Rebellion, Part 2

So meetings at school have been tense and frustrating lately. This is not the atmosphere to which we are accustomed. New administration and new district personnel have dramatically changed the tenor of our working relationships. I'm sorry to say it is affecting morale; it is affecting my morale, too. Hence, rebellion part two.

I'm finding it difficult to leave a meeting without being angry, exhausted, toxic. Today's all-day staff-only meetings were no different. The good thing that came of today, however, was the coming together of our oft-contentious-of-late department. Together we confronted the administration on some of their vaguenesses and ambiguities and mealy-mouthed doublespeak. We've learned that we have to get things in writing from this administration; today we learned it's also okay to have things spoken in front of twelve witnesses who are taking notes. :-P

If the administration wants to turn this into an us-and-them situation, it's nice to know that we can still pull together and be an 'us.' This has not been a given over the past couple of years.

I shall continue to attempt to practice the law of attraction (The Secret, as some call it -- I've never read it nor seen the video). It's silly, but I make myself little mantras to breathe throughout the day. They are more for myself and my mindset than they are for the universe, of course. I consider them small prayers.

In other news, my cutter (the second one) is more than a cutter. She is in therapy, thanks be to God, but I'm beginning to grok what a former teacher of hers said to me a couple of weeks ago -- that she is the unfortunate offspring of parents who should have never procreated together. Really, the situations she describes are astonishingly ridiculous. I think it's what St. Paul had in mind when he admonished fathers to 'provoke not your children to wrath.' I believe this student will come out on the other end strong and wise, but it will be in spite of her parents, not because of them. I will seek to be a quiet refuge, a listener, a space-giver, a sounding board.

I've been enjoying rereading Madeleine's time quintet, as it's now referred to, whilst brushing my teeth. I'm now on House Like a Lotus, one of my all-time adolescent-hood favorites (after And Both Were Young). All those intense junior-high and early high school feelings return to my heart so quickly, as if it hasn't been decades since then. Well, Madeleine always said that we are every age we have ever been, and lord help us if we forget what it was like to be each of those ages. It makes me long to see Greece and sad to think about all the devastating fires of the past few months. I feel the same about New Orleans and NY's World Trade Centers. I suppose my sadness is partially motivated by selfishness -- I never got to see them -- but not entirely, I hope. I mourn the destruction -- needless, in every case.