Here’s a thing you may not know about me and this blog. Every time I schedule a blog blast email to send, I forward along that email to my parents all the way away in Indiana accompanied with “here’s some stuff we’ve been up to” or “I talk about you in the third blog!” I do it to stay connected. I do it so they can get a glimpse of my world. I do it because I’m so proud of this place I work at and the people that make it great.
But if I’m going to be really honest (life is too short not to write the truth) there’s a decent sized portion of me that sends that email in eager anticipation for a reply of affirmation. Because, while sometimes I’ll hear little notes or receive emails from faculty in response to a blog or podcast or teaching tips, often I send out a big old chunk of stuff and there is radio silence. I’m a words of affirmation kind of human, and I know I can always bank on a response from my biggest fans . . . my mom and dad. (Sure, I am an almost-42-year-old momma of three. But I’m still ISO of my parents’ thumb’s up!! Aren’t we all?)
Last December, our blog blast solicited this note from my wise mom, in response to “Merry, Merry” and “School Identity as Figured World”:
Hi Again!
I just read Merry Merry (liberating, honest reflection) and the essay about identity. It reminded me of a committee I was on for awhile (and HATED) at Memorial, where we tried, and failed, to fashion a new mission statement. On a personal level, it confirmed the truth of the scripture, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” (Did you remember that “essay” means “an attempt”?)
Have a good night, my love! Your Mommy
This blog is about that little parenthetical-mic-drop-of-a-statement at the end of her email. I didn’t remember (or perhaps ever know?) that essay means “an attempt.” (I’m guessing many of you did, and I’m certain the witty Marty Kelly knew that when she proposed the new title of our blog, “Our esSAy.”)
Sometimes people don’t feel comfortable writing a blog because they feel like they don’t have deep amazing expertise to offer. Some don’t feel like their writing is quite good enough. And I’m pretty sure all of us are laden with uncertainty and insecurity in at least some arena in our lives because, well, this is the fate of the human psyche.
But thinking about these blogs, that lesson plan, this decision, that meeting agenda, those conversations with students or colleagues, that PD Day, etc. as an “attempt,” well that’s not only liberating . . . that’s just a whole lot more accurate. We care a whole lot about doing our work at this place. Sometimes we care so much it hurts. But all that I can guarantee about anything I put out into this world is that it is my best attempt at that moment with the information and energy I have at my disposal. It is a curse. It is a gift.
If I look at all of these things as attempts, I think I might hold life a bit more loosely, be a bit more willing to listen to feedback, and be able to change things the next time for the better.
Can I be honest again?
The first year I worked at St. Andrew’s back in 2019, I thought it was gonna be a one-year-gig. Before I knew how thrilling and interesting and hard and consuming this work would be, my plan was to “play” at being an administrator for a year while I went on the professor job market. We weren’t really tied to Mississippi after all. My plan was to be an academic. I was a decent professor. That was the plan. It was still the plan.
I lived that year so loosely. I had spent the five years preceding working at breakneck speed to do all the right professor things: publish, research, teach well, build relationships. Well, where did that get me? (It turned out, no matter how well I did things on my end, I ultimately have no control over things like whether a small liberal arts college would have to cut several academic departments because of low enrollment.) I would look at this unexpected “gap year” as a break! I would try things! I would stop taking myself so seriously.
It was the most creatively generative year of my life.
Remember all that i2 stuff? I know a lot of it wasn’t loved, but I threw a lot of my energy into brainstorming with Shea and Megan, tracking all of the good things happening in classrooms, beginning the blog, imagining the podcast into existence, creating demo opportunities for faculty, researching aspects of teaching/learning going on throughout the school. I’m not saying I did a perfect job at any of it, but I sure did attempt a lot. One of i2’s catchphrases that Jeremy liked (remember Jeremy?) was “Failure IS an option!” Well I kind of lived it that year. It was liberating.
Can I be honest again? Now that I can see myself staying in it for the long haul, I sometimes forget to hold things loosely. In fact, I’ve been known to grasp on things so hard my fingers go numb. One such 2 a.m a few weeks ago, I was obsessing over lists upon lists that I was behind on at work. I was thinking about a meeting that felt like it had gone the wrong direction. I was, per usual, berating myself for all the things I could have and should have done better. I then turned my mind to other stressful things, worries about my kids for example. I know one should pray in these situations, or at least read a good book to calm down, but I instead started scrolling through social media. Miraculously, someone had posted this excerpt from Huxley’s Island in the precise moment I needed it:
It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly.
Learn to do everything lightly.
Yes feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply.
Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.
I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig.
Lightly-lightly- it’s the best advice ever given me.
When it comes to dying even. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic.
No rhetoric, no tremolos,
No self conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Little Nell.
And of course, no theology, no metaphysics.
Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light.
So throw away your baggage and go forward.
There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet,
Trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair,
That’s why you must walk so lightly.
Lightly my darling,
on tiptoes and no luggage,
Not even a sponge bag,
Completely unencumbered.
-Adous Huxley, Excerpted from Island
Silly me.
“Lightly, my darling/On tiptoes and no luggage”
I had forgotten that “essay” means “attempt,” and, as a result, had taken myself far too daggone seriously.
“. . . . Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light.”
I shut off my device, walked upstairs to my bedroom, and promptly fell asleep.