InstaCat

On past tense miracles

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I got an instagram message last week from a former student. I recognized her face but couldn’t place the name until I started reading:

Not sure if you remember me but you were my grade 12 English Teacher at ________. I came across an ISU I had done back then and a note you had left me of the idea of cyclical healing, where — like a funnel — we encounter situations over and over for deeper meaning and healing. Who knew that you would foster space for me to unpack questions I would still be navigating so many years later?

I must have been 28 or 29 when I was this young woman’s English teacher, going through a world of hurt in my own life at the time. How I managed to share something with her that proved useful then (and that she’s returned to now) feels downright miraculous to me.

So many of my teaching memories feel like this — intangible little miracles that I probably missed in the moment…brought back to me in gift form via text or email or random LinkedIn message. Most passed me by. Missed moments that were somehow noted by the ones who needed them. The ones who were really paying attention.

So that’s my new plan: to pay attention. To do more close reading of texts, of people, of the world around me. My focus will be the smallest ones. The ones most easily missed:

Like yesterday when I got a text message from a nine-year-old asking for a play date with my son: Hi Natalie I’m wondering if I can bring some candy 🍭 for Frankie?

Or bathroom conversations with my sister. In our 40s.

Or when my family walked into No Frills and my young son flashed us a very pre-teen peace sign and said, “I’m off (to get the almond milks).”

Cyclical healing. A funnel of moments. The closest of reads.

Before the world closed down we adopted two cats from a local pet rescue. We called them Marsh and Mellow. One succumbed to a mysterious cat illness and I was heart broken, so the other has since lived a charmed life (filled with a few too many treats) in recompense for the loss of her other half.

A cat is a great teacher when it comes to the small moments. Marsh seems to note each one, ears twitching at the sound of a treat bag opening or the backdoor lock being turned. She listens for the sound of freedom with real care. Her own little miracles.

Missing nothing.