The Budding Optimist

    In the preface to Night, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel explains that after liberation, he did not know how to write his account of surviving Nazi horrors, of turning his back on his own father, of becoming one of the walking wounded, because words had ceased meaning what they used to mean. There were so many words -- chimney, gas, smoke, selection -- whose meanings he'd understood differently before. But how do you function in a post-apocalyptic world where the words that other people know mean something so catastrophically different to you now? And how do you communicate your experiences to people who cannot begin to fathom the atrocities those words might hold for you? I would not have had the strength or courage to survive what Wiesel experienced. But when I read that about the failure of words, I understood it. Words are my life -- reading them, writing them, teaching students to use them more effectively, how to manipulate words to win arguments and persuade audiences. Wo

As we enter the last 25 hours of our 200-hour yoga certification, I can say it is probably one of the hardest voluntary experiences I've undertaken in quite sometime (although still a far, far cry from almost being eaten by bears at Wheaton).  A few weeks ago, we had to sequence a lesson using the nearly 500-page book of poses we'd been working from. The list of requirements was extensive. Still, it didn't seem that hard until I considered that the primary goal should be to leave the practitioner feeling really good; or, failing that, at least not injure them. I recruited Cara and her daughter Aubrey for my students. All was going according to plan until I got a series of break-up texts mere seconds before I was due to teach. I literally cried my way through the entire introduction, like a lunatic. And since Cara and Aubrey are empaths, they cried too...while it was being filmed...to hand in as evidence of my great progress as a yogi. It might not have been so bad, but then

  One of my favorite stories from the OT is what happens after Elijah defeats the prophets of Baal at Mt. Carmel. Following his massive and unqualified victory, Elijah is so full of endorphins that he runs 15 miles back to Jezreel, where all his endorphins promptly leave him and he asks God to kill him. (And God is like, "No. Here, eat a sandwich, your blood sugar is low.") I mean,  what?  If this is not a clear case of what we would today define as bi-polar mania and depression, I don't know what is. At the very least, it's mood dysregulation. I feel like that prophet right now. After 15 years of trying to find a high school English position, I quit my job in a massive blaze of glory and took a leap of faith on a one-year-only position that -- I suspect -- I was probably the only person to apply for. This fall I will teach people older than 14 for the first time since the student-teaching days of my 20's. And now I want to die. Yesterday, I taught the first yoga