Reevaluation

"You need to reevaluate your driving skills."

It was while pulling out onto the road that I realized I didn't know how to get back to the University of Memphis. We had been going from store to store, stocking up to outfit our upcoming apartment, so just reversing our path (which I had forgotten anyways) wasn't going to do the trick.

I asked David to put it in the GPS, and meanwhile attempted to make something up. I pulled up to the stop sign, turned on my left blinker, and waited for the cars already stopped the other directions to go. When they cleared, I pulled out into the intersection and began to turn. That was when I realized that the two cars coming into my lane weren't stopping. Apparently it was a three-way stop, not a four-way one. I waited in the left turn lane, then sidled right into the lane and pulled towards to the next stop sign. Still in the far left lane.

About twenty feet out, David announced that I should be turning right. I made a quick dash across two lanes and stopped in the right turn lane, waiting for the other cars (for this actually was a four-way stop) to go ahead. The man in the car on my left rolled down his window. It was a plain car, but he was in a police uniform.

"You need to reevaluate your driving skills."

This post is not actually about my possibly poor driving skills (I would like to term them more "poor sign reading skills," although I admit those are critical to driving). It's also not a rant about the speed of GPS warnings. Or my lack of direction.

The line seemed to me like it should come out of a movie, and then I should have some life epiphany, because I realize that I need not only reevaluate my driving skills, but also my entire life.

I almost wanted to take it that way. I want my life to be more like a story, and I was in a slightly bad mood, complaining about long hours, difficult students, and impossible restrictions and expectations.

"But," I thought, "I don't want to reevaluate everything. I still know I'm supposed to be here, doing this. I just need to be better at it."

David and I have been watching West Wing together, and tonight we watched the finale of season 2. And as the characters dealt with degenerative disease, an embassy under assault, a tropical storm, a friend killed by a drunk driver, and life constantly under watch, all the while making giant decisions, I thought, "Who am I to complain?"

Then I finished the last 30 pages of Between Shades of Gray, by Ruta Sepetys. Between Shades of Gray is a novel of historical fiction, about a girl and her family who were deported from Lithuania to Siberia during WW2. And as I read about frostbite, starvation, drafty mud huts, scurvy, and death, I thought, "Who am I to complain?"

Those last pages left me with a few thoughts:

"We'd been trying to touch the sky from the bottom of the ocean. I realized that if we boosted one another, maybe we'd get a little closer" (307). First of all, that is just a beautiful metaphor. Let's take a moment to appreciate that. Secondly, "Who am I to complain?" - at least I'm standing on dry ground. And lastly, boy, isn't that true. What are we doing? But, how can we do it better?

"From my rotting body flowers shall grow, and I am in them and that is eternity." - Munch As a Christian, that is not where I claim eternity comes from. And yet, I think it carries some truth. The circle of life is beautiful, but this can also be metaphorical, in the love we leave with others. I don't want to say your life is worth only what you pass on to others, but I believe this is critical in a way we often overlook. Isn't there some reflection of Jesus in that?

"Maybe you don't really want to die.... Maybe you just think you deserve to." This is said to a man who has spent the entire time griping about how he wants to die, yet never doing anything about it (after the first night, when he jumped out of the truck). 1) It's very true that some people feel like this, and I need to get better at helping teenagers with no self esteem (I'm not sure how much my pep talks do after fourteen years of learning otherwise), and 2) I think this sentiment is true of humans in other contexts, too. Sometimes almost in the opposite way, as in "Maybe you don't actually want to do that, you just want to want to do it." The relationship between action and belief is a funny one.

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer." - Camus Not much to add here, except to get over myself, again. And get back to it. (Although perhaps, again, we could all stop to appreciate the beautiful phrasing.)

I also finished The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, this week. I read it in preparation for teaching it to 10th graders, although I would recommend it to everyone. It makes poverty up close and personal and delves deeply into family and love in a very hands-off way. However, if that's your only look at poverty, make sure you read up on systemic oppression and poverty as well. That's my one concern with teaching the book, so I'll be sure to include some articles in the unit, too.

I go back and forth about the Fourth of July. I'm not sure how to feel about it. Mostly I just remember my great aunt and her cakes, and I make a cake in memory of her. Mostly I just like a reason to celebrate with my family. Although as David and I are in Memphis this year, that's not happening as much. So that all complicates it more.

My love to everyone,
Anneke