Before I begin, I want to point out that the feature photo is my own.  (The last four pieces have used my own capturings.)   I do not want to learn the ins and outs of what it is to be exceptional at photography.  I don’t want to buy fancy equipment and haul it around.  I simply want to keep practicing clicking on what I like, and compare the result to the moment that I made time stand still.

This is an important distinction because it reveals a fundamental change in me — not everything has to have a point or purpose.  And yet, it is precisely because of this change that everything seems to fit into a coming-to-know alignment.  Because no parts of my life are fractured into silos, it all connects, it all finds its way, it all has a better-than-expected-because-nothing-was-expected outcome.

It’s also why every time I want to write about a ‘thing’, I end up writing about me.

This matters.

The lessons are revealed.  Seeking them out easily leads one astray.  

The determining factors are time and intention.

Patience and endurance are not the same.  The former remains open and adaptable to what comes.  The latter hardens into protection and self preservation.  As I tell the following story about how a needed thing came to be, I am also telling the story of how the thing became me.  Again, when life and work intersect in a way that allows you to become more you, it reinforces a truer reality of seeing and setting up others to become more them.

 

Everyone gets what they want because it is intertwined with what they need…

 

In the Spring of 2024, a colleague came up with an idea.  (This colleague comes up with lots of good ideas, but they do not know how to actualize them.  Somehow, though, it has become my specialty.)  It was simple and profound, as all the best things are:  people need a tool to help them recognize what they feel.  

I immediately agreed with the excited fervor of plunging into action.  They thought it should be an app, but I don’t have the resources for app development.  What I do have the resources for is analog (and engineering access for the disenfranchised).  The irony is, as I was organizing this thought into being, I toyed with the notion that it could also be a product to sell.  “It could be for the adults who grew up without it.”  That suggestion burst the already fragile collaboration, and I continued on alone.

I mapped out just enough to leave my future self a trail.  

And then I left it for a year.

After much loss, I used it as a life raft.

I collaborated with others, and translated their ideas of what was important for younger them to know into a workbook.  Then I gave it away.

But the wheels born from that original partnership were the most deliverable.  They were the most use-ready and intuitive.  I had TAs to translate them into Spanish.  I had colored paper and lamination services (one simply CANNOT re-use paper well in a PE setting) via our high school library.  Once real, again they sat.  It was Spring of 2026. I did not yet have the context in which to package it into an interesting ritual within a PE class.

“The Wheels”, as I call them, were laid out options of describing one’s state.  The model that I knew existed was the emotion or feelings wheel:

It left out a lot of the details required to actually answer, “How are you?”, however.  There was energy/ stimulation and the nervous systems governance of safe to document.  Since this was a missing resource out in the world I decided to make them.  I picked distinguishable words to designate between understimulated, overstimulated, and optimal — that sweet spot in-between.  I did the same for delineating safe and unsafe.  That original partner digitized them into a malleable graphic.  As stronger words and clearer contrasts were exposed, I made adjustments.

 

The correct changes can only be made through the work, with those you are trying to serve.

 

 

One makes an idea real by using it on a separate-from-you but still consistently-connected-to-you population.  I happen to have teenagers.  They are forging/ reinforcing their identity and are savvy and watchful and want to be included.  In a safe and non-judgmental environment where they are encouraged to make their own decisions, they will tell you exactly what they think.  The honesty of their words along with the objectivity of my observations inform my decisions in how to treat them (what I give them to do).

The frame that I gave them to link identifying states to physical education was “to see how activity might change them.”  The first wheel I gave them was the emotion wheel.  I simply asked them to find where they are.  After some time and watchful noticing of how they interact with it (and when they were ‘done’), I collected it and turned them loose into twenty minutes of an activity of their choosing.  After, I re-distributed the wheels and asked them if it changed.  I marked a Y(es) or N(o) after each name in my book.  The next day, I explained the difference between energy (physical capacity) and stimulation (mental desire) and repeated the process with the stimulation wheel.

The following week, I asked them to determine whether that change (if there was a change) was positive, negative, or neutral, and marked these notes in my attendance ledger.  I understood the importance of data to try and provide evidence of what I was seeing.  My sensitivity noted the slightest recognition of flippancy with some (mostly the boys) as I continued this for about a week.  It needs to stay novel and unpatterned, I thought.  I also needed to bring deeper meaning into the process of what data I was collecting and how I was collecting it.

The turning point occurred when I started asking and recording the words.  In true human fashion, asking about the qualitative re-ignited their interest and connection to themselves.  Unprompted, these teenage boys would say, “I feel….” loud enough for everyone to hear.  Those that came after followed suit (with varying degrees of volume).  It wasn’t a private moment of quiet recognition that roused them, but being seen and heard exactly as they are, with communicative language to self-identify.

This story continues.  This experience will continue.  I write this from a month ahead, looking back, and offering a snapshot to share.  There are several untold stories that eventually will get told, and once fine-tuned I’ll give it all away.  But for now, on this date, I will bask in the joy of where I am and what we’ve built, and how lovingly good this all feels.