i think we repeat ourselves a lot. i think if i say it enough, it'll become true. if i talk it through enough, that i'll finally understand myself. so i've learned to stop for a little while.
every day is the same routine. at 10:00 we clean up, sit down and get quiet, and then we go out. to the pool, a field trip or to the park. every day it is a struggle to get 13 kids to just have a moment of silence. i've even tried explaining to these 6 and 7 year olds why silence and stillness is good. i'm not sure they have any idea what i'm talking about - but i keep thinking some day, they will. i wonder how many times i can tell them: please clean up, please sit down, please be quiet, please settle down, please be still before my words are no longer meaningful to them. i get sick of hearing my own voice and i know that they do too. so i've stopped. now, i sit too.
"please clean up, then sit down and be quiet." i tell them this once. and then i sit. i find a place where i can be calm even when they are not, when i can be silent even when they are not. and i wait for them. sometimes we're late for field trips over this, sometimes we wait for 30 minutes, but i refuse to let my words become meaningless to them or to myself.
people ask me how my job is, or how i'm doing, or what's new - and i want to spend an hour telling them everything. everything i'm thinking about, worried about, passionate about, dreaming about - everything i'm desiring, looking for, searching for, hoping for. every job i want, every place i want to live, every man who i want to love, every friend i want to know better, every struggle and question and curiosity. all of the promises i've made to myself, and broken and have made again - every lesson i'm learning, over and over again. it's just all too much and i've never been good at small talk anyway. but i'm trying to just be okay for a little while. for things to just be good enough for a little while. for a job to just be okay, and pittsburgh to just be okay, and friendships and relationships to just be okay. to commit, to try, to learn to break out of my american 21st century entitlement to more and better.
