The burden is real, and it's difficult to breathe

Teaching, like motherhood, is lonely.

And I'm lucky, because I teach alongside the best of the best. All of the best friends in my life are either teachers themselves or they are related to teachers or they work with kids in schools, and so when they know teachers are grieving, frightened, angry, and damn near paralyzed by love for this terrible job, they are there. Teaching is one of my callings, but I am here to tell you we cannot do it without the support of those in the trenches with us.

The last week has been particularly hard. It's been hard for every teacher I know, because we are all grappling with the implications of yet another school shooting, and our schools and our districts are grappling alongside us, albeit some with more effectiveness or empathy or action than others. At my school, we went into an unannounced lockdown drill on Friday, and by the end of the day, one in which a neighboring community college had also gone into a real lockdown, we were so on-edge it felt surreal. We were just an absolute mess. We were messy with each other. We were a mess in front of our kids, who seemed to find some measure of comfort in that. We were a collective mess all over social media. We are not trying to hide this. It is becoming critically important that we not.

Teachers are not quietly enduring these days. And I think that's why it feels so lonely; it reminds me of what it felt like sometimes to be a new mother, especially -- isolated and criticized and wishing the folks who didn't share my experience could try to empathize and reach out anyway when I was obviously exhausted and desperately lonely. (I think it's probably no coincidence that the best friends who managed to do this without fail even though they didn't have their own children were teachers, because teaching is an awful lot like parenting.)

I've been thinking about this for a few days now. On Friday, I cried intermittently throughout much of the day. I wept all the way home from school. I couldn't hide this from my own kids, nor did I think I should try; I don't want to frighten them, but they are savvy teacher's kids with questions and I owe them honesty in age-appropriate answers. And they had questions. Like: why are guns so easy to get? And why would someone want to shoot kids? And why won't our president and government even try to stop them? (God, a few teenagers eat laundry detergent and now they're trying to legislate that, even though some idiots will always manage to get Tide Pods if they really want them, right? Because TRYING TO MAKE IT HARDER FOR PEOPLE TO CAUSE HARM EVEN IF IT DOESN'T WORK EVERY SINGLE TIME seems like the obvious thing to do, and my children understand this.)

On Friday, I pledged to donate a specific dollar amount to fight this fuckery based on a number of things: comments regarding arming teachers in the classroom, comments about how "It's not a gun problem" or some such nonsense, as well as an amount for the top recipients of N.R.A. money. I had to stop reading social media. I actually blocked one friend-of-a-friend (who has all kinds of opinions about what teachers should do and what we should be fired for), because I don't have that much money in my bank account.

So it's been a rough few days, but I've already made that point. I sat down to write this: I am so grateful for the teachers willing to have the hard conversations, who are willing to be raw and real. Not only the teachers I work with, but the teachers I'm friends with from Seattle to New York City (hi, Becca) and everywhere in between. We've held each other in this heartbreak before, and we are doing it now, but we are angry, and it would be nice if we knew that the rest of the world had our backs as well. Every other week we're talking about what it means to be a teacher who understands that part of the job is putting our bodies on the line for our kids. The silence from those who claim to love us is deafening at times.

But while I drove home with tears in my eyes, and while I cried into my husband's shirt on Friday night and said, "I'm sorry, I don't know how to stop my feelings from pouring out my face, I'm okay and I'm hungry and can we just make some Trader Joe's appetizers?", I texted back and forth with colleagues feeling the same things. Mostly we just loved on each other. I chatted with and e-mailed teacher friends all over the country, and I thought, we're in this together.

Tomorrow I go back to school after a long weekend, and I'm going back feeling grateful for the folks who are going back with me. We've had four days off with our babies, with our families. I ate good food in Portland, played with my kids, laughed with my husband, and bought all the books at Powells. Last night I had dinner with one of my best friends, who is obviously a teacher. This afternoon I curled up on my couch and my daughter covered me with her favorite fleece blanket. I chatted with a couple of my best friends, who are obviously teachers. We're a mess, but we're a mess together. Also: we're not a mess. We're strong, angry, driven by fierce and unrelenting love, and ready to roll up our sleeves and organize. We're powered by a generation of fierce and passionate kids we are privileged to teach (and more importantly, to learn from).

If you love a teacher, surely you know that teacher is heartbroken and angry and damn near paralyzed by love.

But not quite paralyzed. We're not going to stop what we're doing. We're not going to stop having the conversations about what it means to place our bodies between bullets and our kids. Do you think the teachers in Parkland hadn't had those conversations already? I one hundred percent promise you they had, because that is what it means to be a teacher in America in 2018. More of us will have to do this, and it really could be any of us. Our kids are scared. On the west coast, thousands of miles from Parkland, my kids were not okay last week. Our kids are also angry, and they're ready to move, they're ready to act, and we're with them.

And if you love a teacher, it would actually help a great deal if you stood with us, because the burden is real and it is crushing. Say something. Anything.

Our national disgrace

I've been quiet here since winter break, mostly because I've been working on a writing project that has pulled me in another direction. But it seems school shootings hit a nerve with me, since I'm a teacher and a mother and I guess I have just the tiniest issue with the idea that our disgraceful country wins at mass shootings and not much else.

Maybe I'll add this blog as another project of its own: what would I end up with at the end of the year if I only post when America experiences a school shooting? (Will I have more entries than I posted in 2017? I only posted 18, a record low for me.)

There is, of course, much debate on what "counts" as a school shooting. Everytown for Gun Safety classifies it as any event in which a live firearm is discharged in a school building or on school grounds; that happens a lot. But if we "only" count those incidents in which a firearm kills or wounds someone in a school or on school grounds, during school hours, it's still way, way too many for a country that likes to brag about itself the way we do. And it's way too many for this mama, this teacher.

And after the latest massacre this week, even mere reports of gunfire have everyone here on edge. This morning my school chose to hold a surprise lockdown drill (I'm withholding comment on that for now). During that drill, we learned that gunfire had been reported on the campus of a local community college, where many of our students attend classes for Running Start. My students, held in a lockdown drill in our school, were texting their friends (also many of our students), held in a real lockdown. At that point, it didn't matter whether or not there was an actual shooter with intent to cause harm.

We are not okay.

Let me tell you about my morning, about how it felt to smooth my daughter's soft blonde hair away from her face and kiss her forehead as she called, "Dad, are you ready yet?" and glared at her watch. (He drops her off on the way to catch his bus, and my girl likes to be early.) Let me tell you about taking my son to his school on the way to my own, about reaching into the back seat to find his warm little hand, because for years now that has been our last good-bye in the morning -- before they jump out of the car and run into the gym for Morning Assembly I reach back and squeeze their hands three times. I (squeeze) love (squeeze) you (squeeze). Let me tell you about how it feels to hold those sensory images in my heart: my daughter's soft hair, my son's warm and slightly dry palm. Let me tell you about calling good-bye to one child as her dad drove her to school, about calling good-bye to the other as he jumped out of the car and ran into the gym, his backpack bouncing over his little butt, and the way I could just barely see the top of his Batman underwear peeking over the waistband of his jeans.

Let me tell you about my conscious thought: What if these were the last images of my children, alive? What if these moments were our last living memories?

I cried all the way to school. I listened to NPR. They read the names of all the victims who died in Parkland on Wednesday.

She was a soccer player and a creative writer. He unlocked a door to allow students in to hide from the shooter. She loved the beach. He had had just earned an academic scholarship to the University of Indianapolis. She was 14 and a member of the school marching band's winter guard. He reportedly died from wounds he sustained while shielding students from bullets.

"I sent her to school yesterday, and she was supposed to be safe...My job is to protect my children, and I sent my kid to school."

This is what it means to be a parent in America now. To live with that fear. Every fucking day, really.

And this is what it means to be a teacher in America: To understand that my students are scared, and the ways in which they process that are as varied as the students themselves. To cry with my colleagues every time this happens. Every. time. Do you have the vaguest idea what "every time" means? What is the number that means "fucking enough already"? Because we've done this so many times. And today we broke, at least at my school. We came to school shattered, and we were met with an unannounced lockdown drill. And then we heard about the real lockdown just up the road. And we tried to be calm for our kids but some of us were better at that than others, and when one of my kids brought me cookies he'd baked for me before lunch I couldn't keep the tears out of my eyes, and he just hugged me. And then kids came to eat lunch in my room and one of them was really, really not okay, and his friends told him to chill out, and then he was even less okay, and I couldn't make it better. And then some of my kids really just wanted "normal" by noon, so I tried to give them that, too. I don't think I did any of it particularly well. I taught with tears in my eyes all day long. I cried hard during my planning and once at lunch and twice in the bathroom, splashing cold water on my face. I cried hard after school, twice, before I walked to my car to drive home, trying to calm myself before I wrapped my own children in my arms.

And make no mistake: I was not the only teacher in tears today. And that's just in my school, three thousand miles away from Parkland, Florida. Ours weren't the only hearts breaking (again, fucking again) this week. I wasn't the only mother grieving and afraid as she kissed her children good-bye this morning.

And this is what I posted on Facebook this morning, before school, before I kissed my children good-bye, before our unannounced lockdown drill, before the lockdown at the nearby community college:

On President's Day, I will be making a donation to Everytown for Gun Safety.

I will give a specific dollar amount for:

Every friend or friend of a friend who comments that America doesn't have a gun problem (or any equivalent, like "America has a HEART problem" or "Cain killed Abel with a rock", etc.)

Every friend or friend of a friend who comments that teachers of our children should be armed

The top recipients of N.R.A. funding in the House and Senate
who have the gall to express thoughts/prayers/condolences to the victims of gun violence in schools

I have more ideas, but I fear I will run out of money.

I will be donating for every school shooting in America in 2018. And I'm furious about it.