FIND ME . . .

They -- whoever "they" are -- say that heartache builds character. I certainly hope so.

Sometimes, the hardest part is having faith in the future. It's one thing to look back to the past and think about what great times they were, and to imagine no time ever being as great again. Which of course is never really the case. It's another thing entirely to look towards the future with complete optimism and gladness. Sure, there can be excitement or positive anticipation and even lots of hope. But it's still hard.

My hope in these days is not so much for the hurting to stop. It's not. I mean, that would be nice, but that's more of a panacea, don't you think? No, instead my hope is for character to be built. That gladness would develop. That peace would invade our hearts and do an honest healing work.

And then, we will be found.

***

BRAIN THINGS . . .

Had an interesting conversation with Mabel yesterday -- we always do when we're talking about her work. Mabel teaches fifth grade in the 'burbs, the Land of No One Gets Below a B+ Or Else The Parents Will Come After You and Make Your Life Miserable. She used to teach sixth grade on the Lower East Side, the Land of Some Kids Just Need to Survive While Others Get Casting Calls and Nannies and Tutors. She has such a full life, such full experiences with her kids, it makes me jealous sometimes. Every day really is a new day in her line of work, and sometimes I have fanciful dreams of waking up a child psychologist-slash-educator-slash-psychiatrist-slash- school administrator-slash-Secretary of Edjumacation. Sort of makes me want to go back to every sort of graduate school imaginable, so I can rack up degrees in all of these areas ...

Did you know that a teacher can find out her student's IQ if she wanted to? (Mabel doesn't, but she could.) Did you know that if you have messy handwriting, that can be a sign of a classified disability? Did you know that children suffering from A.D.D. can be helped with hearing aids and teacher's microphones, their teacher's voices magnified just in their own ears to help them focus on the given instructions? Did you know that you can teach mathematics as an art form, thus helping a creative genius who is otherwise completely slow learn everything he needs to? Did you know that some parents want their children to be classified with some sort of learning disability so that they can receive all the educational accommodations available from the school? Did you know that some parents will deny to the bitter end that their children are learning disabled, thus depriving the kids of any opportunity to make it in the classroom, not caring that their kids are utter disturbances to the rest of the class? Did you know that students can get through high school without learning how to read? Did you know that even for some children born in the United States and raised in English-speaking homes, English can seem like a foreign language? Did you know that children can read words perfectly well, and understand the individual meanings of each word, but cannot link the meanings together in their minds to make a coherent sentence? Did you know that 10-year-old children can be arrogant jerks? Did you know that children in the quiet leafy suburbs of New York City suffer from all manner of horrible, horrible abuse at the hands of those charged with loving and caring for them?

All these things, many of these things, I didn't know. I joked with Mabel that it's just insane to even think of child-bearing and child-rearing in these times. When I have a child, I will have to make sure she crawls for a long time, so that her hand muscles will become strong and therefore will not have messy handwriting. When I am pregnant, I will never drink tap water, or be near smokers, or have caffeine or wine or even undercooked meat, because God forbid my baby's IQ -- luck of the draw, really -- be less than 120. When my child is school-aged, I will have to familiarize myself with every teaching philosophy out there, just in case she is more adaptable to one style over another. When my baby is just a baby, I will have to read obsessively to her, sounding out every word, correlating ideas with pictures with words with feelings with concepts. When my son reaches an age of sexual identity, I will have to ensure that he doesn't spend his days comforting himself by sticking his hands down his pants absentmindedly while he reads. When I am a full-grown parent, I will have to be mature enough to handle all the multitude of classifications that might be attached to my child, or whatever freakish intelligence she might display, or whatever creative accommodations might be afforded to her.

Oh, the pressure.