Pickles & Immaturity

A few days ago, I went to a social event for a writing program I did a few years back.  I almost never attend social events, as teaching has made me into a bit of a misanthrope.  I can't stand small talk, and what is a social event if not an opportunity for casual acquaintances to get together and converse about trifles?  I went for two reasons only: one of my good friends was also going, and there was free wine. 

Of course, as it was a social event, they didn't serve food right away.  They gave us a half hour to mingle.   At least there was wine, even if it wasn't good wine.  We did get cornered by a woman who I knew a little bit from this writing program and who seemed so excited to see us.  It was terrible, as I not only remembered her from the writing camp, I also remembered why I had disliked her so much, so whilst we were discussing the pros & cons of our commute, I kept spacing off and remembering all of those things which had bothered me so much.  This made the conversation even more tedius.  Then there was hairy-lip lady, who I mostly remembered as a fabulous writer.  I had forgotten that she actually allows her upper lip hair to grow uninhibited, and it grows over her upper lip and into her mouth a little bit.  I have no idea what we even talked about because all I did was stare at her lip hair.  I wonder if other adults can get past these things?

Finally, once we got seated at a table in the corner, I could spend some time with my friend and my wine, and forget about hairy-lip lady who still grosses me out.  I was relieved to be able to just chat with my friend.  I had been waiting all day to tell somebody about my problem with pickles.  See, I can't think of pickles without immediately associating them with penises.  Penises are gross, so, as far as I'm concerned, pickles are also gross.  Especially when you live in my head and combine the two and imagine vinegary penises.  So.  There's this deli down the street from the mall called the "Spicy Pickle."  Every time my husband and I drive by, I feel compelled to say that there's a clinic for that.  

So one of my sweet darlings showed me a pretty hilarious cartoon she had drawn for her economics class featuring a smiling pickle wearing a track suit and doing all sorts of silly things.  This I found hysterically funny, but only because I imagined a smiling penis wearing a track suit, and that was downright hilarious.  It ended up being one of those weird laugh cycles, where I realized I was laughing a little too long, and then I got embarrassed and self-conscious, but that only made me laugh harder.  And the student was kind-of looking at me wondering if I was okay, or if I was maybe making fun of her because it wasn't intended to be hysterically funny.  So I played it off & said something like, "That's really cute - nothing like a sassy pickle first thing in the morning!  Ha Ha Ha."

I had spent the whole day wishing I could share my immaturity & my penis-pickle problem, so it was the first thing I brought up at the table.  Of course.  And as it turns out, my friend has this theory that the longer we teach, the less mature and intelligent we become.  It's like we impose our brilliance and maturity on them every day, and each day we get less and less back.  By the time we retire, we're gonna be 4th graders.  I agreed, and then we went on to talk about serious things over free mac-n-cheese.  

Two days later, an entirely different student came to show me a children's book her sister had illustrated.  It was beautifully done; her sister had spent something like 4 months working on it.  It was all about a grumpy pickle who had "pickle-itis," a series of bumps all over his body.  It's like they're testing me.  This time, I held my tongue and didn't make ANY of the comments I was thinking, though I found myself laughing out loud at my witty remarks after she had left for the day.  

Not a 4th grader just yet.  

Teaching through the fog.

Yesterday, I was so exhausted, especially first thing in the morning, that it took me three tries to spell "transition" properly.

Days like these I'm jealous of other professions where it's a little easier to muddle through; most other professionals don't have a 35 person audience watching as they bumble through the spelling of big words & have complete brain farts.  I might be unique in my exceptional brain-farting abilities; when I get really tired, I lose my train of thought mid-sentence.  There was a lot of that yesterday.  

Why so tired? I had a sick kitty.  Without getting into the details, she had been deteriorating for a while. I was sure on Thursday when my husband took her to the vet that they'd put her down.  She was obviously, actively dying.  But the vet said 'you never know...,' so instead they drew blood, gave her some IV fluids, and sent her home.  So that night, we watched and worried.  She didn't eat, she didn't drink, and she never settled.  Friday afternoon she was gone.  

My husband had Mischief for nearly 20 years, so she has been a part of our family as long as we've been a family.  It's not so much her passing as much as it was the watching and worrying  that took a toll.  She was old and rickety and arthritic; I think we were all astonished at how long she held on.  

And it wasn't so much managing my own feelings of loss that hurt, it was trying to explain it to my 3 (almost 4!) year old.  She loved Mischief, too.  So as we were walking to Starbucks this morning, I likened the passing of our kitty to the falling of the leaves.  I tried to make her understand that everything dies.  That every season the leaves fall; each of them dies, but when spring comes around, the tree makes more.  She seems to be making sense of it.

But the leaves got me thinking.  The beauty that we see in the fall leaves - I wonder why we revel in it so much.  Really, what gives them their beauty is the process of dying.  I watched Mischief through this process of dying, and there was no reverie.  It wasn't beautiful, but then, I suspected she had pain.  Perhaps we can be free to celebrate the death of those leaves because pain and suffering isn't part of the equation.  We feel comfortable celebrating, photographing, and enjoying because we don't perceive the tree to be suffering.

I know that we appreciate the colors of fall mostly based on the aesthetic appeal.  But also, even if we never really ponder it (I mean, only me and a few other miserable philosopher-types ever do), I think on some level we see in those gorgeous reds & yellows, reminders of summer: plants bursting forth fruit, flowers blooming & reaching for the sun, bees buzzing.  And the reminder that winter is coming.  And it is for all of us, really.

I was honest with my daughter about Mischief's death.  I want her to understand death as a part of life.  Sure, it's tough.  Sure, we never want to see loved ones pass, but we have to recognize it as an inevitability.  I just had a student of mine, and honors student, come to me in tears, devastated because her grandmother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.  She wanted to drop my class & take a much easier class because she just didn't think she could handle the rigors of honors with the emotional strain she would have with her grandmother's impending death.   I told her no.

I don't doubt that she was genuinely hurting.  I don't doubt that this kid probably will have a hard time getting her work done.  What I doubt is the wisdom in allowing death to overwhelm & destroy her entire year.  I'm certain that, like the changing leaves, her grandmother's body has been displaying the colors of death for some time.  All of us, to a certain extent, we fight the colors, we ignore the colors, we hide them.  We're obsessed with staying in the spring and summer of our lives, and I feel like that obsession makes fall and winter so much harder.

If we could just give ourselves permission to celebrate the passing, even through our pain.  I'm not saying it'll be less painful; I doubt much of anything could make it easier.  But the perspective matters.

We all struggle with loss.  Even with quite a bit of experience with death, I still had a hard time teaching last week with the loss of our little furry companion.  But I'm working on perspective, and next week will be better. 

Feeling Grumpy

By this time in my career, I've learned to expect some things: that I'll feel a certain level of depression at the end of summer when I begin to anticipate the onslaught of work & stress, that some kids are always going to try and turn in 18 week's worth of work the day before semester ends, that the most ill-behaved kids in class always have the strongest immune systems, etcetera, etcetera.

But I never get used to the 6-week grading frenzy.  It begins at 4 weeks.  Suddenly, I look at my calendar and realize I've only got 2 weeks, give or take a furlough, to get my units done.  And then I look at my grading piles and realize I've got 2 weeks to get that shit taken care of.  Then suddenly I find myself scheduled for meetings after school 3 or 4 days each week.  And every kid suddenly has work they need to talk to me about.  That kid who has been out for 3 weeks needs all his work.  

It's about this time that I become a total bitch.  I can't help it; no amount of self talk and reassuance will alleviate the ticking time bomb.  I can tell myself it's just 'cause progress reports are due.  I can plan on grading all weekend.  I can drink lots of wine.  Some things help a little.  

No matter how hard I try to compartmentalize, I'm still furious at all of the things.  The clock in my room has been broken for two weeks.  I need a clock, so I bought one.  I'm pissed about having to buy something as simple as a clock for my classroom.  And so I avoid eye contact with the janitor who has known about my broken clock for weeks because it's inappropriate to sneer.  Besides, it probably isn't even his fault.  

There's a flagger lady on the street near the elementary school that I drive past every day.  She's very enthusiastic about making sure people slow down for the children.  Totally legit: it's a good thing to do,  keeping kids alive.  However, I've NEVER actually seen children anywhere near her intersection.  Wait.  I did leave work early a few weeks back, and a couple of kids needed to cross the road.  But almost always, by the time I leave work, all the kids are at home, have had dinner and a bath, and are ready for bed.  But still the flagger lady stands at the intersection waving that goddamned flag at all the cars like there's kids swarming everywhere.  Sometimes I wonder if she's mildly retarted.  But no, she's just the agressive flag-waving lady who stands on the corner wildly waving her flag for no good reason.  I hate her.  

It's also during the 6 week grading period that my husband suddenly stops using plates.  So when I sit down at the table and put my hands down, I realize I have crumbs up to my elbows.  There is no fury like a crumby forearm.  

Then there's the inevitable frustration at shitty grades. Half of my classes are honors groups, so I don't usually become frustrated at their performance.  But I do have 2 sections of remedial reading.  These are groups of kids who, for one reason or another, have really low scores on their reading tests.  Very few of them have learning disorders, so most of them are there because of behavior.  Many of them just don't or can't pay attention long enough to learn what they need to learn.  So grading time is always stressful because I have kids who really should be passing and doing fine, failing because of stupid  things like not turning work in, or not paying attention to directions.  

And finally, there's the post-grading period headache, which hopefully doesn't set in until the essays are graded.  This happens the following week wherein the combination of overwhelming stress, an impossible workload, sleepless nights, my stupid body, and no end in sight causees migraines.  The only relief is rest, but of course, I have planning to do.