The Writing Shed

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Who Takes Care of the Teacher?

When I think of the stressed out teacher, I think of one who works hard, but is rarely affirmed as a good human being or revered as a leader. 

I think of the teacher who has a powerful personal story, but doesn’t have a safe space to compose it.

I see the teacher who feels overwhelmed by a whole bunch of emotions (her own multiplicities), and she is not encouraged to go deep with them. 

I see the teacher who dreams of a calm place without chaos, judgments, and the demand to produce outcomes. 

I dream of a world where teachers, caretakers, and artists have access to flower pots that can contain them. Where they can let go of pent up stuff. 

I dream of a space where they can feel connected, calm, and creative about their own inner worlds. “Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher,” writes Parker J. Palmer in  The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life. 

I am that lonely teacher.

I was that scared teacher, afraid to show my authentic self because I thought no one had time to listen.

“If we want to grow as teachers — we must do something alien to academic culture: we must talk to each other about our inner lives — risky stuff in a profession that fears the personal and seeks safety in the technical, the distant, the abstract” (Palmer). 

Where can this happen? Who will take care of the teacher? 

Places like The Sofia Center in Albuquerque are caring for the whole teacher and her inner world. They respect the teacher’s voice, call them into greater relational awareness with other teachers, and curate sessions that refresh and rejuvenate the exhausted. 

After almost twenty years of teaching I too feel called to create a gentle and calm space for teachers to explore their complex and beautiful inner worlds. 

Here at The Writing Shed, you are invited to feel the nurturing power of group energy, to experience creative bursts (just because), and to be transformed by what matters to your personal exploration. No grades. No evaluations. No unrealistic expectations. No shutting the door to block out the noise. Just a healing atmosphere and unconditional regard for who you are.

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My Journaling Journey

Even as a girl, I knew journaling was for me. It was something the adults in my life knew was powerful.  

My oldest sister owned a red diary with a clasp and key. My mother read the pages of this daughter’s diary, the one with gold painted edges. This let me know that a growing woman’s thoughts could be a threat to other women in the house.

I was in junior high when I sub-consciously internalized the triple threat of journaling–a danger to a family’s status quo for female roles; a sharp tool of liberation for a woman who could keep it hidden; a comfort for a young woman seeking to understand her sexuality.

One of my favorite high school teachers, Mrs. Goodman, assigned reading responses on A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Invisible Man, and Brave New World. We wrote them in lined composition books that she would take home with her on the weekends. I got to imagine female protagonists who wrote their own stories, learn compassion for the vulnerability that Black men in America face daily, and escape into a world where parents couldn’t hurt you because mothers and fathers were taboo.

Journaling meant I could visualize the world beyond my childhood town and position my place within it.

Seeing the stack of composition notebooks in my teacher’s hands as she walked through the parking lot meant that I would be seen.

Since these two powerful journal experiences, I have used my journal to heal:

      • It includes a first poem about my port-wine stain birthmark, which led me out of a spiral of self-loathing in my thirties.
      • It captures a moment of domestic violence in my marriage. 
      • My journal holds micro-poems of my first year as a forty-year old mother. 
      • It holds my dreams for calling in a new partner to journey with. 
      • My journal includes a letter written to my inner child at the Sunset Cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean. 

All this time, I never thought, Oh, I am journaling. Or I am keeping a journal. I just wrote in blank notebooks, kept track of my I Ching readings, scribbled down lots of questions on nature walks about my purpose in life, and was always always looking for clear answers about why I was feeling alone or upset or burdened or overexcited. Now I know that I was journaling.

My journal is still my 24/7 standby therapist. She lets me rant and rip and let it roll off my chest. My journal doesn’t try to fix me or judge me or rush me. She challenges me to push through the pain and practice even greater liberation once I do. She sops up the tears and never tells me That isn’t true. Don’t listen to your thoughts. She is the great witness to my story and a true friend.

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Why I Started The Writing Shed

I’ve started The Writing Shed because I want to help you express what is on your heart. Ever since I can remember, I’ve always wanted to express myself, but didn’t know how or didn’t have the space to experiment. I felt awkward sharing my heart. I felt uncomfortable crying. I could feel the blue balloon in my throat and had to remind myself to breathe. I wanted to tell my grade school teachers I was lonely, but the word lonely was not spoken at home. Speaking from this experienced pain, I can now say that expressive writing about my life has helped me find liberation from this sore throat. 

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I have come to understand that expression, for me, is everything it means to be whole and healed. It means I have come home to myself, and I can talk to her. I can form a wave with my body, from one end of my fingertips to the other end; I can say a prayer for myself; I can ask a stranger if she’ll let me cut the rose blooms off her bushes; it means I can say “no” when I know it’s not part of my future self; it means I can be in the habit of writing a journal; it means I can draw squiggles with watercolor.

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I can utter, move, forgive, speak, and share with authenticity. That’s what expression means to me. And yet, it’s not always easy.
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