Last week a group of us met for a mid-week dinner celebration in a lively local Tex-Mex restaurant. We were mostly colleagues who see each other daily, nodding a quick hello as we pass through the high school halls, but here, with the platters of chips and bowls of salsa to share and a spouse or two sprinkled between, we laughed over miss-steps and shared our stories. We remembered why we are friends while the revelry fed our spirits; back at school the next day our passing in the halls slowed a bit to allow for an extended greeting. Our table of 10 was adjacent to a table for 7, where a family was seated, mom and dad and their five children, ranging from pre-teen to teen. After getting settled and menu options discussed each member of this family pulled out an electronic device; several had iPads, others gaming devices, parents too studied their smart phones. No one at that table spoke. Even when their food came they kept to their solitary pursuits. The contrast between our experiences was visible and startling for while we all left our isolation and found community, this group did something quite opposite and gained what I wondered? What role does technology have in our lives, our families, our relationships, or our workplaces? Is there a compelling reason to embrace being plugged in over an equally compelling reason to not be?
“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go” (Hamlet).
Novels and plays populate my mind, rolling by in a continuous cycle, thanks to my being a teacher of literature for over three decades. All the words marinate, year after year, as I teach the same texts, yet are born anew while I share them with my students. Through the years I have come to appreciate how these well-told tales sustain me and feed my passions and lead me to question life’s tribulations. As my students face these texts for the first time it only deepens my experience of them.
Getting Back Up
Just recently this Nine Cent Girl was feeling down on her luck… You know the why me? why 
now? kind of stuff… Murky, sticky, and just plain yucky stay in your pj’s kind of mood. Luckily I have one person in my life who never lets me wallow for too long; as I lamented my unfortunate state she listened through the tears, the eternal why me? why now? loop, and then reminded me of one indisputable truth, “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall…” Hard to deny that ancient idiom, still, I struggled over how to stand under what felt insurmountable. Thankfully, by the weekend’s end, I had a plan: a three step plan (clearly I’m still on a numbers kick). Nothing miraculous, but a plan that made a shift.
