I am not a creative writer.  I've written journals intended only for an audience of one…me!  I am penning this blog as a requirement of a U.S. Department of State program called Teachers for Global Classrooms (TGC).  Please excuse poor word choices, incoherent rambling, dangling participles (not even certain what those are!), mixed metaphors and tenses.  My first entry is meant to explain why I chose the title “Battered Suitcases” for my blog.  I welcome all comments and critiques.  Please be kind and constructive!

The battered suitcase I carry every day is bursting!  It is filled with the visions of my son Cal at his birth and of the deaths of my husband, mom, grandparents, father-in-law, friends, and, most recently, the suicide of my nephew.  It is filled with failures and successes, experiences at home and of cultures far and wide; with the profound silence on a windless day on the ice of Antarctica, with learning the names and scents of the wildflowers of Kentucky; it is in my students’ frustrations (as they become mine) and the moments when they finally understand the relationship between pressure, temperature, and the volume of a gas (these also become mine).  

I’ve crammed in the Charm School dropouts, members of the J and J Club, the Bobwhites of St. Pius, my friends, acquaintances, and those persons I would rather forget.  My suitcase overflows with pride as I watch my son grow into a man of integrity and compassion.  It pulses with the struggles of my family and with my neighbors around the globe.  Packed into my baggage is the discipline my father gave me; the desire for order, for promptness, for simplicity and organization.  And next to it is my mother’s spontaneity and her gift for making the simplest gesture seem grand.

As Kerouac says “The road is life.”  My next real-road adventure to Ukraine, will find me reorganizing my baggage yet again to make room for the incredible sights and sounds, tastes and smells, friendships, history, and culture of a place relatively unknown to me.  I’ll probably be packing a few preconceived notions though I will try to keep these to a minimum.  And so, my battered suitcase sits by the side of the road (or in my heart) waiting to squeeze in more of everything this road of life has to offer!

What have you packed into your battered suitcase?