After months of fundraising for a new homeless shelter in Summerwood and even more months of construction on an old warehouse downtown, they were finally able to open their doors. Claire had been an integral part of the fundraising team and had gladly accepted when they had asked her to spend the day distributing vouchers at homeless camps ( Read more... )

Maggie didn’t need an alarm clock anymore; she naturally woke up at 7am daily and, besides, it wasn’t like she was in danger of being late to anything these days ( Read more... )

A rite of passage, it seems, for new parents is to withstand the barrage of unsolicited advice. She should eat this, but she shouldn't eat that. If she’s unhappy, onlookers readily assess the problem as if you haven’t spent literally every day of her life with her and cannot possibly understand what causes a shift in her mood ( Read more... )

These days, as I get closer and closer to my 40s, I am quite regularly struck by the thought that my life is not at all what it used to be. Moreover, I can’t say that it’s anything like what I expected it to become either ( Read more... )

“Did you always want to be a teacher, Mrs. D?” Despite what my resume would suggest, no, I did not, actually ( Read more... )

We, as special education teachers, are being set up to fail. We are caught in a world between bureaucratic expectations that are neither grounded in fact or verity, the harsh reality of the day-to-day needs of students, and lack of support, either from parents, colleagues, administration, or the district. The emphasis of this job has shifted from ( Read more... )

In the middle of one of Aurora’s tantrums, my mother offered her unsolicited opinion citing her resume of wonderful children. And my husband just lost it. His eyes were wild and his lip quivered (later, he’d quipped, “See, I told you that you’d never really seen me angry before”). The only thing missing was fire coming out of his ears like a ( Read more... )

“That’s it. I’m done,” Juan declared as he packed up his belongings and strode toward the classroom door. “I’m going to the office ( Read more... )

I feel like Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down again; as soon as I check one thing off my to-do list, another--probably two, actually--replace it. Oh, let’s be real: it’s rare that I even get to check something off a to-do list. In fact, they were so long and so many things didn’t get finished at the end of the day ( Read more... )

Do you ever think of me? I’m embarrassed to admit that after all these years, I still think of you regularly. Sometimes it’s a song we used to belt out as the wind whipped through our hair while we drove through the night. Sometimes it’s a silver SUV passing me in a parking lot. Sometimes it’s two girls, one tall and one short, walking in the ( Read more... )