kiki?” I ask of the cherished stuffed bear that’s slept with our little guy every night since infancy. More shuffling of bags ensues and tinges of worry creep in.

Rewind. 9:38 AM. Quickly dodging beach traffic as we leave our vacation. We turn down side streets hoping to miss the stand still that’s inevitable on Saturday mornings. IT HITS! Vomit projects from the car seat next to me, all over an iPad and a Tetris-like arrangement of luggage. We pull over. A flurry of wiping down little arms, legs, iPad, suitcases pulled out and scrubbed off before we hit the road again.

Fast forward. 10:38 PM. The little guy is sound asleep. We never told him his precious Kiki is missing, glossing over it at bedtime. Our searching begins. The car double-checked, bags torn open, and the gas station we stopped at called and searched.

I think about praying, what I used to do when something precious went missing. What I did before I began to wonder about God and his control. When I believed He could control everything.

So I take a moment and acknowledge that I used to pray, that I would’ve asked God to help us find our lost bear. I think about what would happen if we never found the bear, how painful it would be if I prayed and it never showed up.

My thoughts rush to people who have prayed for a loved one to be healed, for a job to be gained, for the abuse to stop, only to continue in their suffering, grief, and heartache.

How thankful I am that God’s love for me is no longer wrapped up in his control? How lonely I would feel if an all controlling god who could change my painful circumstances chose not to?

So instead of praying, I think abour God in that moment. What if “all powerful” might not mean “all-controlling” but instead might mean “all-loving?”

As a last ditch effort to find Kiki, I send off a hope in the form of a Facebook post.

11:38 PM. The bear has been found. Because of the Facebook post. Because of the very loving nature of people. Because of some very skillful searching.

In this seemingly insignificant sadness, I’m thankful that I don’t have to imagine a loving God who chooses not to reunite my son with his bear but instead loves us so fiercely and might not be able to.

Where were you the week before the world shut down?

I was out at my birthday dinner with my oldest friend nonchalantly asking “What do you think of this pandemic thing?” It was the last time I ate inside a restaurant for months.

Where were you the week before the world shutdown?

I was celebrating a surprise “party” (for me!) planned and thrown together by my class of 7 and 8 years olds a mere three days before I never saw them together again except over a screen.

Where were you the week before the world shutdown?

I was going to the grocery store to get a few items “just in case,” worried that my husband would think I was acting paranoid. He said, “I think this might actually be a big deal” to my relief.

Where were you the week before the world shutdown?

I was guiding students and families through an open house as news of closures pinged over my phone. No church Sunday, local college closed for an extended spring break, NBA shutdown.

Where were you the week before the world shutdown?

I was hugging my students one last time as I sent them out in a frenzy, full backpacks and calls of “see you in a few weeks” but worry in my heart that it would be the last.

This week feels especially heavy to me. It’s how I imagine pangs of grief feel as you near the one year mark. I think of those early days of the shutdown and remember how truly uncertain and scary it felt and honestly still feels.

I wonder about when I will get to go somewhere unmasked. When I can say yes to a play date for my son (and honestly for myself) without considering where I’ve been, who I’ve seen and how I might be spreading an infectious disease. When I can enter my classroom and give hugs to my students and spend more than 15 minutes in close proximity. I wonder what life will continue to be like because it will never be the same.

Where were you when the world shut down?

I was taking endless walks to the township building with a toddler who was obsessed with the trucks there. I was watching Cornell bird cams and wondering what school would look like for the spring. I was going on drives just to get out of the house and ordering take out on Thursdays. I was learning how to schedule our family’s days working full time and watching a 2 year old on a strict schedule. I was doing random house projects and learning how to vertically fold my clothes. I was picking up groceries and worrying about where I would get toilet paper. I was cuddling my husband in the dark whispering about how scary life was as we hunkered down in our home for endless days.

Where are you now?

I am still here, 365 days later. I’m preparing to go back to an *almost* full face to face model of school. I’m awaiting an email about getting the vaccine.

I am still here, the weight of this year pressing heavy on my heart. I am still here, astounded by all the unexpected I had to face and the flexibility I had to muster. I am still here, a tear rolls down my cheek as I think about how unsuspecting I was, how unsuspecting we all were. I am still here, I feel stronger, more thankful and more myself than ever before. I am still here, in this weird week before, in the disorienting space of this year that has passed. I am still here and I wonder about how to integrate who I’ve become with who I used to be, what this world has become with all that it used to be.

It’s 11:39 pm on April 9th, 2020. I have been in quarantine for 27 days. We are down to our last 2 rolls of *regular* toilet paper (you’ll see why I say regular in a minute). Yesterday Cody found a bonus roll digging through his camping stuff in the garage and it was like striking gold. We took that shabby, squished and flattened tube and gave it a place of honor in our extra basket behind the seat. Cody’s order of novelty toilet paper also arrived. It’s the only we could find in stock…think tp with soduku and “I hate the Pittsburgh Steelers” on it (which I will NOT use so as not to bring shame to my paternal ancestors residing in the Steel City). Cody insisted we spend the $37 dollars because, “it’s about to be your time of the month and we can not have no tp in the house.” We also can’t find plain old chicken breasts anywhere. I have been hunting it down spear in hand for weeks to no avail.

Today was a heavy day. It rests on my tired bones like molasses, sticky and thick. Even the weather today mirrors my inner landscape, torrential downpours and heavy gusts, interspersed with glimmers of springtime sunshine, chaos and beauty swirling together in random bursts. Around 11 am I learned that PA schools would be closed for the remainder of the school year, just before I was about to jump on a Zoom call with fellow educators to help them learn some technology tricks and tips. Teachers were in tears, videos paused and muted as they processed the news. Adrenaline kept me coursing through the day as I met with more colleagues and tried to push out information about remote learning starting Monday. How to say so much succinctly to parents who didn’t sign up for this gig while juggling work or sudden unemployment.

Now as I lay here exhausted but wide awake, my own tears flow. I think of my students, those school lovers whose disappointment is audible in their cries. My students who process this crisis through their child like lens. Students whose security or sense of stability is in question. I think about chairs that won’t be filled again by those same 22 kiddos and an empty classroom filled with our things just as we left them. A lonely room that misses us and aches for our return. I remember March 13th and rushed goodbyes and uncertain hugs. I think of my own little guy, how we drove familiar roads today near his daycare teacher’s home and he declared “we can’t go to Miss Kasie’s house…Miss Kasie’s house is closed.” Then past the library, “we can’t go to the library.” Even at two, he knows, he senses something amiss. I lay here awake on the knife edge as one day turns to a another and let myself feel this day before it passes…

If anything this pandemic and social distancing has given me time to enjoy the simple things. By nature I am pretty easy to please under regular circumstances (my usual birthdays gifts can include children’s books and markers as an indicator) but this time has made enjoying simple things even more crucial. Yesterday, we spent part of our afternoon observing the ants scurrying across our kitchen floor and at the moment I have the Cornell Bird Lab live feeder streaming into our living room.

But even for someone who is naturally predisposed to the simple joys of bird cams and ants, “social distancing” has not been easy. This moment in history is not easy. Yesterday morning my gloomy, meh state gave way to anxiety cleaning all of the sock drawers in my house (though anxiety cleaning is something I do on a regular basis, because slowing down is HARD for me). It also meant extra technology time and a lunch of cookies for my little, just to be granted a bit of extra time to wallow in my bleh feelings.

These feelings also got me thinking about my twenty-two seven and eight year olds that I am missing each day as we are unable to meet in the safe and sacred space of our classroom. It got me thinking about all of the mixed emotions they might be feeling in these uncertain days. I thought about how at times they might be super excited for extra time to play with toys or video games. Or that at other times they might feel sad not to be seeing familiar friends and teachers or going to favorite places. I thought about how they might be feeling excited, worried, thankful, lonely, out of sorts, energized or lazy. Probably our children are feeling all of these things all wrapped into one, just as we are as adults through this unexpected time. In order to help them with these mix of feelings I wrote them the following letter:

To be quite honest, I wrote the letter to my students, yes, but I also wrote it to the little girl within myself, who needed to hear these words yesterday morning and honestly needs to hear these words many mornings in these quarantine days (and quite truly most regular days as well).

I hope these words help a little person (or maybe a big person) in your life today. Or maybe just maybe they help you as well.

Yours,

Sarah

P.S. One of Broden’s daily activities throughout this time is pushing vehicles around his car rug. He calls the traffic lights “stop-it lights” and I’m secretly hoping he calls it that for the REST of his life!

Every November, I dig out an old, homemade “thankfulness” journal I created in the fall of 2006, the year I transitioned from my cozy middle school in our small town to a large regional high school.  Tremendous anxiety overwhelmed me as I dealt with the busyness of classes and playing a high school sport. When November came, I started recording simple things I was grateful for, one every day leading up to Thanksgiving. This simple act did NOT fully rescue me from my anxiety, but it DID provide a glimmer of hope in the darkness.

A few days ago, as I transitioned out some of the spooky Halloween decor in exchange for turkeys, I pulled out my old journal. Cut out of a cereal box, covered in orange paper and decorated with a googly-eyed turkey, it holds 13 years worth of November gratitude. As I opened it, a hand-turkey with a bandaid spilled out (reminiscent of my “broken and beautiful” days), along with a letter of thanksgiving from a little girl I used to babysit who became the flower girl in my wedding.

Recording thankfulness each November guided me through many seasons. The daily practice sent reminders of hope while navigating high school and college, dating my first boyfriend, adjusting to my first teaching job, walking through the first year of marriage and what seemed like endlessly long days as I anticipated the arrival of my first child (10 days late! He turns two next week!).

This is my 14th year recording gratitude and once again I find myself in need of these little sprinkles of hope as I finish a challenging season of graduate school, along with being a teacher, a wife and a mom.

November 1 My cheeks hurting from smiling through our class Halloween Party planned by creative room parents.

November 2 Laughing on long car rides with my mom, as we joke about the massage our husbands are getting from the front seat of the fancy car while we cram in the middle row with a car seat.

November 3 A morning spent at Young’s dairy farm in Ohio, watching Broden sit on a tractor next to the daughter of a life-long family friend.

November 4 Warm socks that keep toes toasty and comfortable all day long.

November 5 An unexpected hour by myself at a coffee shop in Hershey to sip chai and write (this post!).

More to come…

On Thanksgiving morning, while the parade plays in the background, I will whip out my makeshift journal and transfer all of my little thanksgivings from the month that I have kept recorded on my phone to its pages, a tradition of 14 years that I will continue for a lifetime.

Preparations for the new school year are beginning all across the country. Back to school sales have popped up in stores and this last weekend was one of the biggest shopping weekends of the year. I have already taken advantage of 50 cent marble notebooks and crayon boxes at Walmart. In my classroom I have begun my own preparations for the new school year; desks have been arranged, name tags laminated and cut, and pencils sharpened.

But preparing for a new school year is so much more then cutting lamination and sharpening pencils. Instead it is a preparation of the heart, making room for the twenty-or-so eager souls about to embark with you on the 180 day journey in the sacred space we call the classroom. This last week, I finished up my summer graduate course and was encouraged to consider my “Philosophy of Learning.”  I dug through old discussion posts and uncovered my old philosophy from undergrad and as I began the work of piecing the old with the new what I truly discovered was the foundation for why I do what I do everyday of the school year. I was so excited by how this process prepared my heart and what I discovered was that my beliefs about learning shape the teacher I want to be and the space I want to create for my students this year.

Philosophy of Learning

By nature, learning is a vulnerable process. It means one must expose what one does not know.  It means one must admit that they do not have all the answers. It necessitates risk and failure so that growth and success are possible. Fundamentally, learning also exists in the context of relationships and connection.  These relationships take many forms: teacher to student, student to student, teacher to content, student to content, teacher to self, and student to self.  Because learning is both vulnerable and relational, creating a community of learners founded on mutual trust and respect is imperative for the educational process to be successful. This community empowers students to become participants in their own learning by becoming “meaning seekers,” “problem solvers” and “active creators of knowledge.” (Bas, 2015, p.113) Students take an active role in their own academic learning through goal setting, reflection, developing intrinsic motivation, practicing higher order thinking processes and creativity.  It is in this context that my students will be able to learn, grow, take risks, fail, learn from failure, and succeed.

In The Heart of a Teacher, Parker Palmer (1997) proclaims that, “good teachers share one trait: a strong sense of personal identity [that] infuses their work” (p.2). Creating a sense of self-hood becomes our most important work as teachers because we teach who we are. In the district which I currently work, teachers are called “lead-learners” and this resonates with my view that all members of a school community are both teacher and learner.  While learning content knowledge is important, what is even more important is the development of students’ thinking abilities, metacognition and their own journey towards developing a sense of self-hood and identity. Influential teachers eagerly continue to take the posture of a learner, welcoming their students into this vulnerable, risky and communal process by demonstrating the life-long learning themselves.

References:

Bas, G. (2015). Correlation between teachers’ philosophy of education beliefs and their teaching-learning conceptions . Education and Science, 40(182), 111-126.Retrieved May 14, 2017, from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer? vid=6&sid=2f51644a-aa68-4db4-9266-f1be979b3d84%40sessionmgr4008&hid=4208

Palmer, P. J. (1997). The heart of a teacher. Change, 29(6), 1-15.

Just one week ago I said good bye to first class at Broad Street Elementary School. The end of a school year is always a celebration of a years worth of memories, learning and community. It is also grieving that those same littles will no longer enter my classroom door again as my second graders, will no longer sit together in a circle for morning meeting, learn lessons on the carpet, gather around the guided reading table or share in laughs, challenges and moments together. It is both bitter and sweet.

Below is the letter I wrote and shared on my last day with my first class at Broad Street:

My dear Meassick Meadow,

You did it! 180 days of second grade spent learning and growing. Think back with me to our very first day of school. For all of us there was a lot of NEW. We all adapted to something new, whether it was a new school, or new friends, a new building or new routines, a new teacher or new classmates. It was even a brand new school and district for me. Starting something new can be very hard and it was challenging for us at first. The people in our classroom felt like strangers and some of you, like me, were walking completely new hallways. Sometimes it felt uncomfortable to be in a new place or to be with new people.

But we did it! Now, 180 days later when I look around our classroom instead of the unfamiliar I see memories. I see you all studying plants and the solar system. I see you learning to tell time and solve three digit subtraction problems. I see us reading delighting stories around our table, you excitedly sharing your connections and predictions. I see you popping out at me during lunch with the teacher. I see our classroom decorated for holiday parties. I see the environmental center, field day, and field trip to Landis Valley. But most importantly I see friends where strangers once sat and I see each one of your very special personalities light up our room. You are all incredibly precious to me as my first class here in Mechanicsburg. Thank you for helping me and allowing me to learn and grow right alongside all of you.

Your teacher,

Mrs. Meassick

(As a note, our school district underwent some changes in which many students were moved to new building. So while I was new to the building so were many of my students.)

I’ve always liked Valentine’s Day. It must have something to do with a simple family tradition started by my parents back when I was a little girl. Each year we would roll out a red gingham table cloth on the floor of our living room and cover it with greasy French fries and Kentucky fried chicken. Our Valentine’s Day indoor picnic. When middle school rolled around, I had friends who hated the it and they would lament that they didn’t have a Valentine date. Still I loved the holiday because of our little tradition.

Today, I cherish it in a new way, decorating my home with little reminders of love and rolling out an indoor picnic blanket for my new little family. Check out the small touches around my home that I’ve used to decorate this Valentine’s Day:

This year our back porch door is decorated with a wreath I made a few years back from a pool noodle, gray yarn and some felt hearts. Last year I added the LOVE banner to kick it up a notch. In the kitchen, the light streaming through the windows of our cozy breakfast nook illuminates the wax paper hearts I made in college. These may be the reason I got fined by Residence Life for damages to my dorm room at the end of the semester (hot irons, crayon wax and carpet don’t mix) but it was worth it.

On the small little table of this space, I am tending a budding new succulent flower, until it finds a more permanent home with Broden’s daycare teacher as her Valentine’s day gift. On either side are two heart shaped candy dishes I always fill with seasonal Sweet-tart hearts (my flavorful pick over the traditional conversation hearts that often taste like a combination of toothpaste and chalk).

This fall, Cody and I made our first big furniture purchase and bought a new kitchen table to replace our temporary tile one. I’m still getting used to the idea of decorating our table seasonally and I’ve enjoyed brainstorming centerpiece ideas. I picked up this white tea pot years ago at a thrift shop and I love filling it with flowers but for the month of February I fill it with some twigs I attached paper hearts to with hot glue. It’s set on one of our leftover wedding centerpieces and draped with some lace (but I’ve ordered a lace table runner from Amazon and I can’t wait for it to get here!)

The mantel is one of my favorite parts of our house to decorate. The letters that spell BE MINE are another item repurposed from our wedding. The backdrop of hearts  the swags in the front are simply made from paper, fishing line (for the backdrop) and twine (for the swags).

Our last little festive area was inspired by a post from a friend. About a week ago she shared about the ways, her and and her husband have avoided baby-proofing by making their home a place where each member of their family can live and thrive without traditional cabinet hooks and drawer locks.  (Read more about it here) I took a cue from her post and made the bottom two shelves of our family room bookshelf a kid-friendly nook for some of Broden’s toys, even using his blocks and some children’s books on love to add to the merriment.