Two Books In My Bag

This morning before I left the house I remembered that I am sixty pages from finishing the book I'm reading. I was in the living room and went over to the windowsill where I keep the books I'm hoping to read soon. I grabbed one and tucked it in my bag with the other. Then I was ready to leave the house for my job.

Stephen King says this in On Writing:

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around those two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.

In that book he talks about how he carries a book with him everywhere. I bet a lot of those books are on his phone or an e-reader, but I prefer to think of him with an actual book in his hand, held loosely as he walks, open on his lap in waiting rooms, and on the car seat when he drives because that's how it is with me.

Yesterday just before three my daughter texted that she would be done with rehearsal at three-thirty. I texted back "On my way." She wrote, "I've still got at least half an hour???" I said, "No worries. I've got my book." I drove to the school, parked, and opened my book. I read seventy pages before she came out and I couldn't have been happier. I read my book and then saw her smiling face. My life is good.

Teaching school, I schedule time for kids to read books of their choosing. There's all sorts of pedagogy behind that decision and thankfully the data from a silly reading test the school makes me give backs up what we're doing, but let's face the fact that we do reading time so I can read my book too. Call it a win-win and leave it at that.

One of my great fears in life is that I will find myself somewhere without a book to read. That this is the extent of my fears as opposed to sudden death, sickness, cancer, or another Coldplay album means I'm living well. Still, being without a book to read is fearsome enough that I remember to tuck a second book in my bag.

However comforting that second book in my bag might be, there is of course a downside beyond the added weight and overdue fees at the library. It's that now I want to finish the first book so I can dig into the second. I'm ready to abandon all other responsibilities and sit still turning page. Getting fired has nothing on not finishing the book. That's a problem too. Yet another problem I'm not too upset about having.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to reading.

Buoyancy, Monday To Tuesday

buoyant (adj). 1 able or apt to stay afloat or rise to the top 2 cheerful and optimistic 3 capable of recovering

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MONDAY

I woke feeling buoyant despite the tug of Monday morning and a job that is an anchor I've chained to myself and sunk deep in the riverbed. Three of the first four interactions I've had on the job today were negative, one of which has already been abusive. Buoyancy is my watchword even as I feel myself sinking.

Beginning the school year, I wrote myself this advice for surviving the job:

• Float, tread water, don't sink.
• Be cool and kind.
• Keep to yourself.
• Smile, shrug, walk away.
• Leave school at school.

I'm really trying to follow that list. I'm really trying.

Most students this week have been sinking. Their boats capsized and they lack life jackets. They thrash in near frozen water, screaming, too shocked to save themselves. To grab hold of them is to risk being pulled down too. I talk with them calmly, quietly. I try to listen. We can do this, I tell them instead of it's going to be alright. Some will drown. I feel the cold panic and resignation in them. Our school has far too few boats into which we can haul them. There's always another storm brewing.

I keep hoping that thinking tenderly of them will buoy me up. I'm wearing a life jacket, but should I fall in the cold will get me if the seas don't.

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TUESDAY

By the end of Monday my boat had been capsized and gone down in black water. Tuesday I woke just barely treading water and was met at school with negativity, anger, and frustration before we even let students in.

When the students did arrive it was one hit after another. I stopped counting the times I was told to fuck off, that I'm a fucking retard, that I should go fuck myself after the first twenty and that was before lunch. I ate lunch without speaking to anyone and taught afternoon classes speaking only when I had to. I stood bus duty silently waiting for the last bus to mercifully arrive. Back in my room alone I shut the door. It felt like real waves were breaking over me, crashing down, driving me underwater. I could barely breathe.

This is how it is with buoyancy and survival. There are things I control such as taking care of my health (running, eating well, drinking moderately), my family (loving them as much as I possibly can), and doing good work (writing, writing, and writing some more). Then there are things I can't control such as the numbers of students per class, the homes from which they come, and how they treat me at school. I'm wearing the life jacket but I'm in the water now struggling to breathe. I've got some buoyancy, but have to either swim away or hope for rescue. There has to be some way to recover when good cheer and optimism disappear.

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I apologize for complaining. Maybe I'm sending up a flare. If you're in The Coast Guard or have an idea for a job I should take instead, please come over and throw me a lifesaver. I promise not to pull you down.

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Of course all this has me thinking of this Stevie Smith poem:

Not Waving But Drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

Frankie & The Post-It Notes

Frankie had a problem in my class that would keep her from being able to write on the current page of her packet. I grade by counting full pages, so leaving one unfinished would hurt her grade. She said, "I can't fill that page because I can't go back to the memory of what I wrote there." My first thought was to say, "Come on, Frankie! Get over it!" but that's obnoxious. That's me bullying, saying I don't care what she thinks and feels. That line teaches her not to care what I think and feel either. It's not the lesson I want her to learn.

Another option is to say, "It's okay, Frankie. Leave that page blank." Though that shows I've listened I don't like teaching her to give up. Surrendering to a challenge is missing an opportunity. Learning (like writing) requires some courage and school should foster that.

Which brings us to the option Frankie and I chose: we fixed the problem. Instead of reacting ("get over it" or "skip it") we responded. Frankie didn't want to see the ten lines atop her page so I grabbed Post-Its and covered the offending passage with them. Frankie liked that well enough to feel comfortable on the page. She started writing.

I hope Frankie felt heard and respected. I know she wasn't bullied or ignored. She didn't take an easy way out, but the way forward was not difficult. She might have even felt some pride at getting through the situation.

Whatever she felt, we both learned something. Who would have expected that ever to happen in school?

Return & Redemption In The Schools

Coming back to school after a break isn't fun. My colleagues are unhappy. We act glad to see one another but the general mood is depressed and though misery loves company, company doesn't breed happiness.

Outside the classroom window bare trees sway gently against a blue sky while green grass and frozen leaves stretch across the field. This view in one thing I like about the job but I want to break through and escape. The glass would likely cut me to ribbons. There has to be a better way.

I'm staying in my classroom as much as possible. The hallway, other rooms, and office are minefields of discontent. I hear people rehashing a thing from half an hour ago that was of no real consequence. I can almost smell their hair on fire. It's too early for that. It's always too early for that.

There's a chill on my shoulder from the window and a stirring of warmth on my leg from the space heater whirring behind me. Jim Hall and Pat Metheny are playing on the speakers. I have this document open and am writing. This much is right with my world.

Early today I wrote Morning Pages about managing a long-term problem such as a bad but necessary job. Grin and bear it only works short-term. To do more than survive I need to accept what the job is, confine it to contract hours, take care of myself by writing, reading, and running, laugh at the absurdities, and remember there are things to which I look forward. (Six hours until quitting time. Three school days until the weekend. February break in thirty three school days.) I have to maintain hope and take action.

Andy Dufresne says hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things but I know that hope is nothing without action. I have to make new opportunities, stay out of the nonsense at school, and refuse to light what little hair I have on fire. The way forward involves writing, hoping, and working toward some better place. Probably not Zihuatanejo but maybe even better.