"I am extraordinarily good at sleeping the day away..."

"I thought with my experience
I'd put it on my resume."
- Josh Joplin, The World On a Shoestring

I've had the best of intentions. This is definitely not the first morning I've been free from the commitments of work. I just seem to either not wake up in a timely fashion or, when I do, get sidetracked into something else, like playing a video game or some other mindless diversion. I just can't seem to make it here with the time and inspiration to write.

"This'll be the last song that I write
About the things in my life I don't like
This'll be the last plan I design
Involving me being on time
I sure have missed my chances
Balloons have dropped
The last big dance is
Underway

I'm Mr. New Year's Day."

- Josh Joplin, Mr. New Year's Day

Excuses notwithstanding, here I am.

This week, I am working fewer hours than I have since I started working at the game store back at the end of September. The problem with it is that I'm still working nights. I've worked almost every night since then, even if I just go in for a four hour shift. I've had a grand total of six days completely free from work commitments since I took the job. Three of those were spent on vacation in the mountains (much needed and much enjoyed). I'm not complaining. My point is that I'm a night person. I love the hours after 10:00 p.m. and until dawn. When I leave on a long trip, involving long distance driving, I always think that the best time to leave is about 2:00 a.m. I know that I inherited this from my father, along with a lot of other things (much to my wife's chagrin). He always left for long trips at some ungodly hour of the morning, rousing the rest of the family from sleep with the car already packed. He worked many 4 to midnight and midnight to 8 graveyard shifts as a police officer and thrived at night. We spent many days tiptoeing around the house trying not to wake him.

"I'm the screen, I work at night

I see today with a newsprint fray
My night is colored headache grey
Don't wake me with so much.
The ocean machine is set to 9
I'll squeeze into heaven and valentine
My bed is pulling me,
Gravity

Daysleeper"

- R.E.M., Daysleeper

So, yesterday was going to be my day to come here and write. Except that I didn't go to sleep until much later than I normally should have. So, I slept until afternoon... until there was no time to write, just time to go to work.

I've been recovering from a cold. The Thanksgiving weekend holiday retail season, including "Black Friday" wore me down much more than I'd like to admit. As a result, I got sick.

Ever since I was born with my broken collarbone and no tear ducts, along with an assortment of other minor problems, I've had a weak constitution. Sure, I play the tough guy, but when something, some bug or virus, goes around, I'm the first to catch it and I hold on to it longer than everybody else. What is a minor inconvenience for most people, often has me miserable for weeks. I have a semi-annual sinus infection. Every other year, I come down with a horrible sinus infection that stays with me for two or three months. I tried antibiotics the second time I got it and they did nothing. This has been going on since about 1997. It usually comes on in late October and hangs around until January. In 1999-2000, it decided to hang around until about April. That was the year I tried antibiotics. If you do the math, you'll discover that it's an odd numbered year. That means I'm due for one. I was scared this was it. Now, I don't think it is. I think leaving my teaching career has been good for my health. The two colds I've caught since August have been shortlived. I shook this last one, which hit me pretty hard, in about a week. I think it's a good sign.

As far as my writing, I've been getting the urge to try fiction again. It's been so long since Itried that and my last few results weren't all that great, so it is intimidating to try it again. I used to be fairly good at writing fiction. Who knows, maybe I'll give it a shot.

"My head's as full as a Ryder truck
Double-parked down the street
All the ideas I've packed away
Stack up so nice and neat
But I didn't mark the boxes, so I don't know where anything is."
- Josh Joplin, The World On a Shoestring

My non-fiction writing, or at least my thought processes regarding it, since I haven't been writing so much lately, have actually been fairly deep and extensive. I think that the serious subjects about which I want to write are just so involved and far reaching, that they're difficult to tackle in the time allotted. Unlike my wife, who begins to write and then saves it in the "drafts" folder, I write all at once. My thoughts burst out in a torrent that aches for completion and must all be expressed if any of them are to be expressed.

My wife and I have been discussing a few issues that have really been on our minds lately. They've affected our lives so much that the process of thinking them through to the writing stage has been difficult. Those discussions led to her post about community, as well as the next post I'm going to write (maybe even today, who knows). I had hoped to write my next post over a month ago, but everytime I think about it, I uncover more. There are always more aspects to the topic I want to write about next. It is indeed a conundrum of the human condition that has been written about for hundreds of years. I don't pretend to have answers, but I want to have enough about the subject to at least contribute something meaningful to the subject.

"Still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets and
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me..."
- David Bowie, Changes

My life, my world, has changed so much since I started coming here to write. All those changes still boggle my mind sometimes. Especially when I'm confronted with them. When I run face first into something that shows me in stark contrast, how much my world has changed, how much I have changed, since about March of this year, it shocks me. Sometimes it scares me. Sometimes it just reminds me. Do I have regrets? I'm not sure if regret is the right word. I know that, for the most part, I am where I should be, or I'm at least getting closer to that place.

"Dichotomy" has been a big word in my life lately.

"I'm as lost
As a boy can be
In a city of grids
And numbered streets..."
- Josh Joplin, One Becomes Two

I see it like this: When I jumped the stream, changed my place in the world, it was like ripping a hole in the fabric of my world and climbing, no... wriggling... through to the new world, the new stream. It was like being born to a different existence. The other stream, that world I left a few months ago, still exists. Other people still live there, and I see that their lives, that world, still continues on without me, almost like I died in that world when I was reborn into this one. I still hear from some of the people that were a part of that world. They open little windows for me. I can see into the world I left and see how my departure from it has changed that world, those lives I touched there. The emotions I am left with after gazing into another world, another life, are confusing and emotional. I don't have any desire to go back, but it is strange and can affect me profoundly at times. I can really think of no better way of describing it other than this. It is like being able to look back at the world you left after your own death and see how everyone is doing with you gone. I think that is what the "mid-life crisis" (second-life awakening) is all about anyway.

I AM enjoying my new life. My health is better. I'm getting along well with people. My wife and I have really rediscovered each other, and our marriage is much healthier in this world. I'm starting to reconnect with some old friends that I left behind at various points in that other world (some recent, some as far back as college and even high school), and I am making new friends.

This world is just different. They have some strange customs here. Instead of actually getting together and participating in a hobby, they use the internet for that. I have always used text messaging and the internet to communicate, but in this world, it is an even more prevalent form of communication. Facebook is essential to remaining in contact with people. Some of them, like my co-workers and new friends Sunni and A.O., even use myspace, a place which I abandoned, but they're persuading me to just abandon my old page and make a new one, blocking out the people I don't want to visit me there. I don't know. I like Facebook better. It seems more mature and less involved. Or Windows Live Spaces, but nobody uses them, or at least nobody here, in this world. I used to get together with friends and play Dungeons & Dragons or invite people over to LAN our XBoxes and play Halo 2. Now, we have XBox 360's and use XBox Live to get together with the help of the internet. Or, we play World of Warcraft when we want to role-play together, instead of breaking out the paper, pencils and dice to play D&D. It really is good to have and interact with friends, but I do miss some face to face contact.

People do get together in person sometimes. We go out for sushi on occasion. One of my co-workers and new friends, Jamie, is manager of a great Japanese restaurant. Some of my new friends also go play pool once a week. There is now a standing invitation for my wife and I to join them.

One of my older friends... okay, well... I've known Joe for about four years now... is supposed to start working at the game store a day or two a week soon. His "real job" is as a 911 operator, but he sees the value of doing something on which people's lives don't depend occasionally to break the stress of that job. Joe and his wife have a new baby, only a few weeks old, and he needs something fun, to connect with people, and has been reconnecting his friendship with me also. He and another friend, Patrick, met up with me after work the other night. We've started playing WoW (World of Warcraft) together (we used to get together for Dungeons & Dragons). Now he's coming to work with me. Patrick has also offered me a temporary job if I leave the CD/DVD store job. Which reminds me, the manager of the CD/DVD store quit. The corporate atmosphere left him disillusioned and discouraged, so he left his retail career. Now that corporate atmosphere is directly invading our store. I understand why he left. After all, I've been there before. I just may not want to stay there if the atmosphere continues to degrade. Patrick has given me a temporary plan B.

At any rate, I don't feel isolated anymore. With my old job, I DID feel isolated. The people I turned to for support really needed support more than they could give it. Stress and other factors were pulling my wife and I apart. Even though I did have some friends, I was more alone than I've ever been. I was even, to a large extent, isolating myself from people. I was closing all the doors through which I could be rescued and barring them from the inside. I'm glad I was able to rip through the fabric of worlds and be born anew.

"Now I've turned a corner
I can't be lonely
The landmarks all know me...

Me, I count the change
We saved up for so long
To get out of this town."

- Josh Joplin, One Become Two

Normally, I'd stop here... end with the song lyric, but I have to recommend this album to you. I have been listening to a very little known artist named Josh Joplin. His 2005 CD, Jaywalker, is by far the best CD I've heard in a long time. I can't stop listening. You can't find it in stores, but I encourage you to check it out. I don't know how to classify it into a genre, but it is informed by The Beatles and is a close cousin to the music of R.E.M. All I can say is that he's a lyrical genius with great musical sensitivity. For the rest, you'll have to listen for yourself.

"The time has come
For everyone
To stand before the day
And see the sun before it slips away...

Stay
For as long as you can stay
Life is hard, but it's okay
Stay..."

- Josh Joplin, Stay

"In my life I find that memories of the spirit linger and sweeten long after memories of the brain have faded."

Welcome back! I've been remodeling. As you can see, I've moved things around a bit, freshened things up, opened some windows and let some light into this place. Hopefully, it will be a bit easier on your tired eyes. I know... it even looks bigger in here. It's amazing when you choose the right color scheme how much brighter a place can look.

"Some of them were dreamers
And some of them were fools
Who were making plans and thinking of the future
With the energy of the innocent
They were gathering the tools..."
- Jackson Browne, Before the Deluge

Back in the summer of 1993, the world seemed so much simpler, for me at least. I was only a few months out of college and had gotten married at the beginning of the previous summer. We had been living in subsidized housing with jobs that paid only a pittance. My wife and I both spent the spring after my December graduation working for our college's education department. She was a secretary and I was an interviewer for the accreditation study that we were conducting. I also taught private clarinet lessons (clarinet was NOT my principal instrument and I barely considered myself proficient on it, but I have always had success teaching others how to play it well) and played in a rock band (Slightly Used), which cost a lot more than it paid, I promise.

As I've related previously, after much interviewing, wailing and gnashing of teeth, I secured a job most of the way across the state in a place neither of us had either lived previously. Also, neither of us had ever lived in a place so rural. Sure, my wife's family on her father's side had grown up in the country, as farmers, but we were both children of the suburbs.

"Let me tell y'all what it's like
Being male, middle-class and white."
- Ben Folds, Rockin' the Suburbs

We soon found ourselves living in a small town in the middle of a rural area. The school where I was going to be teaching was in a part of the county about 15 miles north with extremely high poverty and few other white faces. In the tiny town where the school was located, the white people that could, sent their children across the attendance lines to a predominantly white school in the next town, or to private school. I have never considered myself prejudiced, but I had never been seen as a minority before. The school was functioning under a recent court order to desegregate... in the 1990's... in America. They were under a requirement to hire a certain percentage of white teachers and staff and curb the problem of students crossing attendance lines. The school was short on funds and the building was in terrible shape, having once been the town's "colored" school in the days of "separate but equal" in which separate seemed to still be the case, while equal definitely wasn't.

When I moved into the band room, I noticed that the carpet was lime green shag. It was in a building all by itself at the rear of the campus, with no windows and, for most of my three years there, no air conditioning. It was like working, living, in a brick oven. We had no band uniforms. There hadn't been more than a half-dozen students in the band program for the past four years. The "music" they made on that first day made the inaugural notes of Mr. Holland's band sound like a symphony of angels.

"Playing music is supposed to be fun. It's about heart, it's about feelings, moving people, and something beautiful, and it's not about notes on a page." - Glenn Holland, Mr. Holland's Opus

When I received my class rosters a few days before the school year started, I couldn't believe my eyes. I would be teaching two middle school band classes and a high school band class. I would also be responsible for teaching the middle school band students physical education. The thing that astounded me was that the classes were nearly empty. They really weren't kidding. I had never done this before and I was going to be responsible for making the numbers grow from the six students on my class rosters to a musical ensemble that could give a Christmas concert for the student body in... what? Only about five months. Before that however, I was supposed to start putting together a marching band to perform in the stands at football games (thankfully, I would not be required to give halftime performances that school year... no field show). I had work to do.

“There's a time when a man needs to fight and a time when he needs to accept that his destiny's lost, the ship has sailed and that only a fool will continue. The truth is I've always been a fool.” – Ed Bloom, Big Fish

I started by looking at only a small group of select sixth grade students to be considered for admission into the seventh grade band class as beginners. No recruiting had been done, and it was not an easy task, since being in the band had an even worse, by far, stigma at this school than it does at most schools. I managed to recruit two sixth graders, one on trumpet and one on saxophone. Since the program was so small, my performances would have to combine all students of all ability levels, from these raw beginners, up to the more experienced high school students. While I was recruiting these sixth graders, I also began combing the classrooms of both the middle school and the high school, looking for students who had dropped out of band, or had been members of the band at a previous school. I managed to find a number of these students and convince some of them to join my band. I lured them into an open house in the band room with an instrument repair technician, since many of their instruments hadn't been played in years, and most were handed down... what the technician called M'uncle horns ("Son, where'd you get that horn?" "M'uncle played it."), and most importantly, my open house featured something no self-respecting teen or pre-teen could turn down... free food.

Soon, my band had grown to over thirty mostly warm bodies, including the high school principal's son, a member of the varsity football team, two cheerleaders, and a talented tuba player who had transferred in from another school. It was time for my first marching band practice. I rounded them up on the football field and began showing them proper marching techniques, just like I had been taught when I was in high school. They stared. They started laughing. The tuba player was helping me demonstrate. The principal's son was trying to get his fellow students to give it a try. It wasn't working. In less than thirty minutes, the "rehearsal" turned into a rout. Only a few students were still present. The rest marched straight to the principal's office demanding that this "crazy white man" be fired and replaced with a proper "black" band director. He left no uncertainty when he told them that the next practice I held, they had better be there doing exactly as I told them to do.

I was young, persistent, resilient. As Paul, the school's softball coach and as time passed, one of my closest friends during those years, soon taught me, "Not everyone's gonna want what you have to offer." He also taught me that "life sucks, grab a helmet."

I begged. I cajoled. I struggled. I gave every ounce of everything I had to get that program started. The principal got a former band director friend of his to put together an alumni band to "drum up" (pun intended) community support for the band program. I contacted the city newspaper in the nearest large city of Charleston and got a reporter to make the drive up to the school, about an hour away, to see the band rehearse. I chose an indoor music rehearsal, and the only song they knew how to play, "Under the Sea" from Disney's The Little Mermaid. My sense of humor and my rapport with the students quickly captured the reporter's attention. Since that ill-fated practice, we had begun to bond and work towards a common goal. One of my favorite quotes from that article was when I stopped the rehearsal for a moment, wiped my brow and said, "We need saxophones." One of my trumpet players quickly retorted, "We need Jesus!"

"Now let the music keep our spirits high
And let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by
When the light that's lost within us reaches the sky."
- Jackson Browne, Before the Deluge

Not too far into the football season, we had a band that could perform a few simple tunes in the bleachers during football games. I bought used uniforms from a school halfway across the state and drove the school's battered activity van all the way there to pick them up. My wife carefully ironed patches over the other school's name on every single uniform. We both worked incredibly hard. By the afternoon of the homecoming game, I passed out on the floor of my office's private restroom. The hours were grueling. We gave everything. We developed pride... and discipline.

In late October I took the band on a long bus ride to the Lower State Marching Championships, the equivalent of a semi-final round, for high schools our size. I told them before we got off the bus that we were there to watch and learn. I looked around that bus and told them that we would be returning the following year... to compete. As they watched the bands march across the field, they were incredulous. Most of them had never been to a marching band competition before. They couldn't believe what they were seeing. They couldn't believe that these bands were using the same fundamentals, the same marching style I had been teaching them, and were putting together these amazing productions, almost theatrical. They couldn't believe the pageantry and discipline on display. As we boarded the bus for the long drive home that night, several students told me that there was no way we would be ready to do that in only a year.

"A teacher has two jobs; fill young minds with knowledge, yes, but more important, give those minds a compass so that that knowledge doesn't go to waste." - Principal Jacobs, Mr. Holland's Opus

As a matter of fact, that next week, one of my talented clarinet players, also a cheerleader, was overheard talking about our band in a very negative light at her lunch table one day. In class, I stopped rehearsal a few minutes early. I talked to them about how negatively we were already viewed by the rest of the school. I talked about how difficult it was to change that image when the members of our own organization were championing those negative views to their peers. I singled out the clarinet player in front of the class. It was silent. I told her how much it broke my heart that all the effort I gave, all the effort her fellow band members gave, was nothing to her. How could she talk about the band this way, I asked, now with eyes growing a little moist. She tried to argue. She tried to defend what she had done. I pointed out how it just made her look ridiculous, giving so much time and effort to this organization that she was putting down to her non-musical friends. I will never forget the speech, the impassioned plea I uttered that day. I can recount it, hear it in my mind like it was yesterday, instead of fourteen years past. "Give me one year" I begged her. "One year... If in one year, you feel ashamed to be a part of this band, then I will personally tell your mother that she needs to let you quit. Give me one year. If you still feel ashamed to have me as your band director, then I will quit. I will go do something else. Give me one year."

Kelly agreed. She told me that she would give me one year. There wasn't a dry eye in the room. We shook on it. One year.

When other bands ended their marching band practices for the year to practice for concert band performances and other engagements, we continued to have at least an hour of marching band practice three days a week, every week, in addition to our concert rehearsals. The next year, we marched at football games. We had a 32 person marching band and performed The Hits of Mariah Carey as our halftime show. I wrote the marching drill myself, in what was to become an annual tradition for the next twelve years after that first show. Yes, we did march in the 1994 Lower State Marching Band Championships. We finished dead last, but we performed. Kelly stayed with the band. She was never caught ridiculing band again. The next year, my third year at that school and the final year it was open, Kelly was one of the drum majors of the band. She stood on a podium at football games and competitions while the entire school watched her conduct the band... HER band.

"You love music and you made the kids love it with you." - Rowena Morgan, Mr. Holland's Opus

I have taught hundreds of students since that first year, but I will never forget that first group. I can see the faces and hear the names. I'm sure I learned at least as much from them as they learned from me. Actually, I'm pretty sure I learned much more than they did.

Yesterday, I noticed that the high school of a beautiful, small rural town nearby, a town we lived in and loved for the first five years I worked at the job I just left, is looking for a band director. My mind drifted back to the memories of my first teaching job... to those first students... to the simplicity of that life. I thought about how difficult that job seemed at the time, but how I also knew there was no way I could fail. I thought about how easy it had been to give everything, every ounce of my life, to that job, and to loving those kids. Then I snapped back into the present, mind once again joined to body and firmly planted in reality. Things which seem effortless at age 23 are not the same at age 37. I realized that, while I have the fond memories of those first years of teaching, I am now also fully aware of the cost. As the title, from the movie My Dog Skip, implies, I also know that I view those early days through the hazy lens of memory and the softening filter of time.

"I'm not sure all these people understand
It's not like years ago..."
- R.E.M., Nightswimming

The thought of rebuilding that band program, while exciting, fills me with feelings that are not welcome. Having to fight tooth and nail for every inch of ground the program gains is immensely rewarding, but physically and emotionally draining. The idea of establishing relationships with dozens of students, parents and teachers I have never met before and working tirelessly to gain their support would be a harrowing experience at this point in my life. I discovered that I'm just not interested. That is simply not what I am anymore. It is a part of who I am, just as anything I have ever experienced has shaped me, but I am content to savor my memories and leave this opportunity to someone else, hopefully someone who is just starting their journey, to create their own. I hope theirs are filled with joys and sorrows, sweetness and pain, just like mine.

"Some of them knew pleasure
And some of them knew pain
And for some of them it was only the moment that mattered
And on the brave and crazy wings of youth
They went flying around in the rain
And their feathers, once so fine, grew torn and tattered
And in the end they traded their tired wings
For the resignation that living brings
And exchanged love's bright and fragile glow
For the glitter and the rouge
And in the moment they were swept before the deluge."
- Jackson Browne, Before the Deluge

"It's the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine)."

"Feel the pain teaching us how much more we can take
Reminding us how far we've come
Let the pain burn away from our hearts
We have time to start all over again."
- Copeland, When Finally Set Free

It is time to end the suspense, for all of us. I just got home from the school. I went to my office and removed the last of the files I wanted to keep from my computer and the network, then I steeled myself and located my principal, who was in the guidance office.

I would like to thank all of you for your thoughts, positive energy, good vibes, and prayers. The meeting went well. I handed him my response to the letter he gave me at our last meeting. Then told him I could no longer do my job. I handed him my letter of resignation and gave him a chance to read it. He was definitely surprised. He admitted that the letter had been a bit of a strong-arm tactic to get me to stop upsetting people enough that they complained to him. I told him that it was not simply a matter of the letter, it was a career that no longer fit me. We talked quite amicably about everything and he apologized for anything that I might have been offended by and I did the same. He even told me he would remove the letter from my personnel file and give me a positive reference. I had asked for a sealed personnel file and a neutral reference, so I was pleasantly surprised by this. He told my that this was the first case in his entire career when someone was leaving the profession who he felt needed to stay in it.

I told him about the stress-related health problems and my inability to provide any care for my father due to the hours and commitment the job demanded. My father is unable to walk more than a few steps now, and my mother also needs transportation to doctor's appointments and such that he cannot provide for her. They can be complete jerks at times, but they are still my parents. They won't be around much longer and I need to make the most of the time we have left.

So, at least things went as amicably as possible. It was better than I even hoped for actually. He seemed to understand my reasons and rationale for resigning and also seemed to hold no animosity towards me for anything. Hopefully, this holds. I have taken three calls since I left there. They were from my wife, my color guard instructor, and Cameron. I texted them as soon as I was finished, along with the other staff member and the former band parent who has done some pastoral counseling for me. I am now a former band director.

Out of reflex or instinct, or self-preservation, or whatever it is, I had the normal reaction after I left the school and started thinking, "Maybe I could've worked things out and stayed." I was quickly reminded by my wife that my problems would not have gone away. My lack of satisfaction, my health problems, my overwhelming time commitments and stress would all be right there waiting for me. I would never have gotten to see the side of my principal that I got to see today that made me think about returning in the first place. He tried to talk me into staying, but saw that I was determined. I think it's natural that as soon as we do leave the plane, we turn around to find it and try to grab at it as it leaves us there, floating in space. We see our security flying away from us and all we have is this scrap of cloth that is supposed to open in time to slow our descent, but we never really know if it will work.

"I can feel something leaving
That was a part of me."
- October Fall, A Part of Me

Cameron told me that he misses teaching every day of his life. Only time will tell if I feel the same or not. That identity has been a part of me for so long, that it is hard to tell how I will feel as it becomes a part of my past. Cameron's words of wisdom were to get reacquainted with the person that I was before I became Mr. Teacher. He said I haven't hung out with that person in so long that I probably don't remember what he was like. He's almost right. I started letting that person come out recently. I think he's a pretty good guy. He's not perfect. He has room to grow and improve. Now, maybe he can take the time to do that.

Of course, I still have to inform my parents of this change. My wife is going to handle telling her mother and she even offered to tell my parents, since she thinks they would be less verbally abusive with her, but I have graciously turned that offer down. I don't want to put her through that. I will face whatever they have to offer. I will probably need to inform them by the end of this week. I will also begin telling some of my now former students this evening. It is going to hurt them, but in the end, I think it will be an opportunity for them to grow as well.

I feel like a weight has lifted from my shoulders. I know that is a cliche, but it is a great description of how this feels. Maybe that's why it's become a cliche. The last two nights brought back many of the old health problems, the stomach problems, the insomnia. Early this morning, I finally made a conscious effort to let it go until morning. When I did that, I felt muscles unclench that had been clenched for years. I still have that feeling. Knots in my muscles that have been tied tight for as long as I can remember are loosening. I feel like I'm expanding if that makes any sense. The best I can put it is that the skin I have been shedding has finally completely come off and I am able to grow again and fill this new skin. I look forward to the new adventure.

Like my title, borrowed from R.E.M., indicates, I don't have the feeling of catastrophe that might be expected or reasonable. I feel fine right now. I just need to find a way to start making enough money to pay the bills and live. That search begins tomorrow. For the next few hours, I'm just going to enjoy being alive and free. I have let go of the airplane and am floating freely. The parachute hasn't opened yet, but I am floating among the clouds, confident that it will indeed open. I have no choice. This is where I am and what I am doing. This is who I am right now.


All Things New Again - The Wallflowers

New heaven over a brand new sky
New breed of wonder on the vine
Among the living
There is new promise in this night

New arms to hold back the revolution
New eyes to recognize what you've become
New blood to recover
A new will to honor all God's creations

All things are new again
Within and without
All things are new again

New shepherd roaming through the tall grass
A new temple rising through the falling ash
That buries the tracks
Of millions of boots marching in packs

Clear water rolling through the dam's collapse
Out to the harbor where they're sailing back
New flag on the mast
Without any secrets, without any past

All things are new again
Within and without
Sooner or later the ending begins
Just then it can be said that all things are new again

New ghost returning to the earth beneath the haze
New poets burning through the lines of every page
I'm am unpainted portrait
I am staring at a new sunset
Without any memories yet

All things are new again
Within and without
Sooner or later the ending begins
Just then it can be said that all things are new again
Within and without
Sooner or later every season ends
Then forever it can be said that all things are new again

"My shoes are wearing out from walking down this same highway..."

"When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us." - Alexander Graham Bell

Last night was my appointment with Jeff. I introduced him a little in the last post. The story that sums him up the best is this: When a local television personality was looking for a guest to feature in a show about people who had reinvented themselves, she asked Jeff to be a part of the show. He declined, telling her that he had not reinvented himself, but merely found new opportunities. He has been a Lutheran pastor, a small business owner, a menswear retail salesperson, a hospice administrator and chaplain, and is now in the process of becoming an Episcopal priest. I had the privilege of teaching his son for the first four years of my time at my current school.

“You're focusing on the problem. If you focus on the problem, you can't see the solution. Never focus on the problem!” – Arthur Mendelson, Patch Adams

I began by giving him the background on my situation, which was a somewhat more detailed version of my first post. His first reaction was to try to "talk around the problem" (R.E.M. - Fall On Me) We discussed the possibility of a lateral move to another high school, but interestingly enough, most of the directors at the other local high schools were having the same problems with lack of parental and even administrative support. We then discussed the option of moving to a lower level, such as teaching at a middle school. Since there are no local vacancies at this time, and I am not yet willing to leave the area, that makes this possibility improbable. We then discussed the option of going up the chain of command in the school district to address my concerns. I feel that this would make my current employment situation even more untenable. The main thing I noticed during this stage of the conversation was that I was steering the options away from a return to my current position. I came to recognize that I had subconsciously already made my decision.

One of the exercises Martha Beck recommends to help people through Stage One of the Change Cycle is to deliberately think about going back to where you were before and look for any visceral reactions to the thoughts. Yesterday afternoon, I discovered that I had missed a call on my cell phone from my school. The reaction was immediate and intense. I realized that I had a distinct fear of checking the voice mail or my work email. This morning, I forced myself to do both. As I listened through my voice mail, I felt the fear mount. By the time I got to the message from my principal, the stress level was incredibly high. He would like to meet with me Thursday (tomorrow), around 1:30 p.m. I believe this has become my deadline for action. The reason for the meeting could be innocuous (though I find that unlikely, since the last three have not been), related to scheduling or any number of minor, inoffensive issues, or the meeting could concern any number of things that would be related to the situation at hand, such as booster club debt, or the fact that as I was in the mall last Wednesday afternoon, I ran into some students and immediately the parent who has been leading the campaign against me materialized nearby. This would definitely have been cause for an email to my administration, as she has sent an email every time she has ever seen me speak to students in a social setting.

One Friday night near the end of marching band season, there was a severe thunderstorm that prevented the band from traveling to the game, as that particular school has a regulation about bands marching on the field when it has recently rained, and it rained hard. Since the students were going to miss their last football game of the season, the student leaders organized an outing to a movie at the local theater in the mall. The entire band was invited and more than 30 students showed up at the theater. I was also invited, as was my staff, all students at the local college who were also alumni of my program. I attended, as did at least one of my staff, along with several band parents. My principal received an email the next day. When the student leaders attempt to arrange an outing for the band, as I encourage them to do in order to promote unity and team spirit, I have always tried to attend, along with some of my staff, if possible and reasonably convenient. I have now been told that it is inappropriate to do so, even though an informal poll of local directors showed that all of them do the same thing. This makes my sighting in the mall last week, which is the only time I have seen any of my students outside of the school since graduation, a reason for concern.

“If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

One of the things that Jeff was impressed with from our conversation last night, was my faith in my own intuition, which I have discussed in other posts. He expected to see more of a broken man, with less faith, than the man he encountered when we met. He told me that I seemed to see this as more of an opportunity than he expected. He paid me a great compliment when he thanked me for our time together and told me that he had learned a great deal, probably more than I had. He told me that I had helped him with some baggage from his life transitions that he had not been able to let go previously. He told me that my gifts as a counselor were quite evident and encouraged me to pursue, or at least give thought to, a career in social work and counseling. He also asked me if I was interested in the ministry, which I am not. We discussed the similarities between the plight of local band programs and the plight of local churches. The organization is similar, and the problems seem to be similar as well. A career in the ministry would be like the proverbial leap from the frying pan into the fire. Also, I just do not feel called to such a career.

So, I believe I have decided to leave my career; the career that has suited me so well for most of the past 14 years. It is a frightening prospect. I have until tomorrow morning to write a well reasoned letter of resignation. I tell myself that just because it's written and I am holding it, doesn't mean I have to present it. I just cannot bear another meeting like the last three. The humiliation, especially of the last one, is more stress than I can take right now. As my title quote from the Traveling Wilburys suggests, I am growing weary of this road. I care greatly for the students, and they would be better served by a director who is not handicapped past past mistakes and prejudices. I know that almost every one of them would say that they want me to return no matter the cost, but if they knew that I would have to be a different person and give them almost no interaction outside of class, no mentoring, no counseling, no fellowship or team building, they would realize that it would not be me that would be returning, it would only be a portion of me. They would be getting me back as a director, but not as a teacher.

Jeff and I also talked about potential career paths. We discussed my love for counseling and my ability to relate to those in crisis or with mental health issues. He even suggested that, as a mental health counselor or social worker, I would be able to help troubled individuals more directly and remove the procedural educational bureaucracy from the equation. We also discussed my writing, which he thought would be served by some graduate work in counseling or social work. He likes to turn difficult situations into entrepreneurial opportunities.

He related the story of a friend who worked as a stock broker. He decided to leave his career behind and only do personal stock consultations while scouring thrift stores, flea markets, garage sales and used book stores for books. He eventually filled his house with used books. When he was ready, he quit doing stock consultations and turned to selling books online full-time. He affiliated his online store with Amazon and now has turned this into his career. He also told me the story of how, when his family was nearing the end of its financial rope at one point, he wrote a business proposal and approached total strangers for financing. He met an older gentlemen who had owned steel mills and presented his proposal, which required $300,000 to finance. The man told him, "Son, I've lost more than that in one day gambling." He got his financing.

“Dreams are the touchstones of our character.” – Henry David Thoreau

Where do you meet these people? I've always wanted to open a full-service hobby shop with separate sections for collectible card games, role-playing games, miniatures, crafting, r/c racing, model railroading, doll houses, etc. It would have to be a large and well-divided space with areas to participate in some of these activities and places to present workshops or classes on them. I saw a similar concept in Wisconsin a few years ago that was as nice as a chain bookstore in front, with classrooms and gaming rooms in back and a large common area for CCG's and even a full-service snack bar. Yet another of my dreams.

It seems I have some work to do in the next few weeks. I have to start with a letter of resignation and some job applications. I need to explore graduate programs, probably online programs. We will need to prepare our house to sell or at least rent out (I have no idea how to do either) and then list it for sale or rent. I also have to tell my family and hope that I am not an "embarrassment" to them. My mother-in-law is going to immediately start searching for work and lodging in Florida, but neither of us are interested in living there. Wish me the best. It is going to be a busy time, but I hope to chronicle the entire journey here. Stay tuned. I have a feeling that things are going to get interesting.

"We've become bored with watching actors give us phony emotions. We are tired of pyrotechnics and special effects... No scripts, no cue cards. It isn't always Shakespeare, but it's genuine. It's a life."
- Christof, The Truman Show (opening lines)