Offer Your Colors and Flavor



The family saw Avengers: Infinity War yesterday. Believe it or not, I saw big connections with this week’s essay in Dear Teachers: Offer Your Colors and Flavor.

I won’t go into detail, but this movie centers around collaboration. As I wrote in this week’s essay, we all have a flavor: our color of our bloom. It’s our decision on if we hide it or expose it to the world.

I operate one way. You operate in another way. T'Challa works one way. Black Widow works another. The important part is this: trying and encouraging others to do as well. Together.

“Sure, we put ourselves at risk when we do this. We may be ridiculed or targeted with malicious intent. Yet, whether we are a vibrant monarch or dust-brown moth, the universe is a more beautiful place with our presence and participation.”

Spoiler alert: There are no guarantees!

We may fail. Repeatedly. We may have to battle the fear of failure or of offending someone by our choices. But, if we ourselves remember to be open to the whole garden, someone else will be more likely to see our bloom, appreciate it and choose to try blooming with us.

What's the vanilla (ordinary, but good) in our life? What's the spice (different, but also helpful)? How can they work together to (perhaps) achieve something positive?

@jillsh3 put it perfectly on Twitter, in regards to a teacher: “I wish I’d had a teacher like Julia in high school. No one is invisible to her. She sees the gifts, the beauty, the possibility in each of them - and helps them to see it in themselves.” (She’s referring to Julia E. Torres, who wrote another great blog this week, See What I Heard, on highlights from this year’s classroom.) We can all do that, in some way, if we try.

It’s our call.

 I'd love to hear your vanilla and spice. Please feel free to comment below.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Heart Within

Image
I just finished writing a big essay on my main blog, called Spring and the Death of Denial . It was in response to a fantastic conversation on a philosophical radio program called On Being. Now, I’m hopping back into Dear Teachers , and am struck by how this week’s essay, the last of the April focus on what’s really there, connects to that. When we don’t want people to see who and what we really are, we throw up defenses. When we don’t trust the people that surround us, we again build barriers. Within those walls, we are one thing. Outside of those walls, we are something else. To grow, we first have to admit the walls exist within all of us. They come from our families and traditions. From our own pasts. From our own needs. From our own fears. In this week’s essay, the image from Marlene that I chose was a close-up of a lily in full bloom. The center of that flower is bright yellow, while the outer edges are a deep red, trimmed in that same golden hue. We don’t get t...
Read more

Life's Sweetness When We Look

Image
I slid 2 poems into Dear Teachers. Week 22 is the first. (Week 32 is the second, if you’re keeping track.) Overall, my writing style has become more poem-like as I’ve grown older. Shorter and more lean. However, I felt the need for lines here. Why? Marlene’s image is very linear. The vertical grass texture is amazing and I found myself relaxing with the rhythm of it. To me, it almost hums in quiet anticipation. While you can’t see its legs, you feel this deer is standing completely still and its legs are as straight up and down as its neck and ears are. Lines. Timelines. Lines start. Lines stop. This deer has stopped. Let’s stop. I said before that February’s thoughts would touch on before and after the Now of January. When we stop, we can experience both the moment and what’s hidden. What’s hidden can be what has happened in the past- what’s gotten us here until today. Which leads to the heart of this poem. It shares a subject with a piece that’s way at the ...
Read more

Getting Along with the Whole: Forest and Warrior

Image
In this week’s essay, I wanted to draw a comparison between our lives and a natural ecosystem. I hoped to offer reminders that we exist in conjunction with a host of other people and things. In the book I’m currently working on, Dear Warriors , I’m diving deeper into this analogy. Marlene’s photo and my thoughts in this essay were among the initial inspirations that I’ve looked to. The term “warrior” has been used a lot recently to describe people with type 1 diabetes, which is the target audience for my new work. I’m exploring the definition of “warrior”, which can have an extremely violent and hostile connotation today. I’m convinced we can reclaim the meaning of “warrior” to describe all people and in a completely different way: hard-working, team-oriented, resourceful and creative-thinking.   The “noble warrior” or “spiritual warrior” dealing with general hardship and strife, as it were. I’m equally convinced we can also compare ourselves to trees, as in this shot. ...
Read more