Overlapping



by January Handl

You can’t put your foot in the same river twice…though this saying has many-layered meanings spiritually, it is also a scientific fact. We are in constant exchange of molecules with those things around us. We exhale CO2, leave skin, hair, sweat cells behind us, eliminate waste, as well as breath in air, continually smell molecules of many things, eat, drink and absorb. We see ourselves as separate, yet we overlap, physically, socially, and emotionally-and this is a dynamic, fluid state.

From the beginning we try to distinguish where we begin and the other ends…where are we separate, where do we overlap? Our birth begins the life-long journey of separating our identity from our mother, and parts of us remain overlapping until death. Our immediate family, extended family, friends and community teach us that there is a paradox in existence- we are both independent and dependent. We are interconnected with the all, and parts of us remain unique.

Working in a co-op as a teacher is a daily challenge of interpreting this flow of separateness and overlapping. We become, for a short time, (admittedly a step a way), a part of a family’s “dance”. Each year we may be faced with a new classroom of people who experience the deaths of loved ones, marital difficulties, major illness, crisis’ in parenting, abusive patterns, financial struggles or the many trials that make up the stories of life in a family. Not to mention the influences and overlaps of culture, time, and place. We also face these issues within our own families at home.

We fall in love with each child, try to really know them, let them teach us beyond theory into understanding of how best to support their growth. And we are offered opportunity to never- ending reflection upon boundaries, permeable membranes, where we are separate and where we overlap. And if we are serving the best interests of all concerned, we learn to teach about dynamic interdependence, as well as acknowledging each person’s separate viewpoint. We feel that ideal education acts as a window and a mirror: a window that makes transparent the experiences of others, and a mirror that reflects a child’s own experience.

As a parent, these complex issues can often cloud our judgment in setting boundaries, understanding relationship, allowing choice and consequence and the “art of letting go” that the best parenting follows. Often a child’s behavior is mistaken by the parent as a response to only the parent- child relationship. Or the child’s inalienable right to independence is ignored to meet the parent’s emotional needs. Or sometimes the child’s choices are devalued, underestimated or overruled in the hurry-scurry of schedules and the production clocks that currently run our lives.

I don’t know that these things ever become crystal clear, or that we ever get to reach the end of this process. I don’t know that we would want to. I do know that the boundaries between us are often more and less than they seem- and all of us benefit when the time is taken to consider where the “’me” ends and the “thou” begins.