Aggravation

 Response to Prompt #72, Serendipity Doo Dah.

Aggravation. Not a particularly fun word, but one that conjures up positive memories for me. During cold Michigan winter nights, my parents pulled out a variety of board and card games, Uno and Aggravation being the favorites. Oddly enough, both games rely on irritating your opponents by thwarting their progress, not in a mean-spirited way, but what people call good-natured ribbing. 

I don't think any of this damaged me. To the contrary, I think these kinds of games were actually good character builders and help put some perspective around the difference between little annoyances and actual affronts. I'll explore and unpack the psychology of this all later. For now, I'm going to play with the synonyms/related words and idioms for aggravation--some brand new to me.

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You know that person who seems intent on ruffling your feathers? We all have (or have had) at least one in our lives. This person delights in rubbing you the wrong way, making you lose your cool.

While these hair shirts may seem like thorns in our sides, I have come to believe they are placed in our path to teach us something, that their irksome behaviors provide opportunities for personal growth.

I had a couple of students like that in back-to-back periods one particularly horrible year. They were hell-bent on perturbing not only me but their classmates as well, actively looking for any chance to throw a monkey wrench into the well-planned activities, engaging in devilry at every turn. Both of them had gotten the best of me on several occasions; just seeing them walk down the hallway filled me with a sense of exasperation. 

It occurred to me one day that this is exactly what they wanted, to be the albatross around my neck. What I needed to do is take away that power, reduce their behaviors to fleabites instead of reacting as if I was facing some massive tribulation. 

And so began my social experiment. The next time each of them were absent from their respective classes, I announced that from now on, when anyone in the classroom tried to disrupt the learning with annoying behaviors, anyone who reacted was getting a referral. 

"That's not fair!" a few chimed in. 

"What's really not fair is certain people are taking away your right to learn. That should be the thing that bothers you the most," I replied.

I let them sit in the silence for a moment to reflect on that simple fact. Then I let them whisper to the people in their groups. I'm sure they were convinced I had lost my mind, but most of them trusted me, so they finally conceded. 

Magic happened after that. Every time the offenders tried to cause trouble, the other kids either shrugged them off or just flat-out ignored them. Some even asked for the person to be removed from their group until they were left to do the work alone (which they often did not). Everyone else in the class was learning, following our Accountable Talk discussion rules, building on each other's ideas respectfully, even when they disagreed. 

It came to pass that without an audience, these two former menaces had zero power. Unfortunately, they didn't get on board with the rest of the class, instead choosing to come in and put their heads down when I denied their almost daily requests to be sent to ISS for the period. 

One day, the principal walk in and made a beeline for one of the sleeping beauties. I caught his eye and shook my head, pleading with my eyes to let the sleeping bear lie. Thankfully, he just sat down and did his observation, waking the student at the end of class to rebuke him for sleeping. 

"Come see me after school, Mrs. Ferry," he said as he left. 

Some students' eyes got large, "Are you in trouble?" 

"Don't you worry. I have this covered," I assured them. "In my opinion, it's worth it if 24 out of 25 of you are learning."

Needless to say, I didn't get fired that day. My principal got my position--he didn't love it, and quite frankly neither did I--but how can you argue with the logic? 

Maybe all those snowy nights being systematically irritated by my family really did pay off after all.

Celebrating the UN-Deniable Third Act

 Response to Prompt #62

Celebrating the UN-Deniable Third Act

by Helen Sadler

Last spring I was having a hard time focusing on reading, so I found myself looking for the easiest possible text to keep my habit in play. I came across a book I had never fully read, one by a Florida college professor and mystery writer James W. Hall. It was recommended by Dr. Joe Wisdom when I was taking his Florida Writers class at FGCU. It’s called Hot Damn! Alligators in the Casino, Nude Women in the Grass, How Seashells Changed the Course of History, and Other Dispatches from Paradise and contains about 40 bite-sized essays.  I recently saw in one of my journals this book was given to me as a gift from Jim on my birthday in 2003, but it appears I had only read a handful of the essays. 

This was the perfect book to help me get back my reading mojo. The essays had the right amount of depth, but were short and sweet, like a little square of chocolate. I consumed a lot of them and then stopped when I was able to get back into longer literature.

On Sunday I saw the book sitting there and discovered I only had nine more essays to go, so vowed I would just get them done. And that is when everything changed.

Have you ever read something that was so profound, so perfect for the moment you were in you cannot believe it is happening? You get done and sit there quietly whispering Wow Wow Wow? It was one of those moments when I got to page 196 and completed reading the essay “Anniversary.”  The subject was the anniversary of the death of Hall’s father, whom he wrote about earlier in the collection. This was not the anniversary of the death of my father -- that wasn’t what struck me. It was the content.

Hall posits that we have three acts in life. Act One is being the young person on the threshold to adventure. Act Two contains all the struggles. Act Three is resolution. (Yes, you may recognize this cycle, as it is sometimes called the Hero’s Journey or Initiation.) It wasn’t that this was anything new to me. It was that for the first time I allowed myself to acknowledge just where I am standing.

Now it is Act Three. The time for resolutions. Tying up all the loose ends. The final third of this drama is the time when the wisdom collected on the journey so far must begin to pay off. If peace can be achieved, this is the last stretch of time to find it. If there is to be joy or understanding or enlightenment, they must come very soon. (195-6)

This caused me to think about my three acts, which are different from Hall’s: 

Act One -- when I got divorced at 25 and finally started living my life with purpose, pursued a new dream of being a business owner, began working with young people, and spent two years raising a troubled teenager.

Act Two -- Moving to Florida, getting three college degrees, becoming a teacher

Act Three -- present time, even though it looks like I’m still just being a teacher. Which was the baffling part.

Yes, Act Three was confusing. I’m still a teacher...right? My plan all along has been to keep going, keep doing the work I love. Yes, it seems a bit in jeopardy right now, but I was unwilling to make a move in my thinking.

In my puzzlement, I thought about my recent mudlarking journey, the one that now seems almost prophetic. There were things I rediscovered that I had not necessarily forgotten, but it was nice to find them and nail down their exactness. It has to do with my tendency to always see my life metaphorically as a book or an act of literature.

Case in point:

March 16, 1988.  I was frustrated with my job as a sales and service rep for Zee Medical because it lacked creativity. One morning I woke up and felt like I was “a blank page” on which I could write anything. A big part of that was to find a more creative way of working.  A couple months later I was on my way to California to train for the direct mail marketing franchise I had purchased. My creative work began.

December 22, 1997.  I was falling into depression and restlessness. I considered my age (42) had something to do with it. I went to the library and found a book called Listening to Midlife by Mark Gerzon. In the first chapter he described exactly how I was feeling. He said the anecdote was to see this time in life as entering Chapter Two, and the job now was to go back to what I loved as a teenager and see how I could develop that love in this second half of life. On that very day I discovered my long buried dream of being a teacher.

August 2, 2020. “Anniversary” pointed out clearly to me where I am right now. It helped explain why now it has seemed easy for me to clear out journals, folders from my college classes, and mountains of National Writing Project stuff I’ve never used. It’s aided me in releasing the unnecessary that I’ve let hang around too long.

But it was even more than that.

Hall’s essay focused on what he had learned from his father, and how this led him to understanding he was in Act Three. And that made me think about my dad in his 60s.

In my journal, I discovered my parents came to visit one weekend in the early 90s, and explained that my dad’s company (General Color) had decided to move him to a different position which meant quite a cut in pay. To Jim and me this was ageism, and we were furious. But my dad continued on, even bypassing his retirement age of 65 and kept working (to my mom’s dismay.) I used to think my dad didn’t have a role model for retiring, and that is why he wouldn’t make the move. He ended up dying at 68, working right up to the last few weeks of his life, and his pension set my mom up for a comfortable life as an elder.

But after reading “Anniversary,” I suddenly saw everything differently. My dad drew meaning from his work as a ceramic engineer -- a very specialized career -- and his side life as a musician. I now see what he was doing. He was living the life that meant something to him, and he knew that is what he must do.

I still recall the many young people from the plant that came to the funeral home, many with high praise for my dad. I remember one guy in particular, probably in his mid-20s, in jeans and a gray t-shirt with cut off sleeves, standing in front of my dad’s casket for the longest time, just staring with the saddest look on his face. To my knowledge, he didn’t talk to any of us, except perhaps my mom. I wanted so badly to ask him what my dad meant to him, because it was so obvious it was something. I didn’t have the nerve to disrupt whatever was going on in his head. I probably started talking to another guest, and by then he had disappeared. I have always felt that was one of the greatest missed opportunities in my life.

But what this told me was that my dad was having an influence on those around him, one I’m sure he felt fulfilling and wasn’t willing to give up.

When I think of my adult life, it breaks down like this:

20s -- the first half a royal mess, making unwise decisions because I didn’t know who I was, then awakening and starting to live as myself.

30s -- a time to prove myself during the first half, then entering into more spiritual studies later.

40s -- the beginning of a freeing feeling, no longer thinking I had to prove anything, went to college, moved to Florida

50s -- surprisingly wonderful. Still feeling like there was a lot of life to live, a lot of time to accomplish great things, fully in my element as I had my profession going strong

60s -- outlook more positive than ever. Feeling better physically than I have my entire life. (evidence in journals, constant remarks about headaches and stomachs, respiratory infections, etc.)  Truly my authentic self, still being creative, still wanting my profession to never end.

But then...the big changes of 2020. And turning 65, the age we are conditioned to think of as “retirement.” I’m supposed to want to end my previous life, and do...what? I don’t know.

I was pretty much ignoring this, until a couple things forced the issue. First, this damn pandemic and the vulnerability of my age and the facts of school buildings. I went from ignoring the idea of danger to understanding how real it was. Second, people who assume I can just “retire” because I'm 65-years-old.

Uh, no. 

And it isn’t just the money aspect.

Finally I can say, I get you, Dad.

And all of this may have just bypassed me, except then they pushed back the school year. My sister said, “Well, now you don’t have to work on your birthday.” I had gotten so used to working on my birthday, I hadn’t even realized I would have that day until Margie said it. In that space I started thinking of celebrating the day in a small way with Jim. We plan on getting out and doing something together since we have done nothing much beyond haircuts and Costco since January.

The triple gifts of time and space and “Anniversary” brought me to acknowledgment of Act Three. James Hall ends his essay in this way:

The curtain has gone up. One third of the play is left, a final chance to transform ourselves into individuals worthy of the parents we lost. (196)

I have not changed my mind about teaching until I can’t teach anymore. What has changed is my understanding of my purpose. I think of those young men in Minerva, Ohio celebrating my dad and what a kind and knowledgeable soul he was. It made me realize I have just so much time left to make my life fully worthy of my dad and all he meant to everyone who knew him.

The most wonderful part about all of this is that all the fear I have had for months about the upcoming school year is completely gone. I now know, and am 100 percent sure, that whatever happens it will provide me with what I need to complete my life in a way worthy of my upbringing. As my journal project showed me, I have not always made the best decisions, and I often operated from a place of fear. 

But not anymore.

When Natalie posted this prompt, she referred to the film Alice in Wonderland. As if “Anniversary” wasn’t enough on Sunday to move me to fearlessness, I read this on Monday morning:

Just fall, like Alice, down the rabbit hole. And don’t worry about falling down; it’s also topless, sideless, and centerless. Fear not. Centuries of saints and bodhisattvas who’ve gone before have shouted loud and clear. Jump right in, the water’s fine (161)

*(The Zen Commandments: Ten Suggestions for a Life of Inner Freedom (2001) by Dean Sluyter.)