tockwogh
I loved meeting new friends and re-connecting with old ones. I loved tubing, I loved walking in the dark and seeing the Big Dipper, I loved motorboat rides with thrilled children, I loved the sunset, I loved s’mores, I loved seeing the kids and watching them blow bubbles, I loved playing with horses, I loved swimming the Bay, I loved reading Elizabeth George, I loved it all. It was all just wonderful.
Thank You, Church
“and i guess i’m pretty different now, considering” –ani difranco, manhole
A few weeks ago a 9th grader called me old. Well, she said I was an old person. Which amounts to the same thing.
Shortly thereafter it was teacher recognition at my church. Because I’ve been teaching there for five years, I got a lovely chalice pin.
And then I started thinking about what it has meant to me to teach religious education.
When I started teaching RE I was about to turn 20. It was my second year out of high school. It had been a tumultuous adolescence. That’s the kindest way to describe it. A less kind way might be to say that it was a clusterfuck.
Anyway.
The previous year–my first year out of high school–I was a nanny for a little while, but putting a confused 19 year old in charge of infant twins is not a grand idea. Then I tried teaching gymnastics and being a student, and neither of those took, either.
So I was starting something new: just babysitting. and teaching RE.
And I loved it.
What gets me, when I think about it now, is that church was the first place to recognize me as a fully functioning adult. Having not known me during The Reign of Adolescent Horror, they had nothing to compare it to. There was never any sense of this is who I used to be, and this is who I am now. There was only: you are here. you are an adult. Welcome.
It was huge.
The youth recognized it right away. Right away, I was an adult for them. Not a teenager, with all the qualifiers that my kids usually put on it (are you a grown up, Vanessa?) just an adult. Simple as that.
Important as that.
And because that was how they saw me, that is how I learned to behave.
I went to see my psychiatrist the other day, as one does when one is on maintenance doses of drugs, and we were talking about the assorted medication I’ve been on. It’s a really, really long list.
“The thing is, Vanessa,” she said, “you’re different now then you were when you were on these drugs.”
And the remarkable thing is that shes right. I am am different then I was.
One of the ways I see that most profoundly is through church. Of course, I don’t always feel different. But at church, when I am working with the youth, especially those in the 13-15 year old group (mostly who I work with) that is when I see it.
I’m not sure how it is possible that ten years could have passed since I was 14. It seems, truly, like it was just last month that I was at WES, in my absurd uniform, trying to navigate being the most bullied kid in Episcopal school history. (That’s an exaggeration, by the way. It just felt like that). Or starting at Thornton: the first time I learned that I could feel safe at school. The first time I sat in silence, which was so hard and so important for me to learn.
But it has been ten years. I can tell because when I am with the youth at church, I do not feel like a teenager anymore. I feel, instead, like an adult. Even though I can–and do–genuinely enjoy these youth, enjoy their wit and brains and effervescence, their sheer beauty, I am not of them anymore. I am different. I know things that they do not, not yet.
In other words, I feel like their teacher.
And I am so very grateful on a daily basis for this church. For the place that took me in, then let me stay. For the place that taught me I am a competent adult. For the myriad ways they show me that I am trusted, that I am valued. For the minister of RE who makes all of this possible. For the first person I taught with, who showed me how to teach. For all the other wonderful people I have taught with, who have kept showing me how to teach. And most of all for the youth, who have made me laugh and made me think and made me fall in love, over and over and over.
Thanks, church.
I got the best ones.
i took my tuesday boys to Cabin John yesterday and oh my goodness. It was one of those happy to be alive afternoons. For one thing, it was just beautiful out, warm and sunny and not a cloud in the sky. and the boys were exceptional. When we got there they sprang out of the car and went charging into the park. We played tag, which for them is basically where they get to run around the playground equipment and I try to catch them, but I’m not allowed to go on the equipment. This makes it more challenging. They race around screaming and laughing and I hide under things and try to grab their feet as they run by. It’s very funny. One of the things I love about my kids is the way that they make three kids work for them. They pair off sometimes, true, but always in different combinations, and mostly they play together as a pack. They went to the slides–there are three together, long ones–and raced each other. They climbed the fake castle. They assigned themselves houses in this maze thing. Cabin John has a new piece of equipment, this circular bar that you hang from and then spin around. Well. This morning, my arm and shoulders are sore from picking them up over and over and over so they could hold on. NJ and AG would last a few seconds before flying off and collapsing in the wood chips, laughing hysterically. SB stayed on FOREVER, it was amazing. After awhile I started grabbing the thing too and spinning, and we’d all go around laughing and laughing and it was like god was there, too. Then somebody would fall off and get hit by someone still swinging. It was wonderful. We were all laughing.
Then they went to play in a giant hill of mulch. I think their mothers may have been a tiny bit annoyed when they came home covered in mulch and I am sorry, but not really, because its’ laundry compared to them just being kids and really enjoying a beautiful early spring afternoon the way they should. They climbed the mulch, jumped on it (“its the Winter Olympics!”) pretended to be prairie dogs, slid down, discovered that digging results in steaming (science!) and they were so.happy. It was great.
We also investigated the (metal) pig that eats trash, a classic. We stopped at the car to get trash and there was certainly enough to please the pig! On the way home NJ mentioned that something was sexy, and I burst out laughing before I had a chance to ask him what exactly that meant. He couldn’t answer, which thank goodness. hehe. And SB pointed out that crap is also a word kind of like sexy, which is impressive, actually.
Then NJ put a bag over his head. Not sure what that was about. and SB and I sang Springsteen to each other.
At any rate, it was one of the best afternoons I’ve had in quite awhile. Thanks, boys.
Meanwhile! Friday was the lock in for the 9th graders at church. that was terrifically fun. These youth are amazing. They are SO smart its absurd, but they are also things that are more important. Thoughtful, considerate, kind. They are learning to take care of each other. It’s hard for me to believe that I’ve known some of them since they were sixth graders, because they seem so grown up now.
One did call me old, though. AH ITS STARTED!
Kid: “who has heard of [band i dont even remember?]
Me: I have.
Kid: You’re an old person!
Me: I’m 10 years older than you!
Kid: That’s OLD ENOUGH.
anyway. the lock in was great.
Lock in Report!
I wish I could tell you how astoundingly beautiful these kids are, how their faces glow around the fire pit, how comfortable they are with one another. I wish I could tell you how fabulous it is to see these 9th graders be so honest, so open and happy with each other. Mostly I wish I could tell you all the wonderful, insightful things they say, but I can’t, because confidentiality is such a key component of working with youth at church.
But I can tell you that being on lock ins with the youth is so much fun. Even though I didn’t sleep very much, and when I did sleep I kept waking up shivering (WHEN will I learn to bring TWO BLANKETS to lock ins? Sigh). But it was great fun.
It reminded me a bit of Thornton, that level of ease and comfort among peers and adults that was so the cornerstone of that school. It makes me wish again that I’d been in better shape to take advantage of it.
It also made me so glad to be a part of a community that has such deep, abiding respect for its’ youth. If only the world was like that.
wild/precious 