Every Day is Like Sunday

I stood at the edge of the lake.  The sand, or should I say dirt, around it was kind of muddy and orange.  Logs and branches were strewn everywhere.

I was smiling.  Actually, I was laughing.

Lola rampaged along the shore, running wickedly fast and literally hopping in and out of the water like a giant bunny.  She dove in the minute we got there.  Cautiously, we removed her leash.  I took my watch off and emptied my pockets, ready to jump into the muddy lake with my clothes on if Lola got in trouble.  I noticed Alec wordlessly doing the same thing.  Lola went immediately to the deep water and swam stealthily, all four legs churning without a splash beneath the water, head outstretched above it as she mowed across the lake like a little submarine.

I love my sweet baby.  This particular lake is not a place that I would ordinarily frequent.  But now, all I can think of is packing a lunch and taking Lola back there to spend the day.  I would even swim with her in that muddy water.

A text message came through.  "This is my new puppy!" it read, followed by a picture of the Pug.  It was Elena, my fifth grade friend.  Another came through shortly afterwards from Warren, explaining that he wanted to visit Lola when she looks cute, not scary.  I responded to my ten year old friends. My peers.  It was seven in the morning.  

As I drove down the steep roller coaster-like hill toward the water, I realized the platform that held the highway up had fallen into the ocean and that my car was going to as well.  Somehow I managed to stop the car before it plunged into the water.  Alec and I opened the hood and carefully lifted the engine and set it as far out of the water as we could.  I looked up.  Our house was sitting on a dangerous incline in a few feet of water.
"The floors," I thought "the floors.  The hardwoods will be ruined....".
I opened my eyes and petted Lola, asleep next to me in the bed.  Another nighttime at the movies.

All of the students are doppelgangers.  The fourteen year old blond that looks like she's thirty is a ringer of a girl I taught four years ago.  My head whips around in the hallway, thinking I just spotted goofy Clark that I taught four times or that pot head Gabriel who liked the same music that I do.  I stare at them, looking for recognition and have to remind myself that these kids are not the same kids, those kids are not in high school anymore, some of them might be almost done with college by now.  They didn't even go to this school.  All the souls that I have ever taught are not existing forever between high school walls.  There are not haunting these buildings like I am.  They've gone on.

The brunette Raquel I teach now is not the same one I taught five years ago.



*title:  The Smiths or Morrissey, can't remember which.