Dirty little secret

I have a confession to make...

I love to read. Doesn't really sound like a dirty secret but sometimes I feel like it is. And I am writing this to explain why.

The other day I went to a meeting and before things got started for real, people were talking. They were talking about a room at our school that is full of items that people have abandoned upon leaving Japan. It is full of junk and odds and ends--the detritus from moving--you can guess what it looks like. But it is also full of cast off books. Before Amazon, before the beneficent god of KINDLE with its wireless blessings, English books were like gold bars here. They are also heavy and expensive to ship, so although books are like friends and we hate to leave them when we move, sometimes there is no choice. So, there is a room in my building that looks a bit like a used book store without the nerdy-looking shop assistant and it is full of books. They are paperbacks and hardbacks and range from science fiction, to Tolstoy to self-help. That is what my esteemed colleagues were talking about. Someone had recently been down in the cast-off room and had seen that a whole set of Star Trek titles had been added to the collection. They were making a guess as to who had read them all and in a way--mocking the idea that someone had actually read all of them. Someone even said "I never read fiction."

I felt all sorts of emotions after hearing that. I felt angry, I felt incredulous and I felt guilty. I felt shamed because I LOVE fiction. And I felt conflicted because this was not the first time I have felt like I am doing something wrong by reading the things I love instead of focusing all my time reading about my profession.

I know I need to maintain a balance. I know I need to read "academic" works so I can publish and help my career "move forward" and so I can continue to grow as a teacher. I know that. And I admit to not being as rigorous a reader in that department as I should be. But I hate feeling guilty about reading for pleasure. I also would offer a counter argument that some people whom I know firsthand could use do do a LOT more reading of fiction to hone their humanity, relationship and emotional IQs. Fiction allows us a peek into the human condition. It is not quantitative--but rather qualitative and can give us insight into others' lives even if those people are not real. A good book can offer comfort, and help us to realize another perspective. It can broaden our point of view. This is just as important as polishing the "job" side of our lives--perhaps even more valuable because the people we work with are flesh and blood with problems, stresses and baggage of their own. The data shown in a graph is not going to help me comfort a student when she has had a fight with her boyfriend or when a co-worker is struggling with a messy divorce.

So the next time someone disses fiction. I may have to come out of the closet and give them a piece of my mind.

just lie down

"Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath. Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down."

- Natalie Goldberg

I found this on Fiona Robyn's page and had to borrow it.

I know why I like to go barefoot. I know why our walks in
the nearby woods make me feel like my fur is going the right direction.
God if I could only remember this--to remember to plant my toes and breathe
more often.

what do you hear in these sounds?

I like Dar Williams. No surprise there eh?
One of her songs goes like this:

And I wake up and I ask myself what state I'm in
And I say well I'm lucky, cause I am like East Berlin
I had this wall and what I knew of the free world
Was that I could see their fireworks
And I could hear their radio
And I thought that if we met, I would only start confessing
And they'd know that I was scared
They'd would know that I was guessing
But the wall came down and there they stood before me
With their stumbling and their mumbling
And their calling out just like me...and...


It gives me comfort. "With their stumbling and their mumbling and their calling out just like me..."

She caught it just right. I often feel like I am the only one who doesn't have it right. It being life--how to live. There is this voice in my head and an imp on my back that whispers in my ear and tells me that I haven't made it yet.

I have a "different" life. I have made "different" choices that are at a glance off the mainstream path. What may look like confidence and courage is just me walking my way along the tracks that I have laid down. So, the words of this song give me comfort. I think because good old Dar wrote this that maybe I am not the only one who tries to put up a good front, but inside is worried that everyone will "know that I was guessing." But maybe they already know... Maybe the wall never really comes down.

oh it is an endless circle.