It’s cold outside. The kind of cold I’d bottle and save for July. I’m outside with no coat and untied shoes, starting my car so I can peel out of the driveway in five minutes. The engine protests. I jog back to the house.
My hand sticks to the metal on the door just a little bit and I hear the most beautiful sound. A bird singing over the cold I’d bottle and save for July. One bird, who forgot to go South for the winter. Stayed just for me. Stayed to remind me to stop. To take a moment. To be. Just be, even standing outside with no coat and untied shoes in the cold I’d bottle and save for July.
To listen to the beautiful song.
Declan had a wiggly tooth. “You don’t have to pull it out if it hurts,” I said. “The Tooth Fairy can come any night. No rush.”
He knew, though, that the Tooth Fairy brings money. He likes money.
With the force of and courage of a superhero, he reached in. Plink. One little tooth in his hand. He jumped for joy. He’s been waiting for this. His friends have lost teeth. It’s a rite of passage. He’s an Official Big Boy. One tooth down. A lot to go.
Two seconds later, negotiations began. “What do you think the Tooth Fairy will give me?”
“She gave me money,” I said. “I got a dollar for my first tooth and twenty-five cents for every tooth after.” She won’t get off cheap with Declan.
“I don’t want money. I want a whistle.” There is no way the Tooth Fairy’s bringing a whistle. We have a machine program at school. Whistles are one project. I’d like to tell my freshmen what they can do with their whistles.
“She brings money.”
“How about a toy?”
“Toys don’t fit under pillows. She doesn’t have a sleigh like Santa. What are you most excited about now that you’ve lost a tooth? That you’re such a big boy?”
“Now I can barf without opening my mouth! And stick a straw through the hole!”
He took the tooth. He inspected and brushed it “…so it can be nice. I can get more money.” The Tooth Fairy doesn’t pay for cavities.
He smiled. The first gap. The big boy smile. A parent Kodak moment, but I wanted more…something…good to come out of this. Not just an exchange of calcium and cash.
“You know,” I said. “Big boy teeth have power.” Declan’s having trouble listening in school. He struggles to sit when he’s told and following directions isn’t his thing.
That Tooth Fairy snuck right by me.
“I don’t have to write my whole name,” he’ll say. “There’s only one Declan.” Makes sense. Worse yet is the math. “Mommy, I don’t need to do all those things and write the circles. I already know the answer. It’s 17.” He’s right. But I can’t have a kid challenging the system and disobeying Common Core math at age six. Pretty soon, he’ll be thinking for himself and starting a company with his Tooth Fairy money. I already have enough tax liability.
“Power?” he said. “Teeth have power?”
“Power.” I said. I leaned in and dropped my voice. “Remember when you asked how you could behave and be a good boy like your friend? When you told me you were bad and you didn’t want to be bad.” That conversation broke my heart, I never told him. I told him he wasn’t bad. He was a good boy. Mommy, how come I’m a bad boy? I want to be good, but I just can’t listen all the time. I’m bad. I want to be very good like my friend.
“Uh huh.”
“Well, big boy teeth have special powers. They give you super big boy listening skills. And make you faster and stronger. If you need to be good, think of the power of The Tooth.” He gave me the look. The questioning look. “It’s true. It’s how I started to listen.” I hope no one tells him I don’t listen very well. Maybe my braces interrupted the power. I hope he doesn’t need braces.
“Wow.” We’ll see if the power of The Tooth helps him do his math, spelling sentences, and listen. Meanwhile, he slept on his dino pillow with his tooth tucked neatly below. The Tooth Fairy must’ve snuck by me, because there’s a nice note instructing him to eat more veggies.
And a five-dollar bill. I was right. Prices have gone up.
I was helping a kid with his geometry. I didn’t do too bad. I said “shit” once. It slipped out. I apologized. A lifetime of math anxiety rolled up into four letters–coulda been worse. I stepped back and stared at the cleverly infused algebra problem stuffed into one of the angles in the triangles and crossed lines, reasoning that x+whatever must be added to 180-70, because there was an opposite angle labeled “70” without any tricks or algebraic distractions. And everyone knows that two lines tilted next to each other on a straight line has to equal 180 degrees. It’s a complementary angle.
“Supplementary. 180 is supplementary.” Good call, kid, good call. Because I walk around cocktail parties saying things like, “You know, I was figuring out algebraic equations embedded into supplementary angles the other day and I discovered…” Never.
“Miss?” He asked after we knocked off the last angle or two, me as much as him, and I finished up my victory dance. I was pretty proud, I’m not going to lie. I solved tenth grade math. Perfectly. Now, maybe if I have to take standardized tests to prove I’m better than a tenth grader to keep my job someday–it’s not out of the realm of possibility–I’ll be able to succeed on problems with triangles and lines with supplementary angles and algebra embedded inside for no particular reason.
“When am I ever going to use this stuff?” I thought hard through my several careers. Career one in insurance came the closest. I used math to reconstruct traffic accidents–but not really. The officer usually did that and gave me a number. I used math to resolve negotiations, but in truth it was more or less like volleyball than geometry, spiking numbers back over the net.
In waitressing, I calculated bills. No supplementary angles there. Just extra costs on upsells. In business, I spent a ton of money, and got bills for a ton more. Still no triangles or supplementary angles. I’ve built lots of things, but when it came down to brass tacks I never used the Pythagorean theorem to plan materials cost or measure distance. More often than not, I eyeballed it and went back to the store several times, or measured an approximate length across what would be the hypotenuse, hacking and swearing until it was close enough.
But I can’t say that because I’ve got a kid sitting here taking an entire course in geometry that’s going to think he’s wasting his time if I don’t come up with something intellectually plausible. I learned “thinking on my feet” from public speaking and negotiations, not math, though. And if I don’t come up with something quick, he’s going to question whether my class is a waste of his time next. After all, what do I teach about? History. Dead people. How many dead people is he going to meet at cocktail parties?
Before I know it, the whole house of cards will come crumbling down and he’ll be questioning all of public education, just because I succeeded in solving one set of geometry problems with algebra snuck inside. Can’t have that.
God intervened. He does that if I’ve been especially good that day.
“Oh, that’s easy.” I said. “In twenty years when you’re helping some kid with his geometry.” I walked away. I didn’t want him to ask me about calculus next.
[image: hillsblockview.blogspot.com]
Declan is fighting me. I’m supposed to be the bad guy from a show he loves. He has it choreographed to the last detail.
“Side kick me, Mommy.” That’s something you don’t hear a six-year old say often. I aim for the stomach.
“Woosh,” he says. He angles. Pretty impressive.
“Kick me again.” I try. He angles. I’m getting real-person impressed, having flashbacks to learning to angle and evade in my martial arts studies, back when I discovered martial arts wasn’t really about kicking and breaking stuff, it was about avoiding the fight completely. And doing peaceful things, like meditating and arranging flowers.
Eventually, he breaks through, and starts punching me for real, because that’s what good guys do. I throw a knee. He punches it. He punches my arm. That little kid hurts. I explain, “We’re playing. Mommy doesn’t want to hurt you. We’re not really punching.”
“Throw me across the room, Mommy.” I pick him up a little and put him straight down. He throws himself ten feet–a Hollywood stunt man.
He gets up, “You can’t defeat me that easy!” Who’s trying to defeat anyone? I’m just trying to drink my tea. In a superhero flurry, he races over and punches me again.
“Punch me, Mommy! In the stomach. Like this!” It’s a good punch. I lose a little bit of breath.
“You don’t have to show me. I told you, we’re not really punching people.”
“It’s what the bad guy does!” I can take no more.
“Does the bad guy do THIS?” I pick him up and give him a very big wedgie.
He laughs. Then he stops.
He looks at me. Deeply. Like I’ve made a mama joke or insulted his dog.
“Mommy. You can’t do that. You can’t give wedgies. That…is bullying.”
I kneel down. “What do you mean?”
“Bullies give wedgies. You can’t do that. Bullying is mean. You shouldn’t be a bully.”
“Where did you learn that?” I ask.
“School. Bullies are bad.” He holds my gaze. He is teaching me.
I want to explain bullies don’t usually give wedgies. To tell him bullies sometimes punch and hit, but more often they’re subtle, insidious, hard to recognize until they’ve already infiltrated the soul, done their psychological damage. Made us feel we have little value. And because of that, we need to be strong. To know our own self-worth, and to refuse to let the outside world hit us with the resistance that makes us believe what they say–makes us stop short of being great.
I want to teach him that bullies can be people we don’t know on the schoolyard, but more often they’re people in our inner circles. People we thought were on our side. And most of all, they can be ourselves. We hit ourselves the hardest. That’s the truth.
But I don’t teach that lesson, because he breaks the gaze. With a flurry of activity, he’s a superhero again. I don’t give any more wedgies. I throw him across the room, as he requests, and to drink my tea. That’s what bad guys do when they lose.
[image: simsonswiki.com]
I’ve come to the conclusion that life is about lines. There are so many lines in this world. Grocery lines, bank lines, lines of cocaine. Even virtual lines—printer cues, website holds, and “You’re next in line for customer service” on chat. “Next” always seems the longest place in line.
Lines define people. In foreign countries you can pay people to wait in lines for you. Here, if you pay a little extra, you can skip lines entirely or they’ll create an “elite” line just for you. If you make way too much money you can snort lines, and if you’re just a normal person like me, you wait in lines. And wait again. And when you are done waiting, you find another line to wait in.
Sometimes I pick the longest line, just because I know it’s my station in life.
Now, I am waiting in line at the airline kiosk. My boarding pass won’t come up.
“Um, I don’t know,” says the girl at the counter. The person at the end of the line is supposed to know. It’s why we wait in lines.
“Can you wait in that line, please?” The big line. I don’t want to go. If I complain, she’ll send me to the Really Big Line way over there. I have a flight to catch.
Never piss off someone who’s whole function in life is processing lines. I look at my watch. I don’t mind a line when I know the end result’s something cool–groceries, a cup of coffee. I connect with people around me in the line. But now, the only thing I want to connect with is a plane. Airport lines are a mystery. No guarantees. Will they let me on the plane? Or will there be some “problem.”
Cancelled. Delayed. Out to lunch. On vacation.
Interesting, isn’t it, that airlines can change everything, but if I do, “That’ll be five hundred dollars, please.” or “Would you like to pay an extra $31 to skip the line?”
I wait in three lines and discover that my airline isn’t my airline at all. They’re merging. I must wait in another airline’s line. Three terminals away. “Not far,” says the linemaster. She must be a distance runner. I run, hike, and roll luggage the mile to the other terminal. Quickly, because I fear that line will send me to another line.
I wait in line for my boarding pass and get directed to the next line.
The line that for looks through my computer and my shoes. The line for the proctology exam and pat down. The line with the lady who looks at my boarding pass and asks me my name to make sure I memorized it correctly. And the line with the guy that tries to get my stuff off the belt as it topples on me while I get dressed in public.
Finally the coffee line. It’s the only one I wanted.
Last of all, the line at the gate, behind the “elite” people who paid $31 extra to skip the line. I smile. I get on the plane last.
It takes off. Waiting to bring me to the next airport. Which, no doubt, will be full of lines.
[images: cnn.com and cdn.geardiary.com]
I want to have coffee with a friend. We struggle to squeeze it in.
“How about two Fridays from now?” Why can’t we get our calendars to stop fighting so we can drink coffee? Eventually, one calendar wins. Coffee arrives.
What starts as coffee with a good friend ends as vision. Always does. Soon, note pads, pens, Macs, iPhones and iPads clutter the table, pushing our freakishly healthy foods aside.
Usually when two or more teachers are in the room, venting begins. Bitching even. Everyone opens the valve a little. My husband doesn’t understand this. He wonders why teachers bitch. He hates it. He won’t go to “teacher things.”
“It’s not bitching,” I explain, “It’s ‘looking for solutions.'” Sure, there are People Who Bitch. They’re the ones speaking negatively about others–students, colleagues, and leadership. When good teachers gather, it’s not bitching. It’s seeking answers for real problems. When the fixes are out of reach, there’s frustration. Especially when frustration takes good people down.
“I’ll never go back into the classroom,” I hear it more and more. “I can’t do all this testing and stuff.” People go into leadership, guidance, or whatever because, they say, they’re “done with the classroom.” Others–good people–jump into those roles to save the world, finding windmills to fight on that side of the fence, too.
“This isn’t for me. I’m no good. Didn’t realize it would be this way–I wanted to change lives, not tabulate test scores.” That was roughly the quote I got from someone leaving the profession–literally, box in hand. Midyear.
Good teachers fear tests and evals. Sure, accountability’s in every profession. Can we do it better though? I heard Steve Blank talk at last year’s Business Innovation Factory conference. “Fire the idea, not the person,” he said.
Steve Blank is a pretty smart guy. As one of Forbes Magazine’s “30 Most Influential People in Tech,” he’s not only written textbooks on how startups should be created and grown, he even changed the way the National Science Foundation spends money to align with the systems of successful entrepreneurs–systems he invented.
Anyone who changes the way government spends money has the ear of this lowly teacher.
His thoughts were simple. Sometimes you need to fire the idea, not the person, he said. Run the numbers without blame. Then fix the problems.
Getting rid of judgment helps people be objective and take risks. Risks produce results. Taking risks in education can get a person low scores, though, so there’s fear.
Fear about things real or imagined shuts good people down.
Fear does not produce vision.
Fear is conquered by vision.
Vision, luckily, is found in a cup of coffee with a friend. It pours out our hearts into the vortices swirling throughout the mugs into reality. All the little things mixing and colliding in the swirls…that’s the vision. Every sip, gulp, cup waiting for a sip–vision. Leaving the cup on the counter to go cold is missing the possibilities–so easy to do when rushing around. Steam goes uncaptured into the universe. Vision lost.
But sitting with my friend, vision pushes aside inconsequential girl talk. It says things like, “Sounds like you might consider,” and “That happens to me. I’ve tried…” or “I notice you write a lot about this, but I’d really like to read it if you wrote this…” or “I’d buy that idea…”
Every single time I meet Vision Friend, I leave with a dozen working plans. On a good day, I have pages of notes. On a crazy day, we’ve got blogs, businesses, books, and concepts racing around the room trying to get to the finish line first so we might convert them to reality.
Vision conquers fear. And accountability defeats complacency. Inaction. Inertia. This is why vision needs company. It needs someone to say, “Hey, you told me you were going to….how’s that going?”
Otherwise, we’re tempted to “forget” we promised to do something, and vision dies. Vision often requires courage, support, and the swirly things in a cup of coffee to produce results. Follow-through. Reality.
I know vision’s in the room when my heart leaps just a bit and the notepad comes out. The more I surround myself with friends who make my heart leap just a bit and pages fill on notepad, the better I become. I want to be better. And I want to make other people feel that they are better for having known me.
It’s a simple goal. One I hope I can meet. I think I can, if I have just one more cup of coffee…with my good friend.
Notes:
My “vision” friend, Alicia, blogs here: WriteSolutions under the tag “Student Learning Is No Accident.”
No. Not George C. Scott as Scrooge. It’s President Martin Van Buren
Happy President’s Day. It’s one of those holidays I don’t complain about because I’m sitting here drinking coffee knowing in a half hour I’ll still drinking coffee instead of going to work. I love work, mind you–teaching obscure things to teens is a cool job. They never know when they might need a fact about a dead guy to impress people at a cocktail party later in life.
Today, instead of teaching teens, I’ll share with the nation. It’s President’s Day. It seems America does not know its leaders. Buzzfeed’s Adam Davis proved this by subjecting a roomful of coworkers to ridicule when they couldn’t correctly name ten dead presidents from official portraits. Only Ford and Adams fared well. After all, Ford fell down the stairs so much he ended up honorary co-founder of Comedy Central, and Adams was a Founding Father–he gave us things like the Alien and Sedition Acts, where criticizing the government could–and did–get you locked up. Good for me he’s not around to read this.
President Tyler playing Cratchit to Fillmore’s Scrooge.
This President’s Day–which America knows is the best time of year to buy a car and go shopping at the mall–we must do something more. Let’s remember the presidents that make you say, “Who?” They did something to make this nation great, too. Or at least avoid getting it wiped off the map. It’s their holiday, too.
Give a shout out to the eighth president, Martin Van Buren–the first President who spoke English as a second language. I bet someone’d try to deport him today or demand his birth certificate. He presided over the Panic of 1837, a pretty big depression caused by unregulated banks going crazy with lending at the same time as unemployment rose and monopolies formed. Déjà vous? The nation was indignant as the price of cotton fell and cost of slaves increased. Businesses folded, and there wasn’t a thing President “Van Ruin,” could do.
William Henry Harrison took over for Van Ruin. He didn’t wear a coat at his inauguration, being a native of Virginia where coats aren’t necessary. He died of pneumonia about a month later. In the days before internet, that’s not even time enough for a political cartoon to travel the nation. #firstworldproblems. The primary lesson here–“Your mom was right! Wear a coat. And your face really will freeze like that!”
John Tyler, #10, tried to shore up the banking crisis by demanding a national bank. Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson had fought this fight when the nation formed. Tyler’s dad, incidentally, was Jefferson’s college roommate. A national bank? To regulate fiscal policies? Speak no more! John Tyler became the first sitting president to be impeached–not over a girl, but over his use of the veto. His party wouldn’t nominate him for a second term. He went back to Virginia, serving on the Confederate Congress and overseeing his plantation. Tyler was one of twelve US presidents who owned slaves, and one of eight who owned them while in office.
Millard Fillmore. A pretty good guy.
Millard Fillmore tried to solve the growing slave-free conflict in the United States with the Compromise of 1850, giving us the Fugitive Slave Act and keeping the balance of free and slave states equal. This was important, because without an equal number of votes on either side, no one could impede progress, which is in the Congressional job description.
James Buchanan took sides, however, secretly supporting South Carolina’s succession and the Dred Scott case where the enslaved Scott sued for his freedom, stating that he’d been taken into a free state, therefore, was free. The Court said it was a moot point. Scott couldn’t sue because slaves were property, not people. Tensions rising, Buchanan never took a stand, leaving that to Abraham Lincoln, making Lincoln’s job really, really difficult.
Rutherford B. Hayes lost the popular vote but became President in an election worse than Bush-Gore. Mark Twain supported Hayes, who was an upright, moral guy who started the White House Easter egg hunt. Hayes stated he’d appoint people to jobs based on merit, not political connections, making everyone mad. But everyone was bound to be mad anyway–the Civil War just ended. Hayes tried to be fair and balanced even though FOX news wasn’t invented yet. He tried to heal the nation’s wounds by removing federal troops from the South, redirecting a couple to squash Great Railroad Strike of 1877 in Virginia and Maryland, where workers demanding to be paid a living wage took a few bullets for the team.
And finally, who can forget Chester Arthur, #21, who rose through the New York political machine to become a reformer. Arthur surprised the nation by signing the Pendleton Act which legally required jobs to be given according to merit not patronage. I wonder if he’d known the Chinese civil service exam had done this centuries earlier. With one stroke of his pen, Arthur guaranteed he’d never be invited to a DC dinner party again.
These are just a few of the presidents we don’t fully appreciate. They don’t have a used car sale in their honor. Think of them. Think of Harding, who had a sex-scandal while in office, or Hoover, who tried his best during the Depression, and all he got was a vacuum named after him.
Give these men–yes, no women–homage. Do something in their honor, today.
Me, I think I’ll vacuum like a good woman who won’t be president. Hoover has inspired me, and the house needs cleaning. Enjoy your President’s Day, America!
[credits: inspiration today goes to Buzzfeed and to this Time article “Fail to the Chief” which inspired my reflection on these great men buried in history books no one reads.]
As it happens, I was too lazy to make flaxseed muffins.
Our advisory has breakfast on Fridays. We take turns bringing in “food,” a.k.a donuts. I make jokes that there’s no police academy nearby, eat healthy food. I promise vats of scotch-oats or flaxseed muffins when it’s my turn. But, as adults wearing many hats are wont to do, I got lazy. I sat on my organic food-loving behind. I didn’t make flaxseed muffins.
I decided I to give my customers what they want. Donuts.
“A dozen donuts, please, and a large coffee.” Donut man disappeared to bake each of the 12 donuts I requested. Or perhaps he had to finish growing and grinding the wheat. The man behind me in line began to shift his weight and the woman behind him looked at her watch. Twice. Because the person behind the counter moves just a little bit faster when you look twice.
I felt bad. There are days I’m the one checking the watch twice and the person in front of me, who seems to have a simple order, is ordering 27 different things all specially crafted and custom grown.
I shouldn’t go out for coffee when I’m running late. It’s the universe telling me to be patient. Or drink less coffee. Or leave earlier. Or to stop being a jerk.
But I use it as exercise in meditation and peace. As Donut Man mixed the batter for my last donut, I began to feel guilty. Both about feeding my students crap, and for holding up the great American workforce.
“Sorry to be that idiot ordering eighty-five things when you’re running late for work.” The woman looked up. I explained. “I’m getting my class donuts. I wanted to bake them flaxseed muffins. Healthier.”
She smiled–said how good those muffins would’ve been and kids need more people who care. I didn’t think I cared very much, feeding them processed flour and sugar before six other people had to teach them. I thanked her anyway.
“I remember those years,” she told me. “My daughter’s a teacher now. I remember the only time we knew what was going on with each other was during family dinner. We stopped everything. No phones. We had dinner and asked how each other’s day was. Too many families have to rush, work, and kids pop things in microwave. That’s why they eat poorly.”
I was about to say that they eat poorly because they have teachers who feed them donuts, but now I’m feeling guiltier that I don’t have enough sit down family dinners than I am about the donuts. We used to sit down to dinner together, too, with no phones. Cell phones weren’t invented, and no friends would dare call during The Dinner Hour. But then high school came and everyone went their own way for activities.
By then, microwaves had been invented. And so we, too, popped something in. Had I known how cutting edge we were, both on the microwave front and in destroying the family dinner, I might’ve been proud. Instead, I turned out to be an adult who taught kids it was okay to have donuts for breakfast.
Instead of caving to the guilt, I finished my conversation, thanked Donut Guy for the donuts and coffee thoughtfully prepared, and wished watch lady a great Friday. I was glad for the pleasant conversation. I left with a smile, entered my car with a smile, and entered class–with a smile. And donuts. It was nice connecting in the middle of the pre-work rush.
Sometimes all we need is a connection. A smile that says, “I’m glad you’re here” instead of rushing around in life. It makes a difference. Connecting is the magic that holds the universe together. Sometimes I forget–whether it’s a family dinner, a group of kids grateful for someone who cared enough to pollute them with donuts, or a smile in the coffee line, but it’s the critical glue. Without glue, things fall apart.
[images: cakechooser.com and nurturing-nutrition.com]
Valentine’s Day’s insane. The American Consumer Greed Association adopted it as the official holiday to support Hallmark writers through the doldrums between Christmas and Easter, and that season where it’s just a tad early to start stocking for Halloween.
“I know! Let’s celebrate…love.” Yes, St. Valentine was a real person, beheaded around 270 AD. He may, in fact, have been two people–not that the Roman Empire didn’t already have enough people to crucify and behead, but historians just aren’t sure.
The Roman Catholic Church wasn’t that sure. It stopped the veneration of the saint in 1969, either because there was enough LSD to render human love unnecessary, or because enough doubt existed as to whether the real deal was a dude who married a couple in the Christian rite in direct violation of the policies of Rome, or a 
the Bishop of Terni, who also met his maker without a single card or box of chocolates. I imagine that image would make a great card.
According to CNN, the average person will spend $130.97 on Valentine’s Day this year, and the nation will collectively consume $1.9B in flowers and $1.6B of candy. Most of that will be in my school today causing your kids to bounce themselves off the walls like the type of old-school ping-pong machine they’ve never seen, then they’ll marvel over who got the most flowers in the senior fundraiser. I never get any except maybe a broken one. Some kid says “Miss, this one’s broken. You can have it.” Thanks.
Still, I love Valentine’s Day, despite the fact that I feel more like Gandhi or Mandela making and keeping peace between teens sword fighting with carnations. I don’t have time to celebrate love, which historians think was created by Geoffrey Chaucer, anyway. He wrote a poem linking Beheaded Monk’s Day with courtly love in 1375. He needed something to do after The Plague. The title, “The Parliament of Fowls” totally makes me want to buy a card. If Chaucer were in my class I’d’ve said, “Edit title. Awful!”
Today, I’ll tell the kids all that, especially the fact that (one of) St. Valentine’s skull(s) is actually on display in Rome. They’ll like that. That skull should be on the cards, not hearts–a great idea for marketing to goths an teens with angst, which represent the lion’s part of the market share.
But if you’re just not in the mood this Feb. 14th, there are actually six days you might choose to celebrate your Valentine, according to History.com. Each of the possible St. Valentine’s has a feast day, a date of martyrdom, and there’s a separate day or two recognized by the Eastern Orthodox Church due to schisms and differences in the calendar year and such.
So, the bottom line is this: If you’re broke today, unmotivated, or have been jilted, there’s hope for you.
I always celebrated the day with my good friend in high school. Maybe she did it out of pity because I was always single. Translation: no one liked me. All the cute guys liked her. It’s life in high school if you’re not a one-percenter. We converted it into a day of friendship, and if I look hard enough, I can probably still find the hand-made t-shirts and cards. It always made me smile. I loved it.
And you know what? Despite the corporate greed and the fact that those chocolates in the heart boxes don’t taste very good, I have fun on Valentine’s Day. I’ll bring my students some donuts and take my family out to pizza. All the good restaurants are booked with people trying to impress people, and I don’t have a reservation. Pizza it is.
I really do like Valentine’s Day, or at least the spirit it represents. I think about you. My friends. My family. The potential to spread love and kindness throughout the world. I think of the beauty in the universe, now covered with snow. The stars in the sky, the icicles holding on for dear life. The beauty…the love…the magic…It’s all around us. That’s what is deserving of a holiday.
No matter how many bad writers Hallmark employs, it can never compete with that.
Café Casey 