goodbyes

when i dropped michael off at the airport for the last time, last october, i burst into tears driving out of the airport. there is something about goodbyes that cuts me to my very heart. perhaps it has something to do with being raised on les miserables and fantine saying goodbye to her dreams and her daughter forever, then jean valjean on his deathbed saying goodbye to his daughter, and the music that wraps itself around your heart and squeezes.

maybe for those reasons i don't do well with goodbyes. i cry, and if i am composed enough to keep it inside for the actual moment of goodbye, you can bet i'm full of tears on the inside.

so today was a rough day.

i had to say goodbye to some of the most amazing people i have known. they're only 17, and already they're these miracles of people.

today i signed a million yearbooks and smiled and said, "see you later!" to hundreds of people, knowing full well that i probably won't be seeing them again. but you know, when you say goodbye to someone, it isn't so much the fear of never seeing them again that hurts. rather, it's that there is this someone who you've grown used to having in your life. someone you've come to look forward to seeing, to knowing how they are, to just having their "ness" (whatever it is that makes them who they are) next to your "ness". that is why i cried when michael left. that is why i cried today after school. because now i am one-hundred and seventy-two "ness"es short.

not to mention that my teaching shoes--the ones with the softest fur ever on the inside, the ones that go with every outfit, the ones i've worn pretty much everyday for the last year and a half--yeah those--they finally bit the dust. as i'm walking out to my car on the last day. what luck!

i will miss this world-class high school. i will miss my students, i will miss my teaching friends, i will miss my brilliant TA, i will miss all the inbetween-class chats. i'll miss the comments and the plagiarized essays and the blatant sucking-up and the moments of creative genius and all the hundreds of times we laughed and laughed.

to those of you who made this year one of the most meaningful of my life: thank you.

memories of you will be making me happy for years to come.

california...knows how to party

the road trip...with commentary by yours truly.

we hit the road, equipped with apples and dill-pickle sunflower seeds (gag me). jake made the trip go by quick with his stories of tom virgin, and sam was pumping the tunes with 2pac's changes and every other song from 2000 that you can imagine.

swap meet: i ask, is there anything better than record shopping? no! there is not!

and now i ask, is there any better book than extremely loud and incredibly close? again, no! there is not!

swap meet

the glasses that are so darkly tinted, a policeman told me they were illegal.

bi-cycling.

*more later....if i can pull myself away from all my big summer funness, that is.

the swan part 2

kid,

i wish i could put you in a bottle,

so i could remember the things you say,

the expression on your face when you are being funny,

your sincerity

the easiness, the comfortableness, the naturalness

that i feel when i talk to you.

kid,

you sparkle.

and if i had you in a bottle,

on days when i stop believing that people like you exist,

and even worse on days when i'm so far removed from being with people like you that i've forgotten what sparkling even is,

then i can pull you out,

sit with you for an hour,

and be on my way to find my own sparkling someone.

i am not here anymore.

yesterday i left my home of six years. i walked down the sidewalk i've walked down so many times, and in my heart i blew a kiss to the place before putting the last box of books in my car and driving off.

that was yesterday, but i think that really i left a long time ago. since january, i've felt like i am not here anymore, like my life isn't here anymore, but somewhere else. one problem. i haven't found that somewhere quite yet...

have you ever felt that way before? that your things and your body and all your "stuff" is in one place, but the essence, or the heart, or whatever it is that makes a place home is no longer where all your stuff is? can leave you with a bit of a sense of emptiness, and a lot of a sense of adventure as you journey out to find the next life you are to live.

so i have moved home, home to my real house where my family is until i can find the place where my future is so teasingly hiding from me.

there are a lot of things i like about being home:

there are always sparkly clean glasses in the cupboard.

there is dinner at six every night, and it always includes at least two vegetables and a fruit.

the sheets smell good.

there are little girls running around all the time.

you can take a nap on the couch and not feel lonely (i always feel so lonely when i take naps in a bed)

my mom hugs me when i come home from work.

i can fit inside the washing machine (which, for those of you who haven't lived in an apartment for a while, means that i only have to do one load of laundry instead of four)

the yard is big and green, and behind: a garden with real raspberry bushes and blossoming peach trees!

a bosendorfer with 88 blacks and ivories

and most of all the love love love

i feel safe here.

here is where i will hibernate,

incubate,

and build up my ammo for the future.

(peu, peu!)

(that was a gun noise, for those of you who couldn't tell)

review #3: adventure beckons!

In 286 pages, Yann Martel creates a world. You enter at first as an onlooker, and a skeptical one at that. A boy who practices three religions? Please. A tiger on a lifeboat? Please. Cutesy story, I'm sure. Would make a nice picture book.

And then suddenly you're on that lifeboat with Pi, braving heaven and hell. With the adventurous magic of the fantastics of childhood bedtime stories, this story captivates mind and heart, clenching them, refusing release until it has squeezed every last voice of skepticism, of "being an adult" from you.

And without warning, you are free again, back in the realm of "Reality." And in that realm, your imagination, your invention, your Faith is held in the balance, held up to the light.

This is a story to make you believe in God.

This is a story I will be thinking about for many, many days.