I've Been Almost This Lonely Before

I remember the last time I was this lonely. It was my first year of teaching and being a dorm adviser at LMH.

• I never had enough sleep.
• I didn't hang out with people regularly.
• I always had grading hanging over my head. 
• I was responsible in part for the well-being of so many kids, and the job just never seemed to end. 
• I had no idea where to make boundaries. Of course I had to move all those boundaries over the next two years. 

It was all a bear of a task. What I remember, though, was feeling so lonely. I remember kneeling in child's pose that winter, crying out to God about how damn uncertain and tiring the whole thing was. Was I in the right place? Was I doing this right? How would I know if I was doing it right? Why do I feel so alone, God?It was the loneliest I had been up to that point.

This is a harder life in so many ways, but the fact that I have that experience as part of me makes this one easier. It's a lot of the same, but at least I've done some of it before:

• I never have enough sleep.
• I don't hang out with people regularly.
• I always have grading hanging over my head.
• I'm responsible for my own well-being, and I don't know what that looks like.
• I have no idea where to make boundaries.

Why not just solve one problem, and at least hang out with people more regularly?

It's partly because I need to make new friends to hang out with, and that is a slow process. Deep friendships take time, and shallow ones take energy.

I'm afraid of hanging out with only Americans, because, as I've already seen, they come and go so quickly. I've only been here for nine months, and already I've seen people leave who came here with me. That leaves local friends: Moroccan and other African friends who are likely to stick around. But there's the problem of the language barrier. And there's the problem of my disillusionment with Morocco stemming from the students I teach. It's not been a conscious decision, but if all Moroccans are like my students, how can I ever trust anyone? They lie to me like it's their job.

So, I'm lonely. But I'm not ashamed of it. It's like Jessica and the Reverend Mother, talking together in Dune... 

"I've been so lonely."
"It should be one of the tests," said the old woman. "Humans are almost always lonely."

Troubled Sleep

Remind me what you say about peace

and all will be well.

Remind me what you say about fear

and all will be well.

Remind me what you say about never leaving

and all will be well.

Give rest to those you love. 

There's this sweet sea breeze over the hill that pastures simpler beasts. 

Today I found myself wishing I could join them there. 

Give rest to those you love.

It would be trudging on if not for love.

It would be entirely will that trained my course, 

but it's yours.

Give rest to those you love.

Ah, it's these sweet smiles of discovery. 

Ah, it's those broken hearts that have begun to know too much. 

Give rest to those you love.

An Unusual Easter Morning

This morning, thoughts of work came like a flood. We arrived back in Casa at 10 PM, and it took me some time to fall asleep. The exact length of two episodes of The Great British Baking Show, as a matter of fact.

I have so much to think about from the desert, so much joy from the dunes of the Sahara to the lakes of the Atlas. But this morning, we couldn't go to church for stomach troubles. I made a bad decision, and traded my sense of well-being for the anxiety a second cup of coffee offered me. The day isn't over yet, but I am mired in preparations for this week. Ah, to be back in the desert.

Everyday Lesson Planning With Miss McKalips

7:15 AM

I walk into the classroom. Chairs are on desks; the cleaning lady has been through, and the room is ready. She has faith that what we do in here is important, and she works to make our space worth learning in every day.

I know we have to learn something today, but we need to start a new unit. What was our last unit about? Short stories. The test was yesterday. I stayed up late grading them, and I went to bed telling myself I would figure something out in the morning. Here I am. It is morning. What do I teach?

I go to the curriculum map. I'm not ready for any of these units. Okay, I'm good at teaching writing: I'll teach a paper. Whooaaaaa... Am I ready to grade 53 seventh-grade papers when it's so close to the end of the quarter? When is it ever convenient to teach writing?

I open up a book by one of my favorite (one of my only) writing pedagogy authors. I look at where he begins, and how much work he pours into every paper, every lesson. What? Every time he teaches Polonius' speech in Hamlet, he does this incredible amount of studying. At night. After he's left school, he reads the act again, reads his research again, listens to the play on his way to work. I want to kill him. I will never be able to do that. I can't do this.

7:40 AM.

What am I going to teach today?

7:45 AM.

Hall duty. Good thing I have first period planning to think through this.

8:05 AM.

What am I going to teach today? It's a really good thing I haven't been called to cover anyone's class.

8:10 AM.

Forget teaching writing today. Take that book home and read it, and do it all perfectly the first time; but the first time won't be today. Actually, no, just throw that book into one of these drawers with other people's perfect ideas.

8:20 AM.

Open the textbook and figure out what is next. Poetry. Oh my gosh. I love poetry.

8:30 AM.

We can't just read poems on day one! How are we going to read them!? What will this unit even be about?

8:40 AM.

The students come in ten minutes! FIGURE THIS OUT RIGHT NOW.

8:45 AM.

Okay. I'm going to make a decision. Decision made. We'll make a chart on the board of different kinds of art. And then we'll choose one kind of art, and talk about what the different tools are that that artist uses. I'm only barely qualified to talk about the art of painting... good enough: we'll talk about the tools a painter uses. Then we'll talk about how a poet is an artist, and list off the tools a poet can use. We'll create a vocabulary list that way, and we'll be sure to include rhythm, rhyme, allusion, form, stanza, assonance, alliteration...

8:50 AM. [Bell]

Guess that'll work. [Open the door. Kids come in.]

How to Dress Like a Teacher

1. Find a dress that has no discernible sexiness about it. It should be cut pretty high up the neck, and pretty low down the legs. If it's just one color, cool. Don't want to distract the kids with multiple colors.

2. Add a belt if you must. But nothing showy. Try black.

3. Let me guess, that dress has no sleeves? Wear a cardigan. A cardigan and leggings will make your summer dress suitable for the winter. You should have seven cardigans, all varying in their intensity of boredom.

4. Don't forget your ID badge. There you go.

A Check-Up for My Goals

I wrote down the reasons why I left Lancaster, with my kind housemates, my growing church, my endless opportunities for involvement in society, and my interesting job. The check-up is in italics beneath each reason for why I came here.

To learn to teach.
This is happening. 

To live near the desert.
This is true, but I haven't seen much of the desert just yet. When I came here in August, I wasn't sure this city wasn't a desert: dry, dusty, without a sliver of green. If the ocean hadn't been a half hour's jog away, I would have felt bereft. 

To live near the ocean.
I live near it, but see it so little. The sand sticks to your feet, and a few young boys walk around with their thirsty donkeys, offering rides along the water's edge. Men show off and proposition you and yell English phrases at you. 

Still, it's the ocean, and I will be going there tomorrow for an hour or so. I won't even bring a book, the waves are such good company. 

To escape the crush of scheduling (for which I took full responsibility).
This has temporarily, no doubt, solved itself. I spend my time teaching, grading, planning, and making food. It's a simple kind of busy, with far fewer deep relationships. 

To ask God how to stop being so angry.
I'm still pretty angry. I get the most angry about how women have such a raw deal the world over. I'm more impatient with so-called "women's issues" than I have ever been. Women's issues are men's issues, just like men's issues will always be women's issues. Regardless, anger is so often an outcropping of fear in my life, so I wonder what I'm afraid of.

To produce nothing, be known for nothing, be right about nothing, defend nothing.
This one was about me not building my own little comfortable kingdom. This is here to remind me that I am God's child, and that is enough. I don't need to see fruit to know that he loves me. 

To confront my loneliness, and befriend it.
I have found my loneliness. I have begun to look it in the eyes. We are not friends yet, merely occasional walking companions.

To be out of the country during the 2016 presidential election.
That happened, but it was painful on this side of the ocean, too. God, bless America. And Morocco. And...

To know Muslims.

Relationships take time and, for me, language. I love the conversations between Christians and Muslims: we have so much to talk about.

I have zero interest in meeting Muslim men, who frankly scare me; but I have lots of interest in meeting Muslim women. The Moroccans I know (though just a little bit) are my co-workers. I am mostly letting work take up that relational space for this year. You don't do everything at once. 

My Moroccan co-workers are understandably guarded in getting to know American teachers. Turnover is as high as you'd expect among young, American, traveler-teachers. For perspective, I'm far less a traveler than most of the Americans I work with. 

Lovelocks of Paris

Locks are prolific in Paris. You buy one at any corner tobacco shop, and attach it to some bridge, or indeed any public metal fixture in a picturesque area, and it represents your committed love. 

I really liked this concept, and I treated it like a treasure hunt all around the city. 

In a park behind Notre Dame Cathedral, where I had no clue
how to focus my lens.

Locks on a tunnel hook along the Seine

On the Eiffel Tower, people worry a lot about structural failure.

The Pont Des Arts, probably the most famous place in Paris
to spot locks

I felt like this lock was mine, because it already had one of
my monikers, and its love was Paris.