With One Foot Raised

on purposeful instability & cancer

Today’s paid post is by none other than C, my husband, who is not only a high school English teacher and a survivor of cancer, but a brilliant writer himself. I’m honored to have this essay here while I’m working on a longer piece for (hopefully) next week.

Hi, everyone, I'm C. You might have heard about me from Esmé. She was generous enough to offer me this space to share some thoughts tumbling around my skull at the start of a new school year. I'm a high school English teacher who's returned to work this week after being on medical leave for a year and a half as I recovered from a bone marrow transplant for myelodysplastic syndrome.

You may be surprised to learn that teachers, at least in my experience, usually face the end of summer with anxiety bordering on dread. The stress dreams start in mid-July. How did I find myself in this unnavigable hallway with only three minutes to get to a class that no one ever told me the name of? Or, Oops, did I forget to wear pants? I spend the first couple of weeks of August berating myself for not preparing more, while also not enjoying the free time as it trickles away. I’m a spontaneous teacher, open to adjusting lesson plans on my drive to work and designing projects on the fly. The downside is that I’m often rolling out the class just a couple of days ahead of time, spending some frantic evenings or early mornings planning the next day, and fretting that I'm doing the students a disservice compared to a teacher with longer-term planning skills.

My school is a Jesuit Catholic institution, which means, among other things, that we start the year with a good amount of mission-based reflection, often centered on the life of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order. The crux is that he was a soldier from a noble Spanish family whose leg was shattered by a cannonball. During his conversion, he underwent a change of heart that led him from a desire for martial glory to founding an order focused on educational and missionary work throughout the world.

More recently, Jesuit Catholicism has close ties to liberation theology and a continued educational footprint throughout the U.S. and especially the developing world. I have a lot of ambivalence about my Catholic upbringing, but I feel pretty fond of the Jesuits as, almost assuredly, the most liberal and intellectual wing of the Church.

This year's theme for our teachers is: With one foot raised, from St. Ignatius's description of a leader who is always on the move, walking towards the margins, ready to take on new challenges, and responding to changes in the moment. It also implies a degree of intentionality. Where will that foot come down? What is the right direction to go?