Dissection of an Embrace

     I try to live an examined life. I pick apart and analyze. I admit my faults and my biases. Sometimes, they're all I can see. I question definitions and consider connotations. I see my blame in every conflict, see the other side of even my most deeply held opinions. I think of myself as rational and reasonable.
     Obviously, this has its drawbacks. I can be too honest, too "on the nose." I assume others have considered all the implications and sometimes get frustrated when we're slowed down by misunderstandings. But really, I can solve for that. In the course of examining my place in the world, I can adjust for the fact - FACT - that I'm spinning away in my head, anxieties miles ahead of everyone else in the room. I'm a chess master of worry - seven moves ahead.
     But there's one thing I can't seem to sort out.
     Hugging.
     See, here's the thing. I want to hug you. Bro hug, backslap hug, handshake to backslap hug, one arm around shoulders from-the-side hug, full frontal bear hug, bear hug with excited lift hug, slow eye-contact hug, hug with close-up conversation followed by more hug hug: I am prepared for all of these eventualities. I will be glad to produce a comprehensive guide to these and more hugs at a later date.
     The problem is this - if there are different types of hugs, then there is the right hug for the right person and situation. And yet, the correct hug protocol hinges on so many factors, I find it nearly impossible to predict exactly which sort of hug I should give you.
     I take as a mantra that words have distinct meanings. I don't say enormous when I mean huge. So, I think, do hugs. But oh the tenuous moment pre-hug when it's clear we're going to hug, and I'm not sure how many hands to commit. I can't even imagine what my face looks like.
     And this is the problem with the examined life. I'd love to just relax and hug it out, but hugs have meaning. Willy-nilly hug barrages seem ill-advised and dangerous. I'd rather be a hug sniper than use an affection gatling gun.
     I'm going to give you the right hug, but I doubt that you're going to notice.  

Me, as a Leader

Me, as a leader

                I’ve been hearing lots of different models of leadership lately. In college, William Jewell seemed flooded with “servant leaders,” leading humbly and without the kind of drill-sergeant persona many associated with leadership. It was gentle and caring.

                I’ve also heard people talk about “leading from behind” as a way of deconstructing that posture of leadership that seems to suffer when it glorifies the leader. As a teacher, that plucked a string loudly at the core of my being. My worst days of teaching were those that I walked away from the classroom feeling as though I’d only been focused on myself – the days I’d felt the most on stage. “Leading from behind” sounded like what I needed to do – get off stage and let the learners do the leading.

                Recently, though, I heard a soldier describe his commanding officers in Iraq. I could hear the disdain in his voice, the bile it raised in his throat, when he described one of his commanders as “leading from the back”. It struck me hard. How could I make the assertion that I was leading if I wasn’t willing to charge the front lines with my students? Keeping myself out of the fray seemed noble on paper, but when my students were in the midst of the intellectual battles I drew up for them, was sidelining myself unfair? How could I charge directly into the maw and put myself at risk as well?

                I think of teaching as leading. I think of it that way because I teach at the consent of the students. There are too many of them and they’re too big for me to force to do anything. They take a risk in deciding to learn from me, and I have realized in recent years that that means I have to risk something too.

                In terms of building leadership, I am at the absolute beginning of that experience. We are in our infancy as a district encouraging teacher leadership, so my opinions are inexpert at best.

                I know what my worries are, though. I worry that I’m waiting to be tapped. I sit in meetings and trainings and sessions and think to myself that I have the ability to facilitate, to engage participants, to challenge respectfully, and to partner with teachers as they think, but I’m not sure how to become that person. I have no psychological or emotional explanation for the egoless-ness I find myself having. It’s not that I don’t believe in myself; it’s that the moment I begin to push myself into a spotlight, I am completely filled with guilt. Who am I to push myself out there? Why should anyone listen to me?

                At the same time, when faced with opportunities and chances I perceive something in the way I present myself to the world that sabotages me. Am I too funny? Too critical? Too self-deprecating? Too fat?

                I’m beginning to believe that the people who have blown by me on their way to positions of “power” didn’t do so because of their merit. I think they grabbed the idea that they are leaders by the throat and created that reality.

                Now the question is whether or not I’m a throat grabber.

Me, as a Learner

                I remember sitting in the station wagon in the garage returning home from somewhere. I was in middle school, and my high school sister’s Algebra book was in my lap, open. She was in the front seat. I was reading it.

                “What are you doing?” she asked.

                “What is this?” I asked, “Is this math?”

                “Yeah,” Jami replied, “in high school it gets harder. You start using letters in with the numbers.”

                She didn’t say it like it was scary or anything. She was nonchalant, matter-of-fact. I walked into the house in a daze. What was it about letters that I didn’t know? Why was this being hidden from me?

                I remember this as the first time I grappled with an idea. There was a physical feeling in my head as I stretched and strained my brain to try and find the meaning of this cryptic message – “You start using letters in with the numbers.”

                I heard a blind man on the radio describe the feeling of being lost, alone in a hotel room. He described “groping” the walls try to understand and conceptualize the layout of the room. Though I’m not blind, I related to that in the way that I felt as I wrestled with big ideas. I groped and fondled and grasped but lacked the ability to conceptualize the entire picture.

                I’ve always loved this feeling. I read books and authors about subjects I have no expertise in; I ponder philosophical mysteries I haven’t done the coursework for. Not because I can understand the answer but for the lovely feeling in my head that comes from knowing that there’s something too big for me to grasp.

                I think that what I’m fascinated by is the feeling of possibility when I ponder a topic I can’t grasp. When I read Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe about the nature of string theory, I walked away with a flawed and rudimentary idea of string theory. I couldn’t teach a class in it. I don’t understand the equations involved. Yet I find myself searching for that feeling all the time. I want to hear and read people who know more about a topic than I’d ever considered. It proves to me how much is out there, how little I know. It also reinforces to me the vastness of the human capacity to understand.

                I have a former player and student who went on to Lindenwood University on a bowling scholarship. When Brad was a junior in high school, I pulled him aside for “the talk”. If he was interested in going to college to play soccer, I needed to know where he wanted to go so I could start the recruiting process. That’s when he broke the news that he wasn’t going to play soccer. He wanted to focus on bowling. From there on out, I quizzed him every day about bowling. Why is it scored so weird? Why are there so many different balls? I learned about oil patterns and lane strategies.

                I got the same feeling in my brain listening to Brad conduct a master class on bowling that I got from reading about string theory.  

Me, as a Writer

                I write because it’s easy. The pushing I have to do to make it past the stuck word is like scratching an itch or stretching my legs after a long car ride. There’s relief after it arrives, and I don’t worry at all if it will come. It will come. It always does.

                I don’t value my writing because of that. I don’t sweat over it and fight it. I simply let it out and there it is.

                The only real criticism that I’ve ever received was my junior year of high school. I’d just come from another session of a creative writing class in which I’d been commended and treated as an expert. I was the creative writing student of the year for two years running and saw no particular challenge for a three-peat. I sauntered into my journalism class and our laissez-faire instructor, Mr. C. His hands off approach meant that I had no actual idea of what he was like as a teacher. He’d look over our shoulders every once in a while, but the editors ran the class. I was an editor.

                I had a poem in my hand when I walked through the door – one that the creative writing teaching had oo’d and ah’d over just moments before. She’d clucked about this literary magazine and that one and publication and imagery, and Mr. C could smell the smugness when I walked through the door.

                “What’ve you got there, Jeff?” he asked.

                “Latest poem,” I answered.

                “Lemme see…” I handed him the poem.

                It was about winter. Something about snow and frozenness, I’m sure. It probably included the word “crystalline”. I watched his face as he read it, and my concern started to grow when it didn’t begin to glow with wonder. His eyes didn’t widen and refocus as he read something that – boom – demanded to be read closely. That was life-changing.

                “It’s pretty,” he said.

                “Thanks,” I reached to take it back.

                “But what does it mean?” he didn’t move to give it to me.

                I stopped short hand in my grasp. Mean? “What? It’s…winter, you know…cold…nothing…” I trailed off both offended and worried. I felt naked. He’d uncovered my fear all along. Yes, I can put these words together, make it sound like meaning and sense, but what did it mean?

                He put the poem back in my hand and turned to go sit back at his desk. I wasn’t angry at him. If anything, he’d pulled back a curtain I’d known was there all along.

                I remember watching a home improvement show much later, after I was married, and seeing a designer hang curtains in a room with no windows. He’d walked in and said, “This room needs a window.” And instead of the major construction of putting a hole in the wall, he simply hung curtains where one should go. I remember thinking, ‘Geez, at least paint a window behind it. Maybe an African savannah or something.’ But I think my writing in high school was like that window. Decorations of nothing. I stopped writing for anything but assignments.

                But I can feel myself wanting to write – I’ve been feeling it for the past few years – and I feel the worry now of pulling back those curtains. Twenty years later, I realize that I have to write to find out if I have any meaning, if there will be a landscape behind those curtains or if I’ll pull them back to find a blank wall staring back at me. 

The Seeming Profundity of Moments in Slow Motion

     White everywhere. The hill I trudged up each day from the bus wasn't steep. It wasn't the kind of hill that required extra exertion on my bike. Nor was it the kind of hill you'd consider sledding unless you were anti-joy. But on this day, it felt like a hill.
     We hadn't had a snow day, but it was snowy. And icy. I was stomping from the bus to home through the snow, and as I made it halfway up our hill, I could see my dad standing on the back deck talking on the cordless phone with the long antennae. He was probably explaining to my mom why he hadn't driven the two blocks to pick me up because, see, there he is, he's fine.
     Then, I slipped.
     I didn't go down hard; it was slow, deliberate slip. Pretty comical, except for the car that lumbered around the corner. Going maybe 7 miles an hour but completely unable to stop. My dad is fifty yards away with foot deep snow between us, and the car is bearing down.
     Spoiler alert: I'm still alive.
     Strangely, it was all in slow motion. I don't mean that I could see each snow flake as it fell, registered the look on the driver's face, and my dad's voice came to me through some sort of low register voice bender machine. What I mean is that the car and I had the same problem. I was down, covered in mittens, snow boots, bulky coat, and snow pants, and panicking. My backpack was sprawled a foot away from me, and I was flailing and flopping slowly, weighed down by scarf and hat and gloves. I couldn't get any purchase.
     The car didn't have it any better. It just kept creeping, front tires turning back and forth to no effect. I remember thinking, 'This would be a stupid way to do die.' And then I imagined that the car would probably just bump into me and stop, like those concrete blocks at the end of parking spaces. I'll just be a curb.
     But those thoughts were happening somewhere else while the rest of me wriggled and walrused away to the easier traction of the snow on the side of the road.
     It was not a close call. As a matter of fact, as the car rolled past, I felt shame for panicking so hard. I didn't look at the driver. Shaken, I clomped across the backyards between me and my father and up the stairs of our deck. When I walked in the house, my dad and I had an awkward laugh at my not-that-near-death experience, and I went to play Nintendo Golf. I didn't even think to recount the story to my mom later.
     It's a strangely sobering moment to reconsider. As a parent, I can't imagine the horror my dad must have felt being unable to do anything than watch as I seemed to poise to have the most ridiculous and hilarious accidental death possible for a pre-teen. What a conflict.
      Glad we dodged that incredibly slow bullet.

Nutjob Wordsmithing

     I'm thinking about Ragnarok. John Hodgman used this term all last year as we blithely headed toward the end of the world as prophesied by the Mayans. It's a fun malapropism given that Ragnarok is more about the Norse end of the world as it descends into chaos and nothingness, while the Mayans seemed to be predicting a big reset button. I should mention that my knowledge base of Norse mythology comes entirely from Marvel comics storylines involving Thor and that of the Mayans comes from my perusal of crazy people's Facebook posts. In other words, solid as a rock.
     But it seems like purveyors of this kind of philosophy all share something, and I don't mean that behind-the-eyes craziness that makes you let them go ahead of you in the line at the hardware store. These doom salesmen and women are all great muddlers of language. And why wouldn't they be? Language is the prism through which we try and translate the raw data that enters our brains (massive pile of metal hurtling along this flat strip making loud noise) into sense that makes the world coherent (don't cross the street yet). So I imagine that it's not hard to get caught up when a person is able to use language to sound like coherent sense when it's just nutty nonsense.
     Here's what I mean, and I'm just making this up:
     When you're looking for Truth, why do you trust your eyes? Your eyes can lie; they've lied to you before. You have to trust the immutable strings the universe has tied to the very fiber of your awareness. It's not mathematical or empirical in any way. When you leave the trappings of the old ways behind, you find that the answers have been dwelling in the corners of your subconscious all along, lonely, waiting for you to find them. They glow with a reality your soul recognizes because it is made of the same fabric. 
     Look, I know I'm not very good at that sort of thing, so I'm not expecting anyone to join my commune based in the deep worship of chocolate chip cookies, but I think I did a pretty good job of sounding like I said something. I didn't. Go ahead, read it again. Nope, nothing. I told you to "listen to the universe". How about that for saying nothing? Who couldn't find a way to agree with that sentiment? It's not that it's a bad idea, but it's the kind of "truth" that isn't owned by anyone. It allows the person reading or listening to make it into whatever they need it to be. When I wordsmith it like that, it sounds like I know something that you don't. If I was better at that, maybe I'd have a following.
     And the new wave conspiracy theorists are a bonanza for this sort of magical thinking. There's a certain kind of vocabulary that lends credibility to even the most insane of assertions. It's alluring and frightening. The prophet is selling hope and Truth, and the conspiracy theorist is selling fear and Truth. And some people seemed hard-wired to ignore the emptiness of the message.
     Beware the prophet with a thesaurus.

Intro

  

There are things I do that surprise people. Their surprise is often a surprise to me. I do most if not all of the cooking in my house.  I don’t mean that I microwave some frozen garbage because (oh, poor us) we just don’t have enough time to cook. I make real, actual food that involves cooking. Vegetables even. Because I’m the cook, I do the grocery shopping. It just makes sense.

                When I mention these facts in casual conversation to people who have known me for years, there’s a generally googley-eyed, semi-insulting response as though I’ve casually mentioned that I feed my pet octopus kitten hearts. It makes me wonder who I am. Who am I that it’s impossible to believe that I sit down every night of the week with my wife of 13 years and 5 year old daughter to a healthy , wholesome meal that I prepared for them while they played mermaids?  Why is that so hard to believe? I was a frat boy. I am…ahem…husky. I have facial hair. I wear glasses. I’ve never understood what it is about what I am or was that makes me so confusing.

                I’m a truth addict. My dad and I still can’t find anything to talk about that isn’t a debate. I know this makes me unpleasant to be around sometimes. My wife and my mother leave the room when my dad and I get going. I’m unafraid of asking questions and challenging assumptions. In  a college class or a professional discussion, that may be valuable, but when we’re discussing whether or not you should like Game of Thrones, I can’t turn off the part of my brain that controls vociferous debate. I can’t resist trying to figure out why and how we build our values – even how we value different Asian cuisines.

                This brings me to my favorite chore. I love to iron. Obviously, I’m not going to debate which chores should be your favorite. I know what I want. I think it’s what I always want. I want the truth. The iron helps me find the truth of that shirt. The heat, the pressure eliminate the confusion. The steam carries away the veneer and reveals the truth. It’s not pleasant for the shirt, but in the end, it is what it’s always been.  Maybe I’m always ironing the people around me, trying to uncover their truth. Or maybe I’m trying to make them into what I think they ought to be. Not sure.

                I like to think that that’s what teaching is. I’m steaming and pressing the wrinkles doubt, assumption, and inconsistency to reveal the humanity beneath.