It was a beautiful Saturday. The air smelled like pure heaven this morning, crisp and cool and sweet. I parked the car, walked to the middle of my driveway, and just looked up at the sky, breathing. Breathing. The neighborhood was quiet, except for the birds; they were already greeting the dawn in ecstatic song.
I made it, I thought. I'm here. I'm home. This moment is mine.
I let myself into the house, kicked off my shoes, dropped my purse to the floor, draped my hoodie over my desk chair, and walked into the kitchen to warm up a couple of my special breakfast egg "muffins" -- paleo and whole30 approved, and yes, isn't that so precious. But they're delicious, and I hadn't eaten anything but a handful of cheese puffs and a Cherry Coke since last night's 11:30 "dinner." My son padded into the kitchen.
"Hello, Mommy," he said. He turned around to trot back to his room -- or to ours, to wake up his daddy.
"Come here, Bud," I said. He returned to my hug, kissed me sweetly on the cheek.
I finished my breakfast quickly; I only wanted to quiet my hunger with something that felt truly nutritious and then fall into bed. Matt was still there. I crawled in next to him, slid my cold hands against his back.
"This bed is the most wonderful place in the world," I said. "I've been thinking about this moment for hours and hours. Forever."
We talked sleepily for a few minutes. He was just waking up; I was about to give in to the deepest slumber. We reminisced about last year's lock-in, about how I'd come home for a nap around two in the morning because I had to to take Suzannah to a track meet shortly after seven. About how I'd been irritated by the messy kitchen and thought I should just stay up and watch Friends and clean it. These are the kind of ridiculous fights we have.
"I left the kitchen in pretty good shape this time," Matt said. Indeed he did. I arrived home to clean, wiped counters, although I was so tired I wouldn't have cared if it had been otherwise. We laughed for a few minutes, snuggled sleepily, and then he got up to make breakfast for the kids and I pulled the covers around myself, took a moment to appreciate the sheer physical comfort of our bed, and lost consciousness.
I choose to spin this as a cozy moment because it is one. Even though I looked at the clock shortly past one this morning and thought, "Hm. When Isaac was born, my water broke around one in the morning, I think. He was born just after five. We took him home a couple hours after that. So basically I just have to get through all of childbirth and then I can go home to bed." Those were my thoughts halfway through this year's leadership lock-in; I'd downed a latte at six and a Starbucks Doubleshot out of a can around, I don't know, midnight? But I was struggling. I hit my second wind a little later, only to find myself desperately struggling to stay awake at four o'clock in the morning. My friend and fellow chaperone managed to curl up on the concrete floor of the commons area and nap, but I knew that would be futile, so I didn't even try.
Free time--the hours between three and six o'clock in the morning--are hardest. Kids either find little corners to curl up and nap or they spend those hours being hyper and insufferable. Some of the kids with energy to burn played in the gym; the ones near me watched videos on their phones and screamed with laughter. I resisted the urge to punch them in the throat, only because I am thirty-seven and not seventeen, not because they were doing anything wrong. Teenagers at a lock-in are supposed to be silly and ridiculous.
I didn't nap. I alternated between wandering around like a zombie and trying to read (I'd brought a book that is entertaining enough to hold my attention in the middle of the night). Shortly past four, one of the Leadership kids came over with a camera, politely inquired as to whether I was "busy" (no, Sweetie; I'm slumped against a wall), and interviewed me for the lock-in video. (To my pleasant surprise, when they played it at breakfast a couple of hours later, I sounded much more coherent than I felt at the time.) At five, I thought, "I wonder if Becca is up yet. It's eight o'clock in New York." But it was Saturday morning, so I resisted the urge to call her and demand that she talk to me to keep me awake. Shortly before six, kids started to set up tables for breakfast and I thought, I made it. Also, everything my fellow chaperones said for the next half-hour was hilarious. Or maybe they weren't funny, I don't even know. But I laughed a lot.
And it was worth it. This is my third lock-in, and I always think, okay, I've done this, I can check it off, someone else can do it now. But I keep going back, because there is something really beautiful about sharing this experience with other teachers who are also willing to step out of their comfort zones, and with kids who create these safe spaces for each other in which to be vulnerable, reflective, silly, trusting, accepting. I watched two girls who couldn't stand each other during first semester curl up together on a couch and giggle. I saw kids I know have trouble fitting in find a space in which they felt included, and I pray that carries over into the rest of their high school experience. Something about this thing, this event -- it embodies everything I love about teaching, about teenagers, about human potential, really. It's all about kids who are trying to figure out who they are and who they want to be. I listened to freshmen talk about their goals for the rest of their high school years and I listened to seniors talk about what's mattered to them. It was beautiful. I love it. I love it.
And it was a good way to end my week, even though, truth be told, I was dreading it. April has been frenetic. I began the month flying to Minneapolis for IB training over spring break, which was wonderful but not altogether relaxing; I could tell the story about how Matt and the kids drove me all the way to the airport but my suitcase was left behind, for instance. But it all worked out, especially because on that very stressful day of flying my little brother, a pilot, just happened to be at the airport that morning and was waiting on the other side of a hellish security line with a latte in hand, and the next day my family joined me, and Matt stayed with me in my cozy room at the Hilton while his parents lavished attention on our kids, and then we all spent the rest of the week just enjoying our time together.
But it was busy. And by the time all the Winslows had landed safely back in Washington, seventy-five percent of us had colds. I slept in the study for a couple of nights because I didn't want to keep my better half awake with my coughing and, frankly, he wasn't doing so hot himself. And grades were due. And we had conferences, which meant I had to stay at school until eight o'clock for a couple of nights. And because my physical defenses were lowered my emotional ones were as well, so when I encountered a spectacular instance of adult mean girl behavior, I didn't weather it very well; I sent my children over to the neighbor's house and cried for an hour, exactly like a girl who has nowhere to sit in the middle school cafeteria, and I e-mailed Becca, who happened to be online at that very moment and e-mailed me back right away. And that made everything okay, because she gave me the perspective I needed in that exhausted, foggy-headed moment.
Yesterday morning the kids and I had a day off, so I decided to get my hair cut; I didn't really need one, but nothing makes me feel better than a fresh hair cut. I decided that this will be the weekend I deep-clean my oven with baking soda and vinegar. I decided that the kids and I were going to go out and have a cozy lunch together, and then we came home and I let them watch Full House (Suzannah loves it so much!) while I napped on the living room couch. I decided that yesterday, just for a day, I would try my very best to forget about everything but what was right in front of me. These little moments: the way my freshly shampooed hair feels swinging around my shoulders, the way my kids hold my hands when we walk across a busy parking lot, the way the afternoon settles cozily around me when I pull a quilt around my shoulders for a nap, knowing my kids are hunkered down in front of a movie in the next room. Everything else fades away.
This morning, I napped for a couple of hours and then rose to brush my daughter's hair into a ponytail before gymnastics. I collapsed back into bed and slept again. I got up before my family came home, stood under a hot shower, was drying my hair when I heard them return. I told Matt that I wanted to go out for dinner, because if we didn't, I'd just spend the rest of my waking hours slumped on the couch. We headed out in the afternoon sunshine; he dropped me off at Starbucks to write while he took the kids to the park. We ate at our favorite place. We treated the kids to ice cream for dessert. These moments are all so ordinary, like so many we have had before, and yet they are the ones I crave, the ones I think are the foundation of our collective memories. The way I curl up on the couch with a particular quilt, one my aunt made for my college graduation. The way we head out for gymnastics every Saturday. The afternoons in which we play in the sunshine, and wind up at one of our favorite restaurants, and decide where to go for dessert. It could be any weekend, really, but these are the moments are the hard kernels of memory I want to hold in my hand. They become tangible, and for that very reason, I want to make sure I really feel them, their weight and texture, before I tuck my children into bed each night before they wake again, another day older.
I'm very tired, and in one sense I've almost lost half my weekend; I slept through half of our Saturday, and I've felt a little loopy even as I've joined my family in the land of the living. On the other hand, I haven't lost anything. Time churns, it passes so quickly -- I'm grateful for anything that makes me want to hold each moment up to the morning light, to say, I'm here, to breathe, to be thankful for it all.
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