It's all about love. That's why I hate everybody.

It has been very difficult lately to practice my newfound Buddhist techniques, especially the practice of not reacting to things. I realize I have been carried through life on a tide of reactions, mine and others'. Trying to gently move away from that is like telling a gorilla that has taken over your living room to sit down. I torture myself with overthinking. I cling to that.

After Parent/Teacher Conferences (See "The Vortex of Hell") when parents transferred their student out of my classroom, I beat myself up because I wasn't doing enough. I wasn't satisfying every parent, delighting every student, bringing out every student's potential. I hated myself for not being able to do the impossible: please everyone.

I have become my mother. That was obvious to me last week when I couldn't reach AJ, alone in New York City for a few days while Moe was in Michigan. I lost it. My mind raced with visions of AJ dead on the pavement, no ID, or worse yet, in a hospital without ID, no way for the staff to contact us. I remember Dolly, my mother, waiting up while I caroused with my high school friends until 3 am, worried, wringing her hands at every siren she heard.

Last night I had a dream that "evil" was in our house in the form of a skeleton digging it's way through the ceiling to "get" us. Huck was a baby, a big baby wrapped in a blanket, and so good natured. I saw him in my dream clearly again, so loveable and accepting and generous to me, even as an infant. He was weak, and a girl held him. I knew there was something wrong with him, but I was trying to deal with the skeleton problem, somehow figure it out and take control, protect everyone in the house. But I was called back because Huck was getting worse. He wasn't fussing or demanding, but simply smiling up at me, and at peace, but I knew he was dying, and I gathered him in my arms and rested his head on my shoulder.

God!

These painful visions, these scary dreams are showing me where I need to work. They point me toward my fears. "Evil", or death, or loneliness are all human conditions that everyone faces. We all learn to cope with these common fears one way or another.

My mother wrapped herself in the cocoon of the small town where she was born, and never left it. She kept her mind on the everyday things of life and pretended everything was OK. A teenager in deep pain, I would ask her questions about life and death, about the prejudice around me, about the church and God, and she would say, "Why do you always philosophize so much, MJ? Quit asking so many questions. Can't you just be happy?"

But I couldn't be happy with the backdrop with which I lived. I couldn't accept inequality. I railed against the heirarchical nature of school. I was pissed that some people lived on the "other side of the tracks". I wanted my mother to question these things, too.

I drove through the darkness after Parent/Teacher Conferences talking to Huck on my cell phone. He commiserated with me as I derided myself and the system. It feels like we are living in such a hateful environment in the US right now. People are so cruel. People are so rude. Maybe it is my profession. Students have a sense of entitlement. An anti-social streak. We are so privileged, driving our SUV's and buying our bells and trinkets. We feel that we deserve them. We can start wars for them. We can kill civilians for them. We can do this in the name of Christianity and by God we can kill our sons and daughters for them too.

Miserable, I asked, "Huck, why are people so hateful? Why is it so hard to find kindness and tolerance?"

"I know, Mom. It's all about love. That's why I hate everybody."