School

I started graduate school last week. It's a bit of a surreal experience. First, I'm working with some of the same people I did before we moved to Arizona. Second, I have a research position at the school, which sounds a lot more exciting than it actually is - I spent all day yesterday entering 0s and 1s into a spreadsheet. I'm sure it will get better.

I work in the same building I did when I was an Americorps*VISTA volunteer. The echo of the cavernous hallways and rumbling escalators is so familiar.

I spent all summer outside in sunshine and fresh air, and it's strange to be deep in the bowels of a climate controlled building, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead.

I sit in my office and catch up on my reading, hi-liter in hand. I sit in class and scribble notes on a tiny pad. I was shocked when out of a class of 30, only I raised my hand as having experience in a Title I school. I had forgotten that education existed outside of high-poverty areas. I realized how much of my educational philosophy had been shaped by working with kids who did not show up to school ready to learn, and that these kids do, in fact, represent a minority, albeit a sizable one.

M and I went backpacking this weekend with Caveman of Ohio in the Laurel Highlands. I will post some trail photos soon, which you will find hilarious because what we were trying to do and what we ended up doing was rather ridiculous on a number of levels.

Anyway, while hiking along the ridge line, through an endless, waist-high carpet of ferns, I noticed bugs swarming around my face. I sweat a lot when I hike, and maybe they like that. The bugs made a weird deja-vu feeling wash over me and I remembered that I spent a good 10 hours a day, walking and sweating and hearing the high-pitched whine of mosquitoes and gnats when we were on the AT in the hottest summer months. At first, I applied bug spray, which I promptly sweat off. Then I swatted at them. I tied my bandanna in creative ways around my head. I cursed at them.

And when I had exhausted all possible strategies to eliminate this annoyance...I did nothing. I just walked with the bugs, and low and behold, this was the magic pill.

What I realized this weekend is that it's the magic pill for just about everything. It's how I live in Pittsburgh again, happy to experience things that used to drive me crazy. It's how I conserve my energy to tackle things that matter, instead of getting bogged down in situations I can't win. It's how I can do exactly the same thing that I did seven years ago, and not only be cool with it, but love it.

So is that what maturity is? Giving up on swatting the flies from your face?