Every now and then you get lucky ...

... and catch a rainbow"

Decided I won’t comment on this article, at least not on a blog, but wanted to share it nonetheless.

I got up this morning. That was good. My $20 resolution is in the bag … perhaps we should up the ante.

It’s just after noon, now, Zay Rudd’s got me feeling some solace, my muscles are tender to touch having worked out last night before falling asleep in front of the fire with a book on my chest and a half-eaten bowl of butter-pecan sitting beside me, shit, I even ate breakfast this morning and after being relatively productive since I arrived I think I can let myself indulge, myself, by doing a little blogging before walking across campus to the JROTC catfish-fry. Today is an off-day, where parents come to the school if they want their child’s report card. Our sole responsibility is to be available in our room to discuss student performance if anyone wants clarification on a grade. I’ve had a few ‘actually-caring’ care-givers stop by, mostly those I’ve already met with, and have been energized each time I’ve been given the opportunity to tell someone how much I love their son or daughter, but just wish he would see the importance of coming to class on time, consistently, or she would realize she’s way behind the curve with her reading level and needs to be catching up by practicing at home for some time every evening, or that they would all focus less on the moment and more on their future. And I’ve added one more soldier to the breakfast club … a couple students that I pick up in the morning before school so they can a) make it to school on time and b) have thirty quiet, solitary minutes to read.

More than parents, I’ve had a steady stream of students themselves here, bubbling over with the electric charge that comes with a day off from school … groups of guys with their pants at their ankles, their guard let down, and starched caps cocked, not currently confined to their uniforms, lounging on desks and window-sills trying to convince me Lil Boosie is the best rapper alive … girls in pairs, bouncing by on cell phones in pants as tight as the boys’ are loose, who stick their heads in for a, ‘Heyyyy, Mr. D’, some even stepping inside to write their names in cursive on my dry erase boards and promise that they’ll do better next term. Of course, I’m perched way the hell up on my soap-box, and flowing from “read, read, read” to “stop blaming other people and giving me excuses” or “words mean nothing, do something” and “you can do anything if you’re willing to work for it” … they nod and look at the ground, or smile and laugh, and I tell myself they’re listening. A teacher may give lessons in clichés, but what is novel to ears as fresh with dew as a cool spring morning cannot be disregarded for moth-eaten sheets but must, rather, be displayed in the breeze so wide-eyed children can run among their wild billowing walls and wonder at the tiny moon-lit mouths that have left behind perfect holes through which to discover the trees, the stream, or one another … and I’m eating it up like Cheerios.

Croons from Akon to Common, Matisyahu to Trevor Hall, Lupe, Damian Marley and Xavier Rudd are alternating their digital serenades while heavy, gray late afternoon clouds threaten rain. I feel like napping, and tea … with honey.

“You listen to John Legend, Mr. D?”

As one shining star walks out the door to watch an adaptation of Macbeth down the hall in ES’s room - a senior who I’ve convinced to apply to several post-secondary theater programs in New York and LA, who comes to my room after school several times a week to practice his selected monologues, and who I’ll be driving to Nashville with on two occasions in the upcoming months for his auditions – his departure leaving me to glow momentarily at my desk alone with Talib twisting words out of my laptop and a tattered photo-copy of Fugard (So. African playwright we’ve selected), another student, probably my favorite, sweeps in before the door completely closes with his mother in tow. It really felt great to say so many good things about him, someone who is not only gifted but motivated as well, instead of once again seeing the worried or angry looks that come from habitually disappointed parents. I think I’m going to bring in Shantaram for him on Tuesday. He’s going to be helping with the film club I’ve tried to start up, and hopefully soon we can get working on some of the projects we’ve discussed once the equipment arrives.

The sky finally has opened up, draining those gray clouds peacefully outside my window. I think I’ll set my plants out in the grass for a while for a few drinks of rain and some fresh air. I’d like to join them, but I don’t have a change of clothes and plan on catching the Lanier game later on to see what the hype is all about; then, a short sleep to make sure I can get us to Oxford whenever MG gets back from his soccer game. I don’t think we’ll get to Ole Miss before the sun starts waking up, so it might be breakfast instead of the hotel bed.

I feel good about today, seeing the kids at school but not in school, and Thursday’s lessons. Yesterday, reading some short stories and poems on Vietnam in preparation for either Fallen Angels or The Things They Carried (recommendations?), one of my dozing fireflies lit up the room for just a minute … but it was brilliant. I’m really looking forward to the next nine weeks … one day at a time. I need to change a lot of things I’m doing, or not doing, try some new things and continue to keep it all in an even perspective; all that, somehow, when I already have no time and am starting a new semester of classes at Ole Miss. I should probably teach-by-the-book a little more now … but it’s hard for me, to do what I’m told when I firmly believe it’s not what is best. Coming back from winter break was a bit jarring, and it took me longer than I expected to accept, once again, the lifestyle I’ve currently chosen.

This is an adventure, isn’t it? Every day …

(will be adding pictures soon)