Eat Me!

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I think of teaching as a full-contact sport. Um. No, not that I touch my students or anything unseemly (come ON, people!), but that I absolutely, absolutely, think that teaching involves giving every part of myself. So, after lesson planning, copying, rewriting, presenting, motivating, listening, selling, engaging, revising, improving, inspiring, trudging, assessing, reviewing, and reassessing, I generally feel rather roughed up after each hour I teach.
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And, the truth is, I like that feeling. I like that it takes something out of me; something nearly tangible. I am giving my best self to the craft and there is a joy to that, for sure.
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Of course, there is also the constant feeling that I'm a self-masochist that is slowly stirring myself in the pot. There's that, too.

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I remember going with my dad to do something that he loves (it involved going to do quite a number of visits throughout the day in the small town of Mexico City). I remember how after a few of the longest and most arduous hours of my life doing what he loves so much (I cannot emphasize this enough: so much), he turned to me and said, "Doesn't this just make you feel alive?"

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Funny, it was just then that I was thinking, "I'm so tired, I wish I were dead." And/or, "I wish my father, he who brought me life, would die." The gall of my father! How could he say such a thing? Alive? Alive?

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And then it hit me. My dad LOVES this stuff. He just LOVES it. And that is why, to him, it is worth wearing himself out, taking out pieces of himself and laying it all on the line. It is like a marathoner finding that reserve tank and turning it on, because for that marathoner, the finish line somehow matters.

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What makes it matter? I'm not really sure, but I think that if we focus on what truly drives us, what makes us go to the brink and continue onward, then we know that we have found it. For me, it's getting in front of large groups of strangers and attempting to tell them that the world is theirs for the taking.

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And now, my dear audience, here is the poem that inspired this post. And please think of me as you read it, won't you?

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Me Stew, by Shel Silverstein

I have nothing to put in my stew, you see,

Not a bone or a bean or a black-eyed pea,

So I'll just climb in the pot to see

If I can make a stew out of me.

I'll put in some pepper and salt and I'll sit

In the bubbling water - I won't scream a bit.

I'll sing while I simmer, I'll smile while I'm stewing

I'll taste myself often, to see how I'm doing. I'll stir me around with this big wooden spoon

and serve myself up at a quarter to noon.

So bring out your stew bowls,

You gobblers and snackers.

Farewell - and I hope you enjoy me with crackers!