I need to spend more time alone...

I’ve always loved how Henri talks about Solitude and Community. In some ways it is because I am someone who needs a lot of it but also because I think that most people need more of it. I have always felt encouraged and challenged by the way Henri talks about Prayer and Spirituality in general.

Recently, I’ve been feeling the questions that he raises at the beginning of “Clowning in Rome”. “It is in the midst of this dark world that we are invited to live and radiate hope. Is it possible? …How can we live in home so as to give hope? And how do we find true joy?”

I think that I’ve often allowed myself be depleted of creative and loving energy by trying to be always present to other people and always thinking that I ought to be able to nurture or meet other people’s needs.

Henri talks about how that type of thinking is dangerous and that we should think of our “fellow human beings not as partners who satisfy our deepest needs, but as brothers and sisters with whom we are called to give visibility to God’s all-embracing love.” When we take the time to be alone we realize that community is less something we make than something we receive.

Henri writes, “Whenever we pray alone, study, read, write, or simply spend quiet time away from the places where we interact with each other directly, we are potentially opened for a deeper intimacy with each other. It is a fallacy to think that we grow closer to each other only when we talk, play, or work together… in solitude our intimacy with each other is deepened… If we base our life together on our physical proximity, on our ability to spend time together, speak with each other, eat together, and worship together, life quickly starts fluctuating according to moods, personal attractiveness and mutual compatibility, and thus becomes very demanding and tiring…gentleness, peacefulness, and the inner freedom to move closer to each other, or to withdraw from each other, are nurtured in solitude.”

He talks about how we find our identity in solitude and it allows us to reach out to others because it calls us to deeper love. It isn’t that we become hermits but, that we have space to recognize that other people can never completely fulfill us. He talks about solitude with others and I like that idea: “Silence and solitude do not attract us when we are busy and preoccupied. Thus we have to structure some short periods of time when we can be alone, together. Being alone with God for yourself is a very different experience from being alone with God as part of your life together.” I think that is a beautiful idea and I want to continue thinking about it for a while.

Henri and I

Yesterday, I walked out of work and went down to the Potter’s House to get a book that I wanted to share with a friend. (It is always dangerous for me to walk into bookstores.) I got the book I was looking for… and two others.

One of them was “Clowning in Rome” by Henri Nouwen. I had heard about years ago but I had never read and it seemed so fitting to my current state of internal restlessness that I bought it. I went out from the bookstore down to Tryst (a very hip spot in Adam’s Morgan, DC) and spent several hours reading and writing. I started reading “Clowning in Rome” and felt like Nouwen (as usual) knew me and was speaking directly to my current circumstances. This has happened before.

I remember when I worked all summer in the mountains of Colorado and was feeling broken and lonely. I went down to Denver one weekend and walked into a bookstore where I saw the book “The Wounded Healer” and bought it without knowing what it was about. It was exactly what I needed to hear at that moment. Needless to say, I don’t know if everyone gets Nouwen the way I do, but I love how I feel understood by him.

I never learned to count my blessings

Last night, I went to see Ray LaMontagne play and sing in Philadelphia. I heard someone describe his music as "Appalachian dust-folk" which is a pretty accurate description. I like the "dust" part, his voice is so husky and his music is so interesting. The best part of most of his songs is that they have such intricate and lovely words. In many ways, I identify strongly with some of the anxiety that he sings about. In one of his songs "Empty" he sings,

She lifts her skirt up to her knees, walks through the garden rows with her bare feet, laughing. I never learned to count my blessings, I choose instead to dwell in my disasters. I walk on down the hill, through grass, grown tall and brown and still its hard somehow to let go of my pain.

It makes me think about how often I choose to "dwell in my disasters" instead of counting my blessings. It's just that it's so hard sometimes. Last night was one of those times when I found myself dwelling in my disasters. Actually, the past couple of weeks I've been there, forgetting to count my blessings. Feeling "so empty, so estranged" and wondering if I am always going to feel this way. It's crazy how lonely it is possible to feel even when we are surrounded by people, sometimes because we are surrounded by people.

He sang his song "You Are The Best Thing" that is on his new album Gossip in the Grain and I was happily surprised. I had told one of my friends that I didn't like the version that was on the album but, I had an idea that it was going to be very good live and IT WAS. He talked about how he changed it for the recording and he likes it better the way that he had recorded it originally. It was totally better that way. His music and his voice are fantastic, his commentary throughout the concert was kind of bland and unnecessary. I would have preferred if he would have just sung and left the rest to silence. Otherwise, it was a good concert, I'm glad I got to be there.

I'm falling asleep as I write this but, I must write.

Today was a normal day at work. I like how busy I am all day because I don't have time to be bored, sleepy, sad, or anything like that. My day started out when I caught one little girl giving another one a love note (seriously) to another girl (she was going to deliver the note). They are unbelievable.

The day continued most uneventfully until I had to deal with the incident with the coat (there were tears involved) and the issue during Gardening Class (which involved me taking someone back to the classroom and having them write an apology note). After all my work as a disciplinarian I got to teach Writer's Workshop and that was a lot of fun. One of my students told me afterward, "Miss Hannah, I enjoyed writer's workshop today!" That was so good to hear, because I feel nervous when I give the lesson.

I have realized that I need more time for quite reflection and writing in my life. I'm going to have to say "no" to more and have less social interaction.

Being good...

Today was a half-day at school. I often do a lot of testing and paperwork on half-days. We had a student get in trouble for switching numbers on the 100 chart today. He was warned several times to pay attention but he didn't and then he switched the 66 and the 99 on the chart. It's so unlike him, he's a really good kid most of the time. Then, he was flicking people with his fingers as they were going back to their tables. I had to take him to first grade to allow him to re-focus then I had to talk to him seriously and he almost started to cry. He told me that he had two important cards in his bag and I let him go get them, they were apology notes from his behavior earlier in the week. I hope he pulls it together because I like him when he's being good.

Today is a full moon, I'm not sure how that has contributed to my mood today but --all in all-- I've had a good day. Today the School Review Board came to "review" our school. That is how the school continues to have recognition as a school, getting funding and all that type of stuff. We had someone in our classroom observing in the morning and then I was invited with a group of 10 other teachers to participate in an "interview" with the people who were reviewing our school. I felt flattered to have been chosen. I'm not sure why they picked me but, it was a good experience.

I also taught my second writing lesson today. I was nervous because it was with the more difficult class to manage. I enjoyed teaching the lesson and I hope that the students got it and were into the writing. I'm excited about them seeing writing as something that they can and want to do. I think that it's so much fun to write. I stayed late at school today. I was thinking about how school is such a refuge for me. I like how it keeps me completely busy and occupied.

I left and got a phone call from a good friend in Vancouver and I was so happy to talk with her, it has been a long time. There are a lot of people that I haven't talked to in a long time. I think that it gets harder to stay in touch with people as time goes on, in part because there are more people to keep in touch with and in some ways, it's harder for me because I'm doing better at being completely present to the people around me. Which is good even if it makes it harder to stay in touch with people.

Not long after I got off work a good friend from Idaho arrived in DC and I went to meet him and took him to my friends place where he was going to crash on their couch for the rest of the week. It was so good to see him. He's another friend that I hadn't seen in 2 years! It's amazing how quickly time flies. I'm excited to go back to Idaho at Thanksgiving but, there will still be a lot of people that I'm not going to get to see when I go back. It's kind of sad in some ways that such wonderful people cannot continue to be active and present in your life after you're gone.

I'm just trying to write, this was totally stream of consciousness, I'm not trying to do anything special, just getting into the writing habit again. I like it. That's it for tonight.

"I was just imagining that I was the abominable snowman.."

So, after I taught my lesson on "realistic fiction" --I think I failed to communicate the "realistic" part well-- one of my students had a little incident where he got caught trying to bite another student's arm. (That sounds worse than it was.) The moment he got caught and was sent to the teacher's table to do his work he burst into tears. He was quite upset that he had gotten in trouble.

I had to walk him downstairs to dismissal and asked him what had happened. In his raspy little boy voice he said, "I-I-I didn't mean to bite her. I-I was just, I was... I was just imagining... I was just imagining that I was the abominable snowman." I looked at him trying to remain serious without busting out in laughter, "So, that was why you were going to bite her arm?" "I was just imagining I was the abominable snowman!!" he continued to tell me as if that made all the best sense in the world. I had to tell him very seriously how we are not allowed to bite people, even if we're imagining that we are the abominable snowman.

Oh my, it was funny. His "realistic" fiction story is going to be fantastic (literally).

Today, I taught my first writing lesson at school. I was so nervous! At the same time, I was super excited. I am so excited about watching the students learn to see themselves as writers. I made a couple mistakes during the lesson but, I think that as I teach I'll do a better job and the students will do better as well. I'm still nervous but very excited. I've been thinking about the fact that I have so many interesting stories to tell from working at my school and I've also been thinking about how much I am in need of writing to process my internal messiness. So, once again, I'm resolving to write more.

The last writing unit that the students were working on was all about "small moments" it is that idea of writing about a moment that was significant in some way and describing everything, absolutely everything about it. How it felt, looked, smelled, sounded, etc. I loved that writing unit and have been inspired to take up writing again, as a student, not as someone who thinks that they can write but, someone who needs to write to be sane and is still learning how to do it well. It is a freeing thought and I think I'm going to try to do more writing.

I have a problem. Recently, I get a sense of anxiety when I'm at Church. I don't enjoy it so, I don't feel like going to Church anymore. I don't know why exactly, but I've been thinking about it and I wonder if it has something to do with my craving for quality one-on-one time with people and conversations about transcendent types of things. Recently, the conversations after Church usually end up being a rapid pace of fast "how was your week?" superficial conversations which I get tired of really fast.

The other problem is that recently, Church is one of the only spaces where I pull out my notebook and get to be alone with my thoughts yet surrounded by a lot of people. I love that! But, I feel guilty when I realize that my mind is wandering and I'm not paying attention. I just wish that I had a friend or two who enjoyed being alone "together". You know? Pulling out a journal or book with a friend, maybe surrounded by people, maybe in a quieter space... and let thoughts grow and become something. Maybe after a couple of hours or a couple of days a conversation will be born and it will be meaningful. I miss that.