To All Those Who Serve Our Students!

Happy New Year! I wrote this for all those who serve our children and youth!

The Educators, Bus Drivers, Custodians, and School Staff

In the dark early morning, Hallway B seemed eerily quiet. Turning the metal knob, the wooden door led him into his second home. He began scanning the large barren classroom observing the empty chairs and cleared off desks and tables- with a deep audible breath, he realized the stories from those scattered vacant chairs could not stay hidden. This room was anything but empty!

She scrambled around the kitchen table, grabbing ripped milk-stained folders and a wrecked chrome book, stashing Takis into the side pockets of each of her siblings’ backpacks. Quickly turning toward the front hallway, she saw the familiar. Her book bag lay untouched and zipped as her heart thumped rapidly screaming the red-hot panic that now felt to be as much a part of her as her skin.

Holding the hot syrupy coffee with both hands, she walked down the gravel path to Bus 94. Climbing the three deep steps she approached the torn vinyl driver’s seat, and turned to scan the aisle, graffitied seats, and endless memories. The first stop- seven blocks away. This stop-always activated a prayer of desperation. Would he be waiting by the drive kicking rocks or would there be a felt stillness ringing through the house of secrets? She dreaded the stillness most.

The trash was cleared, floors mopped and shining with the morning ceiling lights intensifying the glare. He walked past the lockers, running his fingers along the metal grinning as he anticipated the chaos that breathed life into his aging body each morning when those bells rang.

All 52 pounds jumped out of the passenger seat of the red rusted car in the parent drop off- line. His brown eyes focused above his ripped and dirt-stained mask, waiting for that smile, always breaking through the growing crowds of students. Her long purple polished nails was his check point. He awaited her long warm and safe hug, often faking he didn’t care, but that never stopped their predictable and welcomed ritual.

With her eyes cast down counting the tiles in the hallway, her untouched book bag began to slide off her shoulder. Opening the door to her classroom, she lunged toward her desk and dropped to her seat. The green post-it note stared back it her. “It’s a new day, and I am just grateful to see you and honored to be your teacher.” She took a long deep breath and reached for the small paper. Crumbling it, she slid it into the side pocket of her jacket. Her thundering heartbeat slowed down a bit as he walked over to the corner of her desk and grinned. Two freshly sharpened pencils and a bottle of water fell from his hands, and with a welcoming gentleness, he knelt. “We will work through this day together. We always do.”

To teach and to serve is to be present through it all… through the schedules, changing bus routes, mandatory meetings, curriculum, assessments, and protocols.

A regulated nervous system is not always loving and calm. A regulated nervous system is dynamic and flexible noticing all the emotions and sensations that travel through the body and brain in each moment.

May we hold a compassionate presence for ourselves and for one another in this new year! May we learn from one another through these embodied moments that matter now more than ever.