Washed out but not washed up

English is a peculiar language. When we are tired and sick, we say we feel washed out. When we sense we have become dull, irrelevant and useless, we say we feel washed up. I've been feeling both. The conflict between Palestine and Israel has colored every moment of my consciousness these days: I so deeply want peace for all people, kindness to all people, safety for all children. What can I do? What can any of us do? I meditate and send fierce wishes for peace, and then I let go, open my eyes, read the news, and sob.

The great existential questions arise for me again: Why am I here? What use can I be? What use have I ever been? How can I be better?

This morning I got a comment on my old blog. A former student had googled me and found the blog and left a comment. She wrote:

I was a student of yours in an Intro Theatre class many years ago at Smith College. You inspired and encouraged me in ways I don't think you could realize. I was having a tough time outside of the classroom but your class helped me to explore and understand myself more deeply and gave me the courage to try new things. I am a professor now and was just looking at an old exam (it was stuck in a notebook I took out to review) and was flooded by a ream of memories and experiences from your class and that year. I just wanted to say Thank-you. Thanks for being a teacher who could inspire someone as untheater-like as me (and by that I mean- I was and have followed my dream of being a scientist and am also a mom to a couple of amazing little girls). I am compiling my tenure package (at UMass!) and can only hope to inspire students as you have.

I am so moved by her words that I posted them on Facebook. Then I felt embarrassed. I'm not fishing for reassurance or for more praise. I just wanted to say how much it meant to me--and that if others have people they might want to thank, they should do that. But a kind of welling up happened on Facebook. Several people said wonderful, kind things. Then later in the day, another expression of gratitude arrived from someone who hadn't even seen the Facebook thing.

And so I think maybe some of this is coming because in the USA it's our Thanksgiving holiday: and what a wonderful thing it is to say thank you to those we are grateful for. I have so much thanks in me. I certainly don't want to die with a burden of unexpressed thanks weighing me down. If I apply myself to expressing all the gratitude I feel, it will certainly take me all the time I have left on this planet. There's a project worth embracing.