As Days Go By

Lola and I sat on the steps in front of the house, watching cars go by.  There was a weird silence between us.  I wasn't singing to her or calling her my 'good girl'.  But she sat beside me, solemnly.  We sat about a foot apart and stared at the road.

Her eyes didn't look as guilty and downcast as the night before when she awkwardly took a piss right on her bed, something she has never done before, then walked cautiously in circles around me while I sat on the laundry room floor crying, before putting herself in her crate and leaving her back facing the open door. 

I only remember screaming.  Screaming and grabbing her, picking her up.  And crying.  The baby chick was still in her mouth.  The rest of them were strewn around my sister's yard.  The baby chickens my sister had been carefully raising.  Gone.  All of them gone.

Lola and I walked around the block.  Suddenly, I saw a hand shoot out of a window.
"Maestra Hilary!" a child called.
I knew who he was.  And I felt such a pure longing in my heart that I couldn't believe it.  Something on my side hurt.  I did it myself. 

"Why didn't you take his phone up?" one of the students asked, after some kid's phone rang loudly in class.
"I don't know," I answered, "I don't feel like it".
I gave them some shit to do.  A lot of them didn't do it. And I could really give a shit.

I stood in the copy room, um, copying shit.  Some lady busted in, some other teacher that I don't know.
"So, are you part-time by choice or because you couldn't get anything else?" she asked abruptly, even though I smile a lot, an awful lot.
 I try to put on a nice veneer.  I've learned to pretend to be happy.
"By necessity," I responded "I got laid off in May, they cancelled my program.  There weren't any jobs left". 
Any more questions, you stupid cunt?

"Hilary!  We would like to invite you to help us with our October conference of international teachers on Fulbright exchange to the United States" the email said.  "We are so glad that you landed on your feet after being laid off.  Do they know that they are lucky to have you?  The Atlanta schools NEED you".

I'm not as good as I used to be.  I am just so tired.

Fulbright always pops up when I am low.  And I am really low these days.

I hope they can help me.  

I Feel the Train a Comin'

I walked around my house, randomly, not knowing what to do.  Alec had taken Lola for a walk.  I put the onions and celery in the oil and sauteed them, then went in to de-frag and de-whatever to his shitty PC computer, uh, my old computer.  And paced the floor.

It's not that I have nothing to do.  Today was mad.  I woke up sleepy, like always, though I got up at eight-ish.  Took Lola out to do her business.  Drank my coffee and watched Lola eat.  Jumped in the shower and dressed casually for "Spirit Friday".

Have I mentioned Spirit Friday?  Every school I've worked at, which is adding up to be a lot, lets teachers where jeans on Fridays, as long as they wear a school T-shirt.  I don't really care so much about the jeans, as much as the T-shirt.  No ironing, not that I do that anymore.  I have spirit shirts from everywhere; I've thrown some of them away and the rest I use for jogging.  I have a new one now that I wear each and every Friday.  Yes, all of them. All those Fridays.   I will wear that pinche shirt for thirty-eight weeks.  Don't question me.  I've done it before.

I saw my first paycheck.  I nearly fell out.  I made more waiting tables in college.  I am half-time.  But I am still at the school all the time, all most full-time.  There is just a lot to be done.  But I have to curb it.  Lola is going to doggie daycare or staying in her crate for hours, which I can't handle.  I work half time.  Twenty hours a week.  Or so they say.  

So, my day, today.  I didn't take Lola for her two mile walk.  She wanted to, but I didn't feel like it.  I watched her while I got ready for work.  I felt bad.  "Doggie day care" I thought, "I will take you there today".  A consolation prize for not getting her long walk.

Doggie day care is expensive and I am making pretty frightening money these days.  I watched Lola.  Finally, I decided that if she went voluntarily into her crate, with the incentive of a giant cow ear chew thing, I would leave her there.  If not, I would take her to doggie day care.

She went in.

The big train that crosses the road that I drive on to work was passing by.  I remember that train.  I used to ride my bike down the same road to work thirteen years ago and it used to make me late.  I sat.  Then I drove all the way around the pinche thing until I got to work.  Running, copies not made, sign-in not done, to my class.   My crappy fucking apathetic class.

I had planning after that and all that I did was run around making copies and connecting with folks about asshole students that think it's too much to ask to sit in a fucking desk and to shut up when I try to teach.  Then I taught another class.

Some kids came at me a bit.  I don't know why.  Maybe because its the third week of school and they're testing the situation.  Great.  I spent an hour after school chasing down counselors and calling parents.

My dog was in her crate for six and a half hours.  For peanuts.  For the peanuts that I make.  As I opened the crate and ran with Lola toward the door I watched the wagging, whipping tail of my dog.  We bolted outside and as I hugged her and kissed her I realized again that it was Friday. 

Definitely the best day of the week. 

Ríe y Llora

I saw the little recorder killer in CVS.  I always liked that kid.  He was playing intently with his mother in the toy aisle.  A few months ago, I would have stopped and said hello.  I didn't this time, just went straight to the pharmacy and paid $85.00 for a prescription that cost $15.00 when I had health insurance and made more than twice as much as I am making now.

"Pretty good, Ms. Hilary, pretty good" the administrator commented after my first evaluation.  I was glad.  I am teaching in a way that I have never taught before, using a strict methodology that I am not used to.  I am not doing any of my normal things.  I should be bothered, but I'm not.  I should be screaming that I am a professional and I KNOW how to teach!  But I don't.  What they say goes.  It oddly doesn't matter to me.

It's hot.  All I do is sweat.  It makes me lazy.  It makes me not want to go outside.  I randomly weed the garden I worked so hard on as I take Lola out for a walk before my part-time job.  It is an accomplishment if I walk the whole two miles around the park.  Not run, walk.  

I worry about Lola.  My job could easily keep me in the building forty hours a week, but I am not willing.  Not for part-time pay.  And, I have my dog to worry about.  I stagger her days between her crate and doggy day care for the long days.  I even bring work home, something I stopped doing years ago, in favor of doing it at school and leaving it there.  I say openly to me colleagues, "I have to go.  I have to pick up my dog".  I say it in the same way they talk about their children.

We have one hundred, sixty-eight instructional days left in the school year.  I have to admit, the school has done nothing wrong.  It's me.  I have never started counting the days this early in the year before.

I see my old kids everywhere.  They rarely see me anymore, not the way they used to.  A few do, but most don't.  They have forgotten.  

Let Me Sing You a Song

"You look beautiful, Ms. Wagner" a tall, adult looking kid called out, "you have a date?  No glasses and you let your hair down" he continued.
"You never have to raise your hand to say something like that," I responded, "just yell it out".

I flew back from France almost two weeks ago, jet lagged and tired.  I showed up for work a couple of days later and a week late, with only two days to plan.  I had missed the rest.  I am back in high school.  Again. 

Lazy days, drinking Rosé and eating olives, cheese and bread.  Everywhere I looked there was something beautiful.  It was like a dream. Staying up late in the night, eating, drinking and laughing.  Laying on a chair reading my book with the smell of lavender everywhere and the Mediterranean in the distance.   A dream that ended too fast, a dream that still seems like a fantasy.

Lola was dragging me on her leash.  I was running behind her in flip flops and a skirt.  Families started waving at me, a lot of them, calling out from the elementary school.  My old job.  I had no idea what was going on.
"Are you going to be teaching the afternoon Spanish class?" my brand new, Kindergarten owning neighbors asked me.
I shook my head.  Who the fuck was teaching Spanish up there?

I laid awake, Lola's neck stretched across mine.  Alec was already gone, on his way to his shitty job.  I can sleep late now; I only work part-time.  Lola didn't want me to leave, to get up.  I laid there as long as I could, then took her outside to do her business.  I could hear my kids screaming from the playground.

I have new kids to love now, big ones again.

But, I'm tired.  Very tired.  

 

Dog Days of Summer

My mom and I walked through my yard.  I was giving her my gardening tour.  She always indulges me in a way that most won't.
"So I planted dahlias..." I blathered on.
"I read that they can be planted in the Spring and they might work out in my yard" I continued, showing her where I had planted the bulbs.
"Dahlias are beautiful" my mom responded.  "I remember the first date I went on with your dad.  He was standing on my porch with a dinner plate dahlia.  He looked just like a little kid".
I felt my heart sting.  My dad left when I was three.  We don't usually talk about him.
"There was a reason why I married him," she said quietly, "it wasn't always bad". 

Long hot days alone with Lola.  I was ambitious at first, jogging in the morning, gardening, cleaning, looking for jobs.   But it just kept getting hotter.  Now, Lola and I take long naps in the afternoon, long delirious naps that I wake from wondering what time it is and staring into the peaceful, half asleep blue eyes of my dog.   I have never had a summer like this.

I emailed Warren's dad.  I had been meaning to for a while.  He hadn't been over to visit Lola since school got out, yeah, since school got out, I guess that was like six weeks ago.  The days blur together and become weeks and months.
"Hey, this is Warren's old Spanish teacher," I wrote, "he hasn't come to visit Lola dog in a while and if he's busy or doesn't want to don't bother him about it, I just wanted to be sure that he understands that he is always welcome....".

I was standing on my mom's porch.  We had been talking for quite a few minutes.  She was showing me her gardening.  A few failed hanging baskets hung from the porch ceiling.  It didn't work out, mine didn't either, and she was planing what to do next.  Suddenly, a bird shot out of one of the baskets.  I jumped away, then stared down into the seemingly dead earth.  A round nest tunneled under the soil, perfectly formed by pine needles. 

"Mom!  You have a nest in there!  You are so lucky!".

I sat on my sister's porch, talking about dahlias.
"Marge grew dahlias" Holly stated, referring to my paternal grandmother who shot herself when I was a kid.  It's funny, Grandma Marge used the same name as my best friend that killed herself.  Marge.  We called them both Marge. 

I invited a couple to dinner at our house.  She and I have been good friends since starting at the school.  I remember standing in the middle of the street as we walked home from work one day, both in pajamas for "pajama day", talking for almost an hour as if it was natural to be in your bathrobe at four in the afternoon.  She left this year too.  She is leaving Atlanta.

I ran around the yard to the front of the house with Lola, afraid that they might be at the front door.  I noticed something odd and walked up on the porch.  A perfect bone balanced on the old fashioned doorbell ringer imbedded in my front door.  I started to cry.  I knew that Warren had been here.

My mom didn't sound good.  I was in the twilight of my sister's kitchen.
"The eggs hatched.  But they have pushed one of the chicks out to the edge of the nest.  It's dying, I think it's dying.  But I am afraid to try to help it, because they might reject it even worse".

I told my mom about our Mourning Doves.  I always told her about them.  The amazing birds that mate for life and return annually to the same nest.  I walk past my old apartment and stare up to the nest on the top of the pillar to see if it is still there.  I watched them for months last year.  How they took shifts sitting on the eggs and bringing the chicks food, swooping in and sailing away systematically.  During storms they didn't take shifts, both would arrive and  lay their bodies over the nest, practically smothering the little birds.   And over and over again the little chicks would become birds and they would have more. 

"But these aren't Mourning Doves, Hilary...." my mom stated.
"They will never come back".

Poison Ivy

I drove fast and west.  It felt like a road trip.  Atlanta, sliding behind me and signs of actual Georgia popping up.  This is the first summer in five years that I have not driven completely across the country and into the smoldering western borderlands.

But, I wasn't on a road trip. 

I was stunned when I saw the sprawling school.  The lack of landscaping made it look like it should be in Texas, just a big building sticking straight up out of the ground.  My car was freaking out, I was afraid that the transmission might fail again.  I found my way in.  I couldn't believe that it had come to this.

I sat at a table in a county that is nearly in Alabama.  Two very country white men sat across from me.  I have never driven that far for a job interview.  Not even before my first year of teaching when I had absolutely no experience, no certificate, no Fulbright, no anything.  And this was a middle school of all things, something I have always categorically ruled out.

"It's not supposed to be like this" I thought. 

We got talking.  They were very cordial and polite. I wasn't smiling.  I put on my song and dance but knew I lacked enthusiasm.  Before I could ask the questions I always ask at the end, you know, the ones about diversity and not just racial diversity but everything, socioeconomic, the whole nine yards, the main country principal began speaking.

"So, let me tell you about us.  We have a 38% transient population.  A lot of turn over every year.  We are 99% percent Black and have a couple Latinos.  Our kids come from a neighborhood that has 600,000 dollar houses and from a project that is in our feeder.  We have 60% free lunch".

I stared back at them.  Things were looking up.
"I'm intrigued," I said, "intrigued".  I was starting to wish I had tried harder.  The poison ivy rash that covered the side of my face and parts of my neck was starting to itch.  I am sure they viewed that as one of the only positive things about this city-teacher.

I drove back.   I admit I was relieved when I saw the Atlanta skyline.  And I wanted to see my dog.

"It will only make more people come!" the Republican radio commentators howled.  I smiled.  Actually, I wanted to cheer.  He did it, he really did it.  I know so many people that will benefit from Obama's decision.  We have waited a long time for this.  And it has been painful.  Painful for many.

As I pulled up the hill to my house, I saw a former fellow teacher, a friend from school, walking with eight of my former students.  They all started waving and yelling to me.
"Let me park my car!" I called, "I want to see you!".
As soon as I emerged from the car, all of them pulled cameras out and started photographing me.
"Whaaaa...?" I asked.
"We are in Art Camp!" they cried and started hugging me.
"Do you want to see Lola?"
"Yes!" they screamed.
As I unlocked the house, one of my kids followed directly behind me, all the way in, snapping pictures of our bird Momo and following me into my bedroom to let Lola out of her cage.  I love that kids have no sense of limits sometimes, or that this kid knew I wouldn't care if he came right in.

They stayed a while.
"Say goodbye to Maestra" their teacher called as they snapped photos of my plants, my dog and my poison ivy.
"We don't want to take up her whole afternoon!"

"No, really it's okay.  Anytime.  And I mean it.  Thank you for coming and please come back."  I said, gathering my dog in my arms and walking slowly into my house, watching the kids walk up the street to the school, my former school...

Staring into the Sun

I walked past the school, empty from summer break.  Well, not all together empty.  I saw Aria and Cally, stretched out on the recess field, staring at the sky.  It brought up a stinging memory, one of many.

"It'll be fun Emma.  Lola will be there all day.  It's Field Day".
I wanted her to volunteer to help out.  We asked permission.  We got the okay.  And, we were looking forward to it.

Emma was at my house by 7:30, an hour that she hates.  We carried Lola to school, dropped her off in my classroom and went to the morning meeting.  As we walked down the hall, I saw Aria hiding out in her mom's classroom.

"What is going on?" her mom asked me.
"What do you mean?"
"The Principal said we couldn't be here.  I asked the Executive Director and Coach, they said yes...." Aria exclaimed.
"Just stay here.  Emma's here too.  We will just go help Coach and everyone will realize it's fine".

Emma and I went to the meeting.  There were songs, videos and performances.
"So, middle schoolers, thanks for your help but we don't need it and if you need a ride, there is Mary to take you...." the Principal called out in front of four hundred people.
Emma and I looked at each other.  She walked out as I followed her.  She was upset.  It was embarrassing, almost like a call-out and, completely unnecessary. 

I felt the salt, rubbing in my wounds.  My niece has been at that school for nine years.  This was her last year, before she goes to high school.  She has been there before everyone that works there, Principal, Executive Director, everyone.  She knew I was being shoved out.  And now she was too.

"I'm calling my mom" she said, averting her eyes.
I wanted to pull my finger nails  out.  No one upsets my niece.  I was powerless.  And frustrated.  What else could they do to me?  How else could they make a bad situation worse? Couldn't they grant me this one thing?

Aria came outside, with Cally.
"I don't get it" Aria stated, "The Executive Director said it was okay..."
"What is going on?" Cally asked.  
My sister pulled up and I walked Emma to the car.  Everything was ending.  My stomach churned.  How much I wanted to kill anyone that hurt my niece.  The car pulled off.

"Aria, you are going to have to go back home and put pants on, your shorts are too short and go back to school, I'll get you a ride..." her mom said, "we have to call Cally's dad too".
"Look, I know this is weird, but they don't want to go to school now.  It's awful.  I live behind the school, I can walk them there.  I have an XBox.  They will be two minutes away...."
"Are you serious?  You really don't mind?"
"No" I said, signaling to the girls.

We walked the two minute walk from my school to the house.
"Take whatever you want from the fridge, here is a key, there is the phone, and here is the XBox.  Call if you need anything!"
"Thank you so much...."

I went to Field Day.  I held my dog and worried about my niece.  Worried about everything.  I felt like an open wound.  Finally, I went back home to make something to eat.  Everything was so out of whack that I could barely bathe and get up in the morning, let alone make lunch before going to work. 

"Hey, it's just me!" I called.
I saw them moving their shoulders and legs to Dance Central, Wii style.  The minimal furniture that we have was pushed out to the edges of the room.
I made my sandwich and ran back.

"Where did all that Scottish cheese go?"  Alec asked, hours later.
"I only had a little..." I answered.
"There was like, six ounces and now there is a cube left..."

I told the girls they could have anything.  I loved it that the one thing they picked out of the cheese drawer was the nicest one.  They have taste.  And, they had fun.

But my niece, my lovely, did not.  And it will always bother me.  It bothered me that I could make it right for those two girls, but not for her.  

I didn't call out to Aria and Cally.  I wanted to, they looked bored.  I worried about their eyes as they stared at the sun.

I kept walking.