Hallmark Christmas

I have received no small amount of flack in recent years over my love for the corniest of all possible movies...the Hallmark Christmas movie of the week. Now, I don't pretend to insist that they are all outstanding. Some are completely dreadful, with laughable child actors, unlikable faux villains, and horrible can't-pay-for-song-royalties-soundtracks that make me cringe. And then there was that one set in my hometown...featuring palm trees. Unforgivable. Everything hinges on the chemistry between the romantic leads, and when it fails, it's disasterous. (Excellent life lesson, incidentally.) When it works, though? Magic.

And while I know that it is unreasonable and highly romanticized to believe that life and love can be wrapped up in two pat hours, these Hallmark movies still deeply appeal to my whole sense of story, and how my life - and your life...anybody's really - is just a series of episodes. Lots of them are really mundane, and then some of them are actually quite movie-of-of-the-week worthy. And this movie might not appeal to everyone, but for its target audience, it is quite diverting for a little while, and makes those who settle in to watch it feel just the tinest bit more awake and sentimental and smooshy round the middle.

And isn't Christmas that way, really? Isn't that why we all like it? It allows for experiences that make us smooshy round the middle, kind of tender-hearted and grateful, and allows for those moments we exhale and say..."THIS. This feeling, these people, this moment is why I work so hard all year and move from task to task with such a determined and break-neck place. I do it to earn the chance to see these beautiful people in the glow of the twinkle lights and the warmth of the fire and the buzz of the wine and the smell of the Yankee Candles and say...thanks." And then sing some songs about it.

And just to get really woo-woo about it all, let me add this. I could leave this planet tomorrow, satisfied that I had lived my life to the fullest. And I think that if I were to walk into the light and my life flashed before my eyes, it would be an epic heavenly slideshow of my life in Christmases. Starting with believing in Santa SO HARD as a little girl, listening to hear sleigh bells in the snow, and having my realization and my discovery be so slow and gentle that my faith never actually went away. I totally still believe in Santa. I have BEEN Santa. How could I not believe after that? There is nothing realer than making Santa for your kid. It is such a pure kind of love, isn't it? And I am a part of that. I have written a letter to Santa every single year of my life, and have no plans to ever stop.

I remember my brother and I sitting on the upstairs landing on Christmas morning, waiting for my parents to light the tree and call us down, making us pause to take a picture on the stairs. My first Christmas Boyfriend, making sweet homemade gifts for each other and singing "Do You Hear What I Hear" with our high school choir. My college friends and the birth of Faux Christmas. From playing an improv volleyball game, ankle deep in snow, with no actual ball, of course...to jumping from apartment to apartment through the years with our box of homemade ornaments, playing Patterns as we all tried to launch our lives. We have been striving together ever since, and even now, two decades later, we still gather for Christmas, and toast each other and sing songs. "Faithful friends who are dear to us gather near to us once more." Quiet conversations with individual friends in the kitchen. Mistletoe in every doorway, so much affection. Pete pounding carols on the keyboard while Liana and I try to find harmonies. Eventually, our collective children "cousin-ing" while watching Rudolph and making crafts and sneaking soda. A million cherished Christmasy moments with my Tribe, with many more to come. My perfect Christmas wedding, its memory still too tender and bittersweet to dwell on. Two small girls, pausing on the stairs in their footie snowman pajamas while I took a photo of their faces alight, eager to see what Santa had brought. A pink and purple plastic kitchen (meticulously assembled by their father on Christmas Eve as the credits rolled on "It's a Wonderful Life.") An American Girl doll bed. A cowboy suit for Snowball, Amelia's ragged, beloved little grey dog, his neck floppy from relentless adoration. Trips to New York City with the girls and my mom, posing in front of the Rockefeller Center Tree and looking into the beautiful window displays in Macy's and Bergdorf's. Hot chocolate at Serendipity and Broadway shows like "Elf" and "White Christmas." These are all real things that have happened, and nothing makes me more hopeful about my life than imagining what other beautiful Christmases I might get to make.

Which brings me to this one. I know people think I am crazy for listening to Christmas music starting, oh, at least three weeks ago. But you have to understand how things are now. I have been through the two worst years of my whole entire life. Racked with heartbreak like you read about. Working my tail off to learn a whole new job in the midst of this turmoil, after 20 years in the same career. And then these new things happened very recently...I got this amazing role in this amazing play with people I truly adore and treasure...an indisputable Christmas classic where I get to wear a red velvet dress and carry a white fir muff. FOR REAL. I am loved by the sweetest guy, who genuinely wants to watch Hallmark movies with me and see the season through my very rose-colored lenses, and joyfully, gratefully, celebrate all that a "Romantic Christmas" has to offer. My girls are thriving, and while I know they understand the truth about Santa, they are still kind of hoping for magic...a new kind of magic...and as it turns out, I completely get it. And I know just how to oblige. It is another gift of the season...a chance to express to my girls that I understand them, that I appreciate and value the culture of this life we have created under challenging circumstances. Christmas magic, y'all. Let's make some new kinds. My friends will gather again. We will take the girls to see the Rockefeller tree. Though some part of me used to fear it, it turns out that there is actually no expiration date on Christmas magic. It's not just for children after all. I am not at all ashamed to declare myself the poster child, the target audience for this little fact.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is one of my favorite books. Anne of Green Gables. Little Women. In all of them, many examples of how to Christmas, and I have taken lessons from every one, as well as from my mother, of course, who embodies the essence of Mrs. Claus. I have taken those examples and forged something completely my own, something that I take with me through all of these continually changing seasons of my life. So much has changed. Some things for the better, and some less so. But I am designed to make the best of things. I know no other way. You will get your lemons, but put on your big girl pants and make your freaking lemonade! And the thing about Christmas is that there is so much sweetness all around, a collective feeling of goodwill, and making that lemonade is just so much easier to this particular Bing Crosby/Johnny Mathis/Carpenters soundtrack. And on some days, the best days, that lemonade becomes a perfectly chilled lemondrop martini.

I can wish that for me, and for you, and for all of humankind, because if Christmas has taught me anything, it's that goodwill for all is a very real thing, and the only thing. Give generously. Sing loud for all to hear. God bless us, every one.

To my big brother, George. The richest man in town.

With nary two nickles to rub together, I am living in an embarrassment of riches, and I will continue to count every blessing instead of sheep.

I will end, now, before I write one more Christmas cliche. (Not for nothing, listen to Nancy LaMott sing "All Those Christmas Cliches." It's my actual theme song.)

May your days be merry and bright.

See what I did there? I had room for one more.

Wasting Time

I have really enjoyed my new relationship with wasting time. I think I have always appreciated it, but I don’t think I actually leaned into it as much as I have lately. I work hard, though not as hard as a lot of other people, of course. But I sure do know how to kick back and relax. I have my Artist’s Dates out in the world…plays and movies and martinis and writing on benches in random places outdoors. Those are wonderful. And then there are times where I do nothing but play on Pinterest and watch episodes of Family Affair (which I actually cared enough about to find and DVR, if that tells you anything about how I invest in the quality of my leisure time,) or watch all four hours of the Today Show, or reruns of the Love Boat. (Where, oddly, I always seem to catch episodes with Charo and one of the sisters from Eight is Enough.) I was introduced to Quiz Up by a beloved friend and I am afraid it brings out the worst in me. (The intellectually competitive high school girl who probably has a genetic predisposition to gambling addiction. That sort of person has no business playing video games against real people. Still, I play. And if you try to get me to stop before I am ready I will feel the urge to punch you.) Those are so indulgent, too. And I have been lucky enough to have a bunch of them in this beautiful June vacation.

I think my favorite, though, are these in between ones, neither the extravagant nor mindless, when I take a little while to just sit by myself in my garden behind the rhododendrons. (I say “garden” as if I do anything to it. I do not. I just pay a college kid to mow my grass and before I sit down I sweep the pollen off of the furniture. I also sing to the peonies, though that might be a mistake because I didn’t get a single bud this year. I am trying not to take that as an omen.)

But I digress. That sometimes happens out here in the garden.

I’ve done it since we moved here to this house I used to love so very much. I take my journal, a magazine, a glass of wine, and my phone both for music and because I know I need to keep being responsible to my life if I am needed. I sit in my wicker furniture that I bought from my earnings for directing A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and knowing that I earned it makes me feel extra grateful to use it year after year. I listen to the robins. I watch the clouds and notice the patterns the light makes through these oak leaves at different times of the day. Recently, I rigged out an extension cord so I can plug in my laptop out here, and write. I am writing this blog from here right now. It’s a little chilly, so I am sitting under the Wizard of Oz blanket that Auntie gave me in high school. With my glasses perched on the end of my nose, I am sure I look exactly like my own grandmother, convalescing in the fresh summer air. I am okay with that.

I do not always have time like this. I blast through my life like a freight train some seasons, for weeks or even months at a time. But, inevitably, there comes a time where I declare my need for stillness, for solitude, for the right to write. Usually it is just an afternoon or an evening here or there. It has just so happened that this month has been the longest ever string of them, and I have treasured every one. I’ve done some work on my new play. I’ve blogged a few times. I’ve journaled a TON. I feel replenished because of it.

In between, I worked with Andrea on finishing our play, and got it ready to launch for our summer camp. I paid the bills and helped throw a party and mindfully parented and made some positive changes in my life and outlook. I had some challenging conversations. I figured some things out. I got some important things done this June. But not as many as usual. I am okay with that, too.

I understand how rare and precious this is, and that not everyone gets to do this. I think of Lisa, six sons and a seventh on the way. She gets her prayer time, but it is no easy feat to find a moment alone. I think of Uncle Kevin, who is always running around fixing something, for someone. He should be long retired, but instead he climbs on ladders and fixes my garage door. I see that. I am humbled by it. But I also remember time spent hot-gluing Christmas lights into the Corny Collins sign at 10:30 on a Tuesday night. Saturday afternoons cleaning the paint sink or bolting platforms together. Nights crossing my fingers that the mortgage check wouldn’t bounce. Mornings weeping in the car, and having to repair all of my makeup before getting to my destination. (I still keep mascara in the glove department of my car, just in case. I guess I am never sure that the crying is really done for good.) I have my share of trials, too, just like anyone, and no one’s life is ever a rose garden, despite what it appears on the outside. (Or a rhododendron garden, as the case may be.) Some days are hard. In between, though, I steal an hour or a few from time to time, and I savor every moment of it. It’s a beautiful thing.

So, I leave you now, to read my Real Simple magazine, and my book about the making of West Side Story, and this Facebook article Elise sent me. I will drink my wine and watch the cardinals for just a little while longer, and then I will mop the kitchen floor and change the litterbox and get the girls packed up for their sleepovers.

But now? Here. This.

Part of the Human Heart

People say that you are not your job, and I used to believe that was true. But I am realizing that I cannot separate my job from my self anymore. I suppose that could be considered the definition of workaholic, but I think it’s a little different.

I feel like I walk around much of the time as the outside observer of my life, which “people” say that you are also not supposed to do - that this way of thinking keeps you from being in the moment. I don't agree. I feel like the writer and director of my own story all the time now, and feel very present inside of that. I used to believe I didn’t have as much choice in the matter. But I have learned that I am choosing every single second, and that I am responsible for the quality of my life all the time, whether I can always see it or not. I sometimes even hear my own narration in my head…like this afternoon, when I poured myself a glass of wine and carried two magazines, my journal, my iPad, and three books out to my garden. “Our heroine, spent, in need of repose and reflection settles in beside the peonies to pass a summer’s afternoon.” I set a soundtrack: my carefully honed crooners Pandora station, where at any moment I might here Sinatra or Jack Jones or Ella or Rosemary Clooney. I am doing these things because they are exactly what I want to be doing with this moment, and also because I am simultaneously creating a character who would do those things. Does that even make any sense? And is anyone else doing the same thing? It’s it hopelessly cliché to think this way or am I sort of pretentious and possibly bipolar? These are not rhetorical questions. I really do want to know.

So I guess, in that way, I am a writer all the time. (And, incidentally, I have just decided to get over myself and call writing my job, or one of them, because I have some things under my belt now, and they count as something. A kind of work, certainly.) There have been times in the past two years where I have wanted to do nothing, and just sit at home and hide myself away with my murderous cat. The one thing that would get me out of the house, though, would be those times when I would say, “You can stay home and watch reruns of Modern Family, OR, you can go out and do something, which might possibly be something worth writing about.” And I would go. And it might turn out to be nothing, or it might turn out to be something. (Not to say that I haven’t had flashes of inspiration during those sedentary couch times. Those are necessary too…but not in QUITE the number I was racking up.)

I have always known that I am a teacher all the time. It’s the little things, like not being able to go to the mall or the supermarket without meeting students, or parents of students. But it’s more than just that. I went to the most beautiful wedding last night, this sort of very fancy but country-rustic wedding of a former student, homespun and ambitious and beautiful and industrious. She is a teacher herself, an administrator in the Teach for American Program. Her groom is a teacher too, and the wedding was attended by many students I have had in different places – several from years of directing, or from Kidspot, and one from my very magical first year teaching, now a professional actor, and his beautiful pregnant wife. The bride sang to her groom, with a shout out to me, because it was a song from a show that we had done together, which I evidently once told her it was a perfect song for a wedding. It’s called “Human Heart” from Once on This Island, one of my favorite shows to direct. (I’ve done it five times.) It was beautiful and heart-felt. The whole night was full of theatricality and showtunes, actually. My actor student was telling us how he became an actor because of the fifth grade production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream where he played Oberon and was bitten by the proverbial bug. He met his wife doing theater in Chicago. And I know that I am a part of that, mostly just because I was just lucky enough to be there, in the right place and time, to set one tiny spark that they turned into a life. Not alone, of course. I am not trying to take credit for who they are now…but my crossing their path had a tiny bit to do with it. In that way of my favorite Into the Woods quote: “You move just a finger, say the slightest word…something’s bound to linger, be heard.” And add up those slightest words among thousands of students over the twenty years I have been teaching…and that’s a lot. It makes me feel like part of something in the world.

The courage of a dreamer, the innocence of youth.
The failures and the foolishness that lead us to the truth.
The hopes that make us happy, the hopes that don't come true.
And all the love there ever was, I see this all in you.
You are part...part of the human heart.
Of all who took the journey, and managed to endure.
The ones who knew such tenderness, the ones who felt so sure.
The ones who came before you, the others yet to come,
and those who you will teach it to...and those you've learned it from...
You are part, part of the human heart.

I am a part of a lot of Human Hearts, as they are part of me. Part of those who they will teach it to and those they've learned it from.

I see lots of theatre, which is my favorite thing to do, and every time I do, I am thinking like a director. “How can I bring something of this to my kids? How can I take the power of this moment that I am thrilling to back to them, to give them the experience of creating something that can move their audience the way I am being moved right now?” (I am also thinking, “How can I ALSO set this thing on fire or fly this other thing up in the air?” That is less relevant to this particular story, though.) I can’t ever simply watch something passively anymore, just for the enjoyment of it. I don’t regret that. Part of the fun of watching theatre or movies is the inspiration of it all, and that comes from thinking about it in many layers. It’s work to watch things like that, but it’s so worth it.

I used to have this Teddy Roosevelt quote in my 6th grade classroom: “Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” It was used in the movie version of Bridge to Terabithia, which I taught every year. I feel like I have won a huge prize in this life, because I figured out what I wanted to do, and I then worked hard, and got to do it. The Jim Carrey graduation speech made its rounds on Facebook recently, and he said a lot of things that I found very resonant – the parts about choosing love over fear, and the law of attraction thing about writing himself a check for millions in a very vision-boardy-ish sort of exercise, obviously, but especially the thing he said about his dad. (If you haven’t watched it, you should.) The key part is when he says that his dad chose a safe career as an accountant out of fear instead of choosing to pursue the thing he loved…and he still got laid off, and “failed.” So, you CAN fail, no matter what you choose, so why not choose the thing you love?

I manifested my dream job, and I love it beyond measure. I have now revised my dream vision. I want to phase out of teaching choral music, and phase into doing only theatre and English. I want to teach Shakespeare, or creative journal writing, or a class in drama as literature where we study Ibsen and Chekov and also Larson and Wasserstein and Ephron and Kushner. And I am totally going to make that happen. You just watch me do it. And I am going to write a new play and have it performed by my students, and observe, amazed, as all of my work, and all of my heart, come together in one shiny little point of light. I can declare that because I am unafraid. Because I love what I am so lucky to be able to do. In this, too, I choose love. And love wins, every single time.

Starting on a Hat

Years ago, I read and loved the book What Dreams May Come. There were many concepts about it that enraptured me – the idea of kindred souls meeting in the sandbox in their next life, the image of “hell” as only something that you create through your own pain, and that all you need to do to get out if it is to forgive yourself and choose to walk into the light. Those are the big ideas, but the thing that captivated me most in the whole book was one tiny one. This author described this one little corner of “heaven” which houses something like a hall of records – the story of everyone who has ever lived, and ever will live, the inventions created and still to be created, and the books already written, and yet to be written, when exactly the right author presents herself as ready.

JK Rowling said that the idea for Harry Potter just settled upon her, nearly fully formed, as she rode a train to London. Many authors have described similar experiences when that glimmer of an idea hit. I wrote one play, and the idea for that came to me in a rush, with the image of the very last scene, and the rest all tumbled out. Not to say that the writing of it isn’t hard work, sweat, doubt, nerves, euphoria, vampires, and chocolate chip cookies. It’s all of those things and a million more, but the idea is key. Work you can do yourself. The idea has to happen to you. At least that is what I believe.

I have really wanted to write another play for my students to use, one that would offer lots of roles for maximum involvement. One that would have something to say about taking risks and being open-hearted and following your intuition and creating your own path. One that would address the world of social networking versus human interaction, and perception versus reality.

An idea happened to me a couple of days ago. It just fell into my brain, again starting with the ending picture, and after several hours of journaling every single little thought I could capture about it…it has formed into something viable and exciting. I’ve created the Pinterest Board. I’ve named the main character. I’ve started some social inquiries for ideas I can steal and shape from my friends and loved ones. I’m totally jazzed, and I already know that this is going to happen. For real. It doesn’t have to change the world, but I know it will change me, the way creating anything always does. And it will change some kids, the way being in a play always does. And only good can come from that.

Working title: #choosingElla.

Stay tuned.

Artist's Date

Quite a few years ago, Craig turned me on to The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron. It is a 12 week program for any kind of artist that encourages creative thinking and expression, and digging down deep into your feelings. My kind of deal. It requires daily "morning pages," which is 3 pages written in long-hand, as soon as you wake up. I found that part very difficult, partly because I prefer to type my journaling whenever possible because my brain goes so much faster than my writing hand, and because first thing in the morning is my least productive thinking time. That part went kind of by the wayside for me. One concept I loved, though, is called the Artist's Date, where you basically take yourself on a solitary date once a week, doing something that makes you happy and makes you feel inspired. It can be a trip to a museum, or a great meal, or a play or a movie. Whatever. I have held tightly to that over the years, and even though I don't get to do it once a week, I can usually manage at least once a month. Sometimes twice. It is an outing that is mindful and watchful, looking out and listening in at the same time. I am almost always alone for these, though I do occasionally share at least part of them with someone. And as corny as it sounds, that sharing always feels very sacred.

My favorite location for an Artist's Date is the Loring Cinema in Hingham, where I have seen some of my very favorite movies - The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Her, Kill Your Darlings, and Before Midnight, for example. All super artsy-fartsy movies that I loved. There are several restaurants near there with delightful martini lists, and I like to just sit at the bar and listen to the people. I also love the MFA, and I have an annual Christmastime Artist's Date there that I treasure. I have one planned in June to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, where I've never been before. Sometimes, it has just been sitting on the beach reading a book. It's the conscious designation of the day that counts.

Today, I have an end-of-school celebratory Artist's Date planned. It starts with taking the train (taking the train is a much-preferred aspect of my Artist's Dates - particularly on my trips to the Broadway Teacher's Workshop...which is the ULTIMATE Artist's Date.) I am taking the train to Harvard Square, and planning to find a coffee shop where I can sit with my journal for a while. Then I will do some window shopping at Anthropologie and the bookstores, have a nice dinner and a festive beverage, and then see Twelfth Night at the ART. I may or may not have a bottle of Trailer Park Punch in my purse while I do these things. (Oh, who are we kidding. OBVIOUSLY there will be Trailer Park Punch in my purse.)

Anyone can make their own Artist's Date. You should try. And really, like everything, it's only the choosing that makes it one. It's just your perspective. You could do ordinary things, and try to think of them as special, and then, sometimes suprisingly...they are. Works for me every time.

Last Day of School

Last Day of School. That is one of my favorite phrases in all the world, along with “summer afternoon,” and a new one I just heard, “stubborn gladness.”

It is the end of my second full time year here at my beautiful high school, and while it has had its ups and downs personally… professionally, it has been outstanding. I am pleased with the work we did, I am proud of how the kids grew, and I am excited that the numbers in all of my classes have significantly increased for next year, which means that I am achieving the goals for which I was hired. Next year, I have two Shakespeare based shows: West Side Story and Twelfth Night, both of which make me ecstatic. I got to fill a giant virtual cart at Amazon.com, so I have all kinds of summer reading books on their way, with titles like The Second City Almanac of Improvisation and Will in the World and West Side Story and the American Imagination and Story, by Robert McKee which is about script-writing and Will Power: How to Act Shakespeare in 21 Days.

Guys, they actually pay me to read this stuff. Un-freaking-believable.

Back in the early days of the blog, I wrote a great deal about my middle school teaching life. I loved it, and worked hard, and felt such a sense of purpose and pride and investment in it. But it was tiring. I wanted this new job so very much for a million reasons, but not the least of it was that I hoped that it would mean I could work just a little bit less hard, for fewer days, and have a little bit more head and heart space left over to do other things…like write that novel, or another play, or follow whatever other creative urge might come along to tickle my fancy. Well, I didn’t anticipate that my head and heart space would need to be used for other more pressing matters in these two years of transition, but in retrospect, the Universe sure knows a thing or three about timing.

This new job was my saving grace in these past two years, and while there are still challenges – namely teaching a subject that I have only encountered as a student, never a teacher – it is, in fact, easier. More weekly hours, but less brain time. More things to do, but fewer pointless things to do. Higher payout (though not financially,) and lower stakes. I’m not impacting kids lives to the same extent, because they have much more of their own stuff going on, and more of a sense of the world than my little guys did. I am a lesser influence, and I feel so much relief in that.

That being said, however, I do have the advantage of having kids year after year. I will have students next year that I will have taught in the classroom for three years in a row, sometimes twice a day. Those are very rich and connected relationships, and I love that. And it’s nice to know that when they graduate, we can actually be friends in the future, instead of many more years between us before they grow up. In three years from when they leave, we could potentially be drinking margaritas together. And have. There are always one or two in a year who write me beautiful letters, and I take them so much to heart. I feel very valued and appreciated, which I know many teachers don’t, and I never take that for granted.

I used to have a whole burning ritual on the night before the last day of school, where I would light candles and set little scraps of paper on fire and say all sorts of incantations and release ceremonies. It was indispensible in helping me let the intensity of the past year go, and leave a clean space for summer to fill. And for the next class to fill in September. I don’t feel the need for that ceremony any more. It’s less burdensome to carry these students with me. These are gentler goodbyes for all of us, because they are more…see you soon’s.

So, while I feel less stress, I feel equally purposeful in my work. I know I get to create communities, little artistic families, transient but profound. Kids feel less alone in the world because of it. I make the platform where kids find their wings…not because I “give” them to them, but because I hold up the giant mirror and go… “Pssstt…look what you got there…wings. Now let’s sing a song about it.” I feel like the art of theatre is a noble one, and teaches people to listen and hear each other. Oscar Wilde said, “I regard theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.” I believe that, and I know that I am teaching humanity and connection. It matters. And beyond that, I get to fulfill my own creative self. I wrote two little plays this spring. Nothing earth-shattering, but they are little hats where there were not little hats before. I have another simmering inside me, getting ready to bubble over onto the page. And when it does, I will have a world in which to bring it to life. All while earning a living and supporting my family.

I am excited for those beautiful words: Last Day of School. But I will be equally thrilled to say one of my other favorite phrases: First Day of School.

But first, rest, parties, game nights, camping, Kidspot, star-gazing, beach-walking, journaling, and an epic trip to Europe in August. My first time. I will look forward to sharing my adventures with you.

What's in a Name?

The matter of my name has been a source of some serious consideration, as you might imagine. I started my life as Kelly Kennedy, and became Kelly Hines when I was adopted in the 6th grade. I always liked it...the way it flowed, and I usually used my middle initial, just to be fancy about it: Kelly M. Hines. I always envisioned that on the cover of a novel someday.

When I got married, I was happy to change it, wanting to have the same name as any future hypothetical children, as well as being excited at the sense of both belonging and arriving that my new name brought. I loved my new family, and I was proud to have that name. So I used my maiden name along with it professionally for all of my life. Three names, neat and secure. I liked it.

For obvious reasons, I needed to change that. It didn't make sense to keep my married name, clearly, and I could never understand how anyone could after a divorce. Wouldn't it somehow keep you tied forever? Wouldn't it connote a sense of belonging that would become, by definition, a great big lie? Can you really own someone else's name, even if it was your own too for a long time? I did not believe I could. And my two last names had gone together for so long, I didn't think I could have one without the other. It felt like just lobbing something off of myself, and leaving something gaping and unfinished. I also didn't like the idea of going back to my "maiden" name, which made me feel like a child, and still somehow owned by my father. I feel every minute of my age on my spirit, and while I am proud of my age, and feel like I have accomplished a great deal for 42 both personally and professionally, I just couldn't abide the idea of going backwards. In any way. And a year ago, when I was smack in the middle of this crazy journey, the idea of a single step backwards for any reason was overwhelmingly exhausting. The only way out was through and there was no turning back.

So, I decided to pick a new name for myself. I almost went with Nolan, after A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I considered Blythe, for Anne of Green Gables. I looked back into my family tree, though, and decided on Griffin, my maternal grandmother's maiden name. I had always felt her around me, even though she passed when I was in the fourth grade. I lived with her for a good portion of my childhood, lived in her house while she was dying of cancer, and not only remembered her very vividly, but saw the best of her in my mom and Auntie, and wanted to honor that. I have a tattoo on my ankle for her, partly, and it seemed to make sense. Above all, I wanted something far from who I was before, a daily symbol of my new life, my new persona.

It's different when you are in a profession where people call you all day by your last name. I think, maybe, it takes on a new importance. I am never just Kelly. I am Ms. So-and-So, formerly a Mrs. My last name is said to me, about me, a hundred times a day, and it had to feel like mine. So, I became Ms. Griffin at school this year, and many times, kids would call my name or ask me a question, and I would not answer them. Because I did not feel like they were talking to me. It was a coat that kept me warm this year, got me through this transition, but did not quite fit right.

When everything was finally wrapped up a few weeks ago, all tidy and legal, the judge would not let me be Kelly Griffin. I would be allowed to legally return to my "maiden" name...I REALLY hate that term...but to take on Griffin would require another petition, another proceedure, lots more phone calls, and a whole bunch of money that I don't have.

I have now spent three weeks as Kelly M. Hines. I have sat with it, rolled it around, written it in my journal, and signed my checks that way. And after a lot of careful consideration...I have decided to keep it. It doesn't feel like a step backwards, as I feared it would. It feels new and fresh, and above all, it feels like mine. Not my father's. Not my mother's. Not an unfinished phrase. It feels like me.

I only had one teaching year as Ms. Hines, my first year at Manomet, and it was glorious. My name changed halfway into my second year teaching. To go back to Ms. Hines now, as my new career is still only in its fledgling stages, feels right. I felt so invigorated in that year, with that inspiring class, one member of whom grew up to become one of my best friends. I feel so much at the beginning of something right now, just as I did then, and I can still see that plucky, enthusiastic, determined girl in the face of the woman I am now. Under the laugh lines, scars and all. Kelly M. Hines is still in there, and she is me.

I know that people will think I am flaky, especially at school. I expect a lot of "What the mother-eff is she doing now?" Three names in three years? But I can live with that. As a teacher, I know I am more than just what I say to my students. I am what I do. I am how I live. So, I am living as a person decides. Who changes her mind if she feels like it. Who is not afraid to change direction, declare a new truth when she learns it, experiment, grow, and make bold declarations. Everyone can do that, every day. We all get to decide. An important friend lately reminded me of that, and I think it all the time. It's been my mantra. I decide. And when I have new information, or new feelings, or new perceptions...guess what? I get to decide again. Still. All the time.

I choose Kelly M. Hines. Nice to meet you.

Dear eHarmony

Dear eHarmony,

Like many of your subscribers, I am a busy, professional, independent woman who waited a long time before deciding to fill out your very lengthy profile form. I did a lot of head shaking as I answered all of those questions. (Rate the importance of “honesty” on a scale from 1-5? Really? Is there a 30? How else would you answer that?) I very much regarded the whole process with a “What the hell?” sort of attitude, having been alone and recovering from the end of my relationship for...well, A LONG TIME. Clearly, meeting someone, no matter how it might turn out in the end, was an idea whose time had come, if only to get me out of my yoga pants on a Saturday night. Would I find a fling? A friend with benefits? Would it be a string of weirdos who would at least give me writing fodder, blog entries called “Horrible First Date, Number 73?” Would my blind date flex his muscles at me at the bar or ask me how many miles I had run that morning (obviously, ZERO) or text all during dinner or tell me that teaching theater was a very “cute” way to make a living? My expectations, eHarmony, were low. If I’m being an honest 5 on a scale of 5.

Every journey starts with a single step, and since I am a woman long used to being In Charge, I set out on your little website with a business-like plan to pick someone. Anyone, really, to be First Guy. Just to get it over with, no big hopes. Just to get out there. But then I saw…well, this smile. Dark hair, twinkly eyes, whose profile basically said, “Nice Guy seeks an up-front, positive woman who understands busy schedules and hard work and that kids are priority, and values both adventure and quiet time on the couch.” He sounded ideal. But what about the little things? There is not a place on your profile “wish list” to include things like: Looking for a man who will hold open the door. Who will hold my hand from the penguins all the way to the top of the giant turtle tank on an Aquarium third date and remember the quirks of my murderous cat. Who will bring me both wildflowers and a mix CD before week one is even over, and who will render me legless by unexpectedly kissing my ear at the dessert counter.

Based on my experiences so far, you might need to consider updating your questionnaire.

And I know you advise taking everything very slowly and approaching intimacy with care and caution, but honestly, eHarmony, what can you do when you look at his face for the first time and literally hear your own voice in your head say, VERY LOUDLY, “Yep. This guy.” What can you do? You go with it. And the new story begins.

You have all of these commercials with beautiful couples nudging each other with their elbows and tossing their heads back in laughter and gazing at each other with such a sense of affection and true companionship. And on my cynical days, I would just shake my head and fight back the uncharacteristic taste of bitterness those commercials would leave. But clearly, eHarmony, something in those images must have resonated. The quiet part of me that longed for someone who would look at me like that, who would know me like that, who could make me laugh and blush and sigh must have somehow still believed that those stories were real and possible. Something inside me kept the faith that even though I was 40-plus and mothering teenagers, it could still happen, against the statistical odds. And so I kept writing my vision-board-ish journal entries about Mr. Wonderful, who would be able to cook and think to hold my coat for me and be a super invested, connected dad. And - though this is basically impossible, of course, but since I was ordering him up from the Universe I figured I might as well include the following CRAZY little quirks: He will give me reason to visit random cities, like, say, Nashville or Minneapolis, because he would have to travel for work and not mind having me around to keep him company in airport waiting rooms. And, though this is REALLY pushing it, could you maybe make him able to tolerate show-tunes and someday sit in a dark theater with me as an overture rises and hold my hand? And if it isn’t still too much to ask, (though I know it is) might he possibly be comfortable drinking scotch and smoking cigars with Chris and Tom and the guys? How about good grammar, nice lips, maybe an interest in wine and lingerie? (On me, preferably.) Yeah. I know. That’s just Crazytown 101. But still…if you’re going to dream, you might as well dream Big. And extremely specifically.

This is a long introduction to a very short story, eHarmony, because this story starts and finds its Happily Ever After in a New York minute. I found him, literally one day after signing up for your fine service. He said yes, then we both said yes yes yes, and now we are planning picnics and buying tickets and sharing confidences. No one can predict the future, but this today we have found? Beautiful. Inspirational. Healing. So, I hate to say it, eHarmony, because you did a very nice job, but you’ve just lost yourself a couple of prime subscriptions. We are all set.

Let us know when you need us to film our commercial.

Love,
Kelly and Adam
Because we’re an “and” now.

Fandoms

My youngest girl has a very obsessive personality. When she loves something, she immerses herself in it completely, head over heels in love, to the exclusion of all else. No matter what anyone else thinks about it, no matter if anyone else knows what on earth she is talking about...she breathes it in completely. (I know...sound familiar?) When she was very young, there were phases of these obsessions. One notable one was these Littlest Pet Shop toys. There were guide books with the names of these little plastic animals, and she had these little houses that she would set up on the kitchen table, moving the pets from one place to another, having conversations between them, clear about everyone's personalities and preferences and best friends and favorite corners. She would sit there for hours as a 3 and 4 year old - and four year olds do NOTHING for hours, so that's saying something - enacting her little plays. These little sheep and dogs and reindeer and frogs came everywhere with her in bags or buckets, and she always had one or two clutched in her little fists.

Later, there would be a very long Greek Mythology phase, where she read all the Percy Jackson books and her dad told her the entire story of the Odyssey and the Iliad, and she created huge posters with all of the Olympians and their symbols and personalities and back-stories and connections to other tales. Just for fun. She painted her room an Aphrodite pink and had a little altar of shells devoted to this favorite goddess. Then came the Hunger Games, briefly, and then she finally read the Harry Potter series after years of protests and refusals. And of course, she fell in love with that, too. She was particularly enthralled with the Epilogue, and the characters of the next generation - Harry and Ron's and Hermione's children and their relationships to one another. She began, at this time, to write very detailed "fan fiction" in which she created all new stories featuring these characters, typed fervently with two thumbs on her iPod. Notoriously shy, she wouldn't let anyone read them. She drew the characters endlessly, in different outfits, in different combinations and families, pages and pages and pages in colored pencil. These, she shared. And these I will hold onto forever in her keepsake boxes.

Around this time, she discovered the concept of a "Fandom." I am sure you are familiar with this - they are little internet groups devoted to a certain fad or actor of tv series. They gather in corners of Pinterest or Facebook, and some eventually lead to things like Comicon. I know they have existed in some form or other forever, but with the internet, they are very easy to find. Abby is like me as a middle schooler in that she has friends in school, but after school, is pretty much content to just hang out on her own, doing her thing, with the stuff she loves. For me, of course, it was reading Anne of Green Gables and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Flowers in the Attic and ridiculous Gothic novels by Victoria Holt, mostly so I could be like Kristin Fahey, whom I idolized. And, of course, there were the Broadway cast albums. Left at my house by my grandmother, and collected from an ex-boyfriend of my mother's, I had every obscure cast album you could think of. Fiorello and She Loves Me and Damn Yankees and many versions of Gypsy and several Fiddlers on the Roof and the black versions of Guys and Dolls and Hello, Dolly. (Pearl Bailey is my favorite ever Dolly Levi.) I listened to them, song by song, and read the liner notes, and they are the reason I win the Broadway Teachers' Workshop trivia contest every summer. Who needed friends when I could spend my afternoon with Laurie and Curley and Maria Von Trapp? But the thing is...I was alone. I knew not another soul on the planet with this same obscure hobby. There was no internet, there was no community theater in my life. I was a solitary, weird little girl who thought I would basically always be solitary and weird. I dreamed of the people who would later become my Tribe, the Bens and the Craigs and the Jamies who came along in the flesh and recognized and shared all of my little Freak Flags. But it took a decade of solitude before that came.

Abby, however, who is the most fervent Freak Flag waver I have ever met, is most certainly not alone. In her little Pinterest world, she sees many other people who love Dr. Who, and the Harry Potter next generation with their fan art and fan fiction that brings to life the stories that she carries inside her as well. Though she doesn't know these people in life, she knows that they exist out there in the world, and that she is not alone. And she will never be alone. I love that she has that sense of community, giving validation to her quirks and inspirations and the worlds that delight and ignite her.

Her latest is Les Miserables, and the fandom for this is wide-spread, vocal, and creative. It has been going on for quite some time, and because my life has always been kind of magical, we have been given a number of very magical gifts to support her joy in this. If there were a stronger word for "obsessed," I would use it. She knows every word to every song. She can list every cast from every version in the US and London, and trace the various actors who have appeared in multiple versions and their relationships to each other. She had drawn all of the characters and writes fan fiction about them. She has read the actual novel, dog-eared and underlined - Victor Hugo at 12 years old, prompting one member of her math class to ask, "Why do you carry a dictionary around with you all the time?" She has written every single word of the musical out in longhand on 12 x 18 art paper - all from memory, and they are rolled up in a scroll in the parlor. She knows all of the actors currently playing the Barricade Boys, also knows as Les Amies, including all of the swings, and follows them all on Twitter. She literally knows EVERYTHING there is to know about Les Miserables and her Freak Flag is very firmly red, white and blue Frenchie-French. Earlier this year, I rediscovered an old friend from my past named Jennifer. (This in itself is a phenonamenally blog-worthy story for a day very soon. You'll like this one. I promise.) Anyway, she lives in London and came to visit recently, and it turns out...she was the pianist for the film version of Les Miserables. She worked with every singer on every song, coaching and teaching, and playing into their ear pieces while they sang live for filming. And she brought her score, and played the entire thing in my front parlor while we all sang along. So, Abby had the experience of singing "On My Own" with the same pianist who played it for Samantha Barks in the film. In my freaking living room. And for Christmas, I got the girls tickets to see the revival on Broadway. We went at the beginning of April (after the months-long countdown Abby had installed on her phone), and not only was I able to use connections to get a backstage tour, it was by her exact number one most favorite actor in the whole entire show, named Jason Forbach. (Who deserves a shout-out because he literally could not have been nicer.) He wrote a personalized note in her copy of the novel, and his friendliness and attention gave her the single best moment of her life so far. I am taking her back to see it again, along with my goddaughter, for their 13th birthdays this July. They have seats in the second row. I maxed out a credit card to do it and I swear, it is already worth every single penny. Because it is her thing. It is her passion. She doesn't play on a soccer league, or skate for a travelling hockey team, or need dancing school costumes or piano lessons. She wants this. She loves this. And it is more than worth it to support whatever gives her a sense of passion and community and reminds her that she is not alone. She hears the people sing. She hears the distant drums. And while I will not have control over many of her tomorrows, I have her todays in my hands and I will do what I can to fill them with as much wonder as I possibly can. Just one among my many, many blessings that are more and more evident to me every day.

Glad to be back to the blog. Thanks for reading.

You Can Never Go Back to Before

Well, hello there, old friend. Fancy meeting you here.

I have been away from this blog for a long time, clearly. I have waited until it was “safe” to write again, based on advice from counsel, and even when that time came and passed, I waited until I felt the ground was steady under my feet again. And then I waited a little longer, still, until I felt like I could understand why I even wanted to write again. And then, I waited even longer until a dear friend sent me the nudge, and said…go. It’s time. And then, finally, I waited until I could find the words to qualify and explain and protect myself from future damage with a person who matters deeply…who said, predictably…GO. Be you. Freely.

And so now I begin. On an ordinary Thursday, girls hanging out upstairs, doing their teenage girl things, as I sit on my couch under the twinkle lights that now fill every room, and not just my old Athenaeum office. It’s a new life now.

I have been a long time gone from this, and I have struggled with whether or not to return at all. I have thought long and hard about my motives for blogging in the first place – was it just for attention? Was it to be able to present myself to the world as I wanted people to see me, rather than for who I truly am? Was it just to have a platform to use in order to call myself “writer,” since a writer no one reads is just…what? A diarist? Is that even a word?

So, to come back, I have had to ask myself very deeply…why do I feel the need to do this? And if I do it, what do I want it to be? I am starting today because I know the answer now to both of those questions. Or at least, I know the answers on this exact day as much as I am capable of knowing them. To the first question, the “why,” the simple answer is this: I blogged, then, because writing myself out into the public was a way to keep myself accountable for the person I was striving to be. Not the one I always was, but the one I was reaching for. The person who saved baby swans. The one who pondered life next to Christmas tree lights even in the summertime, and who tried to get sixth graders through their awkward year with some semblance of dignity in tact. I used to feel, sometimes, that some things only happened to me so that I had something to write about. Looking back, I still feel that to be true. Not always, but often. There was so much that I didn’t, and couldn’t, say, but that didn’t mean that what I did say was inauthentic. It was just a slice of life, a series of snapshots of my little world and what I was trying to forge.

Up until today, I hadn’t looked back into this blog at all. It just felt too sad, honestly. But everything is different now. I grieved hard for the past two years, mindfully and with lots of therapy and way too many Saturday nights alone in yoga pants watching reruns of Will and Grace. Today, though, I looked back through some old entries, trying to see myself through the eyes of someone who had never read these words before. How would that land? Who on earth is that cheery, striving, Universe-loving middle school teacher with the showtune soundtrack and the fervently cockeyed optimist mindset? I am not that woman any more.

The life I used to lead is so foreign to me now, and my secondary struggle in the past two years has been to figure out which parts of my spirit to leave behind, and which to bring forward into this new life. My first struggle, my primary focus, has been on how to meet my most pressing needs of providing for my daughters and navigating a brand new career in the midst of this topsy-turvy new world.

Those two things have taken a lot of energy, as you might imagine.

With what energy has been left over, though, I have tried to rebuild my own soul, cleaner and wiser and more hopeful than before. It has taken lots of therapy, lots of journaling, lots of crying, and an embarrassing number of boxes of cheap-ass chardonnay. I have kept my head above water for most of it – not all of it, but most. I made it with the support of my most excellent Tribe, and a determination to do my mourning now and not shy away from it and save the worst of the grief for later. I grieved very thoroughly, with every damned how-to book I could find, and very slowly, I have emerged blinking into the light of this strange new land. What country is this? And what will I bring to it?

Which brings me to my second question…what do I want this blog to be? Now, in my life’s Second Act, what do I want to offer up to the world? I am no longer the winsome sixth grade teacher. I am not raising little girls in a “happy home,”scrapbooking my Lovely Family Scenes while watching romantic comedies in the Athenaeum. I am not the showtune singing, daisy picking, party throwing, Universe-loving woman I used to be. Now, I teach teenagers. I am raising teenagers. And truth be told, the Universe and I spent the better part of the past two years in a really big fight, and I have devoted considerable energy to trying to punch it in the face. So what does this sadder-but-wiser woman have to offer?

The answer is clear to me now. What I have to offer is all that any of us have – I have my journey. My truth, as much as I can state it at any given moment. My hope, my voice, my fears, and my sincere wish to do the best I can…and my determination to articulate that, in the hopes that someone out there might find some light of their own through my attempts to climb out of the dark.

For those of you newly catching up, I would like to say…I didn’t write about my marriage before in my blog, for lots of reasons. I am not going to write about that now, either, though its ending, up until recently, remained a daily factor in my life. Ironically enough, my divorce agreement has an “intellectual property” clause, which allows both of us to write freely without the other either profiting from or inhibiting it. That still just makes me shake my head…that it ever had to come to that. This blog will not be a rehashing or a slam or a tell-all. It is not about then. It is about now. And here. And this. It is about forward, and emergence, and whatever is happening today.

So…today. Today, I wrote scenes for a Harry Potter parody for my acting class. I chose out new music for my women’s choir. I ordered the royalties for our fall musical (West Side Story) and I cleaned out a file drawer full of old sheet music. I talked my oldest through a stomach ache, watched a vlog with my youngest from the star of Les Mis, made pasta for dinner and had a Facetime conversation with a dear friend across the sea about the nature of art and music and creativity…one of many such conversations we have shared.

So, when last you tuned in…I was a cheery wife and mother living in my house of dreams, about to start my Dream Job at a dream school, having no idea how it would turn out. Now, I am a divorced mother of teenage girls, struggling to afford this House of Quite Dented Dreams, with two years of crying and grieving under my belt. The Dream Job? KICKING ASS. I love it even more than I ever could have thought I would, and it has been my saving grace in this whole deal. The Universe and I spent a lot of awkwardly silent and sullen nights alone together, where I pouted and kvetched, and the Universe said, patiently…just wait. I have plans for you, dear one. And I threw popcorn at it and passive-aggressive jabs, and rolled my eyes and felt terribly sorry for myself. Until, finally…I quit. I gave in, and decided to put back into practice what I knew to be true. What I saw work for me in the many years of writing…that when you expect the best, you get the best. When you offer up your heart in gratitude for what you are hoping for, rather than what you already have, then good things always come.

After the worst thing I could imagine happening…happened…something better than I could ever, ever have hoped for has hit me like a ton of bricks. I fell in love. And the broken pieces of myself are coming together now in a whole new and very unrecognizable form…one that I would never have expected or predicted in my dark hours. Maybe this blog will also be a little bit about that.

It’s spring. Daffodils and apple blossoms and peepers. I have found the past two springs kind of insulting, honestly. How could the world still be bursting into cheerful bloom when I was so damned sad? But now? Now, I am blooming right along with the pink azaleas that I pet on my way into my theater each morning. Thanks, Universe. I never really doubted you all along.

New beginning.

Dear Sixth Grade Boy

Dear Sixth Grade Boy,

Well, the time has come to say goodbye. It seems hard to believe that my life will no longer be surrounded with such a level of crotch-grabbing, nose-picking, and girl-baiting. I know that high school boys have some strange habits as well, but somehow, they seem less relentless due to the increased level of self-awareness and, you know, actual girls around who could possibly be paying attention.

In some ways, I will miss you. I will miss you nerdy ones, who like to talk about the Titanic or the battles of the Civil War, or like to try to stump me in Greek mythology. I will miss the tender-hearted ones, who make sure that the boy with Autism always has someone to partner up with during pair reading, even if it makes their partnership with their best pal an awkward trio. I will miss the ones who surprise themselves when they write a really good line of poetry, or take the risk to sing a solo line in the Christmas play. I will miss the ones who I know still snuggle up against their moms when they are home alone, and maybe still have a little stuffed animal under their pillow where their older brother can’t see it. I will miss the ones who don’t totally know their gay yet, but never miss a chance to comment on my hairstyle or my shoes, and remember to have spirited conversations with me about Glee on Wednesday mornings.

Boys, I still feel a bit like I am abandoning you to the wilds of the middle school hallway, and hope that I have left enough behind to instill in you some compassion, fortitude and gentle reminders to use extra deodorant on gym days.

And you know, I feel like I should miss the Jakes most of all. There’s always a Jake, sometimes two, and you know who you are. (Though your name might also be Nick or Sean or Matt. It doesn’t really matter. You’re still the Jake.) I feel like I should miss you, and part of me wants to stick around and give you the parenting that is either not working, or not evident at all. But you know what, Jake? I should miss you, but I actually won’t.

I won’t miss you randomly falling out of your chair during writing workshop time to be funny. I won’t miss you asking me to go to the bathroom three times during every class, doing the pee-pee emergency dance, when you know you’ve lost your in-class bathroom privleges because of various issues involving permanent markers and paper towels in the toilet. I won’t miss you interrupting every single time I give directions just to derail me and create mayhem in an effort to have power in some arena of your life. I will not miss you asking me the same question over and over again as I sit at my desk in a thinly veiled attempt to look down my shirt. I will not miss my fear every time I have to take you on a field trip that you will open the rear door of the bus and plunge into highway traffic, or steal from the museum gift shop on a dare. I will not miss hearing you bark like a dog in the hallway after lunch and blame it on a kid from the other class, and I will not miss the emails from your parents telling me that it’s somehow my fault that you don’t write your homework in your agenda. ‘Cause the thing is, you’re 12. You can write down your own damned homework. I won’t miss caring about your education so very much more than you do.

Jake, or Jake-equivalent, I have done my time. I have had anxiety dreams about your Egypt projects, given you days worth of lunch detentions to prove a point about getting your Climbing Mount Everest poem through to its final draft, and given you endless rah-rah-you-can-do-it speeches. The you-can-still-change speeches. The effort-is-the-most-important speeches. I have given you, every one of you, a piece of my heart without ever really knowing if it will make a difference, or if I’ll simply see your name in the police ledger ten years from now.

Sad, but true.

Boys, please strive. The world needs good men, and everyone, everyone, is capable of finding their highest and best self and sharing it. I have high hopes for every single one of you, and I do have faith that with the right people in your corner, you can overcome your Jake-ness, find a good job, experience the love of a good woman or man, and make it through an hour without checking to make sure that your boy-parts are still intact.

I believe in you, and I always will. But now I am done.

Affectionately,
Your Teacher

Didn't mean to make you worry...

Don't worry. In the immortal words of Monty Python, "I'm not dead yet!" Stay tuned...

The Richest Girl in Town

So, yesterday I decided to finally post my news on Facebook. I figured this was the type of thing that people shared - new jobs, new babies, a great trip, an engagement - the stuff of life that people tend to want to know about you. I wasn't at all prepared for the response.

So many people, from far-flung corners of my life, took the time to say congratulations, or just to "like" my happiness. Kids from my past fifth and sixth grade classes, people I've been in shows with, kids from my high school, kids from shows I've directed at my New School. I felt so incredibly overwhelmed and humbled to have so many people care about what happens to me. I was thinking of that line in It's a Wonderful Life, where Clarence says, "Each man's life touches so many others..." It's amazing to me how many people I have known and engaged with over the years, and when my friend Dillon posted, "Could this be any more like the scene at the end of It's a Wonderful Life? To KHB, the richest girl in town!" I just lost it, and sobbed.

Who am I ever to feel unhappy? How dare I for a moment ever feel sad or lonely, or forget how very supported I am in the world? I have everything a person could ever want in life, and this was just another huge reminder to be grateful grateful grateful and to try to be kind, and to try, whenever possible, to reach out in this way to other people, and to tell them how much I appreciate them and what they mean to me. It feels so uplifting. Life is so funny...you get up every day, and make the coffee, and drive to work, and toil away, and talk to people and listen, and you just never know what lingers. Careful the things you say.

The best of all was the email from Matt's mom, congratulating me and telling me again how much Beauty and the Beast had meant to their family, and how New School is lucky to have me. How do I express to her how much it meant to me? How knowing Matt has changed my life completely, and is directly responsible for this whole thing even happening? More than anyone else in my life, Matt taught me how much it can matter, and how worthwhile it can be. I prayed to him during this process...his mom's email felt like a shout-out back from him.

This reminds me, too, to make extra sure that I am worthy of this wonderful opportunity. I have much to learn and study before I start; I need to be totally devoted to that. I want to build something special there. My vision is a little corner of the school that has the inclusive and protective vibe of the UMass Theatre Guild, where anyone can fly their own Freak Flag and know that they will find other kindred freaks around. I want the theater and vocal music programs to have the sense of service and social responsibility that Company has, where theater is place for kids to both learn and teach themselves and their audiences how to make the world a little better. I want to have a devoted aspiration to excellence that this school is worthy of, where kids take real skills and experiences with them into their futures. And through it all, we'll...you know... sing about it.

I am grateful for this outpouring, and for my raspberry coffee in the pink travel mug that Abby gave me for Christmas. I am grateful for the things that make my children so happy - Amelia's show, Abby's joyful obsession with the Hunger Games (or whatever is the joyful obsession du jour). I am grateful for the Easter Egg Hunt with my Tribe this weekend, with laughs and cameras and new babies and Tom's mimosas. I'm grateful for my in-law's new home and my upcoming trips to see Elise and Craig and the coming of spring for real. Nothing is ever perfect, and everyone's life has shadows, but this whole thing yesterday was such a powerful reminder to always, always look to the light. I want to focus on the best of everything, and just remember to say thank you. I intend to double my efforts in this regard.

Blessings

Still cleaning out. I'm onto files and binders, now, really weeding through the things I would use if I ever taught middle school again, and getting rid of absolutely anything that I wouldn't. I found this poem in a folder, and it spoke to me this morning.

"Blessings"
by Ronald Wallace


Blessings

occur.
Some days I find myself
putting my foot in
the same stream twice;
leading a horse to water
and making him drink.
I have a clue.
I can see the forest
for the trees.

All around me people
are making silk purses
out of sows' ears,
getting blood from stones,
building Rome in a day.
There's a business
like show business.
There's something new
under the sun.

Some days misery
no longer loves company;
it puts itself out of its.
There's rest for the weary.
There's turning back.
There are guarentees.
I can be serious.
I can mean that.
You can quite
put your finger on it.


I am reminded every single day to be grateful for all of my blessings and for the seemingly impossible dreams that come true every day, not just for me, but for lots of people. I love this beautiful weather, the buds on the trees, and my backyard swing. I am excited to have made plans to take road-trips with my girls to see two of my best far-away girlfriends in the next month. North then south the Browne girls travel, singing showtunes and listening to adventurous books on CD together. We do love a road trip.

My coffee is excellent today in my shiny pink travel mug, and for the next two mornings, my students will be taking MCAS, and because we have to be so still and quiet, there is really very little else for me to do besides plunge into the Game of Thrones series. I'm pretty pumped for that. My plan is to spend many quality hours this spring reading those books on my backyard swing, coaxing the peonies to come up and join the party.

Ponderings from the Rye

A lesson I’ve had to re-learn many many times in my life is “I can’t fix them.” I have had to keep reminding myself of that year after year in 6th grade, made more difficult by the fact that, well, I’m kind of supposed to. Or, at least, I am supposed to try. And help. That’s kind of the definition of public middle school teacher. Nurse, mother, counselor, sun-maker, tone-setter, model and mentor, all while making sure they hit proficient or above in their MCAS scores.

Increasingly, I have struggled with the futility of it, and yesterday was one of those days when I kind of hit the wall. I am tired of chasing kids down for their 6-sentence homework sheet on writing topic and closing sentences, and Egypt packets, and parent signatures on quiz scores below an 80%. I hate that part. I want to stay true to my mission. I want to give reasons to make school important for them, to help them see that their investment in their education is a matter of character, and not just grades on a piece of paper. No matter what their world is like outside, they can choose who they are in school. That’s the message, anyhow.

I have two boys this year who just hurt my heart every day. Total apathy and disconnection and rudeness, actively trying to not only spoil their own experiences, but to bring down the rest of the whole class. It’s exhausting, and really, when I think about it…it always seems to be the case. Every year there are a couple of kids who basically kick my ass, and require their own candles in the end-of-the-year burning ceremony, and they usually get the same message when I release them: “May they find joy and peace in their hearts, and understand that investing in learning is the ticket out of the sad place they dwell.” I berate myself for not having “fixed,” them, but really, what can I do? I can only give them the best of myself while they are here…

Here’s the thing, though…I know I don’t always do that. I know I hit the wall, every year, and sort of toss my hands up and say, “You’re your mother’s problem.” (I mean, not out loud or anything. Just in my head.) I think I have hit that point a bit earlier this year, simply out of fatigue. They’ve worn me down.

(Sidebar update…you might remember Sam, my “little fox,” who we kept for another year. He’s thriving in every way. He’s a success story, a wonderful soul, and I think we caught him in time. It took a village, and will continue to require that, but we got him. I think his changes will stick.)

I am 99% overjoyed about the choice to change my life and career. The only place where I feel conflict is the 1% Guilt Factor. And the guilt comes from this simple fact: I know that I can’t totally fix these poor little lost souls…but I can make a dent. I have made a difference in the lives of some of these kids, and now I won’t be here to catch them in the rye. Who will? If I can do it, shouldn’t I? Why should I get to have a much easier life now, full of things that just make me happy, when I am equipped to do much harder work in the world?

I don’t have an answer, and believe me, I am not going to change my mind. And after days like yesterday, that question doesn’t hurt me so much. Some days, though, it lingers.

Sixth Grade Field Trip

Otherwise known as "Please Kill Me Now."

Tomorrow is the 6th grade field trip to the Museum of Science. On a bus. For an hour and a half each way. With 6th graders. They are twelve, in case you've forgotten. Want to spend a 3-hour round-trip bus ride with 48 twelve year olds and 17 adult chaperones? I didn't think so.

Now, this has been done before more-or-less pleasantly, the time Andrea and I wore matching cherry flip-flops and, in the interest of full disclosure, were just a leeetle bit hung over from drinking Trailer Park Punch the night before, so things were just a little funnier than they might have otherwise been. Plus, I had a really great class that year, and one really Hot Dad as a chaperone.

This year...well, my class is...yeah. I don't know. I have two that I'm afraid will literally hurl themselves out the bus window just to get their peers' attention. I mean, I am SERIOUSLY afraid of that happening. I have another one who persists on wearing a sweatshirt that smells like cat pee despite my saying, "Hey, your sweatshirt smells like cat pee. Please wash it." He hasn't. I have another student who thinks it's really funny to bark and say "Shhhhh!!!!" REALLY loudly as often as possible. Not Tourette's or anything...just for fun. I have one with Autism who already doesn't like loud noises...so the bus ride should be FUN for him, obviously, plus two "advanced" kids (read: closer to 13) that I already have to tell every day NOT to do that one-armed middle school hug thing during locker time.

I AM NOT EXCITED ABOUT THIS FIELD TRIP. At least I don't have a group assigned to me, so I will try to spend the museum time just floating around, trying to sneak up on kids and watch them from afar, being available in case one of them loses it and needs to be taken out.

Ah...who am I kidding? In a perfect world, I will hide in that little room where the tiny-faced monkeys play, or in the corner of the cafeteria looking out on the Charles River, sparkling in the sunlight, and eating the gummy bears and Swedish fish I will have hidden in my pockets. For fortification.

Wish me luck.

My Yellow Brick Road

I preface this entry by saying it’s very freaking long, and you don’t have to read the whole thing, obviously. I am going to tell you exactly how I manifested this new job in my life using the principles of the Law of Attraction. (And I know that there are those of you that will roll your eyes when I start using words like "manifest," but that's okay. You can read something else instead.)

First, there was the obvious stuff…I worked really hard for seven years, built a reputation, made connections to staff people, and really, really loved my work. I loved it, and it grew in my heart.

Secondly, I fully understood what the Law of Attraction really means, and doesn't me an. It does not mean that you can get yourself a sports car by sitting on the couch and just "believing." That’s just absurd. I understood that the Law of Attraction means that what you think about, and thank about, you bring about. Your goal has to make sense for who you are, and it has to be something that you also work toward diligently and carefully.

So, when I found out that my predecessor had already made public his intentions to leave at the end of the year, (and only after I knew that – let the record show) I set out to earn the job. I made the decision in a hard and fast rush of “Eff this. I’M GOING FOR IT.” And I saw it in capital letters, and set myself a methodical agenda to bring it into being. I heard my shadow self, sitting sulkily in the corner, saying, “This is new-age bullshit. It’s not going to make a difference. They either will want you or they won’t. None of this matters.” Then I threw a coconut cream pie in that self's face and plodded forward.

How Kelly Harnessed the Law of Attraction in Ten Deliberate Steps…

1. Vision Board – I did this the weekend I decided to GO FOR IT. The need to do it woke me up at 3:30 one morning, and I did it alone in the Athenaeum. I took the school calendar (a beautiful, glossy full-of-photos affair) and collaged parts of it in. Then I took magazine pictures I had been sort of saving away in a box for the past couple of years – just stuff that vaguely spoke to me at the time – and sorted through until I found pictures and words that said the things I was feeling…things about a leap of faith, about working smarter and more efficiently instead of just more, about believing in your dreams. I wrote a little one-paragraph manifesto, imagining what a friend who loved me would tell me in answer to the question, “Why should I get this job?” Smack in the middle I put Kermit the Frog, who is basically my theater idol, as well as my inspiration for how to run the show with a sense of humor, and how to keep myself surrounded by good friends and love while I do it.

Here it is:







2. Amazon.com Shopping Cart – I filled an Amazon.com shopping cart with all of the textbooks I would need or want to do the job well. They included books on teaching acting, running a choir, vocal technique, directing, and theater games for the classroom. (I didn't buy them...just put them in my shopping cart.) One of which was called At Play: Teaching Teenagers Theater by Elizabeth Swados, which I found, oddly, I already owned. I put that book, along with my Complete Works of William Shakespeare and Ask and It is Given by Jerry & Esther Hicks on the shelf with my vision board. On top of them I put a Beauty and the Beast rose, ‘cause I was kind of praying to Matt during this whole thing, too.

3. Post-its on the computer – They were reminders of things I had read that clicked hard with me. They said:

“Be there. Go there now and never leave. Imagine that your dream has already come true. Filter every thought, question and answer from there. Dwelling from, not upon, the space you want to inherit is the fastest way to change absolutely everything.”

“The Universe is creative, kind, loving, beautiful, expanding, abundant, receptive.”

“You get what you think about, whether you want it or not.”

And my two favorites, from Eat Pray Love. One is a quote from Elizabeth Gilbert about Diligent Joy: “Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it..you have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings.” And the other: “Darling, it’s time.” That’s from the movie, where Javier Bardem dances Julia Roberts off into the bedroom. To me, that meant…you’ve waited long enough. You’ve worked very hard to be the best you can be, now come to this new place of joy and freedom and a brand new beginning. Plus, anything said in Javier Bardem’s voice had to be true and inspirational. Obviously. Sometimes I pretend his voice is reading through the DVR list, too.

4. Snap-Shots game – I have played this game in a variety of lovely forms, but in this case, it meant writing down on post-its moments from my “new life.” For example, “My students are laying on the floor of the stage. The lights are turned low, and I am walking them through a guided meditation where they meet their character on a walk in the woods." Or, "We are studying Hamlet's soliloquy. We have read it, discussed it, and are watching You Tube clips of great actors performing it, and talking about their choices and understandings." I wrote scores of them, and stuck them in the back of my journal.

5. Mentor Texts – I read
Steering by Starlight & How to Find Your Way in a New Wild World (Martha Beck.)
The Power of Intention (Wayne Dyer)
Ask and It Is Given (Jerry & Esther Hicks)
Creative Visualization (Shakti Gawain)
A Return to Love (Marianne Williamson)
The Secret (Rhonda Byrne)

6. Journaling – Obviously, I journaled my ass off about it. Mostly so that no one else had to listen to me go on and on and on and on and on about how much I was thinking about it. Though I did talk a lot about it too. But, believe me, not one tiny iota as much as I thought about it. Or wrote about it.

7. Sleep-Teaching – Every night before I fell asleep, I pictured my dream as true. I went there, dwelled there, felt the feelings, looked around the rooms I would have to inhabit, decorated my office, and set up the furniture. Every single night, even if it was just a whisp of a second when my head hit the pillow. I planned my dreams before dreaming.

8. Conversation Rehearsals – The conversation where I was offered the job. The conversation where I told my current principal I was leaving. The conversation where I told my partner. I practiced them. Scripted them. And it’s worth noting that they all came true almost exactly as I thought they would. Not totally, but enough to give me shivers. I also wrote the email to my friends announcing that I got the job…one full week before I go the job. I only changed one sentence of it after I got my contract in my hand.

9. Focused on the End Feeling – I tried to not just imagine, but feel what it will feel like to have one job to go to, one place to devote my energy, instead of two. I tried to feel what it will feel like to be there for Monday Morning Meeting with the whole school. How it will feel to have two weeks off in March with my kids still in school, and to be done at Memorial Day weekend. What it will feel like to actually be there on the day the cast list is announced, or to be able to spend my days talking about Shakespeare and human relationships and motivations. How it will feel to have my life filled with music, all the time. It felt, and still feels, joyous. It feels what Martha Beck calls “Shackles Off,” which means utterly free and uplifting.

10. Believing – I believed with all of my passionate, striving, hopeful heart. I knew I could do it. I knew I could make it happen. I didn’t entertain the thoughts of “What if it doesn’t?” beyond knowing that if that unthinkable if were to occur, I would take to my bed for three days and cry, then choose out some new dreams. But I threw coconut cream pies at all of those ifs, every time they came up. Those were shadows. I kept my face to the light, and believed.

Speaking of believing, I realize that there people who won’t believe in this, and think the whole idea of the Law of Attraction is crap. And that’s okay. Part of how I know it’s true – at least for me – is that I don’t actually care if other people don’t believe in it. I don’t care. I know I am right, and that it can work, and I wish and hope that everyone in the whole world could learn these principles and ways of thinking, because they have made me so happy and successful, and brought me my Big Wish.

Of course I have been asked the question I most wonder myself, which is, “But in light of this, why do bad things happen to good people?” I still don’t know. I don’t know. My only guess is that part of life is carving out your purpose and path and destiny from the lump of marble you were born into, and that every soul has a different destiny, one that the soul chooses out for itself before it gets here on earth. I think about my brother in this. He was a good soul, a good person, and had people who loved him so much and tried to help him. But he still died the way he did. How could that happen in a benevolent Universe? How could my gentle mother have deserved to have that sort of pain inflicted on her? I don’t know, but here’s what I think, what I believe…my brother was meant to be a healer. He was meant to help others through their traumas in the afterlife, wherever that might be, and the only way for him to do it well, as I think he’s doing it now, is to have suffered in real life. To know the pain of the worst of human living in order to gently mentor others who have suffered, leading them into the light. I know that’s what he’s doing now. And somehow, it was part of my path of learning to lose him, and my parents’ and my cousins’, and somehow, his son’s. I don’t know why. I think, someday, when I’m in the Next Place with him, singing songs from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and eating Heavenly Hash ice cream, I’ll know. That has to be enough for me for now.

This is a digression, and, I guess, a post of its own for another time.

Getting back to the point...there you have it. My steps, and my philosophies behind them. I know, of course, that it won’t work just this way for everyone, but everyone has the capacity to create their own path. This was mine. And it won’t surprise you one bit to know that it looks exactly in my mind like a Yellow Brick Road.

Cleaning Out

For reasons I will soon be eagerly discussing, I am cleaning out my classroom. And not just my classroom, but the various places in which I have stashed 17 years worth of teaching and theater *stuff.* Among the items I came across today:

- 2 huge gallons of apple juice that expired in 2008.
- Sesame Street and autumn motif fabric from my "Let's iron appliques on sweatshirts and tote bags and then outline them in puff-paint" episodes of the mid-1990's.
- A copy of the Ladies Home Journal from 1915.
- Inexplicably, 19 vests in various brocade fabrics and corduroy.
- My high school sweetheart's Soccer letterman's jacket which I wore for the entire winter of 1988-1989.
- Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with Donny Osmond...on VHS.


I also found these:


My semi-formal and prom dresses from the late 80's. What to do with these? I have kept them in my costume collection under the guise of someone-might-use-them-someday, but really, the fact that I still have them made me feel one step away from the adult-diaper hiding, maggoty freezer Hoarders that both terrify and entrance me. Why have I held onto this stuff, really? I certainly never expect to wear it again myself. I have the pictures safely scrapbooked and captioned, memories intact. I don't have the answer. Just the question.

My flower girl dress from when I was in my mother's wedding, with the chicken-dinner stain that, luckily, I dropped on my lap AFTER the pictures.


.



I also found these, from when I taught 5th grade and had a yearly commemorative stamp contest for the Revolutionary War.



How seriously my students took this! Hallway displays, leveraging for votes, all for bragging rights and the privilege of being in this laminated book...which went into the trash today, having spent six years in closet purgatory. I remembered what I told my mom when she was moving out of her house. "Take a picture. You don't need the item, just to remember the item and what it meant to you. Take a picture, and pitch it." I filled two dumpsters in Hull on that logic, and I employed it today...mostly.

I found this:



My poetry apron, made back when I had time to copy and laminate poems, add appliqued pockets to an apron and puff-paint it with whimsy. I was that, heart and soul. I was Fifth Grade Teacher, and reflecting now, I truly did the very best I could. I wasn't perfect, but I was cheerful and enthusiastic and committed and loving, and I made my classroom into the safe haven I had envisioned it to be when I used to talk to Elise in my sleep about multiculturalism and cooperative learning in our dorm room at UMass. I did it. I was "Ms. Hines," spunky and theatrical and creating the weather every day in my classroom.

I still am, to an extent, but in recent years, my spirit has evolved, and my ambitions have evolved, and I have dreamed beyond these walls. Not to devalue them in any way; I have loved this work, and it was my absolute dream job...until a new dream came along. I will always be grateful for everything I learned in teaching 5th and 6th grade, and the ways it gave me purpose and stability and a job at which I could eventually be solid and competent enough to make second in my life to raising small daughters.

The idealistic teacher I encountered as I cleaned out drawers and files today was familiar and someone for whom I have great affection and appreciation. But she is gone, now. I, myself, at 40, cannot ever teach Number the Stars again. Can't do it. And the truth is, I love 6th graders, LOVE them, but I don't give a shit about ancient Egypt...or ancient China, or even ancient Greece. Never have, thought I talked a good game. I dug Buddhism. I kind of liked the idea of Rome - the roads, and the aquaducts, and the funny things that happened on the way to all of those forums...but I won't miss it one tiny bit. I have taught Homecoming and Tuck Everlasting as well as I possibly could, honored them and drove home their themes and messages with all of the emotion I could muster. We journaled our asses off, and did some great projects and adapted Shakespeare plays and made mobiles and dioramas and portfolios. We did it up.

I took my poetry apron to one of the teachers on my floor, a person who is the Nicest Person I Know, and I guarantee you, nicer than the Nicest Person You Know. And you know what she said when I gave it to her? She said, "You know, I feel like I made this happen with my mind. I was just going through all of my other aprons - my word-root apron and my long-vowels apron, and I thought...I wish I had a poetry apron. And here you are, with a poetry apron. And now I will have a little part of you with me when you go."

You'll think this is quaint, maybe, or else that I am surrounded by other insane people who also make things happen with their minds - poetry aprons and grant proposals and dream jobs and the like - but for me, this was yet another example of a perfect tiny bit of synchronicity, of things appearing for people when they most need them. I believe in that reality more now than I ever have before...and if you know me at all, that's freaking saying something.
Not that the world is perfect, and I still struggle every single day with the idea of why-do-bad-things-happen-to-good-people, but in the realm of small things that I can control...like poetry aprons and just the right note from the Universe when I need it, or the perfect song on the radio, or seeing a "101" at the exact moment when I'm trying to make a decision...I have to say, I am just a big old pile of gratitude and awareness these days.