One Month

I live in a beautiful, green, very Southern neighborhood. Bungalows and Victorians from the turn of the century, err, not the recent one, the one before that, line the streets. I am constantly struck by how pretty and green and humid the neighborhood is, though I lived here for years and only took a one year hiatus.

My house is pretty swank too. For the first time in my adult life, I have central air conditioning. My school is even gorgeous. Parts of town I haven't been to in a while have suddenly developed in to enclaves of slick hipness. When did everything get so nice around here?

My wallet is not full of San Diego trolley passes anymore. Credit cards that I never carried in Tijuana have taken their place, along with miscellaneous video store cards and my driver's license.

"When I got out of prison, everything just felt surreal..." Mike Tyson commented in the documentary that bore his name. Strangely, I related to that.

My overloaded teaching schedule is quickly killing me. I don't think the one meal, two hundred student a day plan works for me. I walk home with my stomach burning and churning and sit behind my house and stare into space for at least fifteen minutes before I am ready to speak to anyone.

"I'm having some discipline issues with Rob and Warner," I mentioned to their lead teacher "any background information that might help?". "Well. I am very firm with my class. Very firm. They are not allowed to misbehave". Um, thanks. I personally just let my class go ass wild.

I came home from a year in Madrid five years ago. The gas stations didn't have gas and desperate people on rooftops flooded the television. "I don't have any ID!" the exasperated man yelled at the DMV agent when I went to replace my driver's license. "I'm from New Orleans!". When I started teaching a year later, strange area codes kept popping up when I tried to call students' parents because they were chronically absent, failing or had discipline issues. I finally looked up the area code: New Orleans. I wonder where those kids from four years ago are now and if they ever found a real home.

When I walk into the teacher's workroom, people don't even look up from their lunches. Not even a nod, let alone a "good afternoon". I find it rude. In Mexico, this would be heresy and would definitely haunt you with future dealings with teachers and administrators. Am I being too sensitive?

Another full moon passed a couple of nights ago. Two months ago, I was heading to the desert in Arizona. A month ago, I was beginning my drive home.

The borderlands have never felt so far away.