I'm The Teacher: A time lord with 16 kids and 11 regenerations to go.

A part of me has known my whole life that I’m going to be a teacher forever.

A friend of mine has been researching Tarot Cards and palm reading (palmistry) in the French Quarter for a project, and at the bar about a week and a half ago he read my palm.  No surprise, according to my palm, I’m going to be a teacher for the rest of my life because there’s no way I have 16 kids. Apparently, my life-line merges into some awkward random line and doesn’t really end.  My conclusion?  I must be a time lord.  I’m not The Doctor or The Master.  I’m “The Teacher.”  And I have 16 kids. (And also, 2 hearts. Makes sense.)

In the classes that I teach, I’ve been explaining identity.  Identity, as I explain to my students is something we create based on all of the symbols around us- we are suspended in a web of symbols.  We are constantly (re)creating our identity. Some parts of our identity might be consistent, but other parts of our identity are always changing.  This also suggests that in some ways, we are always in a constant state of Liminality, since we are always in transition.  Liminality is where our identities change the most, and where we tend to ask those existential questions: who am I and why am I here?

I’ve been quite concerned with those existential questions lately. I do, after all, live on Liminality street. 

I’m not sure who out there knows this, or experienced it, but we have the best porch in Denton. It’s perfect for having a cup of coffee in the morning with Ella Fitzgerald on Pandora.  It’s also perfect for grading and reading.  We’ve also become a hub for “porch drankin’”, since our porch is also the perfect place to have a beer with good company. 

Porch drankin’ has become a pronounced part of my Texas identity.  Most of the time, I don’t want to go out anywhere because I’d rather sit on my own porch- it’s cheaper, quieter (sort of), and much more relaxed.  We can also play whatever music we want.

A few nights ago, we had a delightfully redneck evening on our porch.  I made a chicken, cheddar, and avocado pie, and a spinach, mushroom, goat cheese pie. We ate it on country-style rooster plates, and put TV trays together on the porch as our table, and sat behind 4 different styles of chairs.  Each place setting had tiny silver buckets with everyone’s name written in chalk on the tiny chalkboard on the front, and of course two tea lights inside. We drank beer AND champagne, and sang along to 90’s music very loudly.

Some might see that as beautiful.  Others may look at this as incredibly redneck.  I see it as both, and I’m completely okay to say that I loved every minute of that porch experience.  Never until now have I been comfortable admitting that Texas is a part of who I am.

This is why identity is so complicated.  We carry our own symbols with us to each new web we travel to, and spin identity silk throughout all of it. I’m still Minnesotan. I’m also Texan. I’m a teacher, and a student, and a nerd.  I’m definitely an anglophile. I’m a feminist that wishes to live in the 1920’s, which is a time period not very friendly to women.  I’m a bit tomboy.  I love domestic things like cooking and knitting and sewing.  I’m a writer. A performer. A scholar. A traveler.  I’m compassionate about animals an animal rights, but I am also damn good at fishing and have no problem killing and cleaning my own fish or de-boning and de-skinning a whole chicken. 

In one of the new Doctor Who episodes, “A Town Called Mercy” (which takes place in Texas, no less), The Doctor meets a Kahler (Kahler Jex) who is a war criminal.  The Doctor has a difficult time with an ethical solution in bringing justice to Kahler Jex.  Jex sums it all up when he is sitting in his cell taunting The Doctor.  He says to The Doctor “If I was just a war criminal or just a doctor who helped people, everything would be fine.  The fact that I’m both drives you mad.” 

You can’t answer the “who am I” question with one simple phrase.  My small paragraph with identity markers doesn’t even scratch the surface of who I am.  We are complex, by nature of being abstract thinking humans. We have the ability to be both ends of a bipolar measuring stick. We can even be multiple measuring sticks. The Doctor certainly understands this, which is why he loves and tries to heal and protect humans so much.  The Master does not- which is probably why he tries to kill them. 

I’m The Teacher. I, like The Doctor, understand the complexity of humans, but I also have the desire to show this understanding to other humans, unlike The Doctor who has been known to call humans “stupid apes” and make fun of them for their tiny boring brains. I’m The Teacher. I show compassion for my students like mothers do for their kin- which is why they show up on my palm as 16 children.  I’m The Teacher. I give great advice that I struggle to follow just as much as those I give it to. Teachers are learning just as much as students.  I’m The Teacher.  I make mistakes, learn from them, and then use those as examples in my lesson plans.  I’m The Teacher.  I’m always looking for good questions, not good answers. I’m The Teacher, a time lord with 16 kids and 11 more regenerations ahead of me (11 new identities! So exciting). Maybe next time I’ll be a ginger.  

Of 90’s Pop Nostalgia and Liminality

1999 was a pivotal year for many people.  It was the last year of the millennia and we were all scared to death of Y2K.  To celebrate the wonderful beginning of a new millennium, London opened up the London Eye, which takes 20 minutes to revolve once, giving any passengers a spectacular view of London.  It was also the year that West Nile first appeared in the United States, which 13 years later with we are fighting again in Texas.  It was the year The Sixth Sense blew everyone’s mind, and N’Sync became immortalized as gorillas in Tarzan.  Bill Clinton was serving the last of his term as president.  The top pop songs of 1999 were “…Baby One More Time” by Brittney Spears, “Smooth” by Santana, “Believe” by Cher, “Livin’ la Vida Loca” by Ricky Martin, “Doo Wop” by Lauryn Hill, “No Scrubs” by TLC, “I Want it That Way” by The Backstreet Boys, “I Need to Know” by Marc Anthony, and “Every Morning” by Sugar Ray.  I was 12, going on 13.  If that’s not pivotal, liminal, and terrifying, I’m not really sure what is. 

I’ve been listening to the 90’s pop station on Pandora lately, and 1999 sticks out to me the most.  I’m pretty sure in 1999, when my friends and I turned on the radio for our smashing millennium new years eve party in my grandma’s basement (complete with sparkling grape juice in champagne glasses), the sounds were identical.  As were the way we danced to them.  (I’m very sorry to say, my dancing skills have not improved between ages 13 and 25).  Picture below.

My best friend and I are the dorks with the monkeys on our heads. 

I’m the dork with the matching pajama set.

Sadly, my sense of style has not improved much either since I was 12 going on 13.  I will always be the dork with the matching pajama set and a monkey on my head. I think I’m okay with that.

Last night, Donna Noble, Rose Tyler and I sat on the porch drinking beer, as we usually do, listening (and dancing) to the 90’s pop Pandora station, discussing our liminal places in the world.  There is something beautiful about navigating liminal spaces with company, but something tragic too.  The wonderful thing about it is the knowledge that you are not in a between space alone, and that on the days you can’t do anything but lay in the bed, pout, eat ice cream, and watch English men on TV, they understand exactly why.  Sometimes they join you in the wallowing.  It is out of Liminality, says Victor Turner, and “lowliness” and “sacredness” that these people form a comradeship called “Communitas.”  Communitas is what is beautiful about liminal space.  You form stronger social bonds with people in liminal space than you do outside of it.

The tragic end of this, though, is the knowledge that we must face our demons alone.  “Everyone’s got to face down the demons.  Maybe today, we can put the past away.”  (“Jumper,” Third Eye Blind, yet another hit on the 90’s pop station). No matter how strong the bond of Communitas, Liminality is a lonely battle against oneself.

90’s music says it all.  As the music plays, I catch myself floating in my mind off to the past, reaching for answers to the present. The music in the 90’s sound gleeful and summery, and the biggest problems come from boyfriends or girlfriends.  “You’re tearin’ up my heart, when I’m with you! And when we are apart I feel it toooooo.”

They are nostalgic, but hauntingly so.  I am haunted by a happier past through this music, one that is ghostly and perhaps doesn’t really exist.  Actually, it probably doesn’t exist.  That’s the thing about romancing the past: you become nostalgic about the good parts and ignore the bad stuff. 

Truthfully, the 90’s, specifically 1999, was just as liminal and hard for me as 2012 is.  12 going on 13, severely depressed, moving across the nation from Minnesota to Texas, and clinging to that last year of the millennium for dear life. A small part of me was a little disappointed, even then, that Y2K didn’t happen.  I think then I would have just chalked it up to “I don’t want to go back to school.”  Now in reflection I think I would like to live forever in 1999.  And forever party, like it’s 1999. I could watch Friends and listen to Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls on the big radio stations and it not be “old.”  I could still buy cassette tapes in stores.

Nostalgia. Dangerous and haunting while living in Liminality. It has the potential to provide answers or stunt growth, and you’re walking such a fine line.  So I’ll play the music, try to understand, try not to be afraid, and hope that if I do this, the Backstreet Boys will come back.

“So everybody, everywhere. Don’t be afraid, don’t have no fear. I’m gonna tell the world, make you understand. As long as there’ll be music, we’ll be comin’ back again.  Everybody, yeah, rock your body.  Everybody, rock your body right.  Backstreet’s back, alright!”