When the sirens scream by breaking the silence, I tell myself to breathe in. Especially when I’m home alone, feeling small in a big big world. Where are you? Are they stopping on my street? Quickly I count – 1-2-3 are you all here?

Maybe it’s a trauma response. Maybe it’s because my babies aren’t living at home anymore, and the sirens are just a reminder. Some days I worry that they will stop next door, lights flashing through the fog, helpers running into my elderly neighbors’ house. I know those days will come for all of us – just like they came for my dad when I wasn’t expecting it.

Meditation

I started a regular meditation practice last summer. I wanted to train my mind to slow down, to be more present and appreciate what is right here. The breath. The love. And the joy that I have no excuse to revel in, really. In meditation we’re taught to acknowledge the distraction from the breath, to be ok with our minds going to sounds and thought that intrude. I’ve learned to let the bell bring me back to myself, to my breath and my practice.

Just like the bell, the sirens always shake me from my ‘daily life’ practice. Maybe it’s because I love having my windows open, just a crack, so I’m able to keep the world on alert.

Or maybe it’s because, in the last six years, the world has changed. My nest has emptied. My safety nets have torn holes, and I’ve found myself bouncing on the ground more than a few times. I hear birds outside – geese high above, and is that a robin’s chirp rising up from under my bird feeder?

My world is changing…

I know my love is in the mountains, doing what makes him shine. I try not to think of the avalanche dangers, the injuries I know too well what can happen when one is out on the mountain, at the mercy of the Universe.

And my girl, well, she’s hundreds of miles away, alongside her fiancé and her double-doodle and nesting before her marriage next summer. She’s a risk-taker, too, but now teaches others how to be safe, how to avoid getting caught up when the cascade of snow buries everything in its path.

Right now, I know my boy is sound asleep just downstairs, one more night under our roof before he takes off for Boston and the snow and studying for four more long months. Maybe I should tiptoe downstairs and gently open his door, checking his breath as I used to when he was three.

Oh, how he’d hate it if I woke him. Better to listen for the silence instead.

When they came for my dad, the sirens were silent. They crowded into his room, the helpers trying to assess amidst the confusion we were feeling. He didn’t want to go. We didn’t want him to go, either, but needed someone to help us find a way back to center. To what was normal, to what we could control. A way out of the silence of his form, still and sideways in his bed.

Breathe in

We didn’t know that was the beginning of the end. We didn’t know that sometimes, the silence can be worse than the siren. That the breath can go in, in, in, in…and that sooner than we think, it won’t go back out.

The sun is struggling to burn through the morning fog now, fog that makes the siren’s scream slightly dampen. But even though I can’t see it, I know it’s out there. I pause, count my blessings and whisper a prayer for whoever beckons for help this morning. I wish you didn’t need it, but I’m glad you’re getting it.

Soon I’ll head to my cushion. I’ll sit up straight, cross my legs and breathe in…out…in…out…and settle silently. I’ll count to ten, then start over again and again until my mind is at rest and the sirens outside the window fade away.

I’ll listen to the silence. And I’ll try to breathe, and remind myself that with sadness comes joy.

Breathe, Jen. Just breathe.

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

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Halloween is over-rated.

And I’m over it. Done. I’m fine with no Halloween this year – seriously. Nothing…except memories.

The closest I’m coming to celebrating Halloween this year is driving by a pumpkin patch on the freeway and viewing other people’s costumes on social media.

Yes, I’m that pathetic. I’m an empty nester, you know – and just absolutely cannot bring myself to put out the decorations this year. First of all, Halloween is on a weekday. I’m too old for costume parties. I’ve got papers to grade. The dog goes crazy. I’ll get PLENTY of festivity teaching 7th graders in costume. There are no kids at home this year to celebrate, AND each Oct. 31 we’re lucky if we get two rings at the doorbell.

I’m over it, big time.

I bought pumpkins at Trader Joe’s, but won’t carve them.

I got a vanilla-pumpkin scented candle but haven’t lit it.

At Target I bought a few bags of candy – just in case – and already opened them.

This Halloween I’ll probably just stay home, in the farthest corner of my house, and think about when Halloween used to be fun.

I can have my own empty-nest pity party for one, yes I can.

Halloween is over-rated, definitely.

Halloween back then…

My mom used to make our costumes, or we’d piece together some sort of get up out of closets, dig into her makeup drawer and call it good.

My sister, the creative one, somehow managed to pull together the MOST amazing costumes for all FIVE of her kids – she sewed them herself and stole the show at the downtown trick or treat.

Our kids trudged around town in the afternoon heat, ending up sweaty, sticky and ready to be done before dark. Oh yes, those were the days. 

Last weekend Lily and I spied a little girl, maybe around two, wearing a Minnie Mouse costume. She dropped her ears as she stepped out of the elevator we were on, and as I reached down to hand them to her, I noticed her shiny red shoes.

Memories streamed back to when two-year-old Lily was obsessed with her shiny red boots. My sister created the most adorable ladybug costume for her, complete with a backpack-type red and black spotted ladybug shell that slipped over her shoulders, and a little bouncy antennae headband. But it really was the shiny red shoes that put it over the top.

When I asked Lily if she remembered it, she said no.

Of course, she didn’t. So why is it so ingrained in my mind after twenty years?

I guess Halloween is over-rated, even in my memory bank.

The first Halloween with two

I dressed him up as a red chili pepper for his first Halloween. His tiny three-week-old 6-pound little body zipped snugly into the red and green fleece, making it simple for his three-year-old witch sister to proudly snuggle him on the couch before we went out. I think we made it around the block that year; mostly, I remember feeling so proud to have two healthy babies to parade around the neighborhood. Maybe the chili pepper was a foreshadowing of things to come – Cam’s obsession with hot sauce just led him to research his favorite brand for his entrepreneurial class in college.

We went through Dorothy, Bob the Builder, cross-dressing, pirates, Pocohantas and whatever else their imaginations could conjure up. A phase of presidents and presidential candidates always brought laughs when the doors opened, even into the teenage years.

Halloween now

I think I’m OK with no Halloween this year. I’ll smile as my students come dressed up for school, and then slowly bike home before dusk.

I don’t think I can handle the cuteness this year. I don’t think I can watch Charlie Brown. I’m sure I just need to lay low, be quiet.

I know I can’t handle the memories right now, either. Maybe next year. 

Halloween is over-rated anyway, isn’t it?

Nope. Not really.

But I’m still not decorating or answering my doorbell.

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

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I feel like I’m hovering.

Early spring

It started a few months ago, back in the early spring,  when I did a huge garden cut back. Two huge buddleia bushes cut to half their size on the advice of my mom, who reminded me they could take a good pruning. Moms always know best.

I’ve waited and watched them respond, starting with small green buds springing out from the narrow branches. Eventually, they began bending in the wind and then gently bursting forth into regal purple bloom just like mom said. I’ve watched what I’m pretty sure was a Swallowtail and a Monarch lightly land on the cone-shaped blooms, taking what they need and moving on. The bushtits (yes, it’s a type of tiny bird) and doves flit above and below, using the foliage to mask their presence.

May hovering

In May, I traveled to Utah to be part of Lily’s college graduation, yet constantly felt just on the edge of the celebration, the ceremony, and the photos. I hovered in her first non-college apartment, her first with her boyfriend, not wanting to make too much of my imprint on their space. I met her first dog. After graduation parties, drinking games, the late night jaunt to the neighborhood pub – I found myself in each space, hanging on to my be-here-now mantra, yet feeling part of and not belonging all the same.

Ellie the Doubledoodle, Lily, Cam and me after graduation.

End of the school year

Wrapping up the end of the school year in June, my “purge party” that somehow felt so necessary – a desperately needed state change, flipping everything that I’ve had for the last 16 years of being in that cozy orange-walled room, my students hovering not wanting to see the school year end – and me not wanting to face the change the next year would bring.

I’ve always struggled with endings and beginnings.

Graduation

The next night, sticking to the plastic seats on my alma mater’s field, I was waiting, watching, hovering on the edges of the photos and hugs as Cameron realized his official end to what he’s required to do – and poised to adventure off into what he wants to do. Lily’s graduation I was far from hovering – full of tears and pride and laughter, I missed being in the moment as she walked across the stage. This time, I wanted to be there. And I was there, yet not fully present. Suspended, not needing support, poised for tears and surprised at the lack flowing down my cheeks as I watched him take his place among the graduates.

At the last minute, I tried to snap a photo of the two of us – this is all I got.

I chaperoned grad night, felt proud of my former AVID students celebrating their first phase of education. Not wanting to be accused of hovering over my own son as he sank into his own joy of endings and beginnings, I kept to myself.

The next night I dipped down into Cam’s grad party, to the visit with my daughter and the Google Boot Camp I was somehow teaching. Suspended. Hovering over my emotions, knowing if I gave in I couldn’t stop.

Like the buddleia, I’m cut back. Lost half my frame, stripped down to bare bone. I’m tired. I’m raw from stuffing emotions down to make it through one more day, one more event. I’m tired of dodging yet another milestone zooming towards me.

August

So bare, it turns out, that I couldn’t put my thoughts out for consumption until now. I needed to linger with my feelings for two more months, to push them in and pull them out until now. The final ten days are laid bare before me. Now, when the empty nest is exposed. When I really no longer have the luxury of hovering. I really needed to be present and here, not anxious in the background. When I’ve recovered from pruning, and feel bloom bursting forth once again.

The buddleia is in full bloom now. The hummingbirds have taken over the bush, dropping in to take what they need. Like helicopters they hover, waiting for the precise moment to touch down – to hit the target and lightly brush the surface, just long enough for release, then in a burst of lift, take off sideways, moving skyward towards their next stop.

Whoever said life went in a straight line…I guess maybe I’m a helicopter parent after all.

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

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Understanding Our Backstory – A Little Kindness Goes A Long Way

“It is quite true what philosophy says; that life must be understood backwards. But one forgets the other principle: that is must be lived forwards.”

– Soren Kierkegaard

I was the second person to board the very early morning flight from Chicago to Raleigh – and the flight attendant took one look at me and reacted with what I believe to be genuine kindness. “I need you to answer one question for me,” he said. His eyes scanned over my shoulder, searching behind me on the gangway for the rest of the passengers. I really wasn’t in the mood for games. Travel isn’t easy, and I was tired. Teacher tired. End of the school year teacher tired.The kind of tired that only teachers – or new moms – know. The kind of tired where you’ve been caring for someone else at the expense of yourself.

I must have looked as dumbstruck as I felt because he continued. “The question is, what can I do to help you?” Wait – what? YOU want to help ME?

Honestly, I could only focus on the origin of his accent. Russian? Australian? I seriously questioned who he was talking to, stunned as I was. “Why don’t you just take a seat and let me take your bags?” he questioned, patiently waiting for me to step into the empty plane. At this point, I’m still having trouble processing and it’s getting embarrassing. This is Southwest Airlines, after all. Coach. Flight attendants are usually friendly, but NO ONE ever treats me like this. Gently he eased my carry on from my tightly gripped fingers and instructed me to sit anywhere.

Finally settled into my seat, he came up behind me and whispered “Remember – just leave all your stress back at the gate,” and kindly helped my husband and hundreds of other tired travelers prepare for their flight.

Choosing Kindness

How many times have people in my life chosen kindness at just the right moment- and I don’t remember them. Playing this all back in my mind, I hope he knows what a difference he made to me that day. It wasn’t anything earth-shattering or tragic that was going on, but I was spent. He had no idea, I’m sure, about anything having to do with me or my story. But taking those few moments to check in with me, to pay attention, made all the difference.

I’d just finished reading a fabulous novel, All The Missing Girls, before boarding and couldn’t get it out of my mind (be sure to check out my upcoming review and ‘Best of 2018′ book list to be posted soon). I struggled a bit with the narrative as it started with the ending and worked backward. In had to think, to get used to the reverse cadence of the plot and really pay attention to the details.

It really made me think about the backstory of my life – of my children’s, my students’ lives. How elusive it can be, even when we try to not hold onto it. How it can squeeze up at the most profound, unexpected times, only to whiplash our thinking.

Our backstory can frame the plot of our lives, even when we don’t pay attention to it; it can chart our course.

What is the backstory of your life?

It’s probably not a question we can ask directly, but one we should directly pay attention to. Just imagine what life could be like if we knew more about each other. Would we be more empathetic? Compassionate? Or less tolerant, figuring we should know better?

What’s the backstory of my life?

Thirty-six years after my parent’s divorce and I still feel that chasm they created. There’s no blame. No right or wrong. It just is. How many of my students are dealing with their own divorce backstory that I don’t have a whisper of information about? Have my own children learned about life and love from watching me and their dad? How has my divorce backstory influenced me from living my parenting life forward?

Twenty-eight years after my first day of teaching I’m once again changing course with my career. I started before NCLB – and still, I shudder at the idea of teaching like it’s 1991. It’s only by looking at my teaching backstory that it comes into focus. I know I haven’t been a perfect teacher; I know I’ve made mistakes. But I can’t stay there – that would be too easy. I can’t keep one foot in the past and expect to make it into the present…I’m just not that flexible. I have to live my teaching life forward.

Early parenthood, 1996.

Twenty-two years after my first child, I’m definitely understanding life in reverse. She finshed college, launching now into her adult life. My baby is leaving soon, moving across the country. I’ve almost got an empty nest…isn’t that a perfect excuse for understanding life backwards? Second guessing everything I didn’t do? Seeing where a + b didn’t exactly = C, but realizing that it’s ok? I understand fully Catlin Tucker’s comparison of teaching and parenting as a ‘delicate dance’. Suddenly, I’m realizing that the 22 years of parenting have really become the backstory of my teaching life.

Life must be understood backwards.

That one, short moment of kindness by a flight attendant – a moment like so many others that we don’t even realize can define our future selves and inform how we see ourselves. And as parents how many of those moments define our children; how does our back story cause our children’s reflection to shimmer or shatter?

Life must be understood backwards, yet lived forwards. I don’t think we can avoid it – or embrace it. It just is. It’s the gift of aging. Maybe all we can do is just choose kindness – simply asking someone what you can do for THEM. You never know whose story you might be changing.

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

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Back in May, a few weeks before school let out for the summer, I decided I needed to have a purge party. In the last 27 years, you see, I’ve taught a huge variety of curriculum and grades, I’ve gone from overhead projectors to DLP to Chromebooks and devices, and yet my paper files were still there, haunting me from five huge, overstuffed beige metal filing cabinets.

I knew I couldn’t do it alone. I needed support…and fortunately, as every teacher knows, there are ALWAYS kids who love to help.

Grateful, tired teacher with purge party helpers.

Here’s how the purge party began:

I thought it would be simplest to start with my bookshelves. This year I returned to dedicated time for READING in my classes, and boy, did we all love it. Every day starting off with 10 minutes of relax and read helped us all to calm down, focus, and get lost in stories. And as a result, I bought new books…which meant purging titles I have had for decades. I didn’t think it would be too big of a deal – books are books, and surely I could make some space without too much heartache.

Letting go of books, to me, is like leaving old friends – and I realized just wasn’t up to that part of the purge party, so I asked some of my most voracious readers if they’d like to help…and boy, did they help!

We purged out an entire bookcase, and then she ORGANIZED what was left! Best of all, as I tried to sneak back some beloved titles, she reminded me that, “OMG, Mrs. Wolfe, you have TOO many books about baseball…and no one is going to want to read that one -just get rid of it!”

This is one huge reason my purge party was a success – I was reminded that while I might feel huge attachment to the books in my room, kids in 2018 have different tastes and I needed to make room for more current titles.

A few other students caught on to the idea of my ‘purge party’ – and to my huge surprise, volunteered to come back the day after school was out to help.

I honestly couldn’t believe they showed up. I HAD promised them a treat from Dutch Bros….but to show up eager to help at 8:30 a.m. the first day of summer? I’m the luckiest teacher…

Another sweet purge party helper!

Here’s how the purge party went:

The purge party went something like this: I open a file cabinet drawer, said just recycle everything, they look at me like I’m crazy, and then proceed to fill my green bins over and over and over with 27 years worth of PAPER.

I tried not to hyperventilate. I tried not to dig through the file folders and workbooks and transparencies, and just let them PURGE.

It was hard clearing out all those memories; I’m transitioning back to 7th grade ELA next year and this felt like the perfect time for purging. I’m grateful to be surrounded by loving students willing to not let me look back, and instead keep supporting me, pushing me forward and reminding me of the fun year they had. And not one part of that ‘fun’ came from those metal drawers.

In truth, I haven’t even touched those five filing cabinets for years. I was trying the ‘if you don’t see it/touch it/use it’ theory to make purging easier for me. I was never again going to teach French, or Yearbook, or 7th grade History…and if by some chance the Universe sent that curriculum my way again, I was now opening up the possibility for something new to enter.

It was a long, emotional day for me. The kids ate pizza, got caffeinated and silly and somehow, by 2:30, the purge party was done. Most of the kids stayed the entire time, supporting me and each other as we cleared out the old and made way for the new possibilities. I’m not sure any of us were really ready to leave, actually. 

The purge party continues:

The success of my purge party inspired me to continue at home. This summer, I’m starting to clear. I’ve done some drawers and closets, and already made two deliveries to the donation center. I’ve brought bags of books to the Little Free Library around the corner. I’m scratched by rosebushes by clearing dead debris in my garden. I’m spreading new mulch and propping up lilies that bloomed so big they fell over.  And I’ll be honest – I’m feeling a bit anxious about it all…just like watching my classroom memories disappear into the recycle bin, my home holds 24 years of memories. I have to learn that right now, clearing out doesn’t mean the feelings are going; instead I’m allowing space for possibilities as we enter this new phase at home and embrace the empty nest.

So this week, on my solo staycation, I’m taking the quiet time to pay attention to the places at home and life that are out of balance and making a daily practice to purge, to put away, and to allow the light to shine in and on and through, one minute at a time. 

I hope you’ll join me on this one. I could use some friendly energy to help me ride out the flood of memories I’m sure will come. I’d really rather not have a purge party for 1! Give me a shout out and let me know if you’d like to be here with me in spirit!

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

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