Millions of years in the making just so you can crack 'em with a hammer!

The selling point on these geodes is really appropriate for the times in which we live now, no?

I feel like in addition to geodes, it could be a catch-phrase for: Democracy, Biodiversity, Women's Rights, Compassion, Intellectualism, Acceptance, etc., etc.  Good times.

Pic-a-tures

Today I’m going through pictures in an attempt to make sure I have hard copies of good ones (my belief in the need to do this because of future digital collapse, lack of space, the ultimate failure of technology, etc. remains steadfast!).  This is one life chore that has fallen by the wayside these past few years and obviously a super important one since I’m picking it up FAST. 

This picture is amazing because it was taken when Theo earned a junior refuge ranger badge at the Don Edward’s salt marsh.  It was such a fun day!  We learned how to identify birds, watched a video on the salt marsh mouse, and talked about salt deposits.  I’d like to point out that their sweatshirts are ON POINT.

These kids LOVE Hanukkah.  Lighting candles is their jam, as is opening presents (we do one book/night), and eating cookies (one/night).

Cabbage Patch Kids!

the end, the beginning

There’s not one thing in particular that has made these last two years as a student hard.  No huge thesis or insurmountable reading load (I just don’t do it).  It’s living in the constant state of having so many things hanging over my head that was just purely exhausting.  This year, though I still taught part-time, I was doing practicum hours on my days off.  This amounted to a full time job, full time school, full time family (part-time person).  It was a.lot.  It’s over now—I am fully career changed with no more classes, exciting new job next year, finished 8 years at my old job with lots of positive feelings and good closure, papers signed, all parties notified, etc., etc.  This transition has been so slow and busy that the reality of it feels like just another step forward, nothing more monumental.  I’m on to what I consider to be my third career.  The transition to the first one in science was accidental (ah, the bravado of youth), to the second one in teaching more deliberate (but more shocking and the wrong fit for my personality), and this one feels just right.  I know the system, what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, how to move within it, possible paths of outgrowth.  It’s not going to crush me, like teaching could.  It’s been weird to toggle between educational worlds this year.  One day I’m a teacher (low on the totem pole, can’t pee when I want, many different people evaluating me on a daily basis, lots of expectations) and the next I’m a school psychologist (not even on the totem pole, can pee when I want, everyone leaves me alone and assumes competency).  Quite frankly it’s a huge injustice.  Teaching is by far the most important job in a school, yet the people who do it are not considered to be the most important, and they are stretched too thin.  I wish our system were different, there were more support and pay, and that it were manageable for me, but it just wasn’t. 

I’ve taught for 11 (!) years.  Every winter and summer break, when my mind was calm enough to actually think, I would wonder if it was worth it.  I never did figure it out.  It’s a rewarding job, and the time off was my priority, but those long breaks meant that 9 months out of the year were unrelenting.  I think I’ve found the sweet spot now—time off, but also a more manageable life.  There are these epiphanal moments that I can pinpoint before other big life changes.  I remember the Christmas break when Rachel came to California, and I had to work during her time here because I did not have any leave time—it precipitated my move to teaching.  My move away from teaching began one evening after work in 2015 when I put both children to sleep and then crawled into bed at 7:30 pm, exhausted.  It dawned on me that because I gave all of my emotional and physical energy to other students during the school day, that I wouldn’t have been able to help my own students (children) with homework if I needed to.  My mother’s cancer and the death of Pumpkin (both in the spring of 2011) were what made me want to have children.  Maybe this just makes me sound like a person without real conviction about what I want out of life?  Or maybe it just means that I’m flexible and open to change?  Maybe the latter is the silver lining of the first?  You can’t have one without the other in varying degrees? 

I think my DNA has literally started unwinding through this process.  I’ve almost come undone at many different points, and since I have read only one book by choice over the past two years, my brain feels different.  I don’t think it’s atrophied, but I think that I haven’t been able to reflect upon life and give my experiences meaning in the ways that I used to, when I was careening through life with less molecular motion.  I think this is all to say that I am excited, and relieved.  I’m working in the same district as Natan next year, I have better hours, more autonomy and flexibility, and I’m back in the pension system.  Plus, I have not one, but TWO offices. 

Here’s the thing about my new job---it’s the first time in 17 years (my adult working life) that I haven’t worked within the life/earth science field.  I’m entering a totally different field, yet it combines the fun parts of science (making sense of data), with the soul-nourishing parts of education (working with kids).  But the data analysis doesn’t have to be peer reviewed, and it’s used to analyze how people learn.  The working with kids doesn’t involve managing 32 of them at a time, and it’s an even more interesting look at who they are within the structure of school.  It’s a really cool job, and it justifies the purchase of cool toys, the DSM-5, and this game, which thrills me to no end.  

Here’s the thing about coming out of the stress of these past two years—it’s happening slowly, with little things that might otherwise be routine, but somehow feel revelatory.  I started cutting strawberries into bits and enjoying it, I ordered prints of pictures to start yearly scrapbooks pages for the boys, and I bought Winnie the Pooh to read with Theo this summer.  A few weeks ago, I found myself laying on the couch and just staring at the bookshelf.  My mind was blank and not reviewing the 15 things I needed to do before the end of the weekend.  I’ve been able to have more patience.

What’s happened while I’ve been at school?  Nothing and everything, I guess--the inevitable march towards death, kids growing and stretching into new people, more grey hairs, adventures, plans, laughs, cries, sleeps.  Here's some of it: