Cheating Cheater #SOLC25 18/31

He was shamelessly cheating. While the “big boys” (my teens) and my spouse splashed around the small pool, calling loudly to each other, my cousin’s 7-year-old ducked underwater every time he heard the dreaded cry, “Marco!” Others might give away their position by replying, “Polo!” but he was no fool. You’re a lot harder to find if Marco can’t hear you.

Of course we called him on it, tickling him and dunking him. “You’re a cheating cheater!” my sons teased, and he didn’t deny it. Seven is the perfect age to check out what happens when you break the rules. Turns out, if you cheat long enough, we’ll change the game – and we’ll love you anyway.

***

After school, my child tells me that one of his teachers has accused him of cheating. “The worst part,” he says, “is that I did it: we wrote that section together – but only because we thought we were allowed to.” He takes a deep breath. “I tried to explain. I tried to tell him that we obviously thought it was ok because we used the exact same words. If I was trying to cheat I wouldn’t be so dumb about it, but he wouldn’t even listen.”

My son is upset, and rightly so. The idea that someone thinks you have intentionally been dishonest can be devastating. Worse, he likes this teacher and this subject; he’s worried about the ramifications of this incident.

“Will you write to him and tell him I’m not a cheater?” he asks. I counsel him to send an apology email, even though he’s still upset about the accusation itself. He pulls out his phone and shows me the email he’s already composed. “Is it good enough?” he asks. “Can I send it?” It is and he does.

***

We all knew that the 9th grade Mythology test was nearly impossible. Senior students recounted horror stories. “No one passes,” they assured us. “It’s killer.” I studied and studied, and worried so much that I made myself physically ill before the test. I vomited and got sent home at lunch.

My teacher announced to the class that what I had done was a form of cheating. She gave them the “easy” version of the test and “saved” the hard one for my return. Then, she told me that she assumed I had lied about being sick. I cried while I took the make-up test – which I aced, even though it was very, very hard. I’m still not sure if she ever thought of me as completely honest after that. I know that I never quite trusted her again.

***

I don’t know what to write to my son’s teacher, but I know what I want to say. I want to say, even if he did it, even if he intentionally did the wrong thing – and I don’t think he did – please remember that he’s a child, not a cheater. Please don’t do to him what my teacher did to me all those years ago.

I’ll find the words for the email, but before I do, I’m going upstairs to give my child an extra hug. I can’t change this particular game, but I’ll love him anyway.

My favourite place #SOLC25 12/31

I have woken first. I sit at the table on the porch of my aunt’s cottage and sip milky spiced chai. I am relaxed.

The white-winged doves call almost continuously over the soft susurration of water and the cool rustle of the morning breeze through the palm leaves. I know that beyond the porch screen, the world is awake, although from here everything looks still. The deep green water in the little bay calmly offers a mirrored view of everything it sees. If I wander out across the white sand, I will be able to see hermit crabs exploring the shallow edges of the water, jelly fish – beautiful pulsing flowers – a little further out, and fish of various sorts swimming through the reeds, but for this moment, I am quiet on the land.

A grackle flies into the jungle geranium (ixora coccinea) bushes which surround the house, and she poses. She tilts her sleek head at me as if she knows how beautifully her iridescent black feathers contrast against the green leaves and red flowers. Really, she’s just hoping for food. “I don’t have anything for you,” I say and, as if she understands, she flies away. She’ll be back throughout the day, but for now, I imagine her reporting to friends, “No, she’s the only one awake, and she’s still drinking her tea.”

Soon, my spouse appears and joins the lively quiet of this space. We speak occasionally, easily, but mostly we allow ourselves to exist independent of whatever expectations weigh on us elsewhere. The birds continue to call.

Now the human world begins to wake. Now engines growl from the road, from the water. A couple walks by, conversing in hushed tones, moving towards different water – the pool or the ocean. Two paddleboarders slip almost silently into sight. Next door, a little one runs to the edge of the bay, a pail in hand, ready to shape her tiny part of the world. I stand to make a second pot of tea and the curious grackle comes back.

This place – my aunt & uncle’s cottage – is my favourite place in the world.

The well-loved cat #SOL24 23/31

The text came in just before 10.pm.

Hi neighbours. Sorry for the late evening message. Tippy is at our place and is not willing to leave, maybe because of the cold. We can try to send her out if you are able to let her in.

Tippy is our cat. At least, we are the ones who brought her home from the Humane Society seven years ago. At this point, we are pretty sure she has several others families.

Tippy when we first got her, seven years ago. She has always loved kids.

For instance, she has definitely adopted the family two doors down. They have two girls, each a year younger than one of our boys, and no other pets. To visit them, Tippy climbs one medium-height fence and one tall fence and then paws at the sliding door on their back deck.

Not long after we got her, she began accompanying our kids to the bus stop every morning. After they were gone, she circled back to pick up the girls and accompany them to their bus stop, then she came home just in time to scoot inside as we left for work. Eventually, to her disappointment, the kids all started walking to school, and she was left to find other neighbourhood children to shadow.

The pandemic, awful for so many humans, was Tippy’s heaven. She woke and had breakfast with us, then got everyone settled for school. Mid-morning, she went out our back door, scaled the fences, and hung out with the girls for a few hours. At their house, she developed a routine: explore to make sure everything was still where it was supposed to be, then settle in a sunny corner by the front windows and wait for various people to adore her. After a good nap, she would ask to be let out their back door, then come back to our place.

This is one of Tippy’s napping places in our house.

The neighbours – with our permission – got a cat bed and a scratcher, food and water bowls, and plenty of toys. Tippy makes good use of her time at both houses.

A few months ago, we got a dog. Max is an enthusiastic black three-year-old mix of Lab & “something pretty big.” He likes cats, but the cats are significantly less sure of him. Tippy is, generally, not impressed. The neighbours, too, worry. Last night, after the text about the cold weather (it really wasn’t that cold), Andre went over to pick her up As Tippy was passed from one father to the other, our neighbour asked if she was adjusting well to the dog. “We’ve noticed she seems a little nervous lately,” he apologized, “The girls are concerned.” Andre reassured him that all was well.

Max is pretty convinced that everyone should love him, too – even the cats.

Andre carried Tippy home, we all settled in to bed, and she took up her usual spot, waiting for me to finish reading so she can snuggle with me all night. No doubt, Tippy is a well-loved cat.

Tippy and I read together almost every night.

Grief at 6 weeks #SOL24 14/31

“You can’t write your way out of this,” says my therapist, and I know she’s right, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Anyway, the words won’t come out properly, so it’s not like I have a choice.

She says she’s not crying as much as she expected. Apparently her therapist told her, “You’re going to have to actually feel your feelings.”

We repeat the phrase to each other and laugh at ourselves because we aren’t crying until we are crying – and then we start laughing again because we’re crying about not crying and does this count as feeling your feelings?

At the gym, the coach shows us the workout: lifting again, the weights carrying some of our grief. But today all of her muscles hurt and she didn’t sleep well and she’s just so angry that she finally has time to take care of herself only her body won’t cooperate. I know what she means, but it’s not my child who died, not my body that aches so deeply. We do what we can and cry again.

“I’m so tired of crying,” she says, and I agree, “yeah, six weeks is way too long to mourn a child” and “what are you thinking anyway?” because apparently right now all we can do is cry, then laugh, then cry again.

With that, the coach erases the whiteboard, grabs her phone and orders us all something from Starbucks. We change our shoes and head out for a walk, which doesn’t fix everything – or anything – but at least we are outside, together, sipping hot drinks in the sun.

Need a hug?

Two days before Winter Break, I asked a student to switch seats to mitigate disruptive behaviour. Instead, angry, they ran out of the room and left the school. The next day ice and snow closed schools, so we didn’t see each other again until January.

This gave me plenty of time to reflect. In my twenty-some-odd years of teaching, I’ve only rarely experienced something like this. I know enough to know that it’s not usually about the teacher, but I also know enough to know that there are always things I could have done differently and better. Without beating myself up, I thought long and hard about what had happened.

The first day back, the student was in class. I let everyone go a minute early, knowing that this student rarely left quickly. As they packed, I sat next to them and quietly apologized for my role in their distress. They ducked their head and looked away, “No. it was me. I’m really sorry.” We talked briefly, me explaining that I could have noticed their distress, them explaining that there was a lot going on.

After that moment, they came to class a little more often and showed up during exam days for extra help so they could pass English. Every interaction felt a tiny bit more relaxed.

Then the semester ended, and the student was no longer in my class. Last week, I popped over to the public library (right next door to the school – so convenient), and saw this student, this child, standing, clearly forlorn, a large bag dangling from one hand. When I greeted them, I noticed their red eyes. I asked about the bag – they didn’t say much. I asked if they were ok.

“People are mean,” they whispered, and tears welled in their eyes. I said yes, sometimes they really are. I asked if I could help. No. I asked if teachers or students were being mean. Students. Silence. The tears spilled over.

I leaned in and touched their shoulder gently. “I wish I could give you a hug,” I said.

“You can,” they replied, and looked up.

I’ll stop there.

These days, teachers cannot hug students. Just this week, the Ontario College of Teachers’ newsletter included “hugging” as one of the several reasons a teacher’s license was suspended. Even touching the child’s arm was possibly a bridge too far. We do not hug students.

On the other hand, the child was crying. They had been bullied and spent much of the class in the office as a result. They did not see school as a safe space, but they were starting see me as safe.

So, what do you think? Should I have given them a hug? What would you have done? What would you want for your child? Does your answer change if I am NOT a middle-aged white woman? Does it change based on the child’s gender? Or are teachers – acting in loco parentis – allowed to treat all children in our care with, well, care? Can we comfort them when they ask for comfort?

I know my answer. What’s yours?

Pure love

7:47am I should be getting ready for work. Correction: I should be ready for work. I should have done some yoga this morning. I should definitely have checked that Mr. 11 wore boots when he left for school. But it’s cold and I’m tired and the semester is coming to an end and my tea is warm and…

A sudden blur of brown and white flashes outside our sliding glass door. Our cat, Tippy, rises from her bed, looks out, does the cat version of rolling her eyes, and settles herself disdainfully back on her perch. Her sister, Hera, puffs up her tail and retreats towards the other end of the house, indignant.

Indigo has come for a visit. She is our neighbour’s Boston terrier and she regularly comes over to remind us that she needs to love us – or that we need to love her. Unclear. She tears out of her backdoor, bounds down the steps, across the yard and up the stairs onto our deck. Once there, she skids to a halt somewhere near where the door opens and sort of hurls herself at the glass, hoping we’ll be there.

If we are home and open the door, her whole body quivers with excitement. Sometimes she accidentally starts to roll over before she gets all the way into the kitchen. Sometimes she runs in, does a wild loop around the kitchen island, and then throws herself gleefully onto her back while she wiggles her butt, already anticipating a good belly rub.

She never stays for long. After a good pet, I say, “Go on, go home” and she bolts back out the door and over to her house, happy.

I’m happy, too. Since I’m already standing, I grab one more sip of tea and start gathering things for work, trying to love myself as purely as that nutty dog loves me.

I know everything, apparently

How do dolphins have sex? How do fireworks work? How come the fireworks echo like that? How do stingray tails sting? How are stingrays related to sharks? How do you know if you’re in love?

My one little word for 2019 is “listen,” but we are nine hours and fifteen minutes into the year – and let’s be clear that I was asleep for most of those hours – and I have already yelled (just a little). We are on vacation. I am sitting on the couch trying to write, listening to the gentle creak of the hammock behind me, the not-so-gentle rise and fall of the children’s voices as they talk their way through some version of tennis on the beach (raquets, a ball, and nothing else), the heavy footfalls on the stairs as the adults try to get ready for the day.

The sounds paint a lovely picture, and I am listening, but I have already been asked approximately 304 questions this morning. Can we go to that abandoned house you found? Can I take home a seashell? Why not? Can I use your phone to take pictures? Can I have more for breakfast? Can starfish swim? Can you read to me when you’re done writing? Can we go swimming? Can we go now?

The metallic thud and clank of the screen door warns me that I am about to be joined again. The boys know that I need some space when I’m writing, but somehow quiet space is hard to find in this tropical paradise. Our senses are alight with novelty, and experiences blossom around every corner. No one is getting quite enough sleep because every minute – even the quiet ones – is full of something.

What’s the name of this bug? What is cassava? What makes bioluminescence? Can we keep it in a jar? Why not? What are you writing? What time is it? What’s for lunch?

So, this one little word thing, this “listen”, this may be a challenge for me. I guess I already knew that. But now – literally as I am writing – the sounds have come together and, astonishingly, I have found the quiet in the centre of the noise. And what I hear behind the tennis negotiations, the breeze, the hammock and all of those questions, is security, admiration, love. There will come a day when these boys will know that I do not, in fact, know everything – or even all that much. There will come a day when they will think I know nothing at all, in fact. These questions show me what a central role I play in their lives right now. Right now, I know everything, apparently.

So here is my blessing for myself today: May I hold onto the revelation that questions are love in wrapped up in words during the 4,537 questions that are yet to be asked today. May I listen and may I hear. May I not lose my temper. (And may I forgive myself when, at question 4,538, I do.)

Why do the birds follow some people and not others? Why do stores close on holidays? Why do we have to go home? Are you done writing? Can you come play yet?

Yes, yes I can. I’ll be there in a minute, my loves.

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Passenger

I am a terrible passenger. I am writing this so that I will not look at the road and

snowy trees.jpg — Look at all that snow! Too much for March – terrible driving weather.

involuntarily wince as my husband passes trucks. It’s terrible driving weather – snow falling, temperature hovering near freezing, road deceptively black and mostly (hopefully) wet rather than icy. He’s a good driver, but I still can’t comfortably watch.

So far, to keep my eyes off the road and my hands from gripping the armrest, I have played Sudoku while listening to an audiobook, read an entire book aloud to our children, and scrolled through my phone (supposedly to read the newspaper). Now I’m writing. We’ve only been on the road for two hours. We have two and a half to go.

I wish I were a better passenger. I wish I could settle in and allow someone else to be in charge without second guessing, well, everything. When I think about it, I can feel myself sitting back and admiring the scenery. I can almost hear myself chatting breezily with my husband and not holding my breath as we round a curve. I relax because I’m not trying to hide by my ridiculous reactions. I imagine the mundane joy of showing someone how much I trust them by simply remaining calm.

But this is beyond my conscious control, and my subconscious desire to be in the driver’s seat comes with a cost: my reactions can make others less confident (or sometimes even angry); I end up doing the lion’s share of the driving; and I struggle to let go. And then there’s the emotional toll of trying to hide the irrational panic that grips me as we pass another truck.

I am a terrible passenger. It’s something I am working on.

But… after we arrived, I asked my husband to read this because I was feeling like a heel. He agreed with every word (harumph), but he swears that he only barely noticed me holding my breath once on this trip, and he says I need to add that I am a great driver. I’m pretty sure he’s not placating me. In case you’re wondering, he’s a fantastic passenger.

Slice of Life, Day 15, March 2018

Thanks to Two Writing Teachers for this wonderful month.

Learning to love again

Once, when my older son was about 3, not long after his brother was born, he started a list of all the things he loved. He was inspired by the large roll of paper we were drawing on and the urgent need to capture the incredible greatness of everything. He dictated; I wrote. He had a LOT to share, and I had trouble keeping up. At one point he stopped to take a breath, looked over at me and commanded: “Mommy, you do it, too.” Good idea: next to his list, I wrote the heading “Things Mommy loves” and underlined it. I wrote 1. Then I hesitated.

“Love” is such a big word. There are many things I like, but things I love? I wanted his expansive, all-encompassing list, but I could only think “my children, my husband” in the most common and inane way. I wanted to feel his urgency, but instead I was mired in uncertainty, unwilling to commit, unable to generate even one thing. I rejected everything: yoga? I mean, I really enjoy it, but love it? Maybe ice cream? How silly is it to start with ice cream? Teaching? I love teaching, but what does it say that my list of things I love starts with my job? I got tangled in my own head and couldn’t get myself unstuck. My toddler loved THE WHOLE WORLD and I couldn’t write anything. I was exhausted and I was nearly in tears. My child had no interest in my existential crisis.

“Mommy!” His little voice was imperious. “Do you like fudge?”

“Well, yes,” I hesitated.

“Then write that down.”

And my love blew the world open again.

—-

This memory returned to me when I saw Elisabeth Ellington’s 12 things I love slice. I was inspired. (She, in turn, was inspired by Margaret Simon who was inspired by two others.) With a nod to those who came before me, and special gratitude to my son, who continues to teach me to love, here are 12 things I love.

12 Things I Love

I love fudge. (Because even though if I stopped to think about it, I would probably list it under “likes”, it counts. Everything counts.)
I love chai tea, creamy with milk, in the morning
I love the way my 7-year-old hums and sings as he goes about his day.
I love reading a book that’s so good I stay up past my bedtime or sneak paragraphs in the car before picking up the children.
I love breakfast. I love that we eat breakfast together as a family. I love that we make big elaborate breakfasts on weekdays and then laze around and eat dry cereal on the weekends.
I love when the phone rings and the caller ID tells me it’s one of my sisters or one of my best friends. I love that sliver of time before I press “talk” when I’m already smiling.
I love ice cream. I especially love Breyer’s vanilla ice cream with real vanilla beans. Because that is the best.
I love starry nights at the beach.
I love teaching. I love being in the classroom, getting to know the kids, trying to figure them out, trying to show them why I love literature, helping them find their own voice and their own love.
I love yoga. I love feeling my body stretch out and my mind pull in to focus on body and breath, breath and body.
I love baths. Long, hot baths are one definition of luxury.
I love.

Day 13 of the Slice of Life Challenge