The Unknowable Beginning

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

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The Unknowable Beginning

On Quitting My Dream Job

I thought I knew myself when I quit my dream job — the job that had been my answer to the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” for many years. I laid on the couch eating ramen and cereal for a few days before I cleaned out my classroom during Christmas break. I smelled failure’s stench as I took down the posters and boxed up books. I tasted anger’s tears as I dropped my keys off at a colleague’s home before I left town. So broken I could barely breathe.

But I was wrong. Beneath the weight of exhaustion. Behind the shadow of daily evaluations that slowly tore me limb from limb. Seared by the “work smarter not harder” mantra that I detest to this day. Isolated from creativity’s life-giving force. Drenched in a shower of painful choices. I moved forward into the shape of a life that felt destroyed. A cross-country move, a flea infestation, a graduate school application, a car wreck, snow-capped mountains, an unsuccessful teaching license transfer, beach glass, belongings lost by a moving company somewhere in Nebraska, the refuge of a quiet movie theatre, a lost stop gap job at a pediatrician’s office, and invaluable mentors taught me a few things.

Packing up. I was not sure. Driving 2300 miles. I was not sure. Test after test. I was not sure. Life unfolded slowly. Like a flower blooming. Like a river flowing. Like a Phoenix rising. Like sunrise and sunset. When life happened, I learned to breathe. I made decisions. I breathed some more. I reached out. I breathed some more. I paid attention. I breathed some more. I changed my mind. I breathed some more. I changed my mind, again. I breathed some more. I fell apart and back together. I breathed some more.

Still, something in me began. I began to understand that I am stardust and scar tissue and steel. I began to understand the courage required to show up. I began to understand that being stuck is more painful than failing. I began to understand what it means to lean into the questions. I began to understand we often find what we seek. (That is particularly true for finding sweetness and resolve and joy and center and light.) I began to understand that imagination does reality’s heavy lifting. The unknowable continues every day.

Thanks for reading about my Miracle Project. Subscribe to the Wide-Awakeness Project to read about paying attention, unknowable beginnings, and miracles.