January 3, 2010 Deep down inside of me
there lives a little girl
who dreams of books and great masked men
and adventures to unfurl.
She walks upon clouds and swims in seas
and she dances across the world.
She shouts at mountains and laughs at
mermaids and gypsies and kings.
And late at night she whispers to me,
“It’s you! It’s you, silly girl,
who dreams these wonderful things!”
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December 17, 2009 There’s something about writing that eases my mind. Something that clears the cloudiness.
And I wonder how in the world I managed to go without it for so long.
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December 16, 2009 Because of Winn Dixie is one of my all time favorite children’s books. I reckon I like it because there’s just a hint of sadness in it and a little girl who misses her mom. I can relate to that.
Then, there’s her daddy, The Preacher, that gives her a list of ten things she might want to know about the mother she had once- before she ran away. And that list well, it stops my heart every single time.
I asked my students to write a list of ten things that they might want the world to know about them. Of course, they were precious and more than hysterical.
My list wasn’t exactly like the ones some of my angels wrote, but I jotted one down just the same. So, here it is. My list of ten things.
What’s on your list?
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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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