Geowalkabout

The slammed door echoed through my office like a thunderclap.

It wasn’t just noise—it was grief, hunger, and something no one had words for.

Today, the classroom felt less like a learning space and more like a storm shelter.

The students arrived agitated, dysregulated, and empty—not just emotionally, but physically. Some hadn’t eaten. One left in anger. Another was tricked into giving his number to a girl who used it to post cruel things in his name. One student is on a two-week fruit diet, but I suspect it’s not a choice—it’s a quiet signal of scarcity.

👁️ What I Saw Beneath the Surface

I saw more than behavior.

I saw unmet needs, social harm, and silent suffering.

• Hunger masked as defiance

• Shame disguised as bravado

• Emotional chaos spilling into every corner of the room

I held it all.

Not with control, but with presence.

Not with solutions, but with sacred noticing.

🛡️ The Weight I Carried

This is the part of teaching no one prepares you for:

The emotional triage.

The quiet absorbing.

The invisible labor of holding space for pain that doesn’t fit into lesson plans.

And tonight, I feel it in my bones.

🌿 My Ritual of Release

So I crafted a small ritual to let the weight soften:

🏊‍♀️ A slow swim beneath the afternoon sky—letting the water hold what I can’t

🛁 A hot spa to melt the tension from my shoulders, breath by breath

🍵 A cup of tea, held slowly—to remind myself that nourishment can be gentle

🕯️ A whispered affirmation: “I see what others overlook. I hold what others drop.”

And this poem, for the part of me that stayed soft in the storm:

The Teacher’s Cloak

by Kristy

I wore no armor,

only breath and noticing.

A cloak stitched from

quiet suspicion—

that fruit diets hide hunger,

that slammed doors echo

unspoken grief.

I held the room

like a shoreline holds waves—

not to stop them,

but to witness their shape.

Tonight, I unfasten the cloak.

Let it rest beside the spa.

Let the steam rise

like a prayer

for every child

who came hungry

and left unseen.

I swim it out—

the ache, the anger, the helplessness.

Let the water take it,

let the heat soften it,

until I remember:

I am not the storm.

I am the witness.

💬 A Gentle Invitation

If you’ve ever held space for someone else’s chaos,

what helped you release it afterward?

What rituals do you return to

when the emotional weather turns wild?

May we all have cloaks stitched from noticing.

May we know when to unfasten them.