The Wildflower Effect

Friday morning a fifth grader burst into my office, threw himself into a chair, said, “I think I’m depressed!” and burst into tears. I think he’s right. Poor guy! He was inconsolable, really stuck in his unhappiness without knowing why. He just wanted to go home. Even though this friend has a hard time letting go of a plan once he’s made it (whether or not the adults think the plan is a good idea or if it’s even possible), I was hopeful that we could make things better enough that he could successfully return to the classroom. We were NOT going to head down the slippery slope of going home! We’ve got two more weeks of school to get through. (Those of you who are already or nearly done, please feel free to gloat.)

Talking was not doing it, he was not interested in his usual outlet of drawing, and the I-want-to-go home mantra was picking up steam. What to do, what to do? . . . June 1, sunny day, Vermont . . . we marched right out of my windowless office and headed outside for a walk. Well, I limped (still recovering from foot surgery) and he shuffled, but I did my best to channel marching energy for both of us.

The sunshine helped, and soon we were engaged in trying to determine which kind of grass had seed heads that were most satisfying to zip off. Mixed in with all the grasses, a variety of wildflowers were blooming. When I admired one, my friend picked it for me. By the time we got back to school I had a whole bouquet. We went to the office, ostensibly to search for a vase, but mostly because I figured my flowers would get a big reaction. Sure enough, the secretaries and the nurse gave my friend lots of attention and even feigned a little jealousy. He ducked his head and grinned. We took some pictures and sent them to his mom.

With my wildflower bouquet arching over the middle of my table, we made a plan for the day and walked back up to class. We checked in at snack time and he drew me a picture. We sat together at the middle school presentation given by visiting sixth graders. His mom and I had a good conversation and appropriate medical and therapy appointments were set up. Ah sunshine and flowers and a garden path to happiness!

:: insert scratchy record sound to indicate that things are not going according to plan ::

Band was canceled. Multiplication columns were not lining up. Pencil points were breaking. Meds were wearing off. Other people’s learning was disrupted.

I met up with my friend as he was arriving in the main office, math paper and un-pointy, eraserless pencil in hand. I told him to come with me into my room, where it would be more private. But no, he was supposed to go to the office, so couldn’t possibly go anywhere else. After somehow convincing him that I was in charge of the universe and therefore had the power to modify go-to-the-office orders (which was confirmed with exaggerated head nodding by the secretaries, who were glad to see us go), we headed into my office  . . .

. . . where the wildflowers were absolutely no help at all! Now we had paper crumpling, pencil point re-breaking, muttering about the audacity of teachers who offer to help and classmates who invite you to sit with them, obsessing about how he was never going to get this done (no kidding, if you keep breaking your pencil!), and catastrophizing about how this probably meant the end of his career as a bus patrol member. I pulled the vase closer to us. (I really did. Unsubtle, magical thinking, I know, but NOTHING was working!)

Have I mentioned that this one hour was the one potential space of catch-up time I had had all week? I have to admit, I kind of wanted to engage in a little obsessive muttering myself, and the idea of crumpling up my to-do pile was starting to look appealing.

In the space of that one last hour of school we managed to get through three multiplication problems (his agenda, not mine!), and to come to the realization that just because bus patrol was not in the cards today, that didn’t mean that it was lost forever. At 2:30 we walked back up to class (one of us glowering at the kids who were doing bus patrol) to pack up for the trip home. He was kind-of-sort-of able to process with the teacher — he stood still, listened, and grunted in response anyway —  which was as good as it was going to get.

The kids left. The teacher and I processed and bemoaned and gave thanks for the weekend. I went back downstairs to my office and there were my wildflowers, lovely still, even though they were beginning to droop.

Wildflowers don’t last long once you pick them. I will probably find petals and pollen and seeds littering my table when I go back to school tomorrow. Their beauty lasts only a short time, but the moments of joy that come from giving and receiving a bouquet of them echo long after they have died. Wildflowers reseed themselves and grow along our path without anyone having to do anything about it. And they are there again, waiting for us to find them. I’ll probably be looking again tomorrow.