Those 3 Things That Make People Sexy

It happens.
People get arrested by completely, inexplicably invigorating people whose curb appeal is elusive but whose sexiness is unbearably present.
Thankfully, it happens!
With some recent pause to figure out the Why when Sexy is the first compliment on my mind, three distinct and time-honored traits kept rising up. Surprise! Not a one is a physical feature.  I tend to love these things in men, but I find women share these traits when they strike me as sexy too.

1. Confident
 There is no greater frustration than a person without conviction. This is about where to meet, when to finish, even what to wear. It's a huge headliner if/when intimacy appears in the relationship. Someone who knows himself and willingly states it is a huge attraction. As a bonus, sharing time and space with someone who knows what he wants provokes me to share what I want as well.
And then there's the fine line when confidence becomes cocky and arrogant. It's still oddly attractive that  someone can so fully possess self-presence, but this is the time to take note when confidence errs more heavily toward inflexibility and self-serving or selfish desires.

2. Smart
The thinker has got to be smart and able to communicate what he knows. Words and sharp vocabulary are my particular Achilles heel. Put me in the company of someone who can make something interesting to me even if I'm genuinely disinterested, I'm sunk. I was once asked by an ex-boyfriend what made someone most attractive to me, and without pause I replied, "Tete-a-tete." He didn't know what that meant. And that's why someone who was otherwise incredibly thoughtful and giving of himself was by then an ex.

3. Curious & Inquisitive
The sneaker traits. Someone asking questions about you? Inquiring about your past or just plain able to find your soft spots in casual conversation? There is no way around the attractiveness of someone who bumps into my heartstrings. In fact it feels so incredible when someone taps into those categories of things that often seem like over-sharing, it can be blindingly desirable to hold on.

At a glance there are other things that make people sexy. But these things, these are the ones that take more than a glance and make every conversation worth that chance.

What is equitable when it comes to first teachers?

I love my job.  It’s fun, energizing, open-ended, social and inspiring. It’s also challenging, as it requires constant problem-solving, critical thinking and organizing. It demands patience, creative resourcing, interpersonal dynamics navigation, role-modeling and time.  It boasts the accomplishment of building foundations of community, life-long learning, and social success.  It asks these skills of me when working with both children and adults.  Any idea what I do?
I’m a cooperative preschool teacher!  It is a job like no other, extending far beyond the hours of a preschooler’s classroom time.  And thank goodness for that, because a lot of the more challenging elements of the job happen outside of classroom time, including resource building and mentoring families through the dynamic early childhood experience.  The role of a cooperative preschool teacher as a guide, visionary and institutional memory of a school is unique – and vital – to school longevity.
Any idea what this job is worth?  The majority of my colleagues who teach in cooperative preschools would probably use all the descriptors I used above and more.  It sounds like a pretty full job, likely demanding of personal time, and certainly not a job for the faint of heart or weak in spirit.  It sounds like a job worthy of a living wage.  It sounds like a hard job that could pay pretty well!   Yet as I sat in a meeting among fellow cooperative preschool teachers last fall, I heard several people state very candidly they could not afford to work in this field if they were not supported by their spouses and partners.  Discounting the variety of lifestyles a room full of people could desire, it bears mentioning that is a pretty heavy statement and reflects on how society values the undeniably important role of early childhood education.  I very nearly cried.  Is this the real value of the women and men who fill the role of first educator in children’s lives?
I’m a single mom supporting three people on the income of two part-time jobs, primarily the income of my job as a cooperative preschool teacher.  Any member who takes a look at the school’s budget distributed monthly to its members doesn’t need rocket science to determine that paying three employees a total of $31,000/year isn’t going to translate to a gold mine, or even a standard that barely fits into the federal income levels for poverty for an individual, let alone a family.  More importantly, does it translate to an equitable wage for the work that cooperative preschool teachers do for young children and their families?
With honesty and grace I can tell you that I don’t make anywhere near enough money to put my employer or the members of my employer ahead of my family.
As annual contract negotiations come into view for another preschool year, I think it is time to begin engaging the idea of society’s value on this kind of job, a family’s value on this kind of job, and what kind of employee would be attracted to the existing demands of the job and the existing compensation that accompanies it.  Is it sustainable to attract young, energetic teachers to a job which may have to be a stepping stone toward further or other employment for financial security?  How does teacher retention factor in to your perception of a school?  Is it fair for teachers to subsidize the actual cost of care through inequitable wages and minimal, if any, benefits?

Old Enough to Know Enough What Not to Compromise

On this typically wet and gray spring morning, I was feeling inflexible about kicking off my birthday week with a hike with my daughters. It was raining and chilly, so I opted for an easy walk that could be brief but beautiful and with some luck would incite appreciation. The last time I coaxed my children to said natural area, my teenager was in a backpack. I knew I had to promise not to herald the medicinal delights of wood violet, cleavers, fawn lily, rosy plectritis, trillium and camas in the pouring rain. And so the editing began.

In truth, I wanted to revisit these plants; I had been here a year prior with my fellow plant medicine student companions. I wanted to practice what I knew, point out the duck's foot and licorice fern and wax educated about mahonia skirting a meadow of camas lily, the abundant native food source once common throughout the Willamette Valley on grassy plateaus. But my daughters were out with me in the rain grudgingly, and I knew it was in my best interest to keep quiet about the glorious spring drizzle and color and bloom. Editing, with reasonable cause.

There's something about editing one's intuitive self that reaches a very tender place of identity. The diplomat in me doesn't want to employ this filter at all. The realist in me lacks patience with those who can't handle people for who they are. The optimist in me wants to be myself, at all times. The mother in me knows  it's my job to press boundaries of exposure and experience....as well as sacrifice when necessary. Some editing falls within reason. Like today: I could relinquish sharing my knowledge of this special place to my daughters. I could edit myself for the sake of a pleasant loop through the wet open meadow and oak savannah in the rain. I could compromise.

And then there's the other kind of editing. The editing that compromises scruples and natural inclinations and thoughts. Invigorating and attractive people can inspire this kind of editing of self.  Recently I caught myself in one of these compromises too. I found myself wondering if I was playing by the right rules of the game, even though I didn't think I was playing a game. Of course I did this with enough consciousness to believe I was getting something valuable in return. And I was. Until I wasn't. I was editing for leverage.

So what's the difference? It was pretty clear by the way I felt in each of the above situations there is an important difference. Editing for pleasantry = permissible. Editing for leverage = unsustainable. Editing myself for leverage or compromise revealed inflexible manners and rigidly reduced possibility. Inflexibility and rigidity are a short jaunt to bad. Tolerating bad = compromise. Which led me to wonder, how much compromise is too much?
In the words of my favorite fella, "We're too old to care for people with bad manners."  I couldn't agree more. Compromising manners and simple acts of respect are too much editing. I won't edit myself for the sake of an adult's inflexibility or comfort. The realist and the optimist in me, they know enough to work it together.