A walk in the woods

This month's National Geographic features the state of the nation's and the world's parks and highlights the importance of conservation and stewdarship of public lands. Coincidently, Texas Monthly's cover this month features a picture of Big Bend highlighting an article outlining 30 of the most enjoyable hikes in Texas. In the last two weeks, my husband and I have enjoyed two hikes at Bull Creek and we will be making it three hikes this afternoon. 'Tis the season. The worst of summer heat is behind us and the air is a bit drier and the sky less hazy.During the heat of the summer, my husband is not much of a hiker, but finally the temperatures are back down to double digits around here and he is ready to join me again.

There is something so soothing about a walk in the woods. It cleanses the soul. It is a natural anti-depressant and anti-anxiety pill wraped in a breeze and it makes life easier. I think about the programs that take city kids out into the country for a camp or homestay experience, and I think, no wonder those experiences do so much good. The sounds of birds, of leaves rustling ever so softly, of a small waterfall in a gently flowing stream are the sounds that God made. They are pure. They are faint and so we must leave our busy minds to hear them. They whisper us away from the crush of our lives and the dread of the Middle East and the deadlines and the economy and the cable bill--and cable itself.

And as we listen, we notice the fish in the brook, darting about in its less complicated existence and we watch it and we smell the damp sweetness of some fragrant shrub we haven't noticed before leaning over the bank beckoning us closer. And we see the beauty in the pattern of lines on its clean, green leaves. And the more quiet we are, the deeper into the woods we go and the further away from all that ails us.

And when we do emerge, we see clearer what we went there to escape, and it too seems washed of its complexity and not so hard to face. We pride ourselves on our civilized world, on the buildings we build on the cars that we drive on the computers on which we write our blogs, but we must not lose our balance. We must never pull too far from what was real before we came on the scene and started fighting over anything someone deemed valuable--over our job assignments and our paychecks and our borders and our votes.

My cousin, Mary Lorraine, is currently in Thailand with the Peace Corps. She is from a very wealthy New York suburb--from what most anyone would describe as a privileged home. Success around her was based on such things as what car you drove and your SAT score and college you graduated from and company your parents worked for and so on. But all that caused anxiety-- you can be sure, and there was not always a lot of room for spirituality or the like. Somehow she survived it though, and now she is in Asia doing good and finding a whole new perspective on herself, her world, her Universe.

She has a blog, too. And in her latest post, she writes about spirituality--something she says she still cannot really talk about yet without giggling. But that is what I am talking about, too. That's what a walk in the woods boils down to for me. Often after I hike, I come home and read in a prayer book I have called God at Every Gate: Prayers and Blessings for Pilgrims by Brendan O'Malley. It is very beautiful and includes passages on many subjects that affect our every day lives from sources as diverse as medieval hymns to the Wind and the Willows to Robert Frost and then directs you to Bible verses, most usually Psalms, themselves poems. Other times I will read on Buddhism or Taoism. And then I can make better decisions in my life. Based on true needs and not on what the World tells me I want.

National Geographic tells of parks in peril. Of an assault on them by the Bush administration and its business interests and man-first recreational needs (snow mobiling and motor boating) that speed their destruction. I hope that the tide turns. I hope that the woods will always be there. The marshes, the mountains, the bays, the openness of nature. I hope some will survive, and enough of it that we can all always be able to walk in the woods--quietly. Because there is enough noise of every description in the rest of our lives.

Help me find my place in the Universe--PLEASE!!

Okay, another school year is well underway. Pluto is no longer a planet and I am no longer a human being. Astronomers debate the little orb's identity--is he a comet? Where is his tail? How will he be defined for the ages? Me. I am defined as a teacher. Just like Pluto it is easier said than explained. Am I more counselor? Leader? Babysitter? Jail warden? Surrogate parent? Test-trainer? Paper-pusher? Judge? Intellectual beacon? Number-cruncher? Life coach? Cheerleader? Academic? Editor? Researcher? Lesson planner? Test grader? Parent liaison? Well, I am all of those things. At anyone time I may be wearing one or all of those hats--usually at least four or five.

On the weekend, I try to find time to read, knit, ride my bike, remember my husband's name in between the trip to the vet, the laundry, the grocery shopping, the ironing (yes, I still iron--I am a well-groomed, neatly dressed teacher) and of course, the grading. I have dreams. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of them--so fleeting. I belong to more than a hundred other dreams now--those of my students.

Don't get me wrong. I love my kids. Most of them are cool. Some of them even like my Spanish class. I want to do so much for them. I want to be a great teacher--most of the time I really am. I care about them as people not just as Spanish or ballet folklorico students. I care about their intellectual curiosity and try to reignite it if its grown dim. I care about their role as citizens of the World. I care about their futures-- whether they will be academic in nature or not. I find in each and every one of them something that is redeeming and valuable. I also deal with a hell of a lot of crap--from administrators, state mandates, federal mandates, and even fellow teachers with their one-size fits none, conflicting priorities and I do all this with a smile.

I really do. I get up everyday and say "Today is going to be a good day". I have a plan. I know what I am going to teach. I know my goals for my kids. I know how I am going to get there. I anticipate the roadblocks so we can jump over them before we hit. I try to make every kid smile as he learns so that they will smile back at me and that makes the struggle worth meeting the next day. But as I do this, as I help each student in my little realm reach towards their goals, which on one level I know makes me very successful, but my personal life goals end up in the backgound. They start to slip further and further into the distance...slipping, slipping...until I turn around and around in all directions and I can't see them on any horizon. I am lost.

And I feel like anyone else who is lost. I feel anxious. And anxiety makes teaching really, really hard. What you need to know is that on a good day, teaching is really hard, but really, really hard-- well, that isn't sustainable.

What's even harder is that people know you're good so they put more and more on your plate and when you try to do things you want to do, they ask you--why do you take on so much? Why do you do something you don't have to do? Uh, because I like this other thing. Because everything else I am doing is what I am being told to do by you or my department head, or principal or superintendent. "Take care of yourself", they say and then tell you to turn in a bi-weekly report. I have figured out that "take care of yourself" translates to get enough rest by eliminating what you enjoy about your job or your life so you can concentrate on these things we think are important or don't enjoy doing either.

I don't want to end up like Pluto--old and still not sure what I am. I don't want to end up like Pluto--waiting for someone else to define me. I am a damn good teacher, but I am more than that, too. And I am going to find my place in the Universe.