If days moved before you as if each was a thousand years, how many of your moves would you think to change, prearrange, postpone, or stop?
Many of us, if not all of us, have faced moments in our lives where we either did or didn’t react to things in a manner to cause an afterthought.
We could have moved on while others still lingered upon your move or contrarily, we continue to dwell on a moment while others have already gone ahead to other matters.
We make moves. Many and endlessly.
Every move having served some purpose.
And, yet, did we even have time to reflect on every one of the moves we made?
Even those moves that seemingly got us nowhere… in manner (or, matter) of speaking, nowhere is still somewhere.
We make moves. Some on repeat; some, unique in its tracks.
There are those times where a move is made simply to stop further action.
And, yet, there are those times you can only think back to and wonder if you had only not reacted at all, stepped back, and went another way, or watched as moves took place before you, perhaps what you find yourself then facing at the next moment would not have occurred or in the manner it did.
With all this social media now, and the explosion of minds speaking since the last pandemic, all those signed onto the global party are given the feelings of merit and empowered freedom to suggest meaning of anyone, everyone, and anything, openly out there for those with time and willingness to siphon.
Truth now seems to stand before all as how many want to believe it.
The new truth could suggest how many of the majority believe it to be true and are willing to put their name on it before passing it along to awaiting receivers to continue the “truth”.
It could be thousands of (more) years before we may actually understand the truth from the beginning of its actual time given.
While some can be direct and clearly noted, should we be open to accept that not all moves forward actually deliver us in such direction?
Should we all or each say that our every moves have been for the good of all or simply to even just call, good?
Really? Every move? If each day were to be scrutinized and dissected in time as if a thousand years?
If all moves were good, who is to lose?
If both sides, all sides, suggesting to make the right move, then, who is wrong?
The one who loses?
The one out?
The one no longer in?
The one who loses most or all?
Really?
While some messages are meant to forewarn us for our own growth and development, we sometimes can take in only what we want to see best fit to our own energy of emotions.
One could read my thoughts and reflections, for instance, and think absolutely the opposite of what I had in mind.
Conveyance need not be equated to comprehension.
Output. Input. Should we regard any interceptions of any receptors in between?
While a move goes one way, opposition may have planned for something else.
There could be that one who received exactly what you had in mind and, to your fortune, continued to fluidly follow subsequent steps.
How are we to truly determine our moves lead to greater moves?
This game of life has many directions and loops on the board. We understandably, then, should always be careful who we follow, oppose to, and lead.
Even more, we should also keep in mind, while you think to not follow a direction, go, or lead a way, you have simply followed, went, or led another.
Under the rules of chess, a move you must take, sometimes timed to add greater pressure beyond focus and concentration.
In some games, the roll of a di or dice could determine the number of steps you get to take. Still, in such a game, where you land could be a fate to victory or loss.
Even in a game where no movement is an option or turn, chance of a direction was given.
The difference in truth and reality is, however, no one is waiting for a turn.
All are simultaneously making moves whether you lie in bed or are up and about.
Every step, every hurdle, every moment, engages you to a choice, leading you yet to another one to take.
A move or no move, the world keeps going.
In matters of interaction, as an immigrant, female, minority, having been married young and still for over thirty years, virtuous and committed to the same man, taking in the multiplicity of emotions as a mother of five to add, the incoming, ongoing roller coasters of challenges faced as a middle school teacher, there is just no way to hide away from possibilities of engagements.
I am just one of many of us who must pause and put another role on to shift gears.
The heart, the mind, the body, and the spirit must all partake in one way or the other, individually, or many times, together, to make meaning of each moment for reflective growth.
Sometimes, the meaning is revealed after a move. The hope is to always find meaning first, but a move awaits.
You move irregardless.
Whatever board game one thinks to be on, from chess, to Monopoly, to even, Candyland, a move awaits. In reality, you play all games at the same time.
The ears, eyes, nose, tongue, and flesh must entangle with those encountered, their own senses individually cast upon yours.
The movements continue, all moving about. And then, you face those moments of choice in handling a moment-quickly, at times, you must think.
You hope to have been given time to think. Rarely, time is on your side. Most often, time waits for no one.
When a day cannot be controlled as if a thousand years, then, furthermore, a moment is but an exponential millisecond.
With sometimes a millisecond, one must react. Harmless? Harmful? Harming?
Intent was clearly meant to hurt or may hurt, but unintentionally?
Harsh words for your needed growth? Or, kind words given you with plans to destroy? Or, sincere in every way, but feeling undeserving to receive of such?
My former teaching partner was a most kind, former pro baseball pitcher, who embraced his dream to finally become a teacher after retiring from the limelight of sports.
Never having had any of his own, I will never be able to fully describe my gratitude and admiration for his desire and love for children.
At one of our earliest staff meetings of the year, in my first year at now my current school, over a decade long, a discomfort grew in me as I sat and listened to another teacher give a very well-thought out speech about another colleague.
It suddenly grew on me the chance why my colleague was seemingly joyful and yet somewhat uneasy all day.
Quick to make a move, without time to spare, I still recall telling him quietly, at that staff meeting, “We acknowledge each other in private.”
His face had grown still, blushing and pale at the same time.
I sat there, with full gut instinct, he had planned on doing the contrary, as our school tradition in our meetings was to acknowledge someone for any deeds you felt worth noting.
I could only stop my teaching partner from doing the same if he at all had been planning.
His silence that day and me feeling his idleness next to me hinted his subsequently broken plan.
I didn’t like that feeling of chance that he was prepared to say something.
I had to make the move to stop any risk of him getting up to say something.
Here was this man who was old enough to be my father, just a few years from teaching retirement, such good heart of an individual, most likely about to get up and give me some, what I’m sure would have been an incredibly thoughtful recognition, before all of our colleagues and staff members.
I ached in the discomfort. Whether my hunch was correct or not, I was to take no risk of having him stand up next to recognize me for what I would feel uneasy listening to.
There are some of you like me, who, when it comes to recognition, would rather just perform what seems dutifully driven without the troubles of others feeling obligated to make a big deal of what was already done and served.
It made me nervous for my parents to show up to my Spelling Bee competition. I did better the week before with just my teacher taking me.
In receiving my All-Student-Body senior crown with my great buddy, Martin, I had just finished a cheer performance to where my teammates nagged at me to walk across the gym floor as Martin waited to walk me.
Perhaps my classmates will never believe me that I had been absent so many days in those last weeks that I hadn’t even understood why in the world Martin was waiting for me at the near center of the gymnasium as all sitting, loudly cheered.
Those last weeks of my senior year is still a blur to me today.
Within that time period, in my academy, only Mama came to my graduation, me thinking nothing of it as I (in my audacious, shameless arrogance) gave an unrehearsed closing speech behalf our fellow academy graduates, their families, and our attending teachers and staff members.
In our senior graduation, I told no one in my family I would be speaking following our valedictorian. To this day, I have yet to watch the video my oldest brother reported he was happy to get of my speech, having all wondered where I was in the alphabetical march, only to find me to follow after all at the end.
Moves not need be announced.
Another move must follow.
Another move awaits.
Whether deemed good or some days, not so good, as a teacher, in similar manner as a mother and wife, moves are led by the heart most before mind, body, and perhaps, spirit.
Every move is always with the right intentions that it be the one to take.
Why? Because another move awaits.
Had I decided to say anything about my teaching partner at a staff meeting, it could not have sufficed my inexplicable gratitude for the blessing I felt daily to be witness of his exemplary good heart.
I will never know what he would have said that one day, if he were to say anything at all.
Years later, when I reached out, forwarding him a message that we had lost one of our former students to an untimely death, I had a chance to tell him how grateful I was to have known someone like him who exemplified genuine character of a golden heart.
Interestingly, and to my humblest take in silence, his response was, “I just always tried to be like you.”
That was the last time I had connected with him as leaving on such good note was more than a much needed farewell.
Inadvertently, I had fulfilled my suggestion to privately praise one another.
Whether I had made a wrong move or not during that day, at our staff meeting, where I severed any chance for my colleague to openly acknowledge me, I can only hope me telling him privately my appreciation for his leadership helped to appease anything he had rehearsed.
Our acknowledgment for each other’s praised deeds had been accomplished in the best way I found priceless.
Moves we make not need be announced or broadcasted when unnecessary.
I will always hold dear to my heart how we both pushed out of our comfort zone to record a parody rap song we put together entitled, “Excuses”, Ton Locs glasses, attitude, and all, for our sixty over students we shared to sit and watch as our two years together was coming to an end.
Some of our students laughed, some cheered, some just sat in silence not knowing what to do.
That CD copy has since been mysteriously missing and having shared this great memory with one of my current classes, I could only chuckle to conclude, “We want our moment of fame back.”
Some of you probably just laughed, some somewhat cheered, some of you probably have stayed indifferent, while some of you have quickly gone to your social media to express your feelings of repulse on behaviors of teachers.
My response to any of the reactions of our move to leave a lasting memory?
We love your children to a point where we would do the unthinkable of ourselves to let them know how much.
You are welcome.
You can’t make everyone see the good in you and the moves you make. The heart, the mind, the body, and the spirit must have long found comfort in that discomfort.
Giving without hardly asking anything in return goes with accepting such found comfort in an attempt for any discomfort.
Every move comes with a risk.
It can be difficult to be uplifting and brightly alert when the world is causing you to cower or tower down at times.
Even your best move given may not be best received or taken.
We all need to remember this about one another in our moments of trying and doing.
We make moves. We hope for victory in the end. However, our days are not given as if each were a thousand years.
I believe this is a gift.
How else are we to cherish each moment given?
