Mangosteens and Blueberries

I am in the habit of periodically updating people with the following: "I still miss mangosteens." I miss them! I miss them! No purple fruit for me; nope, no sweet, juicy white interior for me. And yet with the same passion I have for my lost mangosteens, I still feel incredibly grateful the simple gifts of North American fruit. When I buy blueberries, raspberries, apricots, plums, and pluots,  I feel a little surge of happiness. I love this kind of fruit. Fruit I could not eat in  Thailand (well, I could have on occasion if I had been willing to fork over a too handsome sum of money).

There's something bitter-sweet about mutually exclusive things. I can't have mangosteens and blueberries. I can't have Thailand and America. I'm not omnipresent. I must be in a place, and I'm here: Central Florida. And there are many gifts of here--the amazing dark-cloud-run-while-you-can summer storms, the trees covered in Spanish moss, Florida birds (anhingas are my favorite--maybe it's because they are the only bird I really know), and the beaches--not too far way. I'm gifted with people too. People I wouldn't have known if I landed here: coworkers, neighbors, and friends.

Thank you Lord for the gifts of the present and the good-sweet memories of the past. 

Waylaying

Strong emotions have a way of completely waylaying me. I am at work needing to prepare for class, but I can't concentrate. I have two different emotions washing over me. One is grief. Not a grief for me but for a student. Someone died in her family yesterday; she has given me no other details. She came to class today. I was surprised to see her. She came to class and had the look, and I've seen that look before and hate it--the shutting-down, the-not-quite-here, the damped-down sadness that comes after the news of a death. I hate the look not because I don't expect it or understand it but because I hate death! I hate that every school year (sometimes every semester) I have a student who loses someone. It makes me angry.

Then there's something else happening. An email in my inbox about an opportunity for someone I care about: not any opportunity--an opportunity to do something I love, so a wave of joy and excitement is crashing into this wave of anger and grief, and I have a class to prepare for.

I tell my students when they are struggling that it's hard to do life and school sometimes. That's true for teachers too.