The Sandcastle

A girl kneels in the sand. Her pupils are dilated in concentration. She breathes in and out heavily in time with the waves. The wind whips her dark hair around wildly. Her hands tremble as she smooths the side of sand castle in front of her. With this latest modification, she shifts her weight back and her toes squish into the wet sand. Her head tilts slightly to the side and she begins to chew on her bottom lip. Whether her lips are red due to the nervous chewing or hours in the sun or a recent indulgence in a cherry popsicle is unclear. What is clear is how much this matters to her. She is the creator. She is in control. This is her world.

This world of hers is fragile, though. Her castle has been kicked down by giggling children. It has been ridiculed and judged by beach-goers and altered greatly by friends "just trying to help." Even the girl herself has destroyed her creation again and again in bursts of frustration or despair. She thinks, now, she is getting closer to success. She has found an isolated cove. Her castle is uniquely hers. She has worked so hard with no help. Hard work pays off, right? But, in her desperate focus, she hasn't noticed the waves creeping closer and closer. With a sudden roar, the water collides with the castle and steals a large chunk of it away without even a simple apology. The girl scrambles over to the washed-away corner, throwing her small body between her castle and the great, big ocean. Another wave attacks her body, its roar sounding like a mocking laugh. Her raw lips sting with the combined salt of the water and her tears.

"I told you that you should have built it up here," her father's voice calls out from up the beach. "Making things difficult for yourself. You should have let your mom help." The girl glances up to meet her mother's eyes. The sadness that rests in those blue eyes rocks her like another wave. The girl wonders if she is more disappointed in her daughter's failure or in the distance between them. Looking away, the girl pushes the wet hair out of her face and sets back to work, piling the sand back up.

"Did that big wave just get your castle?" A voice says behind her.

The girl jumps, startled by the intrusion. She turns to see a boy in orange swim trunks. He is holding a metal pail and studying the pile of sand in front of her with interest.

"I don't need your help," she states, resolutely.

"Okay," he replies. He continues to stare. "What are you building?"

The girl stands up and turns toward him. She is ready to get defensive, to protect what is hers, but words won't come to her lips. She feels the stiffness in her legs and the rawness of her lips. Her vision is hazy. She looks back at her castle and suddenly can't remember why she started it. The grip of determination releases her and she feels unsteady.

"I don't know what I'm building." The sun catches her brown eyes. The boy can see panic in them.

"I think that's the hardest part," he says, "deciding what to build."

The girl swallows, trying to hold back more tears, "What are you building then?"

"Me? Nothing yet. I'm just collecting things."

He holds out the pail to the girl and she sees that is seems to be filled with an assortment of rocks and shells and sticks.

"I'm going to build something really, really amazing someday. It's going to be huge!" the boy talks quickly with excitement, "but I've got to collect all the parts first. It's even gonna have clock tower."

The boy digs through the metal pail and pulls an old, broken watch from the bottom to show the girl. He continues talking, "I'm going to make a sidewalk and a moat and 5 towers. And I'm watching for all the good places with the best sand too."

The joy in the boy's description makes the girl forget her tears. She grabs her own plastic pail and shovel from near the remains of her castle. She starts walking in the direction of her parents and the boy follows. "Maybe I'll start collecting too," she says, "My mom is really good at finding the best seashells. First, tell me...why 5 towers? Why not 10?"

Are You a Flower or a Weed?

I have found that in so many professional development classes or meetings since I became a teacher, we have compared teaching to gardening. We talk about putting our students in the right environment so they have the sunshine and soil they need and how we must water them in order to make them grow. The problem with this metaphor is I am not a gardener. I couldn't tell you the difference between a daisy and a daffodil. I have killed every house plant I owned. Given a garden to tend, I'd most likely either drown all the plants or let them all shrivel up and die. I suppose the comparison does work, then, since in both gardening and teaching, I spend most of my time winging it, but it was never my favorite way to think about teaching.

Recently, though, I was reading a book called The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon. In one scene of the story, the two young girls are helping a neighbor by pulling weeds in his garden. At one point, one girl comes across something in the garden and she isn't sure if it's a weed or something meant to be in the garden. When she asks the gardener what it is, he says, "It depends very much on whose point of view it is. What's a weed to one person might be a beautiful flower to another. It depends very much on where they're growing and whose eyes it is you're seeing them through."

I have often felt like a weed in my life. People have made me feel unwanted or annoying. I have often been overlooked. On the flip side, friends, family members, and teachers have also made me feel special and beautiful and worth having around, like a flower. It wasn't because I changed and became something else. A flower is a matter of perspective. As a child, I used to love blowing the seeds of dandelions across the yard. I had no idea that spread something that others didn't like. They had this magical quality to me. Did you know "weeds" are often hardier than traditional flowers and end up providing food that helps bees survive when the weather gets bad?

I may not be a gardener. I may not teach lessons at school that provide the right amount of water for growth. I honestly usually have no idea what each flower in my classroom needs. What I do hope is that I provide the right place for them to all be flowers. No matter how much they disrupt a class or fight me or refuse to work, I hope that a student never feels like they don't belong or that I want to pull them out.

Poet Ian Emberson once said that "A weed is a flower in the wrong place." This isn't just a lesson for teachers or kids. This is something I believe affects every single person in the world. If you are feeling like a weed, you may be in the wrong place. Find gardeners (friends, coworkers, significant others) that see your unique beauty. Find an environment where you feel wanted. There are a lot of gardens out there. If you haven't found yours yet, keep searching.

Resolutions for a Happier 2019

Each year, I try to make resolutions for myself. That is what new years are for, right? The problem is mine have become so predictable. I always want to be healthier and have some new calorie counting plan or exercise routine that I won't follow through with. I always want to be more social and tell myself I can alter my personality to meet more people and then am disappointed when I can't. I usually want to be more organized, whether by cleaning more or planning financially or doing lesson plans ahead of time but life isn't organized and I end up riding the chaos.

So...this year, instead of creating the same healthy, social, organized plans I always do, I want to change gears. This year, I just want to work on being content with who I am rather than discouraged about who I am not.

Instead of worrying about the healthiest options...

• I will take more time to eat and enjoy the food in front of me.
• I will cook and bake more often because I LOVE doing that. 
• I will do lots of activities I love like hiking and swimming.
• I will worry more about how I physically feel than the number on any app.

Instead of beating myself up for not being outgoing enough...

• I will respond more naturally, telling people how I feel (good or bad) rather than what I think they want to hear.
• I will laugh without holding back (even if my laugh is too loud). 
• I will join any activity that sounds enjoyable, but not hate myself for saying "no" when it doesn't.

Instead of being so hard on myself for lacking organization....

• I will do my best work until the end of the school day and say "That is good enough", instead of staying hours after the final bell to be better.
• I will take a deep breath every time I lose something or forget something or pay too much for something and say, "This doesn't make me a bad person. What is my next step?" instead of getting down on myself.
• I will clean and organize small spaces whenever I can to feel better, but also not prioritize fixing messes over sleep.