Calls For Repair

At school we were talking about how things are going and what we expect next year. Things aren't going well and aren't likely to get better. The school feels overcrowded, the staff is stretched too thin, and next year will probably be worse.

Right after that talk I mentioned the copier wasn't working well and we should call for repair. My colleague made the call. We went back to work without much in the way of expectations.

Not an hour later a guy was at the front door and we let him in. "Hey, it's the copier guy!" my colleague said. I may have cheered. He said, "I don't usually get this kind of enthusiasm" and smiled. We said it was just a surprise to see him so soon after we had called. "It's only been an hour," my colleague said as if such things were beyond belief. The copier guy shrugged, gave a confused look, and said like it was a question, "that's my job?" I thought about that for a second. His job is to respond quickly to our problem? Go figure.

I showed him my latest copies, a grey smudge along the middle of the page obscured a line of text. He nodded and named the problem. Something thermal. "I just got to run out to my car," he said. I went back to my classroom to do a few things. I wrote up a new sheet for one of my classes, printed it and then went back to the office to see how the copier was coming along. The copier guy had gone. I put my page into the feeder, tapped in the number of copies I needed, and pushed the green button. The copies were perfect. I was holding them in my hands, staring and smiling, when my colleague came upon me.

I said, "will you look at that? The copier is fixed." My colleague, looking surprised, asked, "Is he gone already?" We looked at the copies. Not a smudge anywhere. Clean, clear text. I said, "isn't that something?"

"Isn't what something?" my colleague asked.

"We had a problem, called someone, they appeared in no time, and, get this, they fixed it." I smiled. I laughed a little. The whole thing struck me as almost too funny. "We asked and someone responded by fixing it," I said.

"Instead of doing nothing?"

"Yeah!"

We both laughed at that, but it wasn't as joyous so much as rueful now. We've been calling about problems much more important than the copier. We've done everything but send up flares or flash the Bat Signal. Yet the problems continue, the smudges growing larger and obscuring everything we do. We've just about given up on asking for any help or expecting things to get any better.

"Think the copier guy can fix the rest of this place?" I asked.

My colleague didn't think so and left the office. Standing alone there next to the fixed copier I looked up at the clock. "Quitting time," I said and walked away.

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


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.


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.


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.


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.