Surfacing Through

[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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This night will pass. Then we have work to do. Everything has to do with loving and not loving. – Rumi

Things I Have Learned Surfacing Through Big Mistakes

Surfacing through.

I want to think about surfacing through in terms of making sense of big mistakes. Big mistakes can be a circular firing squad we point at ourselves. Big mistakes can be an internal tornado robbing us of peace of mind and forward thinking. Big mistakes can rob us of the natural rhythm of resilience that allows us to pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off, and love ourselves and others again, again, and again.

Be ready.

I am ready to surface through and live on the other side of big mistakes. I am ready to turn off the tapes of defeats and faults. This is not the first time I have tried to turn pain into wisdom. This is not the first time I have tried to use anger as fuel. This is not the first time I tried to make amends and heal. This is not the first time I have tried to reach out to people who walked with me as I failed. After so many first times. After so many failed attempts. After so many slips and falls. I am ready to surface through.

Big mistakes leaves scars.

Scars are evidence of imperfection. Part of surfacing through is accepting and even embracing imperfection. I am so far from perfect, accepting imperfection lifts a huge weight. Doubt and consequence can be seen when you look very closely at scars. Relationships shift and change and end and that story is told in our scars. Scars may fade with time and perspective, leaving us changed as we surface through. Scar tissue is the strong connective tissue between pain and healing.

Surfacing through is hard work.

Surfacing through requires excavating both joyful and painful memories. Surfacing through requires building up the confidence and clarity to hold doubt and fear carefully and gently place in the midst of experience. Surfacing through means finding morning in each moment.