Operetta

This week was the school's operetta, and although it was the completely cheese-tastic "High School Musical" of Disney fame (keep in mind previous years have included West Side Story and the Akido...so this is a little breaking of tradition...it is, after all, called an Operetta...), it was great to watch my kids band together like they did.

I was at school for most of the week, helping out, even though I didn't have an "official" job. I became the make-up, back-stage, "OMG Ms. R I AM SCARED" person. I didn't ever understand parents before, how they could sit in the audience and cry. "I'm not doing anything amazing," I'd think to myself, but for the first time, the roles were reversed. Today, watching one of my students sing the part of Gabriella, I almost started crying. I was so proud of them. Completely overcome with how much potential they had and how much beauty they carried inside of them.

I realized how little time there is before the end of the year and how they're going to go into the world and how much I wish I could have given to them. I hope that somehow, in some way, something is different because I worked with them, tried with them...yelled at them and laughed with them.

They're great kids, and the realization that I probably won't teach 8th grade next year is fairly devastating. I love my fifth graders, but I love this class of them. They're brilliant students and I'm in love with their curiosity and their brains. But, I can't imagine it being the same. I just can't.

Mark Ecko

I have a twin sister. My mother didn’t know

she was carrying twins. Doctor said, "Second heartbeat's

the echo." That's what they called me.

Echo.

Better at arts than sports, but they

were interested in my sounding off. They let

kids wander and discover; even the videogames

have industry. I opened my hood and found

skills to take. With an airbrush, I started a business

in my garage at 13. T-shirts and denim jackets; it

was a discovery but not secure. I went to school

for pharmacology. I can make 60 grand dispensing pills.

But after class, I made bank designing jackets. Forget it,

I'd rather give those away. It started with six, and was rough

financially. I didn't know anything about life outside of airbrushing.

How to box, market, sell--it was too big, too productive,

too much. I spent money that hadn't come yet; I didn't think

about the non-creative stuff. I was baptized in paint

and fire and bills. I don't have a pain threshold. I had

to be passionate--life. At least once a month, I look

my ugly face in the mirror and ask if I like what I'm doing.

If I didn't, I'd stop. With this concentration issue, without

ability to focus, I don't want to curb it. No drugs. I will not

dispense drugs. I build my world around fluctuation.

So there's color and not being alone. They lift heavy things

and I rise from debt to buy that home run ball, the Barry Bonds

one that broke the record.

I'm going to draw an asterisk on it; I don't care what I paid.

Rwanda

Today, a girl named Clementine came to talk to our middle schoolers about the genocide in Rwanda. She stood in front of them and began with a story, "Sometimes, I would come home from school and I would say, 'Mama, a girl pushed me at school today. I hate her.' And my mother would tell me, 'No. You are just confused. You do not know her yet.' I didn't know what this meant." Then she launched into her story about the Hutus and the Tutsis and refugee camps and what it meant to not have, to sleep in tents and to move over the entire terrain of Africa for years, without parents, until she settled with her sister in the United States.

Randomly, they ran into a woman at a market who was ALSO a re-located Rwandan. The woman knew the girls' aunt; and they called her. Then they talked to their parents for the first time in six years; everyone had thought they were dead.

Her story wandered and because of the small children she said, "And on that day, many bad things happened. It is all I will say." She did not go into the terrors, but for these children, outside washrooms and the inability to relax, to stop walking when they wanted, was terror enough. In the end she said, "It all begins with something little. A shove and a little hate. And before you know it, people are killing. I bring a message to try to understand."

She was eighteen and poised and waiting to hear back from Princeton. Her story is virtually unbelievable in its scope and magnitude. It made me think of the feuds I've known or had. It all starts with something small, a shove or a push and an unknowing I hate you.

You just don't know them yet.

I wondered if this could be some kind of life-changing experience. You know, the kind that makes you give money to charity and burst through your self-imposed walls. I had the realization that perhaps I was too old to have a life-changing experience. I do not know if that could be true.

How do you get to know someone? How do you really get to know them?

On Old Video Tapes

On quiet evenings, when the wife sits a floor above,
typing furiously, he rehashes old movies.
In them, his pants are fitted, brightly-colored

and clinging and his daughter grips his finger
with her entire hand. He holds tight
to the remote control, rewinding and reviewing

her squealing laugh, his madman moves.
He was energized as he jammed himself
inside a bumper car with her secure

between his knees. The tape was blurry,
unfocused and partially dotted with fingers
since the wife watched and jiggled,

trying to hold and smoke simultaneously.
It was a carnival and he remembered feeling young
with that rolling ball of joy on his lap.

But how young he feels watching the remembering,
the Cadillac like a dinosaur resting in the lot.
How young he feels as the night closes in.

March-o-rama

Another weekend that wasn't a weekend. Most of the time, it was alright that it wasn't a weekend.

The week was miserable. From my run-in (literally) with a CTA bus (and the ensuing $3000 worth of damage), and my stress and the fact that it was "Spirit Week" which meant that the students did not do anything all week except futz around with whatever costumes they were wearing was a stress-inducer. From my worries about finances to my canceling of the Greece trip I was going to go on, everything is overwhelming. And finally, on Sunday, I felt like I was getting it all together. But, it was Sunday and so, when I sat there on Sunday night, trying desperately to read my book, I wanted it to be June. It's less than 3 months until the end of school.

The damage was bad. My parents were calm. My nerves are shot. But my boyfriend was calm. My mind is muddled. But my friends are calm. And everyone is helpful when I desperately need it. Which is now.

Friday night was wonderful though, which makes me not want to leave this job at any costs. I went over to LM's apartment (rather condo because I apparently know people who own things) and we went to dinner at a Mexican place. We then met up with the rest of the team (middle schoolers ho!) and went to AB's 30th birthday party. (Picture = everyone minus KB and ML). I even wore patterns! AB had open bar for three hours and we all drank and talked and had a generally excellent time. (Left to right in picture: AB, EF, MD, LM and myself)

The nice thing was that CA came to meet me at one point, and we spent the majority of the weekend together which was absolutely wonderful. He and I went to Walker's in Evanston and bought some books on Saturday and I celebrated my mom's birthday. On Sunday, we went to Mother Hubbard's and I finished my Scottish Book (Outlander!)

Overall, when I need support, it's there. When I need people, they're there. And when I'm upset, that wonderful dude does things like hug me and tell me that it's going to be fine. And that he will do what he can to fix it. I spend the week feeling lucky. I spend all this time being grateful. I feel embarrassed when I am not happy because there's so much for which to be grateful. I feel silly on Monday because everything seems so far away.

Shapes and shapelessness seems bigger in the dark.

I would be like Pandora and open my mouth
to let those venomous, pondering creatures
of doubt and alone spew out, but I would never see
just how terrifying they look. They seem massive

in my mind. And you, quiet and back-turned,
without harshness, breathe deeply but do not move
our bed an inch (is it ours? I would ask
but a slippery pink beast might issue forth).

You are smaller, and less strong, when I cannot see
the muscles of your arms and the strength of your fingers.
I want to ask you to take away my box of worries
and put it beyond my reach. But, I loathe to ask
since I am no waifish woman of yore and you
are modern with lines and tendons.