The Flavor of Smartness

"What is the flavor of smartness?"

The kindergarten teacher asked that question of her students through the computer screen.

As an observer I wrote it down in my notes...

and promptly began to consider such a compelling question.

What is the flavor of smartness?

The kindergarteners looked through their screens at their teacher.

She was wearing a plastic shield over her face.

She was sitting in her empty classroom with the afternoon kindergarten teacher sitting a proper distance away.

The teacher lets the question sit in the air...and then quickly says that the flavor of smartness is chocolate chip cookies.

She leans in to the screen and asks her students what they think the flavor of smartness might be.

I am an extra box on the grid of people attending this virtual classroom.

I observe teachers for my job.

I watch them on the tightrope of teaching...twisting to connect with a student...walking with flare to model the latest educational concept...gripping the rope as they barely hang on as it sways with uncertainty and upheaval.

Mostly I observe beginning teachers...but sometimes I am gifted with a shining moment of academic clarity or super human compassion from the resident teacher that generously shares the classroom with and mentors my student teachers.

This was one of those times.

What is happening in virtual classrooms right now has never been done before.

It is innovative.

Creative.

Difficult.

Heartbreaking.

Silly.

Embarrassing.

Brilliant.

Teachers are exposed like never before.

The ones I see, labor for hours figuring out an app or a website or a way forward for students.

They read stories.

Do art projects.

Tackle science experiments.

Sing and dance.

Teach math and history...

all over a screen.

They try to make the distance shorter with familiarity.

They use pocket charts or posters or puppets that the students know from school.

They try to maintain the routines that made their classroom a community.

They smile and cheer over a screen.

What is left unsaid is the colossal loss for the students.

Classrooms are more than the shared space.

They are more than the students and teachers.

They are a magical brew of intimacy and knowing...the instantaneous teacher response to a student's facial expression or body language...the unwritten comfort of a teacher placing a student in a specific space...or the hand over hand guidance of beginning writing...or the millions of micro-encouraging moments that teachers do without even thinking...

the smile...the eyebrow uplift...the wink...the nod...the deep breath.

It's the give and take of conversation...and commotion...

that kids and adults have everyday in the classroom.

All of that is lost today.

But for a split second, the magic happened over the screen with that mind-tickling question.

*****

Eight weeks earlier...that same mentor teacher used her decades of knowledge of five year olds and her deep understanding that all students want to learn...and tried something unusual with a student who was struggling.

It was center time and this student was working on handwriting and letter formation. 

The student put his head down.

Forming words with a pencil, fitting it onto a line...it all seemed like too much.

Overwhelming.

In order to avoid that, the student left the table and meandered over to the easel. 

He crawled underneath it.

Positioned himself like the roly poly bugs the kindergarteners find in the garden.

Most teachers would cajole the student...or reprimand the student...or sigh at the student and imply that the student was making a bad choice.

The master teacher chose none of those options.

Instead, she was curious.

She asked a question:

"I see you are over here in a tucked in place but you don't look happy. Do you know why?"

The student pointed at the table.

She asked him if he would like to try writing in this small tucked in space.

He nodded.

The teacher created a hard, stable writing platform resting on two wooden blocks...

AND THE STUDENT WROTE.

After a while, the student walked himself back over to the larger table where students were working on handwriting.

The teacher made space for the student to learn.

She sent the message that she knew the student could do the work.

She offered her encouragement and her belief in him.

She adjusted and modified.

While at the same time holding the student to the same expectations as other students.

Her ability to be curious instead of angry allowed the moment to be educational and productive.

I just took notes.

*****

What is the flavor of smartness?

Like so much of life, there is no right answer.

It is wide open.

Negotiable.

Is it the crisp freshness of a crunchy apple?

The cozy of hot buttered cinnamon toast?

The comfort of ginger peach tea?

The tang of an orange?

The exotic gift of mangoes?

The flavor of smartness is within every student.

It takes a master chef to see the beauty in each ingredient.

To find a way to bring out the flavors in a complex dish.

Whether it is done over a screen or in the classroom, 

teachers find a way to bring out the flavor of smartness in their students.

Indescribable.

Ineffable.

Sometimes impossible...yet they do.

May we stop and notice the impossible done with grace.

Thank a teacher. Today.

Artisans of the Common Good

It's been a long hard year.

We've had leadership that is undignified, unprofessional, unkind at the highest level.

That places a pall over our country, even our world...

...and yet, every single day, in my world, I see kindness and compassion,

curiosity and integrity.

I drop my children off at school and feel grateful for the teachers who work so hard, every single day, to be role models and to find a way to educate every student in their class.

They come to school with difficulties of their own and yet, they place them to the side and advocate for children...work with children...honor and cherish children...and the best of them set a child on a course of learning and growing that is life-changing.

I drop them off with gratitude in my heart...but I want to yell 

YOU ROCK!!

These teachers and principals, lunch people and custodians are

the very threads that make our country beautiful...

they are, as Pope Francis so gracefully said,

"artisans of the common good"

Yesterday, I went to an oak grove and I found a worker raking the path.

I listened as the rake clawed at the ground over and over, cleaning the way for people like me who enjoy wandering among tall oaks in the mist.

I smiled but I wanted to shout THANK YOU!

He is an artisan of the common good.

I mailed off a package that was important to me...

it holds a dream, an opportunity, a wish.

I handed it to Laura, one of the local people in my town who mails things off...

I wanted to hug her and thank her...instead I just gave her my few dollars - safe in the knowledge that my package would make it across the country because of her expertise.

Another artisan.

I walked my dog and noticed the street sweeper had swept the gutters of my street.

Another artisan...invisible but holding us together.

We have firefighters, policemen, 

nurses and doctors,

ambulance drivers,

city workers,

the highway patrol,

the people who build our bridges and smooth our roads,

the tree trimmers,

the park maintenance workers...who bring WD40 and find a way to help the swings lose the grinding metal on metal sound...honestly, these park guys do that (!)

we have people who plant flowers

and paint stripes on the roads,

the people who keep our electricity running

our water clean and flowing...

our garbage picked up,

our sewer system functioning,

our street lights on

our signs clearly marking the way,

our railroads in operation,

our city buses with wheelchair access...

we have artists who create public art...

farmers who bring their food to the local farmers market...

we have musicians playing on the sidewalk...and even bicycle taxis.

Our local co-op grocery store sponsors a candlelight walk at Christmas time...

Together, our community is a magical place...

the keyword: TOGETHER.

WE are who we have been waiting for.

WE are the artisans of the common good.

Every time you stop completely at the stop sign and wait your turn in traffic and truly only take 20 minutes or less in that 20 minute parking spot, YOU are contributing to the common good.

When you sweep your sidewalk, pick up the litter, share whatever extra you have with the people who have nothing, YOU are an artisan.

Today, I'm so very grateful for the people who go about their day just doing their good work...faithfully, professionally, honestly.

I'm so struck at the grace of that.

The interdependence we all have with each other.

Thank you, each one of you, for making our world a better place.

Love

Kindness

Compassion

Deep breaths

Friendship

Together, friends, we are the artisans of the common good.

We'll get our leadership to reflect our common good...soon, very soon.

Until then, craft your corner of the world with beauty and compassion.

Together, with other artisans.

Grace Bats Last

I didn't mean to do it.

I was rushing - trying to get my kids to school - calculating the opportunity cost of three minutes , maybe it would be two, of putting on my shoes.

No time.

I couldn't afford another tardy.

I broke my ankle last August and the sheer obstacle course of living my life without bearing weight on one of my legs for eight weeks made for quite a few tardies in my son's life.

So, on this rainy day, I walked barefoot to my car.

Dropped the kids off successfully.

Went to get out of my car and my feet landed in a very small puddle.

It was a foot baptism.

It brought me to the moment.

Took me out of my to-do list...

my oh-my-gosh-our-world-has-gone-nuts list...

my distracted movement through my days...

to a tiny puddle.

It felt so good that a thought popped into my mind:

take Buddy for a walk, barefoot.

I did just that.

Giggling at the craziness.

Enjoying the light-heartedness.

Relishing my ankle's new found strength...

I baptized myself.

It was just what my heart needed.

I want you know something very important:

YOU and YOU alone know your path to healing.

Even if its weird, or makes no sense, or seems impossible like walking the Pacific Crest Trail did for Cheryl Strayed, you know it.

So I walked and felt the bumpy earth, the soft grass, the twigs and leaves still left on the ground.

I walked and thought of all the many people who can't walk, who are in a hospital fighting for their life, in a prison locked away, in a grief stupor too deep to feel anything...and felt the breath of grace.

As I walked, I reminded myself of my warm shower, my cozy clothes, my very happy stripe-y umbrella and again thought of the blessings I often do not notice.

This past week-end, dear friends of mine celebrated their eight day old son's Bris.

They called it Superbowl Bris Day.

What's a Bris?

It is a celebration of life - an ancient faith-filled tradition for people of the Jewish faith.

At the Bris, the family reveals the Hebrew name they have given their son.

Etan's Hebrew name is Elie Shimon.

He is named after two incredible heroes of the Jewish faith that passed away while his mother was pregnant with him.

Elie Wiesel and Shimon Peres...

one a Nobel prize winning author and Holocaust survivor, 

the other an Israeli politician that was both the President and the Prime Minister...

and peace-maker.

Watching Etan's family welcome him in such a mindful, intentional way was humbling and healing.

Having the opportunity to read these words at his Bris is a gift I hold very close to my heart:

"You are your parents' dream realized, their hopes fulfilled.

You are the latest and best chapter in the unfolding lives of your family.

You are a bridge over which we, who welcome you, can gaze from this day into future days, 

from our generation into yours.

You are the newest link in the endless chain of our shared history."

Etan's parents shared a powerful quote of Elie Wiesel's:

"Mankind must remember that peace is not God's gift to us,

peace is our gift that we give to each other."

Peace.

Like the rain, at some moments it is ever-present and at other times it can feel far off.

It is within our grasp.

We must only stop and stare with wonder and joy at the gifts showered upon us every single day.

So, for today...I'm grateful for the rain.

For my dog.

For being able to be barefoot and steady...

for friendship and faith...

blessings and grace.

Mostly, I'm grateful for love.

It is sovereign here.

Why Poets Should Negotiate Peace Treaties or The Power of a Clump of Words

In the fall after Patrick was diagnosed with leukemia - Fall 2002 - 

I was making lunch for Patrick and listening to CNN.

I heard a lively anchor share a news story in an upbeat voice...

she had something great to share...

and I needed great...

so I listened.

I paused my lunch making and listened:

"The latest research shows that if your child is in day care, 

they have less chance of developing leukemia."

Shit, really?

You mean, if Patrick had been in day care we could have avoided all this?

Really?

I rewound the past few years of Patrick's baby life.

His birth.

His instant diagnosis of Down Syndrome...

not even a single day of life free from that label...

another diagnosis that took only a few days of life: a heart defect.

In need of open heart surgery at nine weeks old...

coming home from the hospital and just wanting to love my baby...

and somehow, some way, tend to my other kids...

day care was last on my list.

Now, just a mere two years later, the leukemia diagnosis and the Three Year Protocol - always sated with capital letters - and the big unknowns...

Life...what does it look like three years from now?

Health? Is that possible three years from now?

Family? What does that feel like three years after this?

Just hours after that CNN report, in the dark of night as I am not sleeping, 

I watch Bill Moyers interview a poet, a Palestinian-American poet,

Naomi Shihab Nye,

and I hear her voice read a poem...

this poem...

and it changes my life.

On.The.Spot.

I'm instantly different because of the words.

I gift them to you, right here:

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride

thinking the bus will never stop,

the passengers eating maize and chicken

will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,

you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho

lies dead by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you,

how he too was someone

who journeyed through the night with plans

and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice

catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes

and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,

only kindness that raises its head

from the crowd of the world to say

It is I you have been looking for,

and then goes with you everywhere

like a shadow or a friend.

*****

Those words made everything in my world make sense.

I clung to them.

Sorrow became a tattoo that I could locate on others...

which allowed me to locate the kindness.

I wish I could convey the depth of those words in the engraving on my heart...

...but as life likes to do,

I moved on.

Patrick survived - truthfully, thrived - through the Three Year Protocol.

I stumbled and bumbled through it...with plenty of bad attitude and crushing worry.

2005 happened and our family cheered.

We snuck away from blood counts and chemo...

we hid from conversations about blood cancer...

and we got away with it.

No one came looking.

2006 arrived and brought its amazing grace, sweet baby Caroline, and life got busy...

with the regular things...

school lunches, soccer practice, homework...

Naomi's poem hibernated within my heart.

2016 arrived with election insanity...

meanness as an accepted way to live in our world...

shutting our collective eyes to refugees...

so, so, so, so many of them...

plugging our ears to the din of the poor, the overlooked, the desperately lonely...

and along comes Naomi Shihab Nye - chosen as the UC Davis School of Education's 

Author in Residence and Words Take Wing Author.

Something within me, sleepy from slumber, awakened.

What?

She will be here...in my orbit...how?

I couldn't fathom the good fortune.

Couldn't take it.

Kept shoving it down...

and then it happened.

December 13th, 2016 Naomi Shihab Nye was hanging out in Davis and our worlds collided.

I first got to hear her speak to student teachers...a room full of worn out beginning teachers...so vulnerable and shy...about 40 of them.

Do you know what she tells them?

First thing.

I know because I took copious notes the entire time she was around...

like a stenographer on steroids...

she said:

"I congratulate you on your life choice to go into teaching and knowing that teaching is the center of where it happens."

*****

You may not hang out with beginning teachers...or any teachers...but I want to stop here and point out how incredibly UNcommon this gift was that she gave the student teachers...why? 

Well, virtually NO ONE congratulates someone on going into teaching.

They get the constant refrain of one of these reactions:

A) Well, you get your summers off, that's awesome!

B) Yeah, I thought of teaching too... (as if it is the best second place option around)

C) Are you sure? You make so little money. 

It's hard work to become a teacher - really hard - and to be met with those three reactions wears even the most optimistic, badass beginning teacher down.

So, to have a world-renown, award-winning poet come in an begin with a congratulations...well, it was a gift. 
A genuine gift. And we could all feel it.

*****

She reads an excerpt from a book called, News of the World:

"Maybe life is just carrying the news...surviving to carry the news...maybe we just have one message, it is delivered to us the day we are born..."

And then she asks us to think about our message.

What is it?

She asks us to write it down.

And she says:

I'm not going to ask you to read this, it's just for you to hold.

She reminds the teachers that

"Creative writing needs to be an ongoing practice - not saved for the last weeks of May."

[Beth, are you listening??]

She makes writing accessible to each of us...

shows the teachers how to help their students write with their hearts...

makes it seem effortless...

like, of course, I could write a poem...

she shares the poems of 6 year olds and Palestinians...

she reminds us that we are Living in a Poem...

and touches us with the beauty of a lemon, a walk with a friend, a note of hope.

Her gift is helping all of us see poetry.

Like hieroglyphics, we all think it's cool. 

We feel a kinship.

We want to know what it means.

Naomi, shows us what poetry is...

and helps us to feel that it is essential.

Like oxygen.

*****

After school, Naomi does another session for the Resident Teachers that host our student teachers.

Her energy is palpable.

Her reverence for the teachers is a gift she bestows on them...

like one of the Three Kings.

She's a bright light.

Sunshine

Starlight.

Spoiler alert: we shared starlight...big time.

She shows us our humanity and the thread that binds us.

Holds it up and then weaves it...

reminds us of our connection...

our beauty...

our messages and stories that we each MUST share.

She reads us poem after poem - of other poets -

friends of hers, mentors.

She shares the story of Juan Felipe Herrera - our nation's current Poet Laureate - how when he was in school, he said no words out loud, tried to disappear -

embarrassed by his inability to speak English - he hid behind a bush and sang a song that his mother and grandmother sang to him during lunch...passing on the other side of the bush, Juan Felipe's 3rd grade teacher...she stopped to listen.

Juan Felipe tells the story that after lunch, his teacher asked him to come to the front of the classroom and sing. He was shocked! Afraid! Disoriented...but his teacher had asked and so he did.

The classmates applauded and the teacher said the words that changed his life.

Five words.

"You have a beautiful voice."

With that little bit of encouragement, Juan Felipe began raising his hand, began seeing himself as a student, began to believe in himself and share his voice.

Sprinkling that story on the teachers, Naomi reminded them that they too,

have a beautiful voice...and beautiful profession...

a noble duty.

A sacred calling. 

She gifted them a chance to see the beauty in their work.

The importance of their influence.

Pausing and reminding them that they change lives.

She had us write "clumps of words" and used those clumps to help us write poems.

We shared them in this small group at 5 o'clock at night...

watching the twilight...

feeling connected.

This Palestinian American poet brought with her a cloud of grace...

peace...

community...

and it was then that I wanted to be in charge of the world.

I wanted to be able to appoint peace negotiators...

what if we had a Palestinian poet, an Israeli poet and a Palestinian-American poet all gather and forge out some peace with a few "clumps of words".

It might only take five words, like it did for Juan Felipe.

It might take twenty five...but we know poets are known for their choosy, careful way with words...we can be sure that unnecessary phrases would be absent. 

No posturing.

No facades.

No misleading text...

everything cut away to just a few words:

Thank you, Naomi Shihab Nye for your heroic ability to 

step out of your line and draw a larger circle.

Thank you for reminding me of the power of a clump of words...

the beauty in Kindness...

the love of the ordinary...

and the gift of a few clumps of words.

My circle is larger thanks to you.

Dancing Between The Good Things

Today I had to run to the grocery store -- no food for dinner -- fill up my gas tank, take my bike in for its flat tire and quite a few other errands all at the end of the day.

The grocery store was my final stop.

My in-and-out-one.

My super quick - I can do this in 15 minutes one.

Nice try.

As I was walking and concentrating on that list in my mind, Jeff came up.

Jeff is one of those people that lives in my town but I only see in one place ever:

the grocery store.

I see him at all times of the day.

He hangs out at the grocery store.

He's older...usually has his black backpack in the cart along with one or two items.

The grocery store is his community.

Jeff is someone that some people avoid.

He's eccentric.

He's loud.

He's out there and just by talking to him he puts you out there too.

Before Patrick, I would have considered my grocery list more important than Jeff.

I would have felt uncomfortable...and hurried...and bugged by this guy.

But after Patrick, my heart cracked open in a way where now every little person on the planet counts.

There are no randoms.

I don't discount the interruptions.

The sideways detours.

The super bizarre roundabouts that life takes me on.

Because of Patrick, I've been talking to Jeff for years.

Saying hi at first.

Listening to his math stories -- because he is a math genius.

The rumor is that he was a high level math instructor somewhere.

Over the years, I've given him my address so he could write me a letter.

"You never have to write back. It's ok. I just like to have people to write to."

He's found out about my job with teachers and asks about them...or my family.

Seeing Jeff at the store is a spot of sunlight.

He makes me pause and helps me know what's important.

Often, he will say something that will soak into my heart like it was a parched slab of earth.

Tonight was one of the best.

I asked him how he was doing.

"Oh," he says, "I'm dancing between the good things."

I smiled.

He went on...letting me know that it is our choices that make our life.

Our attitude that determines if our life is good or bad.

That we can change the day even in the middle.

Just what my parched heart needed to rain down.

Dancing between the good things.

What if we did dance in the hard spots?

Instead of laying down...or curling up in a ball...or sitting alone through the crap...

what if we danced?

What if we believed in that deep down way of Jeff that the good things were mere dots that needed connecting? 

The blank space left for dancing?

*****

After his explanation about how having a positive attitude can make everything better.

He paused.

Suddenly, shy and embarrassed.

Like he had an invisible sand timer that suddenly ran out.

He looked up and said, "I should let you get shopping." 

"I'm practicing my social graces."

And with that, he abruptly turned his cart around and went off down the aisle.

Silly Jeff.

He doesn't need to practice any social graces.

He's dancing between the good things.

His grace is pretty obvious.

The rest of us might need some practice...but not Jeff.

Here's to dancing...

and living your life out loud.

Here's to beauty found in the grocery store...and grace freely given...

even late on a school night.

Multiplication

I feel the heat of a social media frenzy.

It makes me cringe.

I feel embarrassed.

I completely sympathize with Cam Newton.

Why?

An email I wrote in a passionate moment to a school that denied my son entrance has been revealed.

My 20 year old daughter, sitting in her apartment in college was so disgusted 

she wanted to let it loose.

Like some message in a bottle, she shouted into Facebook, and shared her conflict and disappointment at the relative hypocrisy of a school that holds the motto, "Men For Others".

It seems that one of our sons is a Man.

Our other son, with Down Syndrome, is the Other.

I actually wasn't surprised by their decision.

I knew it would be a tough sell.

Before Patrick, my son with Down Syndrome, I fully admit that I would be the one not letting people in...not believing in the capability, the equality, the urgency of learning together.

I don't resent Jesuit.

I don't want to hate on them.

Or shame them.

Or even torment them.

Trust me, the heat they must be feeling from this social media blitz is more than they are used to...

and must feel uncomfortable.

Mary Kate's post on Facebook was not something I encouraged.

In fact, I actively discouraged it.

I wanted the whole process to stay private.

Like I was negotiating with a terrorist, I was afraid the pin might drop.

Jesuit had all the aces.

I was dependent upon them for even the slightest, tiniest welcome.

I knew it was a game I would most likely lose.

And it didn't feel good.

But Mary Kate was adamant.

She wanted to do this...

and when it happened, I just let it be.

Here is her post:

"This past week my brother was denied admission to Jesuit High School Sacramento. The high school my older brother attended. The high school my family has endorsed and supported over many years. Patrick was not denied because he was unqualified, but rather because he has Down Syndrome.

It's difficult to believe in a religion that is based on "treating everyone the way we would want to be treated"  and that "we are all made in the likeness and image of God"  when situations like this occur. But I refuse to be sad or mad about this. The only people who should feel sad are the administrators, teachers and students of Jesuit High School who will never get the opportunity and privilege of knowing Patrick, not only as a student but as a friend. 

My mother said it best in this beautifully crafted statement: "You can know that by not allowing Patrick into your school, you are continuing to marginalize a segment of the population that is already the most marginalized group in our country. You are perpetuating the myth that disability is such a hurdle that you cannot get over it. You are even contributing to the abortion rate -- because any student that knows Patrick knows that his is a life worth living and would not be able to condone abortion.  

I will continue to pray for all of the people, like you, in leadership positions to open their hearts and minds to students like Patrick. The educational research is irrefutable. The academic scores go up for all students -- the social emotional health of all students improves. It is worth every effort. And yet, we continue to be stymied.

Why?

Fear? the perception of the student being a burden? The pervasive prejudice that is allowed to continue in our country toward people with intellectual disabilities? 

In this Year of Mercy , all we can do is redouble our efforts and continue to work tirelessly on behalf of the least of our brothers. You can be assured that I will be doing just that." 

Siblings are virtually never heard.

When do they get to say their peace?

When do they get to acknowledge that they live in a world that sees disability as brokenness 

when their reality is the opposite experience.

Mary Kate sees Patrick as an equal...deserving of opportunities.

She understands that he will need support, 

but she doesn't think the two things are mutually exclusive.

Mary Kate posted on Facebook on Friday night.

24 hours later, her post has been shared close to 300 times.

Shared by strangers, friends and family.

Shared by groups that work for inclusion and families that dream of inclusion.

Shared over and over and over again.

********

When you have a child with a disability, you feel very alone.

Isolated.

Frightened.

Insecure.

Vulnerable.

You feel the weight of making every decision carefully and intentionally.

You cringe when you ask for an opportunity.

You hold your breath...and expect the no.

Sometimes you are surprised by a quick and kind yes.

But many times you hear the words, "we just can't do it".

You sigh and wonder what it's like to have all that power.

You wish they could see your child as just a child.

You connect with others...but feel alone.

Watching this post get shared over and over again felt like the craziest,

 most universe-binding hug I've ever had.

Strangers stood side by side with family members...all sharing the story...

and leaving the question hanging...

Why say no?

********

It's been the kids who have been amazing.

Watching both of my older kids advocate out loud has been breath-taking...

but their friends...

their articulate disappointment...

their stunning shock...

their "I stand with you" solidarity,

 that is the inspiration as well.

They get it.

They always do.

Us adults need to just get out of the way sometimes.

I don't know how the story is going to end.

I don't need to.

For this minute, on this day, I feel such tremendous community and connection and care that I can barely soak it all in.

Our world is changing.

Tiny baby step by tiny baby step questions are getting asked...

by the kids!

Left in their hands I feel so much hope.

When Patrick's classmates are old enough to be principals, they won't say no.

That idea alone: a parent asking and hoping...and a classmate of Patrick's remembering his or her own experience of what inclusion is really like...and saying yes....

that right there is the good stuff.

Mary Kate, you did it differently than me...but you sure did a beautiful thing.

Wish out loud.

I know that grace.

I know that beauty.

Let's keep doing it.

Together.