August 27, 2009
The summer I was fifteen I worked as a lifeguard at our small city pool. I wanted a tan and the chance to flirt with boys that were older than me and played on the football team. The money was average at best, but it allowed me to get my driver’s license early and go to Mamaw’s for lunch everyday. So, I put that red bathing suit on and gave up around 57 layers of my nose to the sun that year and the ten or so after it.
The truth is, I loved it. I loved the way scrunching up my cheeks felt when they had too much sun on them and the white color that my eyebrows turned. I loved the T-shaped tan line across my back, the high ponytail, and the smell of chlorine that stuck to my skin. I loved the kids that thought we were famous and the ones that spent more time on the side of the pool than in the water. Most of all, I loved kicking off my worn flip flops at the door of the guard shack and walking barefoot on the deck.
I’d leave those shoes there and stroll around the pool before all the chaos started. The concrete was warm and heated me from my toes up and I’d close my eyes and breathe it in. Chlorine and concrete and Coppertone.
Those were the best few moments in my day.
I haven’t been in a red bathing suit since the summer a student told me, “Ew, Miss. Teachers ain’t s’posed to wear no fwimsuits” but today as I watched a playground full of children at recess in Mississippi, I took off my worn flip flops. I stood on the sun-baked concrete, closed my eyes, and breathed it in.
Children and concrete and coming home.
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August 25, 2009
Sitting next to Kevin at lunch:
“Ms. Edgar, so this milk come from a chocolate cow or what?”
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August 20, 2009
I’m not one of those seasoned teachers that has their craft worked out to a smudgeless art. I’m not one of those cutsie teachers with a cheer pony and a matchy matchy outfit. No, I’m not that at all.
In fact, today is only number nine of 187 blessed contract days.
My feet look like over-sized, over-stuffed sausages. My face is reminiscent of days I’d rather forget- fare thee well, adolescence. Or not.
My hair is frizzy, unkempt, and frayed in a variety of ways at each and every split end. My eyes look like razor-cut slits in my face. And my waist. Lord, help my ever-expanding waist!
Did I mention my swollen feet?
But nevermind. Because today there were two notes on my desk:
“I love you. Yo body smell like biscuits.” and “You are the pretist lady in the planet.”
**Not edited for spelling. Why? because it adds to the cute factor.
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August 19, 2009
I was never the little girl that dreamed about dresses that swooshed. I dreamed about mud huts in Africa and unexplored jungles in the Amazon. I dreamed about writing books and being a back-up singer for Reba. Those were my fairy tales.
At least I thought they were.
And if you’re interested there are some photos here.
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June 21, 2009
“I’ve had a splendid time,” she concluded happily, “and I feel that it marks an epoch in my life. But the best of it all was the coming home.”
-from Anne of Green Gables
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June 17, 2009
Two monitas, los quatro Colombianos y one dinner de sopa mexicana! Que rico!
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June 15, 2009
I sat around a table this weekend with two Colombian families and my two Canadian sidekicks. We ate chicharrones, frijoles, and patacones as we carried on comfortable conversation and tried not to choke while we giggled over the drama a ten year old can conjure up.
I’m back in the city today, alone in my apartment thinking about it all. Thinking about spending my final weekend in Colombia speaking Spanish, soaking up sunshine, and driving through the Andes Mountains with a family that considers me their own.
They hug me and laugh with me and they couldn’t care less that my Spanish grammar is pot. They fix my favorite meals at the finca and tease me for going to bed so early. They bring arequipe just for me and put my glass of milk in the freezer because they know I like it really cold.
They kiss me goodnight and ask what else I need and I tell them that I have my two friends with me, them a room away, an oscillating fan, and a bed. What else could I possibly need? I snuggle beneath the sheets and wonder how in the world I ended up here.
How did I get so lucky? How will I ever manage to leave?
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June 12, 2009
I went to bed at 11:30.
My eyes are swollen.
My hair looks like poo.
My jeans are too tight.
Today could be the day I lose it.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
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June 10, 2009
My life is an amazing one. There’s no question about that at all. I’ve been lucky and done more in 28 years than some people get to do in a lifetime.
I’ve seen an Australian sunrise and snorkeled on The Great Barrier Reef. I’ve stood beneath the eerie glow of Big Ben at night and hiked along the Italian shoreline. I’ve marveled at Stonehenge bathed in an early morning light and taken a nap on the steps of the Sydney Opera House.
I’ve had my hair tangled by an Amazon breeze and found my way through jungles to a Lost City. I’ve played in thick Mississippi clay and I’ve heard jazz on the sidewalks of New Orleans. I’ve seen presidents carved into stone and rolled a kayak in the freezing waters of the Nantahala River.
I’ve walked through coffee fields and over mountains and I’ve run on empty trails and crowded streets. I’ve swum in rivers and oceans and danced under waterfalls and in the rain. I’ve seen love personified and I’ve had my heart broken and I’ve cried on four continents for one thousand different reasons.
I’ve watched my brother grow into a man that I respect with more intensity than I thought possible and I’ve thanked Jesus over and over for a baby Sisser that is my very best friend. I’ve turned my head away as my parents kiss in the kitchen. I’ve eaten ice cream with my Mamaw at midnight and cream cheese cupcakes for breakfast with friends that are scattered across the world.
I’ve read more books than I can name and written more words than I thought were in me. I’ve heard music in the Andes mist and wiped tears off of precious brown faces. I’ve fallen in love with Colombia and a man from some place called Carthage. I’ve learned to salsa dance and speak Spanish and to find my way home again.
To find my way home again. Yes, I’ve learned that, too, but I don’t think all of me is coming home. It can’t because…well, because I’m leaving part of my heart in Manizales.
See, I told you I had an amazing life. Thank you for being part of it.
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June 8, 2009
Mountain sunshine pouring through classroom windows.
Spanglish chatter and children’s laughter in the corridor.
The smell of coffee and empanadas dancing in the air.
Kisses on cool cheeks.
Small, brown hands around my waist.
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