Some of the best days of my life

Come to think of it, some of the best days of my life were when I was Director of the UBCCC. There was always something going on. Each day I would have a chance to connect with this or that child age six weeks to five years, respond to a board member, resolve a situation with staff or parents. Some of the finest moments were folding laundry early in the morning with Mar-Mar or joking with Patti about who should fetch coffee for whom. Watering plants, feeding the birds while parents and children arrived in the Center were a way we could all stop and chat a moment, taking a breather before the onset of our hectic day, talking about our lives, learning a little more each time about one another.

Then, there were interns, work study students and other all sorts of young people coming and going, learning and challenging, questioning and growing. Custodial staff, gardeners, plumbers, fix-it people arriving at my door completing those never ending lists of work-orders to maintain the building and grounds, keeping it safe, aesthetic and comfortable for everyone. I had one rule: "I want everyone to be safe here." And that meant everyone.

Now, I wander the world searching for a center as comfortable and homey, emotionally respectful and safe as the teaching staff made it at UBCCC. I often feel lost, so lonely, and wistfully remember and long for those frenzied, terribly busy, intense, frightening days as a Director. I had never learned to be an administrator. Indeed, had never had one course on the subject! And so I made it up, learned from many, many mistakes, and especially from honest confrontations with courageous staff who would tell me exactly what they thought, direct and to the point. Sometimes I would close the door of my office, pull down the blinds and just weep - with fear, anger, love, or exhaustion. And then come right on back out to face whatever it was that needed my strength or attention. The best part was watching beautiful and wondrous teachers grow and grow becoming better and better at understanding and accepting all kinds of children and families, developing authentic, relevant curriculum with intellectual integrity.

I think back to how I was always longing to leave the Center and become a full-time professor. It seemed like that would be the highest state I could possibly aspire to achieve. What a myth! What an illusion! Of course, now that I look back and know what I have learned these past couple of years, I realize that I was trying to fulfill the delusional dream of acknowledgment and acceptance within my family system, that drove me to yearn for that status. It was the impossible competition, ridiculous desire to reach for a star that was not only non-existent, but not for me in the first place.

Well, now I am here, high up in the stars but really down hard on earth. Am starting to enjoy being a full-time professor. Able to contribute and influence on various different levels and learning to navigate the academic culture so much better since I have given up my impossible dream, letting go of the hunger for acknowledgment and acceptance. Just part of the plodding along I feel comfortable doing lately, I guess.

And all the while, I remember those days, not so long ago, as some of the very best of my life.

I am reminded of the song: San Diego Serenade:

I never saw the morning 'til I stayed up all night
I never saw the sunshine 'til you turned out the light
I never saw my hometown until I stayed away too long
I never heard the melody, until I needed a song.

I never saw the white line, 'til I was leaving you behind
I never knew I needed you 'til I was caught up in a bind
I never spoke 'I love you' 'til I cursed you in vain,
I never felt my heartstrings until I nearly went insane.

I never saw the east coast 'til I moved to the west
I never saw the moonlight until it shone off your breast
I never saw your heart 'til someone tried to steal,
tried to steal it away
I never saw your tears until they rolled down your face.

Comments

[tamarika]

joared,
I think it is in retrospect and the distance that gives the different perspective. Being inside something makes it difficult to understand. This realization has made me so much more accepting and compassionate with young students I teach. It has helped me change my expectations in a deep way. It's not resignation as much as understanding that everyone is exactly where they are at that moment and simply cannot be at any other place. I can plant a seed, a thought, an idea but that's really about it. Life experience has to do the rest!

[joared]

Only in retrospect do we often fully appreciate what we have done, where we have been on this path through life, as you have so aptly described. Distance seems to give us perspective. Rare are those who realize what they have when in the midst of living it. Perhaps, as for you, the aging process, so many experiences, a thoughtful contemplative mind, coming to being unafraid of change has clearly allowed you to reach a stage in life to which all could aspire.

[tamarika]

Yes, yes ... it's what "Bob" would have called "a therapeutic opportunity." Definitely agree - to be welcomed as our driving force. Wonderful. Thank you, Jean.

[Jean]

Ah, so wise and poignant, Tamar. Is this endless discontent something to be worked on (as I guess some Buddhists, amongst others, would say) or to be welcomed as our driving force? Both, I think - not a contradiction, because however much we work on it it's not going to completely go away!

[tamarika]

I love this, savtadotty ... "All the rest was just stuff to do while getting there!" Yes, and those feelings are really so much only from within! I wonder, are you barking yet?