Small wins, rescued mice, and a thank you to all school teachers
Crazy week. I’m way off my game. Thought I’d have a post ready to go last Monday, actually the start of a blog post series, which I can’t wait to introduce. But March has this knack for throwing me all over the place, and it ain’t a pretty sight.First up, I had a somewhat disappointing meeting with an editor who had been considering a short story of mine. Seems like every time I feel really confident about something I wrote, I get slammed upside the head. I’m sure I’m being overdramatic and it probably isn’t as bad as how I feel. But the bottom line is that I suffered yet another rejection.
I hadn’t realized until he turned me down that I really needed this small win. It’d been way too long since my last notable win, and I’m feeling the pull down the rabbit hole. I just want to disappear. Too much time between wins is like river rocks that are spaced too far apart to jump from one to the next. You get stuck, right there, on a rock in the middle of a raging river. No, let’s make it lava. Hot lava from a volcano—rushing—and the incinerating ooze is rising ever and ever higher ...Letting some time pass to mull over what I’m calling a loss. Part of me tries to keep it all in perspective, that the story had been considered, actually held in the hands by an editor, and that he had to think about it, which also included a conference call with me. That’s pretty important, right? I mean, that’s a lot better than the slush pile. It’s like the slush pile but with style. The style pile. Yeah.
Then a few nights ago, my two sweet, innocent-looking cats (100% indoor felines) caught 5 mice in my house, one right after the other. I don’t know if the mice were moving in, luggage and all, and the cats swooped in, but it was the craziest hour of my whole week! For those of you who know me, you won’t be totally shocked to hear that I rescued ALL the mice. Grabbing the cats, prying open their jaws, scooping up the frightened critters in a Tupperware container, then sending them outside on their merry way.
One mouse, however, got super banged up and I had to rehab it first before releasing it. I had an old fish aquarium, and he bunked there for a couple of nights before I ended up taking him to a real wildlife rehab center. They took care of him and now he’s free and wild again!I’m running some after-school creative writing programs again, which I love doing. Most of the kids who sign up are avid readers and writers—they really want to learn. But there are just that select few who feel it is their God-given right to be disruptive, the class clown, the troublemaker. They are such rabble rousers that by the end of the class, I’m frazzled.How do schoolteachers manage a whole day of that crap? How are they able to actually teach the kids who want to learn when there is all the noise from entitled brats coming at them from fifty-eight directions?I want to say THANK YOU to ALL school teachers—teachers are way too underappreciated and underpaid. Schools are overcrowded and underfunded. This is one of the most important places where the world’s kids are shaped and guided, and we can’t turn out model citizens/leaders/community members if the teachers aren’t given better support, tools, equipment, or resources.Just saying.How has your March been, all lion-y or more lamblike? Have you ever rescued a mouse? If you're a teacher, I salute you, and want to hear HOW DO YOU DO IT???