Get Up Eight

Tap a person’s thumb with gratitude who inspired you 

Tap a person’s thumb with gratitude who you want to get to know better 

Tap a person’s thumb with gratitude who made you laugh 

I’m lying facedown on the carpet in the large conference room.

There are some 65 bodies arranged in a tight circle. Most with their heads down, eyes closed, and thumbs up. The room is silent, apart from a solo Grade 12 caller, instructing with what comes next.

It’s a massive game of Heads Up Seven Up, but the role of the seven (or more) who are ‘up’ has a bit more at stake.

A closing act of a two-day conference on peace and justice. The room, mostly high schoolers from schools in town, along with a couple groups from abroad.

A recurrent theme of the weekend has been the notion of critical hope. A much-needed counterbalance to ‘hokey hope’, whose dismissive tone signals everything is ‘just going be all right’, blindly optimistic.

Critical hope, on the other hand, exists through understanding and unpacking systems of oppression, how they interfere with justice, and what tools might be employed to dismantle.

It is real, substantial,

empowered.

Tap a person’s thumb with gratitude who is brave 

Tap a person’s thumb with gratitude who made you feel safe 

With my thumb first extended, forehead nestling into my forearm, and stomach to the floor, first worries invade my brain and consume me

what if nobody taps my thumb

Imposter syndrome is real.

After a few minutes, however, I am literally, then metaphorically touched, moved by the number of people who recognize, who help me to feel seen.

Did I really do that?

Yeah, I guess maybe I did.

So, safety.

First.

And now that I have this feeling, my thoughts shift to others.

What if someone doesn’t get tapped at all?

That would feel so lonely

Tap a person’s thumb with gratitude who pushed you to think differently 

After a few cycles and different tappers, I realize that I haven’t had a turn to be the person with eyes open, circulating the room, looking for folks to recognize

But then, I get one.

If you haven’t had a chance to be one of the tappers, please open your eyes, stand up, and follow the prompts

Tap a person’s thumb with gratitude who introduced you to a new concept

I shake my head and blink my eyes awake. There are a lot of us left, we make eye contact and smile at each other as we silently weave the circle, tapping here and there, seeing those who, for the moment, do not see us.

Tap a person’s thumb with gratitude who made you smile

And any doubts about whether everyone will feel seen, included, or loved, disappear.

Tap a person’s thumb with gratitude who made you feel hopeful about the future

As I wander here and there, circumventing, I hold up. Step back. Marvel at the young humans in this room, seeing one another, sharing joy, and spreading love

I feel a sense of hope that, in these challenging times, escapes me more often than it should.

Then,

I remember

The world is not the news, and the news is not the world.

And there are way, way more of us, than them.

Mama

Papa 

I’m ready

His voice carries down the stairs. Still high-pitched, not yet cracking, for now

Puberty is coming.

I’ve spent the last couple nights strategizing

Where is he going to be 

He’s been keeping me sharp, toughening me up, honing my senses, pushing me to the next level of detection.  

And he’s been winning these battles

of stealth, of misdirection, of deception.

I’m not sure where this started, actually. Maybe a few months back?

He’s got a couple larger pillows and stuffed friends in bed still. Not quite letting go of those childhood buds. They make great lumps, that almost look like him.

I think one evening I mistook the lumps and crawled into bed to snuggle. He walked in and was surprised to see me, already there.

The glint in his eye was telling. And a new game had begun.

These days, his work is to find a separate hiding spot after creating a perfectly elephant sized lump in the bed. Sometimes its behind the curtain, others, inside an impossibly small wardrobe. He mixes it up, and he always wins.

Tonight though, after a bit of research and detectiving, I’m onto his way.

I tiptoe my way up the darkened stairwell, slowly. Maintain the element of surprise.

I poke my head into the living room, expecting to see him hiding behind the door, waiting for me to pass so he can ambush. 

Nothing

I sneak into the extra bedroom, which was up until this year his brother’s. I think about turning on the light

nah, that’s cheating

Instead, I ease my head around the corner. There’s just enough illumination in the room for me to see the lump underneath the blanket.

And I can practically see his thinking

no WAY he thinks of looking in here

Chuckling to myself, I pause at the foot of the bed. 

The jig is very much up.

And so is the blanket.

With all the flare and stage presence of a practiced magician, I yank the sheets off the bed

Ha HAAAAAA!

NOOOOOOOOOOO

He is flustered and amused, all at once.

I can’t believe you found me!

I dance into the hallway and head up the stairs with a

WOOOOOOOOO

PAPA WINS

He slowly crawls out of his brother’s bed and grumbles his way up behind me, lamenting how I could have possibly foiled his nefarious scheme.

But chuckling as he does so.

He crawls into own bed, adjusts the intricately crafted pillow dummy, and snickers to himself.

We both know this was a good one.

Respect, all round, on a hard-fought but well-earned win for the Old Guy.

I snuggle in beside him

and he melts into my chest

I can smell his hair 

hear his heart 

as mine beats, in time with his 

I love you, buddy

I love you too, papa

And, as he settles in, I can hear the wheels turning

while he crafts tomorrow’s plan.

• Another 31 days of writing in the books, 2025 edition. Thanks everyone for swinging by to read, so appreciate your presence and responses. This has once again been a gift to my future self. Not sure if I’ll write again next year but I couldn’t have gotten to this point without your encouragement and support, grateful for you all. – DR

When the waves approach

only three choices

Ride them

Slip under to let them pass

or

Get pummeled.

Alas

I don’t always know which to choose

until it’s too late

On some days in the classroom, just as in life,

things can go down the toilet.

Between signal, transmission, and execution, there are so many dips and drops to send the whole enterprise asunder.

I’m not a designer.

I don’t really have a sense for where and how to put the right words in the right place. 

I often make slides for the classroom – but they kind of stink if I’m honest. Unless I really take time to play with them – and what teacher has time for that?

I let the art of teaching shine, above, and separate to, the ‘art’ of creating a slide deck about ecosystems.

Don’t let perfect get in the way of pretty good

I am a bit of a font nerd though, and much prefer simple, clear ones that are easy on the eyes but don’t distract from the content (please don’t come at me with Comic Sans, apologies not apologies to 80% of the education world).

Clear is kind

So, in this moment, as I stand and take care of business in the bathroom, this uniquely-fonted sign grabs my attention. 

Không bỏ giấy vào bồn cầu.

And, in English, below:

Please throw the tissue into the toilet.

But something is not quite right. 

I look again and my eyes are drawn across the small poster.

Close reading is important. 

Ah

Please DON’T throw the tissue into the toilet.

I read the fine print, and catch the little cartoonish toilet paper roll with rosy cheeks and dimples, holding a sign directed at the cartoonish and dimpled toilet, that says

I don’t love you.

My eyes track to the top of the poster where it says

Vietnamese plumbing is not designed to handle toilet paper.

Bốn cẩu không tiêu hóa được giấy.

And just like teaching,

given this seemingly simple piece of paper that someone has clearly taken time to compose and design,

between signal, transmission, and receipt, there are so many ways that this could go down the toilet.

Why do we run

Are we escaping, chasing, or merely passing through

I’m not sure whether I’m coming or going.

I pass gravestones marking those who’ve passed

They don’t haunt me, or even provoke. They are unobtrusive, present, and permanent

Unlike my steps.

There are snakes.

here, without a doubt.

I dodge them in advance, with loud footfalls, pounding in my ears and shaking the ground.

Cacti dot this path, along with patches of flattened grass, brought here by the roaming water buffalo

There are birds, everywhere. Dragonflies dart here and there, misty sun overseeing all as it makes its way across the fields.

This is solitary work

but I am not alone

I’m unsure why I committed to 5 km a day

I don’t have a runner’s body, it’s a bit too stocky, and has the flexibility of, well, an old man.

Takes one to know one

But, tired legs and all, I continue,

as I do

And make my way through these shrubby rolling patches, amongst the bulls

Why do we run

Because sometimes the only way out is through

Nah

that way scares me

I’m not sure which demons are chasing me through these graves in Central Vietnam

But I’m quite sure they are the same ones that have chased me for years

I know them a bit better now,

and familiarity breeds contempt

My choices are three:

Ride the wave

Dive under the wave

Or let it pummel me

And I honestly don’t know which one I’m choosing

as I put one step after the other.

I was in a state when I thought of this.

Do the words we use help us to grow our brains?

I don’t have a clue when it comes to the brain, it is deep, and fraught with curves and twists.

We have found a fun new game we play, but I’m not sure it helps the brain to grow. I won’t say what the game is called yet, but it is a ton of fun.

You sit in a group and try to get your team to guess words from clues. There’s a blow up “NO” bat that you use to bonk the one who breaks the rules.

We have a lot of laughs, and it keeps the fun right in front of us. There’s a twist though, which makes the game too hard at times.

I’m not sure if you can tell what the rules are or what the name of the game is yet so I’ll just tell you.  It’s called 

Poetry <NO BAT>

for Neanderthals <NO BAT>

Whoops, just lost two points.

Do you want to hear a spooky story?

No, generally, because I’m a big wimp and don’t like scary stories. I’m quite certain J is being hyperbolic and it won’t actually be spooky.

We are lying down together, tucking in Elephant, snuzzling in the dark room at our BnB. It’s the first night in and the settling has mostly been handled. Teeth are brushed, the only work left is to let the zzzzzs move in.

But first, a story.

We were snuggling here when we noticed a lump under the covers.

I tried to push it down but it seemed instead to shift, and maybe even move a bit.

So we lifted up the covers and tried to push it down again. Still, another shift.

We started to get a bit worried, like there was something alive under there. A tarantula, or a small lizard, or who knows, maybe even a lizard impersonating a tarantula!

We peeled up the top sheet; the lump was still there

We peeled up the mattress cover; the lump was still there, and it shifted (!) in the other direction. Still moving around!

We peeled up the layer under that; the lump was still there.

And finally, pretty worked by this point, we peeled off the bottom layer. And what do you think we found?

A lizard?

Nope

A snake?

Nope

I give up.

It was a doorknob! The scary doorknob from the great beyond, left behind to, oh, I don’t know, open doors to the great beyond?

They both collapse in hysterics, two goofballs, balling and goofing around.

They really did think it was a mouse, or something more sinister. The mind can play tricks on us when mystery is afoot, or under cover (as it were).

It’s a pretty fun story, to be fair, and story power comes from the telling. They’re delighted to both relive (relieve?) the tale, and to find joy in the recounting itself.

And now I get to share it too.

It is late

The proportion of closed shutters to open, populated bars and cafes shifts steadily.

I’m on a quick stroll around the block, in search of a shop with hat dieu (cashews). Late night munchies have hit.

Walking street is closing down

But the hustle is ramping up.

Where do you go?

I can take you anywhere.

The cyclo driver eases alongside as I stroll, his manner affable and his smile up front.

I’m okay, thank you.

What do you need

Massage?

No, thank you, I’m good.

Marijuana?

No, still good.

I smile and keep walking, and eventually this barker knows he’s up the wrong tree.

But a solitary foreigner walking around at midnight is a pretty clear mark. And in the 70 meters between the intersection and the snack shop up ahead, I’m approached by two more hustlers. The first on foot, second on a motorbike.

They are no strangers to this work, their office hours late into the night, intentions somewhat questionable. But hey, it’s a living.

I take you anywhere

I wave him off with another smile.

How about this?

He pulls a small layer of plastic out of his pocket and shows me his bud, dried and ready.

No, thank you. I’m good.

I have whatever you need.

This gives me pause.

Oh, is that so?

You have a pack of cashews, a toothbrush, and a good night’s sleep?

He snorts, gives me a wry smile, and slowly rolls away.

You should pee before you come upstairs. The bathroom is before you turn left.

Ok, see you in a bit.

I peek down the hallway.

WC 

I walk quickly towards the door and try the lock, but it’s a no go. Someone’s in.

I’m doing fine but have been walking for a while, and the urge has been constant for about 20 minutes.

It’s go time.

I adjust my body language and steel myself for another couple minutes.

No more than ‘just enough’ square feet, washrooms in Vietnam generally prioritize space. A small bideted toilet, minimal sink, just enough accoutrements to spice up our most basic of daily rituals.

So, when it’s my turn to sneak in, I’m momentarily taken aback.

A middle-aged security guard creaks the door open, decked out in navy blue brimmed cap and matching shirt. Name badge on his chest, all business on his face.

I’m of course expecting whoever was in front to be shaking off water or wiping on pants as the door swings ajar. But not this guy.

He holds in his hands a black and brown wood & metal folding chair.

He gently and methodically folds the chair and places it into a closeted water closet closet, a shelf filled with about 20 of the same chairs tucked within the wall inside this cramped space.

And I have questions.

What was he doing with that chair? 

Is it somehow part of his bathroom routine?

Does he use it to prop up his knees?

It is a ready prop in case a wrestler comes off the top rope?

Does he use it to steal a moment of needed sleep, in the one place he will not be disturbed?

I realize I want to ask him these questions, but he’s made his way down the hall and disappeared around the bend, no doubt back to work.

And as I close the door to take care of business, I realise this chairman has given me a whole new set of strategic goals.