Ordered Chaos

Whether under pressure at work, at home or via social expectations of a “new you”, a new year can really be bittersweet. “What’s your New Year’s resolution?” To never ask anyone that question. Okay, I’ve never been one to make resolutions myself, simply because I consider January 1st an arbitrary day to declare newness.  I wonder, did people redefine themselves in March before Julius Caesar’s adoption of the solar calendar? Too bad for humanity during that first year in the solar calendar – they had to fail twice within the same “year” at becoming new.

Either way, however jaded I’ve become in my view of resolutions, maybe I’ve made a couple for 2010. Here’s one: to cross a big-ticket item off my list. Luckily I have a loving wife to support me in my decision to do so.  In June I’ll travel to Kenya for a month to volunteer teach elephants. Wait, I might see elephants, but I’ll actually be teaching children. My mind is in Africa overload. I’ll live with a Kenyan family, partake in Kenyan cuisine, and hopefully run with Kenyan…runners.

So maybe resolutions aren’t all that bad, even if they sometimes manifest themselves in sweaty, overcrowded gyms and cell-phone-toting treadmill walkers. Other times, people get to go to Africa.

Time has become a precious commodity amid the ever increasing pace of our restless society. As a result, the decision of what to do with our time becomes increasingly important. If you know nothing else about me, you probably know that I’m infatuated with running. Probably more like addicted or obsessed…whatever, I might have a problem, but that’s a story for another day. Having logged almost 1,000 miles this year, each run is bound to resemble some previous run and diverge from others. It seems that when I head out the door, I’m either plugging into my iPod for a musical escape, unplugging as a sort of primitive purist, or just sprinting from my car to sweat blood for an hour while sucking some serious O₂.

However, there is one other type of run that has faded from my routine: the social run. It is a time when we can chat with a friend on the go and catch up on our busy lives. And even when the pace settles to a moderate trot, the benefits of such a forward moving conversation reach into the depths of the mind that are first to go when we tighten our schedules. Unfortunately, this oversight deprives us of the very nature of our humanity: to build and maintain relationships.

Today I had the pleasure of running a Thanksgiving Fun Run with a friend and the Omaha Running Club. Not only were we able to catch up on our experiences as teachers-in-training, but also release some pent-up frustration from being knee-deep in graduate work. The result? A clearer mind, an exercised body, and rejuvenated lungs full of cold winter air. So cheers to the social run and starting Thanksgiving with a little R & R – that’s running and relaxation. To be completely honest, though, I did get there early to run the course once at a hard pace before the actual fun run. After all, when I can’t decide between two types of runs, I do them both.

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been a full six years since Dad died: November 10, 2001. And although the loss of anyone brings unforeseen changes, almost immediately our lives and our family were infused with new life. Weddings, funerals, surgeries, babies, and houses, just to name a few, and these changes neither remain nor depart as time passes. Impermanence becomes our only truth, and with this truth we learn to live each moment to its fullest.

I try to imagine Dad in his younger years, embracing the joy of new life upon the birth of his children, and completely oblivious to their mortality as well as his own. Life is finite, our days numbered and years countable. We’re dying from the day we’re born, yet we confront death as if we deserve better, as if we’ve sufficiently failed and this is our sentence.

My relationship with Dad did not rest on the deepest of levels, so I don’t really know how he felt about death, or if he was afraid. But even if he felt strapped with a fast approaching end, or sentenced by an uncontrollable power, I can firmly say that in no way did he fail. Dad was a matter-of-fact guy when it came to the serious issues: you do what you gotta do and be done with it. When Rob was suspended from high school for fighting, Dad wasn’t immediately angered by his behavior. Nope, Mom did the grounding that time. Dad was noticeable proud that his son had stood up for himself against a punk that repeatedly made fun of him. You do what you gotta do and be done with it.

One area our relationship did flourish was in the expectation of pristine academic performance. It didn’t matter how much I excelled in school or how monotonous my report cards looked, Dad wanted better. It took me years to realize, even while writing at this moment, that Dad was expecting out of me what I expected from myself. Many times I confused this truth and attributed some of my stress to Dad setting such a high bar, until I realized that it wasn’t Dad who set the bar high, it was myself. But we’d all be damned if Dad was going to let one of his sons regress or repeatedly falter with observed knowledge of his sons’ potential. Dad accepted absolutely no less than “two steps forward, one step back”, and he was sure to tell you if you’d taken that one step back. Thankfully I had such a demanding father who knew well that his sons would play their part in making this world a better place: Scott, by serving his country in the Army; Rob, by serving public health needs in the hospital; and I, by educating and empowering our community’s youth.

Looking back on all the ups and downs in my childhood and relationship with Dad, and on all our good and bad decisions since his death, I know that Dad started a fire of dignity, of integrity, of duty, and of respect. His family will pass this on to future generations, by blood, friendship and service to others. For that is the fire that Francis John Ramacciotti, Jr., started, and that’s the fire that will burn as an eternal flame, both as a tribute to Dad, and as obligation to loved ones everywhere.

So Dad, if you’re reading this, and I imagine you are, I would like to thank you for everything you’ve given to us. You taught us to serve and to quit whining. You taught us to fight through all our hurt because a mile gained through pain is a lesson never forgotten. You taught us that dinner around the table is not a punishment – it’s what makes a family, a family. You taught us that every decision has a consequence, and while some are forgotten, the others form our reputation. And though you knew nothing of blogs, you taught us how to appreciate, and more importantly, how to recognize those who change our lives. Here’s to you, Dad – you changed my life and I love you for that.

Throughout my post-high-school career, I’ve been one to dabble. Whether I was changing my college major (11 times, that is), testing the waters of graduate school, or feeling out the corporate environment, I’ve become enamored with exploration. New information poses new challenges, even if only the challenge to learn a new set of vocabulary. So here I am now, in my latest endeavor, fully entrenched in the world of secondary education. Of course new vocabulary and a new set of skills have become necessary tools in my newfound practice of teaching. I’ve started to become familiar with a never-ending list of acronyms: NCTM, NCLB, ELL, IDEA, IEP, and AYP just to name a few. There is the “teacher look” that we’ve all encountered through our own faults as students – it’s the look that says it all without saying anything whatsoever.

But this challenge has touched my heart and scraped my soul in a way no previous undertaking has done. It’s shown me that my success in the classroom isn’t always directly proportional to the time I’ve spent preparing. It has taken my feeling of over-preparedness and allowed me to still fail at making clear a few academic points during a 42-minute lesson. I suppose that’s because the tools are only as good as the artist who uses them. And although skilled labor is a priceless commodity in our society, the most rewarding endeavors are the artistic ones. They are the ones that allow us to tap into our innermost fears and idealistic yearnings. They translate the words that lie deep in our minds and otherwise are lost to superficial activities. I’ve spent years dumbing down my dreams and making “realistic” decisions that, when put together, resemble nothing more than a more comfortable standard of living.

The wiser reader knows that money doesn’t buy happiness, even if it feels so on the surface. But what good is a wading pool when in my wildest dreams I’m doing swan dives from a 50 foot tower? I guess it will suffice if I never dive outside my dreams, but what I really need is depth and something to take this vision and make it real. My time is precious, and my endeavors should reflect that. We are more than what we eat. We are what we do and what we consider to be worth our time. I’ve chosen my battles in the past, and I’ve chosen wrong, but this, my friend, this is a worthy endeavor. My dream is to change the world, and all I need is a piece of chalk and 42 minutes. Everyday.

Just yesterday I started a new website – “started” being the keyword. It’s little more than a skeleton, but a recognizable form nonetheless. As I pondered the feeling of harnessing my authoring powers, I couldn’t help but imagine taking over the entire world. Well, maybe not the world, but at least my blog. So, I decided to move my blog to my new home, chrisramey.net. In our new home we’ve got more room, more flexibility and more ownership. That will probably mean more upkeep and more time spent goofing around for hours just to recruit new baby widgets. I guess you win some and you lose some. In the end, though, we’re much happier here and we’ve learned an important lesson: you can run away from your problems. Eat it, Blogger!