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.