And Counting

 Here's a story that I wish my mom could have read.

A former student, who is going into 8th grade, stopped by my room today to introduce me to their sister who will be in my class this year. Their mom is a colleague at our school, and so I was aware of the rising 6th grader, but it was still nice to meet her in person and also really great to see her older sister, who I hadn't met in person since we went out for COVID in 2020.

"I'm excited to work with you as a writer this year!" I told my future student. 

"Me too," she said, and then nudged her older sibling. "Tell her!" she urged, sotto voce.

"Oh, yeah," shrugged Bella. "Since the 100 Day challenge, I kept going. I haven't missed a day."

"She's on five hundred something!" her little sister boasted.

"Oh my gosh!" I said, stunned. "I can't believe it! You're the only one whose ever kept writing!"

"Except you," they said.

Wink, Wink

When I was 7, my dad and Dave, a friend of my parents, took my 5-year-old brother and me to Disneyland. This was the original park in California, (Disneyworld, in Orlando was still years away). We lived in New Jersey at the time, and although our family was of very modest means, my father worked for TWA, and so travel was a luxury we enjoyed all of our lives. 

My parents are both gone now, but I wish I could ask them why we went on that particular trip then. My sister was three, and I vaguely remember some talk about her being too young to enjoy the park, but I can't figure out why they decided that my dad should take us without her and my mom. A couple years later, we all did go on another California vacation that included Disneyland, but that first trip will have to remain a mystery.

And to be honest, I don't remember much about it. I sort of recall the excitement of being on the airplane, and as both a kid int the USA in 1969 and a faithful viewer of The Wonderful World of Disney each Sunday Night, I just knew we were going to have an amazing time. But of the actual time spent in the Magic Kingdom, I vaguely recall the Mad Hatter's Teacups, Captain Hook's boat, It's a Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Flying Dumbos. I kind of remember seeing the Matterhorn, the Monorail, and the cablecars, but the one ride that really made an impression on me was the Jungle Cruise.

The red and white striped canopy of the boats, the sway of the gangplank as we boarded the boats and took our seats, the safari uniform of the guides, and the animatronic animals and "natives" are still very clear to me. Maybe it was because even at the age of seven I could get the jokey sarcasm of the "captain" as he narrated our tour down the river. Perhaps, for the first time in my young life I felt like I was part of the grown up crowd who laughed not at the jokes, but at how corny they were. 

In any case, you can imagine my interest, 52 years later, when I heard that Disney was making a live-action movie based on the ride and starring Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson and Emily Blunt. For a moment I could even smell the chlorine of the fake river and see the gaping maw of the hippo that the captain must always, always shoot with his pistol. How could anything billed as a cross between The African Queen and Raiders of the Lost Ark go wrong? And so on the first Saturday night of the school year, I suggested we check it out.

And... it was fine. Likable actors usually make likable movies, but it was merely a playful, tongue-in-cheek shadow of both the movies it was compared to, completely missing their spark and magic. And somehow? I think they knew that, just as they have down at the Jungle Cruise since 1955.

But for the Grace of God

As I approached the gate to leave our community garden early this evening, I noticed a gentleman standing on the sidewalk near the fence. He seemed to be depositing some sort of trash on the narrow strip of grass between the two, and I waited for him to finish before I exited, because I had a big box that I wanted to drop there, too. 

When he saw me waiting, he hastily concluded his business, although he did pause at the fence a little further down the walk way. My attention was drawn to him then, and although we have a large community and I don't know all my fellow gardeners by sight (especially with the COVID restrictions of the last two seasons), it seemed to me that he was not a member. 

He carried two grocery bags, one plastic and the other canvas, and I saw that he was filling them with whatever vegetables he could glean from the trash or pick through the fence. I considered my own bag, then, with a quart of cherry tomatoes and a half-dozen or more heirloom tomatoes, too, as well as the squash, beans, and pumpkins I had left in my plot for another day. 

And as I lifted my head to call to him, a metro bus pulled up, and he pulled up his mask, shouldered his bags, and was gone.

Off Again On Again

The brain is a funny thing: so strong, yet so easily affected by circumstances and situations

A few weeks ago, my brother and I were talking seasonings: comparing our own blends of herbs and aromatics and discussing some of our store-bought favorites. "You know what mix from Penzey's I really like?" I asked him.

"No," he replied, waiting for me to answer my clearly rhetorical question, but my mind had suddenly gone blank.

"Neither do I!" I finally admitted, and we had a good laugh at the expense of my senior moment.

Today, I was in a meeting with some other English teachers talking about the new standards-based grading that our school is transitioning to. We were brainstorming assessments we could use to make sure the students have enough opportunities to demonstrate mastery and discussing how the two language arts classes, reading and English, might fit in the big picture. 

"Maybe we should combine the results and give just one overall ELA grade," I said. "That kind of makes more sense since both classes are assessing the same standards, right?"

"Let me look into it," our department chair responded, thoughtfully. "I never thought of that."

"Neither did I!" I said. "Until right now."

Repurposed

When I checked out my classroom for the first time this school year, I was genuinely pleased to see that those vintage trapezoid tables had returned. By my reckoning, they are original to the building, circa 1971, but they have been in my possession since 1993. Already 22 years old when I got them, at 50? They have been with me much longer than that, but last year, COVID social distancing requirements meant every classroom was equipped with single-seat desks, and I had to trust that the trapezoids were in safe storage.

There was something missing from my room, though. An abandoned typing desk that I adopted many years ago to provide a little technology dogleg to my teacher desk must have been moved out with the student desks. To be honest, I was a little at a loss for how to finish setting up my room without that small but crucial surface, and so once the bookshelves were moved (Teflon sliders!) and the tables and chairs were placed in their customary positions, I started a treasure hunt through the building.

Along the way, I began to feel like the little red hen, but in reverse. Everyone I asked was kindly willing to help me find my table, and by the time I ended my search, I was surrounded by 3 custodians, the director of facilities, and my sister-in-law the art teacher, all offering solutions to my dilemma. When the head custodian wasn't quite sure what piece of furniture I was looking for, the facility director tried to describe it to him. "Ms. S is old school, like me," he said. "She wants a table like they used to put typewriters on,  long, long time before they had computers"

The other guy looked blankly at him. "What for?" he asked.

"For her computer!" his boss told him.

An hour later? They brought a table to my room.

Say What You Want

When I was a kid there a lot of games whose very names were warnings: Don't Break the Ice! Don't Spill the Beans! and even Kerplunk! whose premise was not to let the marbles fall. I never really liked those games; the fact that nobody actually won because somebody lost, was not fun, and trying not to do what the rules directed was very stressful.

As a teacher, I learned back in grad school to phrase directions positively. For example, rather than tell students not to be late, it's more effective to remind them to be on time. That construction takes the whole idea of tardiness out of the conversation. Likewise, stop talking becomes please listen quietly, and so on. We remove even the thought of what we don't want and focus on what we do.

I thought of that today in my garden as I chose to shell the beans there and compost the husks right away. It was an exercise in mindfulness as I stood in my windswept plot under swirling skies with only the goldfinches for company and strung and split each pod, emptying the beans into a pint container I set on the little storage unit by the compost bin. More than once I knocked the square bin with my wrist, threatening to tip it over and into the top of the shed. 

"Don't-- !" I warned myself, and then paused and reframed my thinking. "Keep the beans in there!" I encouraged myself. And you know what? With the exception of a few errant legumes, which I quickly retrieved, I did it!

Not Gonna Lie

After 18 months of COVID chaos, going to school in-person, five days a week? Will be a tough adjustment.

Fortunately? With holidays and what-not, that won't happen until the week of September 20, three full weeks after the start of school.

So, maybe I'll be more ready then.

Nah.