A story about dying is always a familiar story, right? The ultimate change challenge? “They are dying!” I said, like this was a surprise or needed pointing out. The daffodils, poster girls for Spring, now looked like used latex gloves* on stubbornly green stems. My mother gave us the bunch early in self-isolation, soon after New York City had gone into lockdown. She cut them from the ruthless crop in her yard, as she did every spring when they briefly appeared. When my husband dropped off ice cream and Lysol spray (pandemic essentials), she sent them home for us--my husband, our 22 month old and our 4 year old-- to bring the outside in. The daffodils made me cry because they work. They are the symbol of arrival and transience, and they live and die boldly and quickly. They were also, very simply, from my mother. At that moment, my belly was ribboned with anxiety that she and my father, too, were facing imminent COVID transience. I imagined what so many are experiencing: final separation from us in an overwhelmed and handicapped hospital system. The fear for my parents, the longing to cling, flared up: is it ridiculous cling to summer’s bounty when autumn has already dusted the trees of their leaves? For how long can you save that last blueberry before it shrivels? But despite my contrafactual wish otherwise, die the daffodils did. I did not want to look at a dying thing on my table but I equally did not want to throw them out. Problem. Turn it into Art & Make Your Meaning So I dried them. I turned them upside down, bound their stems with a rubber band, and hung them from a random nail on the wall with a garbage twisty-tie. Their vibrant yellow faded, their vibrant green went dormant inside an unremarkable brown. But they did not rot, and they became something else beautiful. Something I could keep. I know, snooze, a story about daffodils drying. But stay with me here. Days later, my Continue Reading …
stress reduction
Let’s Not be Hypocrites about Learning Process vs Outcome
Decision Day marks the end point of the college application process, when high school seniors let colleges know where they are heading. It's not uncomplicated, though. This moment is the outcome and fruit of so much striving, and an event on which we've pinned a heck of a lot of hope. "Miss, I just want to hide in a corner," one student told me. And he was happy, proud, about where he was admitted. A flurry of articles are published around now about how to help seniors get anything out of the remainder of the school year. One NYT's article focused on where we lose sight of the learning process along the way and how to help seniors reinvest in themselves. Or maybe reinvent themselves, and how they think about themselves. Yes, We Could ALL Value Process More In theory, I totally agree. One of the major issues we face in education is that the learning process is not necessarily valued for itself, but only for where it might lead. That's capitalism right there, friends. But beyond that, from pre-K applications all the way to college applications, we're always telling our students to keep their eyes on the horizon- what's NEXT? Where -or what--will this get you? But how about: where am I right now? What's of value right now? What if there is more than the future that we're totally missing out on? Take, for example, my students. My middle school students at The TEAK Fellowship are some of the brightest in their public school classes. They have joined a fellowship that invests in them as future leaders, armed with the "best education money can buy." (And their financial aid packages subsidize the cost). But there is a(nother) cost: these students have, for themselves and their families, been trained to think far into the future. Everything they do is for something that comes later, hopefully. But what if you get hit by a bus? The value of "later" evaporates. Do we understand what "rewarding" really feels like? So why is it so Continue Reading …
Is your heart smarter than your head?
I heart not Stressing Most of us are stressed, and it gets old; our heart sags. (Waiting for your college letters much? That can wreck you-- so don't be wreck-bait.) But somehow you still get cool points for being the most stressed. Even though, somewhere deep inside, you know it ain't right. If you really want to stress yourself out, don’t let me stop you. You're still on the Cortisol Cruise. Go do something more stressful, like trying to keep my toddler from licking all the magnets he fished out from under the fridge. But if you're not so sure you want to feel stressed out all the time, and maybe the hamster wheel is giving you vertigo, read on. The key might be connecting with your own intelligent heart. Heart "Facts" I recently heard (in a long scientific-esque lecture on Le Youtube) that the heart shares a majority of its neurotransmitters with the brain--something like 60%. I don't believe everything I hear. And like most things biological, the picture is probably more complex than that fact alone signals. However, I like this one. In this age of loose facts, when the president decides not only who can vote and who can't, but also whether truth has any business in the executive branch-- I'll cherry-pick my facts. I'll critical think later. I invite you to do the same, just for the duration of this blog post. Because your heart, or so this doctor says... ...perceives 5 seconds faster than da' Brain. (Perceives what? Perceives how? Not sure, but I like where this is heading.). It knows some things first. I've felt this happen. Have you? So why not get in synch with your smarter organ? A heart coherence meditation Here’s a meditation geared for teens, for those moments when you are stressed and just want to come back home. My students love it. (Your parents can and should do it too-- here's a meditation for them.) The meditations take just a few minutes. Call a family meeting to try it out. Or do it by yourself in Continue Reading …
Stay Present
"Stay present!" And other grating advice... "Stay Present!" has become an instruction as common as "drink your water." Such common things are sooooo easy to ignore. It's valuable to take another real look. The most common things of all (like the Common App? like Air? Like, dare I say it, subtle kindness and subtle cruelties) are often incredibly important, but they don't catch your attention automatically. Unlike, say, that absolutely aware Meerkat, pictured above. (The Meerkat is eye-candy for your odd-animal spot. If you have one.) Reader, you may not even be 17 years-old yet, hoping your college essay will magically start (or finish) itself. Or maybe you're a parent of a kid applying to college. You've surely heard people say "stay present" or its cousin instruction, "be in the moment." Maybe you don't want to hear any more generic advice. To stay present is a virtue (in some circles), and it's not easy. But it will enrich everything. No, really. My Present is Your Present (and I'm bad at writing subheadings, so bear with me!) While I write (and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite) this one blog post, and attempt to do what I am writing about, I can hear my husband, stepsons, and 15 month-old in the boys' bedroom, jamming out to Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay."-- "wastin' time" (Listen to Otis, he's so smooth. In a moment of total affection for his songs, I once told a student he was my dad. The student replied, "That's so cool!" Hmmmm.). When your aim is to "stay present", Otis croons, sometimes you have to just sit there. In our case: Sit with your self. Sit with your essay. Dig into the wildly mundane, wildly telling moment of... right now. Even if your "right now" feels pretty lame, pretty empty, pretty challenged. You get to cut right through that stuff. To the essence. The essence is NOT lame, is NOT challenged. The essence is something about yourself-- about all of us-- my present, your present, The Present-- Continue Reading …