Ashley B.'s Page

The mushroom really has nothing to do with the following vignettes, I just like it. Kk? Alright with you, Internet? Good.

We've been searching for a house for a while now. We're kind of picky, I won't lie. We want: a porch. Clean bathrooms. Safe neighborhood. Clothes closets bigger than a broom closet. A kitchen with appliances.

We found: doorknobs that fall off in your hands. Bedrooms in which we might hit our heads getting out of bed. Bathrooms with toilets in the shower (not joking). Neighborhoods with crack houses next door. Neighborhoods where cars had been stolen from the driveway outside.

No joke! And talking to the girl whose car was stolen, she said, "Oh! Don't worry about that though, I think I was targeted and tracked for a while because they liked my car." WHAT?! That's supposed to make me feel better? Um ... it doesn't?

SO. Shannon did some MAYJAH (British accent) legwork for us and found the perfect place. We've named it Duplex White Tiger (I'll have to explain that later).

Here's what you need to know about Duplex White Tiger: brand-new construction. Granite countertops. Three porches. Two and a half baths. Stainless steel appliances. Yeah, it's freaking BAD ... BASS. Bad bass. It's like a fish. A really freaking cool fish.

Below are some of the scenes that ensued after finding out we got the house (after four days of biting our nails):

Shannon: Okay, so I have some news.
Me: Hit me with it.
Shannon: We got the house.
Me: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!


Me: WE GOT THE HOUSE!
Rachel: We got the house! We ain't homeless no mo' !!!!!!
Me: WORK HARD, GET A HOUSE, WOOP WOOP!!! [riff on a teaching phrase - work hard, get smart, woop woop]


After sending pictures of the house to my family.

Mom: I'm looking at THE PICTURES.
Me: It's sooooo nice, right?
Mom: Uhhhh, yeah. Can I run away from home and live with you?
Me: I don't know, have you talked to your parents about this?
Mom: They won't care! Ma-ma will encourage me to go! She'll want to come too!


Christopher (reply via e-mail): I now hate you. That will be all...

Spending six weeks training changed me, I think. In a good way.

It wasn't all good - there were some moments where I thought I'd lose it. I was tired - physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted from all the moments we had to be on all day. We'd wake up at 5:30 and from that point there wasn't much time to zone out and relax. I don't know if everyone felt this way, but I felt the pressure in a big way. Talk to people at breakfast that won't be at your school site. Work well with your collaborative group. Put out positive energy throughout the day. Create brilliant ideas. Be an actress, a leader of your classroom and a critical thinker in front of your students. Be a thoughtful individual during group sessions. Plan your time wisely when you're back home. Take care of yourself.

It's a lot. Even with the weekends off, you're not off. You're on - seeing people, being social, making friends. Just being the personality and energy you want to be for the next two years. It takes a toll.

But within that concept is the brilliance of this entire program. By being the personality and energy we want to be, by defining the expectations and character of our classroom ... we're defining who and what we want to be when we get done with these two years. By explicitly defining for our kids each and every day how we want them to act and what characterisitics they should display in and out of the classroom, we're defining that for ourselves. Done right, at the end of these two years we will have spent months, weeks, days, thousands of hours, hundreds of thousands of minutes being the person we most want to be.

That's big, y'all. I'm scared. But thrilled too. That's big.

So ... I promise I haven't been all doom and gloom for the past two months, no ... sir? ma'am? What are you Internet? What should I call you? Howabout no way? Nicely gender neutral.

I've been having SO MUCH fun. SO MUCH. I guess I just used ye ole Mouse in My House as a way to sort through some of the more complex feelings I was having, leaving y'all with the bad while I reveled in the good.

Well NO MORE! I have some free time and I'm going to use it, gosh darnit, to catch the Internet up on all the awesome awesome awesomeness that's been the last few months. Of course that begins with pictures. I haven't been completely on my photo game recently, but here are some pictorial highlights of the people, places and things which I DID photograph:




We had a sparkler photoshoot until the wee hours of the morning.



We introduced Mason to Lyle and vice versa.

I spent last Monday at your memorial, Sara.

I cried. A lot. At first I thought I would be able to hold it together, because crying doesn't make anything better. It doesn't change anything. But my emotions were right there on the surface ... I couldn't stop them. And then I thought that I wanted to let you know, Sara. I wanted to let you know how I felt - that even when my brain couldn't find the words and my mouth couldn't form them, my body and my heart were saying it for me. They said no. No. No no no no.

I'm still having trouble finding words for you, Sara. I've drafted and re-drafted letters to you a dozen times in the last week. And then I start thinking about teaching my kids how to read, and think about how if you were here I'd tell you it was so they could read Faulkner and simultaneously hate it and love it as much as you do. Did. Shit.

But the words ... it was my first day of teaching when I went to your memorial. My group leader played the Superman song on her iPod that morning, and luckily, without even seeing the look on my face something told her to change the song. Because I was about to lose it, that last shred of control I had that day. She gave me this slip of paper, too ... she gave it to everyone really, but I like to think it was for you ... or for us, all the people left here without you. It said,

"The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it." - William James

All I could think was that those words were for you - about you. That when I had no words I had those words. Because your greatest legacy in life was how you made the people around you feel. You made them feel special, unique, gifted. I know you made me feel that way. When I was shy and feeling silly about taking pictures you made me feel like they were the best things you'd seen. When you found my blog you said you'd stayed up reading it. Honestly, Sara ... I held on to that compliment. I held it in my heart, reminding me that maybe if enough people felt that way I would feel like my pictures and my words were worth something too.

So when I cried at your funeral I cried selfishly, for all the times I'd need you to make me feel that way again and you wouldn't be there. I cried for all your friends and family who'd need you there, even more than I would. I cried for the people you'd met once and smiled at, making their day. I cried for the people you had yet to meet and the babies with fabulous hair that you'd never have, who needed you in their lives like we need you in ours.

Because we all need you Sara, and I'm impossibly angry and sad and million emotions all shoved into one person who sometime can't control what comes out and when. And these words aren't enough, but you showed me that when words aren't enough, sometimes pictures are. So at your memorial, when everything was too real, and seeing everyone was too real, and missing you was too real, I went and Ashley Beebe'd the CRAP out of those waterfalls, just for you, Sara. I tried ... my hands were shaking, but the pictures came out alright.

I took pictures for you, Sara, because in that moment it was all too real. Then I sat there and listened to the water and dreamed of you falling off the dock until it didn't feel so real anymore, until I convinced myself that you'd be there soon to laugh at the idea of someone accidentally falling off into the river, or losing their shoe in the river and saying, "Fuck! My sandals!"

And then when it didn't feel so real anymore, and my heart could hold more than the grief I was carrying, I took you, Sara, and I folded you into my heart (I held you in my heart).

AH!

I'm at Institute.


Whoa.


Our bus leaves in the wee hours of the morning. Leaves. As in: physically pulls away from the curb, full of young people who are hopefully fully dressed in business casual clothing, excited and nervous to find out what the heck they'll be doing for the next month. As in: not full of young people still in their warm beds. As in: not full of young people dreaming about the hours they'll laze by the pool. As in: not full of young people texting their friends to make plans to fill the many, many hours in the day. As in: I'll be on that bus. As in: I should go to bed.


I'm nervous.

And tired.

And happy.

And ... thinking in short phrases, which means it's time for ... *zzzzzzz*