Perspective

Hey friends, it’s been a minute! I’ve been wanting to write and post more but life has definitely gotten in the way. Now that I’m on summer break, I should be more active. And speaking of summer break, the reflection I’ve done as I’m winding down my second full year teaching have led me to write this. It may be a little heavy to read at times, but I hope you still gain something from it. Thanks for being here. (I should warn you that I do talk about gun violence and school shootings in this article.)

“Blow up your TV. Throw away your paper. Go to the country, build you a home. Plant a little garden. Eat a lot of peaches. Try to find Jesus, on your own.” ~ John Prine

A few months ago, I experienced what I think is the worst aspect of living in America. I woke up, looked at my phone, and saw that there was another mass shooting. This one hit particularly close to home. It was in Austin, Texas, on West 6th Street, at a bar called Buford’s, around 2am. Once, my friend was visiting me when I lived in Austin and we went to Buford’s. Around 2am we got gyros from across the street and paid way too much for a Lyft to get back home. The gunman took three lives and injured over a dozen others. It could have just as easily been me.

The day before, I woke up to a different flavor of upsetting news. Israel and the United States launched a series of missile strikes on Iran, the effects of which, both economically and politically, we are still dealing with today. I was annoyed. As I read, I learned about the civilians that were killed in the strikes and I felt sad, then outraged. Then, I took a shower and got ready: it was my goddaughter’s first birthday party, and I went with my family. Afterwards, I spent the better part of the night catching up with one of my closest childhood friends. It ended up being one of the best days I’ve had all year.

How do we deal with this level of dissonance that feels so commonplace? For starters, let me remind you that we do not live in a normal world. We are not supposed to wake up to videos of gun violence, news of sexual predators getting away scot-free, and a study about how our planet is melting, brush our teeth, work a productive eight hours, and pretend that everything is “just peachy!” We know that it’s not, and this is something that I had a lot of trouble with for a number of years. A few years ago, I remember being really in my head at work one day and recognizing that I had been unproductive for a few days in a row and couldn’t figure out why. Then it hit me: there was a school shooting just a few days before and I didn’t realize how much it was weighing on me. I still have moments like this, but I’ve noticed them come up a lot less frequently over the past few years.

So what changed? Unfortunately, not the shootings. America’s gun homicide rate is still significantly higher than that of most other OECD countries.¹ But if you’ve read either of my previous posts, you’ll remember that my job has changed. I started teaching, and it gave me a new perspective on how I interact with the 24-hour news cycle. Don’t get me wrong, the news still gets to me and the state of our world still stresses me out, but ever since I’ve started teaching, I’ve found myself making more of a conscious effort to compartmentalize. At work, I try to hold myself to a high standard and if I’m stuck in my head, I can’t be fully present for my students. I didn’t have this mindset when I worked in healthcare, but I wish I had. As I’ve shifted my perspective, I’ve noticed my mental health has improved.²

A couple years ago, my book club read Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. It’s an incredible read and I would highly recommend it.³ One part of the book has always stuck with me. At this moment, it’s November 1932 and we’re in a small fishing village in Korea (which is under Japanese rule) in a family home that is rented out to guests for extra income. The guests were discussing whether or not Japan would be able to take over China as well. Yangjin is unsettled by this talk and as she cleans up, she thinks about how her late husband Hoonie would respond. “‘No matter,’ he would say, ‘no matter’. Whether China capitulated or avenged itself, the weeds would have to be pulled…, rope sandals would need to be woven…, and the thieves who tried often to steal their few chickens had to be kept away.”

I’m living about 100 years later in a much different part of the world, but Hoonie’s words still resonate with me. Regardless of what’s going on in the world, as long as there are children, they still need to learn math. I still have to lesson plan, wear pants, and get up there to teach. My rent still needs to be paid, my bills need to be taken care of, and I need to get groceries. Focusing more on my present has allowed me to feel less stressed about the future.

Of course there will be times when something so devastating happens that we are unable to compartmentalize or deal with it later. What do we do then? Back in May 2022, I planned a solo road trip to West Texas to see the famed Prada Marfa storefront. It was Memorial Day weekend and I was stoked: I was leaving straight after work on Friday. On Tuesday of that week, I followed along in horror with the rest of America as we discovered that someone in Uvalde, TX took an assault rifle to Robb Elementary School and murdered 19 elementary students and 2 teachers. Along with the feelings of disbelief, outrage, and remarkable sadness that I’m sure everyone watching the news shared, I had the startling realization that I would be passing through Uvalde on my road trip in just three days. I knew that I had to stop at the memorial.

I’m sure I’ll write about it at length another time, but that was the most important trip I’ve ever taken. You’re never going to get me to say something like “everything happens for a reason” when it comes to heinous tragedies like the one in Uvalde. I often think about those 19 children, their families, and how that community can never be the same again. You can, however, get me to say that even in the darkest moments, I believe that we can still find slivers of light. Like I said, that was the most important trip I’ve ever taken. I’ve never fully been able to express in words what it was about that trip that was so impactful. Certainly, I discovered the beauty of desert landscapes and realized that I am never more in touch with myself than when I am driving through the desert.⁴ It was my first time going to a national park by myself (Big Bend is still my favorite one in the country), my first time going through a border checkpoint, and my first time seeing a bat cave. I covered 1200 miles over three days and all I can say is that there is a clear delineation between the person I was before I went on that trip and the person I’ve been after. I don’t say this lightly: it was a spiritual experience.

I’m not saying definitively that I wouldn’t have had the same experience had I not stopped through Uvalde or had the shooting not happened. Seeing the memorial was deeply moving and I distinctly remember not sleeping very well that night. But it made me feel raw and emotionally vulnerable and I realized that was the space I needed to be in to have the spiritual connection that made the trip so impactful. Like I said, slivers of light in the darkness.

So what am I trying to say? Maybe I’m trying to say that our world sucks and if you can focus on what’s right in front of you, maybe you’ll find that things get a little easier to manage. Maybe I’m trying to say that the state of our world is supposed to affect you, and instead of ignoring it, you should allow yourself to feel your feelings, and maybe you’ll find something beautiful coming out of that darkness. Maybe I’m just trying to remind you to give yourself grace; we all want to change the world but you can’t do anything if you’re not taking care of yourself first. Sometimes that means changing your habits to avoid doomscrolling the news, sometimes it means eating your favorite comfort food, and sometimes it means getting away from everything and connecting with your own spirituality.

I guess John Prine had that figured out 55 years ago.

Thank you for reading, it means a lot to me.

1. https://everytownresearch.org/graph/the-u-s-gun-homicide-rate-is-26-times-that-of-other-high-income-countries/

2. I may be the only person in history to start teaching high schoolers and have their mental health get better.

3. Don’t just take my word for it. Pachinko was a finalist for the National Book Award (fiction) in 2017. In The New York Times review of the 100 best books of the century, it ranked 15th while NYT readers ranked it 5th.

4. Someone once asked me where the most beautiful place I’ve ever traveled to is and I said “the West Texas desert” to which they replied, “you need to visit more places”. To this day, I stand by my answer and if you ask me again, my answer remains unchanged.