And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again...
I listened to the kids sing the same song in various award ceremonies, over and over. Every time I heard the first lines, my eyes would well up. I stared at the ground, trying to focus on the worst singers of the group. The horrible high pitched, yet flat tones. I'd look at kids I don't like. Anything not to cry. During one of the ceremonies I received a text from Lola's old vet, reminding me that she was due for her annual check up. Oh Lola....it has been a long day without you.
The ceremonies are always a little emotional, especially the fifth grade ones. Pablo finished elementary. I've had him since he was in kindergarten; I taught his older brother and sister too. Other kids in his grade level would come and go, but not Pablo. We were together during virtual learning and when he was the only ESOL kid in his grade level that came back to the school in person when we reopened. He loved Lola and would always make me call her with him on her Pet Chatz before I took him back to his classroom. His mom came to me before his ceremony and thanked me repeatedly. She cried. I thanked her too for letting me work with her family. One of my new fifth graders finished too. She was a difficult kid with a penchant for fighting.
"Do you remember that day, that day when we first met and I took that test in your trailer? she asked.
"Yes, yes I remember."
"I had that big bow that my mom put in my hair. I asked you to fix it for me and you did." she continued.
I laughed a little.
"Yes, I remember that. Carlota, I know you kind of have an angel and a devil on your shoulders. Please take care of yourself and try, well, try to listen to the angel....."
"Yeah....I'll try." she answered, smiling.
I lost my newcomer, Kati, too. That was hard. We've spent close to three hours a day together, due to her Intensive English status. I'll miss her.
We have a beautiful, one hundred plus year old White Oak in our backyard. After a lot of Oaks fell in the park during one of the recent thunderstorms, our new neighbors have taken to texting me about the tree. We have it serviced annually. They prune any dead limbs and assess the health of the tree. My new neighbors want to pay for someone to look at it. I find it intrusive and let them know (nicely) that we already have an appointment set up for that. I thought to myself about their towering chimney that leaned precariously for nearly a year, looking as though any minute it might crash down. Did I text? No. I figured they'd handle it and if they didn't, homeowner's insurance would. I've noticed mixed reactions to our tree over the last twelve years. Some neighbors love it. Other neighbors, generally those that moved in from condo or suburban communities seem to fear it, preferring a gas station landscaping-look for one of the leafier neighborhoods in Atlanta. Yesterday, I was planting some stuff near the fence line in our backyard. An older woman started talking through the fence, letting me know that she lived in the condos nearby and was watering the yard for our new neighbor.
"I heard from her that the tree might need to come down!" she announced merrily.
You are looking a little long in the tooth yourself you old hag, I thought, before letting her know it was being assessed and that we really hoped not. Something about the thought of that tree having to come down fills me with sadness. It's as though everything around me is changing and dying.
It's been a hard year and I have been more than ready to finish it. Our school was supposed to undergo some sort of major renovation that could last a year and a half. Instead of waiting until school was out, the renovation began a few weeks ago. The back area where my trailer is was transformed to an open construction site. Some how the electricity to my intercom got cut and I stopped receiving announcements at all. By the last days of school, the construction workers started coming inside the school. During dismissal on the last day they were up on ladders ripping down ceiling tiles as kids tore through the halls to the waiting buses. As the teachers tried to finish our end of year duties, they began covering the hallways in plastic and plywood as they full-on ripped out the ceiling tiles. When we came in the next morning for our mandatory post-planning day, the transformation was shocking. Workers were all over, like bees on a hive. All the ceiling tiles were gone and long wires hung everywhere. A teacher slipped on the plastic trying to get in her room. Others couldn't get in at all because of the stuff on the floors. Workers stormed around in hard hats and n95s while we wore no protective gear. A thick white dust hung in the air in the cafeteria. I walked through it to get to my trailer thinking, Hilary, you are getting cancer right now. It got so bad in there the workers put huge fans in, blowing the offending dust throughout the whole building. Asthmatics started pulling out rescue inhalers. The wifi went out. The workers started taping shut people's classrooms and said they were cutting the electricity soon. Some alarm beeped endlessly in the front office which was also covered in boxes. Only one administrator was there and she was trying to do everything. I ran out to my trailer, which I had to leave unlocked because they had taken our keys and key cards away the previous day. A coworker had piled stacks of personal shit under my desk and inside the cabinets of my carefully packed trailer. About two and a half hours into the debacle the admin texted me and said she was checking people out, approximately five hours early.
"I know you can't get the intercom messages so I said to myself, girl you better text her." she told me.
I handed in my checklist and half-ran to the car, my classroom globe in hand. I pulled away and up the hill without even looking in the rearview mirror.
*Lyrics - See You Again, Whiz Khalifa
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