A Letter From Another Galaxy

Sorry I’ve been away. I’ve been lost, tired and overwhelmed. Charting a new paths.

Yesterday, I dreamt my mom came in to wake me. She pulled the curtains open to the cloudy sky, closed them and said, “It’s too dark to go out. Stay home.”

So I did, until the alarm carried me from the comfort of having no place to be. I peered through a crack in the same curtains my mom opened in my dream to find rain. I pushed against my superstitions to ready myself for work.

My day was filled with growing more fond of some people and wrestling harder with others: A different scenario under the same pretense of a tired classroom bracketed by bells. I carried the psychology of each of the eight hours home, stacked them up like bricks to shelter from whatever my kids and husband were trying to tell me as I conjured ways to improve.

When I fell asleep again, I dreamt of Cha-Cha leaping onto me as I slept, waking me with the poke of her paws and sturdy tremble, curling into my arms, licking my nose and tickling me with her wag. She had healed.

Yesterday, bracketed by two dreams of resting and renewed vitality; closing in and allowing life to find me instead of the other way around. And it’s here that I try my best to stay.

Ever since I accepted a job as a teacher, the only time I have to spare is spent writing lesson plans I myself am too harried to follow. Perhaps I’m being hard on myself and my students. My expectations have always been too high, I conclude.

In between the circus acts of both talent and strength that occur in every class stand the mortar of reasons as to why people teach.

“Why?” I ask colleagues as they reassure my experiences are not unique, but in fact a very integral part of the process, a patina I might or might not acquire after my first year.

I recall the time an astronaut visited my elementary school. Something was different about him. Far off. Unretrievable. Unpenitrable. This is the patina I’m referring to. A patina only time, age and experience can both take from you and offer you. It begins with the sweat of hard work and discomfort. It’s grey strands of hair reach out into the world, untamed antennas feeling out the dangers, or delicate tendrils of warning, or perhaps a signal of yearning to be plucked from the contrasting darkness that has yet to transcend to light. Like students who raise their hands to be called on; rare gems that save me from having to answer the questions myself. A teacher can only teach from what they know, and I’ve forgotten all I took so much time and effort to memorize 30 years ago.

And then there is the moon. She stood bright and full, and gracefully lit the way. A friendly face to guide me along unfamiliar paths, until she waned. And when I asked her what her problem was, she told me with the depth of her heart: You don’t even know my name.

And it was true.

I asked her to please have empathy. I have hundreds of names to know. I am trying my best.

But, now I understand.

My own child’s first words:

1. Mom

2. Dad

3. Moon

And quite literally, that is her name: Qamar, which means moon in Arabic.

In order to navigate, one must first know where they are. I’m observing the stars, learning their names, wishing on them as they appear and trying my best to trust them to chart the way.