Find Your Grail

 

                                                                 Find your Grail

                                                               Preamble.

    The last five years have been pretty crappy, for most of us.  On a personal level, I had to leave my Littleton job, fleeing to Aurora right before Covid. Then Covid shut everything down, but I was able to keep the theatre -the one I'd been hired to rebuild and reinvigorate after the death of the teacher--at least alive online. Then there was the Tik Tok Trash Your School Bathroom, and then the shooting.

    I should have left teaching after Littleton.

    I should have left teaching during Covid.

    I should have left teaching after the shooting.

    But I'm pretty dense and instead I stayed and the kids wrote a play about the shooting. Mayor Mike Coffman attended. The Counselors celebrated. Parents sobbed and thanked me. The new principal did not celebrate, in fact she was pissed. And...there I was again in a toxic environment with a target on my back. I would love to explain why my kids speaking truth to power upset this woman so much, but I simply cannot.

    I "should have left" many times. I tried...but the fact remains that I was north of 50 years old and nobody wanted me. I even applied for language arts jobs. If I got an interview, it was over as soon as they saw my greying hair. So I stayed. I couldn't afford to retire at only 50% of my salary in this economy. I stayed and hated every second, forced to defend myself and my department constantly.

    After a summer doing pony school and making some pretty intense discoveries about why my mental health was shot and why I, kryssi, was burned out, I made the decision that the 2024-2025 school year would be my last year teaching. One way or another, at the very least, I'd be out of Hinkley. Even if that meant I was shot---I'd be out.  I intended to retire in May of 2025, money be damned. I couldn't continue under the toxic, bullying circumstances.

        I wish this was a lighter preamble, but things were very dark. 

                                                    Joseph Campbell

    At some point in all of our educations, we've encountered our friend Joe and his Hero's Journey. I've taught it---very lightly, nothing in depth. I taught a ninth grade "combined" class with Gen Ed and Sped kids in it, so it was co-taught. We used Star Wars. Old Joe tells us everything is connected, and always has been. All religion, philosophy, human existence and our hero's journeys. All Connected. He also insists we all have a "bliss" we must find, which I've argued is mostly hooey. Finding your bliss is for entitled people with the income and support to explore everything they find interesting. The rest of us are just surviving. 

                                                            Andrew

    My friend from high school, Andrew Alexander, died on Wednesday. I had not seen him since the Lakewood Pow Pow in 2000. We'd just moved back up to Green mountain with the kids, and Andrew was living in the mountains somewhere "doing doors". I asked for an explanation, and he waved his arms and said "It's complicated, I make doors." Which wasn't complicated, but OK. As long as he's happy.

    Andrew was my bridesman in our wedding. We were in choir and theatre together, even though he was a year ahead. He went to CU as a Psych major---in 1983/84 I had A Lot of friends going to college as Psych majors--and I went up a few times to visit. In the late 1990's, after I'd returned from Houston, we reconnected. He was living with his friend Joe and we had dinners at their place/our place. Then he had a girlfriend for a while, who we also had over for dinner in our tiny house on Lincoln St. 

    But the event  I will dissect here is when I dressed him up as Frank N Furter at the 1982 Concert Choir Halloween Dance at Green Mountain High School.

                                                         Connecting

    This summer, I again worked at the pony school. Only this time, instead of subbing, I worked six weeks as the pony wrangler. I had kids between six and nine who were too old for preschool camp, who signed up to instead be "Mustangs" and wrangle the ponies.

    And again it had a profound effect on me.

    Since last year's pony gig, I have in fact left Hinkley. I believe working at the camp helped me clear my head and make a solid choice, even though the choice I made was to return to Hinkley in August. What I mean is something shifted in the universe when I said "I am leaving" that freed up opportunities for which I did not apply. 

    You heard me. They called me. Specifically a former Hink AP texted me one morning while I was sitting in the parking lot working up the energy to enter the building.

    I went back to Hink planning to do the entire year, then quit teaching in May.  I had no plans beyond getting out of teaching theatre. In September I was contacted, and everything changed...ish... I am still teaching theatre, but at Kennedy in DPS. This time I was hired to do a true rebuild of a department that has been dark for three years. In fact, they haven't had a musical in even longer---since 2018. The pressure is on, but the admin is a different animal than I've ever encountered: supportive, everything is about the kids first and the community second.  All in all, to sum up, in conclusion-these people really like me and believe I'm capable of rebuilding. I feel like Dorothy.

    So the epiphanies in pony school this year were different. Instead of "I hate theatre and teaching theatre and am done and bitter", I had questions: "What am I supposed to do now?" This was triggered by Trump's bullying, as some of my colleagues' spouses are federal employees, in addition to his posturing to defund us and put us all out of jobs--because AI isn't getting that accomplished nearly quickly enough. I had no idea why I'd be placed in this job to have the building close...but again, above my pay grade.

    Toward the end of summer, I started hearing "Find Your Grail" from Spamalot in the morning. I heard it in my head, to be clear, Tim Curry and Leslie Rodriguez were not singing to me in my own bedroom, or serenading me from the shower. It was in my head, a musical earworm. I had not listened to the sound track in a while, although Jim was playing it in June while painting the spare room. Usually I get morning music earworms if I'm directing a show. I haven't directed a musical in one hundred years, so that was not why the song was stuck. 

     It was stuck. It was not one morning. It was a week of mornings. Every morning I woke up with it in my head, and I would sing it on the way to pony school, and then hum during pony school. I don't hum unless I'm stressed, and then my song of choice is "The Phantom of the Opera".

    I started to wonder what was up. I listened to the entire soundtrack, enjoying a memory of myself and Jim Farrell dueting "The Song That Goes Like This", and figured I was pining for the Good Old Days, when I had a true team and loved my job.

    Then I heard that Andrew died. And I remembered dressing him up as Frank. I remembered bleaching his rat tail in his bathroom. I remembered his relentless tanning competition with a classmate one summer and how very dark brown he became. I never competed with these guys, as my pasty whiteness is almost transparent and burns the nanosecond I step outside.

    I remembered the details of building his costume, which I realized was the first time I had done so.

    Andrew was tall, and regardless of his age he was still male, so I couldn't just buy a corset at JC Penny. I had to buy an extra large one at Goodwill and dye it black in my mom's washing machine with RIT dye. I had to go to A Craft Store---a place I did not frequent---and buy strips of sequins that I then stitched onto the corset. I had to also purchase a white garter from Goodwill to be RIT'd, fishnet stockings from Fashion Bar and ladies silky underpants. We couldn't find any heels at the Goodwills in his size, so we had to acquiesce to his clogs, much to our disappointment. The wig we found was not great, so we decided to tease his hair and we did his makeup.

    He looked great. 

    I was so proud, I built a costume (ish) and people responded---mostly girls. He was kind of a hit at the dance. Mostly with girls.

    As I ruminated on how this made me feel...the connections sparked.

    Andrew dressed as Frank N Furter, played by Tim Curry who sang "Find Your Grail" in Spamalot..."Find Your Grail" is equal to Campbell's "Find Your Bliss".

    I like building. I don't like the spotlight, but I get grumpy when I am not acknowledged. Every show I hide saying "It's about the kids". I joke about stitching and sobbing downstairs at Littleton, but those were my happiest times. I love figuring out how to make something work without the proper budget or materials. I never had that opportunity at Hinkley, most of the costumes were pulls and borrows, but I still gave up planning time to put together the costume plots. I'm a shitty costumer, I am well aware that I am not an artist. But I enjoy it. I like building. I can always depend on a student with more ability than myself to see what I intended and make it beautiful.

    Wow, that ended quickly. 

    So my summer of "What am I supposed to do now?" ended with "You're doing it." It doesn't matter what the future of the building, the district or public education is-that's above my pay grade. I don't direct for trophies, so that pressure is nonexistent. I already ran a powerhouse high school theatre---Big Deal, there was a lot of toxic nastiness that went with that. I brought Hink back only to be disrespected and walked away from yet another toxic building... on my own terms. They didn't run me off, I left. Voluntarily. For my own mental health. When you work in an abusive building it's still an abusive relationship and nobody deserves that.

    All I can do is what I can do, and it turns out...I enjoy doing what I do. I just needed to be someplace where I was not under attack for doing it.

    Which I suppose is my bliss...I've found my grail...?

    Sure. Let's go with that.

   

   

Pony School July 2025

 

        Usually when I tout "That's Above My Pay Grade" or "Not My Circus Not My Monkeys" I'm kidding. Because I am the one running the theatre, and in general they are my monkeys and I'm the ringmaster. Yet I do yell this thesis when the district, or the principal, make a particularly bone headed decision by which I must abide. I abide, but I whine. A lot. I whine A Lot. Sometimes I scream. I've even yodeled. To No Avail. 

        But at summer pony school camp, it really is above my pay grade. I am a lowly employee, clocking in and out to execute someone else's lesson plans, tend to someone else's miniature horses and deal with entitlement and narcissism in camp kids that I will likely never see again: it really is ABOVE MY PAY GRADE.

        However...

        Pony Camp is three weeks --Monday through Thursday--in June and Monday through Thursday for three weeks in July. In June, we get Juneteenth off, so it's not really three full weeks in June. There are not off days in July, since they start after the fourth of July. The kids enroll for June or July, ostensibly, as vacations are a thing that can happen and booking a pony camp for three hours only four days a week doesn't help in the scheme of things.

        Some kids do both camps. My first "Above My Pay Grade" is noting that the camp curriculum is exactly the same both months. The science experiments are different, but the "in house" field trip from the aquarium is the same, and the curriculum still smacks of education, not camp. But I did what I was asked both rounds, even though I had several of the same kids both times. By the second week of July, they were becoming "bored" with the same routines. I would say don't let kids sign up twice, or make it more camp-y and less education-y, if it were not above my pay grade.

        I had two kids who were involuntarily enrolled both months.  By this I mean a parent enrolled them in the older camp because they had a sibling in the younger camp. One was the same kid, both times "Simon" was disinterested in anything that smelled like a pony or felt like work. He stood apart and shouted orders, held votes to support his agenda- ie: "Who wants to hear my story about spearfishing on a parasail?" He is nine, and clearly has no boundaries at home and  a lot of money. He even told us how rich he is. He insisted we call his Au Pair his Au Pair and not his babysitter or his nanny. 

        We were running behind getting the ponies saddled one morning. Simon stood against the fence, loudly doing nothing to help, and shouted "This is taking too long," to which I replied "Maybe if you helped instead of complained, we could get done more quickly." His response spiked my mohawk, a defense I store away for the summer. He said "That's rude, you hurt my feelings." I looked him dead in the face and said nothing, I let the 'hawk and glare communicate for me.

    So you know who Simon is as we go forward. Also, not my circus, not my monkey, so I have no fear of poking him with the 'hawk.

    For the most part, June went off without a hitch. I wasn't exhausted, the kids -with a few exceptions--like Simon---were smart and happy to be there. The ponies were getting fed and walked and loved. I learned that sharks are made of teeth as shark skin is actually made of mini shark teeth and learned to bridle and saddle miniature horses with swollen, arthritic hands and a foggy brain.

    July began quite differently.

    Many of the repeat campers had behavior issues-especially my kids, who took it upon themselves to open gates without an adult and run willy nilly across the stable as I stood, shocked, trying to comprehend what had happened. By week two, the ponies themselves were acting up. A kid was trapped against the fence when Trixie freaked out while getting sprayed for flies. Taz had been separated so he could receive special food, and the other ponies really hated that. They were already mad at him and Gretchen Weiners-ing him out of the lunchroom, and now all they could to was whinny at him from across the stable. Two kids were stepped on, largely because they simply do not listen and follow instructions. This was rampant in July--whether first time camper or repeat, these kids Do Not Listen. No matter how many times it's repeated (every morning) demonstrated (every day) or sternly spit out after they suffer the consequences of their willful disobedience. Or ignorance.

    Example "So you got stepped on. What did I say about crowding the gate? Do you remember I said 'don't crowd the gate'? What happened when you crowded the gate? You got stepped on, didn't you?" Then the one kid who listens piped up "I heard you, you say it every morning it's annoying." That's "Alissa". She was a repeat, turned nine on her last day and told me she was a writer the first day of camp in June. Alissa listens. I love Alissa. Be Like Alissa.

    It should be noted I changed these kids' names in the June post, and then forgot what I called them. So if the descriptions are the same, but the name is not, assume it's the same kid and the names have been changed more than once to protect the children. We must protect the children!

    Which brings me to my Trans Flag school shirt, which I wore a few times. "Commander Pride"+ trans flag=Kennedy High School. The shirt was unnoticed until the last day, when weirdly I had two teachers and the office human tell me they liked and appreciated it. Maybe it was because it was the last day, maybe it was because things have become aggressively more hateful in the world in one short month. No parents even noted it, or even a kid. Kids don't notice anything, and it's worse than ever. But that's another thought for another day. 

    By the second week the ponies were definitely showing signs of aggravation. Stepping on kids, bucking at each other, choosing to run instead of let a kid put their bridle on. But the worst was when Rocket freaked out on the pony wheel. We were all standing there, he was not left alone, but the ponies were all jumpy. They wouldn't be still on the wheel, and we think Rocket lifted his front leg to scratch at a fly, and in that instant the other ponies moved forward, so when he brought his leg back down it got tangled in the chain. Unfortunately, the short chain is attached to the bridle on one end, and the wheel on the other.

    Rocket roared up, trying to free himself. His eyes were wide and he whinnied mightily. He backed up against the fence, reared up once, then twice. Then he took a knee, he just stopped and kneeled, looking at us. It was amazing. I swear he knew he was stuck, and he knew if he just waited, a human would help. 

    Animals are perfect, and we underestimate them. A human issue caused his problem---chained to a pony wheel---and he knew a human would fix it.

    But Rocket's freak out, plus Trixie's, and the general pony unease had me contemplating the Yellowstone Caldera, and the asteroid and the knowledge that animals feel shifts that we do not.

    The kids had all been a bit disengaged as well, but simultaneously on the edge. I witnessed two meltdowns when kids were going to miss saddling the ponies----here is where I wonder why you enroll your kid in a three week camp knowing your vacation is the second week of camp, which the kid will miss--a kid who became angry that the others laughed when he said his dad was going to remove an app from his phone, parents who arrived chronically late for pick up---sorry, but 35 minutes late without a reason like traffic is not acceptable, please put down your phone and acknowledge me putting your kid in the car. Sigh. But the LuLu, the Big One, was Simon---a habitual bully and entitled SNOT--bullied four kids inside of twenty minutes. And then, the next camp day, burst into a squall when another kid jumped from a bench and said "Boo". I see you kid, you have the victim thing down pat. Hopefully someone above my pay grade intervenes before middle school.

    On Alissa's last day, Weds, she read the "Fatter Diplomas" that she and Elisa had written. They decided that the ponies were all deserving of acknowledgement for putting on more weight. Both girls were repeaters, and were present the first day when Taz' ribs were showing and he was being being bullied by Gretchen Wieners -who literally head butted him out of the trough -to being fed special breakfast and lunch separately from the others. They grazed Trixie and Orbit before we all left for the day. They were part of that, and it mattered to them, and they noted the change. So "Fatter Diplomas" were written for each pony. On her last day---her ninth birthday---Alissa unscrolled each diploma and read it directly to every pony. They were all "honored" and she even called out Orbit for being "elderly". I recorded each one and sent it to the school director. Because...not my circus, not my monkey, but the director should know these kids are capable of creative and respectful thought. I strung the Fatter scrolls together and hung them by the bridles.

    And the Last last Day, which was pretty chill --bread making with pony rides---until ten minutes before pickup, when my assistant and I looked out the window and saw the ponies by the playground.

    The ponies should not be by the playground. They should be in the corral.

    Well shit. That's on me, I did not latch the gate. The ponies are smart, and they just pushed their way out to all of the glorious green grazing they could want.

    And so...we managed to again repeat "Do not scream at or run at the ponies" and watch the consequences as the kids screamed and ran at the ponies.

    Rocket's response---Rocket is their leader---was to toss his mane and bellow "WOLVERINES" like Patrick Swayze as he charged straight toward them. It was glorious.

     Luckily I was able to herd the kids along the only real escape route, using their unhinged energy to block it and push the ponies back where we could at least rope them. My wonderful assistant got the treats and was able to get Patrick and the other Wolverines led to the corral, where I blocked them in. Once the ponies were wrangled and stowed, one kid said "That was the scariest thing I've ever seen."

    I just looked at him. "What is one of the primary rules of being a pony wrangler?"

     His eyes were wide. For a second I could see him processing his answer. Finally, he spoke. "Don't run or scream at the ponies."

    I said "Yes. And be nice until it's time not to be nice."

   Okay, I was mixing my Swayze references  but the kids are eight years old and never get me, anyway.

    It's fine. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

    I'm just the one training them.

    Scene.