they’ve asked to return
every year on the same date
hoping for magic
(it’s found in sunsets,
impossible mountain views
we don’t have at home)
i would give them gold
that rests at mountain bases
if i had god’s touch
i’d throw in rainbows,
the best birth town visit yet,
Colorado love
we could come back here–
try to capture this bright view–
or keep it with us
Always.
all is washed away
with silhouettes over sand
in a summer storm
Just before we left the mountains after the long weekend, the girls were asking their father to borrow his pocket knife so that they could carve their names into a tree trunk.
“We need to leave our mark!”
“We’re getting in the car in five minutes. You had all weekend to do that. Not now.”
They had all weekend to explore. To see where the nonexistent paths might take them. They found bottles that drunk former campers had left behind and found pleasure shattering them against boulders. They climbed over fallen tree trunks in an attempt to get to the next outlook or outhouse. They discovered several carcasses and took pieces in their hands to pretend to roast, brush the teeth of, or assign names to. They built and destroyed campfires, each claiming a stick and making rainbow sparklers dance across the sky. They set up their own tent and fought over who had the best pad, the warmest sleeping bag, the most comfortable spot. They made charcoal paint from ashen logs and drew on paper plates, clothes… themselves. They picked up giant pieces of bark and an abandoned rope, making an old-fashioned telephone “show” as they handed the “receiver” back and forth for hours on end, chatting about extended metaphors and checking current schedules for fire-fixing availability. They disappeared for hours on end, hiking several miles, discovering miniature ponds in large boulders, old cables that worked as trampolines, views of distant peeks… and … themselves.
They couldn’t carve their names into the trunks of trees because they were already leaving a piece of themselves behind. In a world surrounded by screens and studying and neat city blocks with perfect yards and friendly neighbors, they released themselves into nature as all children should. They giggled with their friends and had free reign over their weekend kingdom.
As we made our way down the dusty dirt road onto the smooth pavement that curved its snakelike yellow line out of the canyon, I was thinking about the pieces of all of us that are scattered behind us wherever we go. In their own way, my girls left their imprint on that mountain, with eighteen sets of shoe prints, a forgotten wisp of paper towel, a broken branch. But more importantly, the mountain left a piece of itself in us. The panicked drive up with nauseous travelers and no sites in sight. The scratches and ripped pants from too many falls and rough rocks. The charcoaled face paint. The layers of dirt and pine needles and campfire stench unwashable by the best of the best machines.
The memory of a weekend free of chores, free of homework, free of nagging, free of screens, free of strict diets, free…
Free.
In the end, Daddy didn’t give them the knife. Instead they piled in the Pilot, all seven of them, taking their new “telephone” to carry on their stories for the drive home. They pointed to peeks they’d topped on their independently-led hikes. They commented on how strangely smooth the pavement felt once we finally arrived to it. They napped near the end, fully exhausted from running a kingdom all weekend.
Even without a pocketknife, they left their names on that mountain. They carved them into the curve of the road that wrapped itself around our site. Into the bits of clouds that only barely covered the sun. Into the memory of every mountain, of every happy childhood that begins and ends with a bit of royalty, a bit of owning all your choices if even for a day.
A bit of freedom. It’s the best way to run a kingdom.
They come into two classes to tell them the (what I think will be simple) news: they will have a new English teacher next semester, and it won’t be me. The AP describes it in her usual convoluted fashion: “We are growing as a school, and we need your teacher’s skills to teach another class, and you’re going to have a different teacher.”
Z shouts out (as always–no one scares him)–“Wait. So we have the teacher with the best skills and you’re going to give us the teacher with the least?”
She begrudgingly looks at me: “Is that what I just said?”
But I know what he means. I speak his outspoken language.
Another student: “But I like this small class. It’s safe.”
Another: Tears. No words.
Another (different class): “I ain’t doin’ it. I’m still coming here fourth period. Try and stop me.”
AP (to me): “Isn’t it great to be loved?”
And I think, these are the same kids I threw under the bus the other day for not showing up on the “NOT” snow day. These are the kids I was jumping up and down about saying goodbye to because I want to teach immigrants, kids who really care, who are fully invested in wanting to be in my classroom every day. On time. Ready to learn.
And I feel a mix of joy and hatred all in the same moment.
And I think about these things, these fourteen-year-old faces running across my mind as I begin my Thanksgiving break. As I drive the carpool kids home and drop my girls off at piano and put frozen pizza (my Friday cop-out meal) in the oven and cross stitch and listen to my Spanish book and wait until the optimal moment before venturing out into the snow back into my old neighborhood.
I am saying goodbye to these green walls and these three girls and all the kids who have come in and out of my classroom for fifteen years to drive into richville and pretend like I’m someone else.
It is just what I thought and nothing like I thought. One block away from where I grew up, a 1940s war home that (amazingly) hasn’t been torn down… just doubled in size on the backside, granite counters and a peak-through kitchen from the living to dining to family room to breakfast nook. The hostess is a jubilant extroverted redhead with children who are driving up with their father to ski training for a week. She proudly shows us the brownies and fudge they made, the doggie bandanna (“bark scarves”) business her children have developed (web site and all), describes the destruction and reconstruction of her “starter-turned-family” home.
And I make the mistake of telling all the blond and blue-eyed businesswomen-doctor-lawyer-private-school-till-now moms that I teach. At the local high school.
And they want the good. The bad. The ugly.
“I’ve been keeping an eye on it for years.”
“I even hosted a German exchange student a couple years ago to see how it was (and I wasn’t impressed).”
“I heard the principal is leaving.”
“I heard that there’s no accountability.”
“I heard they have a great football team.”
And there I stand. In the middle. I’m not going to lie. And I’m not really going to satisfy their curiosity either. And I’m not going to go home to a mansion. And send my kids to a ski team training. Or use Uber because “it’s better than driving.” I’m not going to be a “CEO recruiter” and tear down half a house because the one I bought wasn’t good enough. I’m not going to find some German kid to “test out the local high school” for me.
And I’m not going to lie.
“It’s apathetic.”
“The administration is mediocre at best.”
“The kids don’t do their homework.”
Everything they want to know. And don’t want to know.
Because I’m in the middle. I am a teacher and a mother. And I constantly ask myself: What is best for my kids? (MY kids.) And: What is best for my kids (THEIR kids). And the answers almost never match up.
Because that kid who cried in my class today told me his story about his mom beating the shit out of him. About social services ripping him away from her broken-bottle alcoholic rants. About the safe haven with grandparents in New Mexico. About how fucking scared he is every time he steps out of his Denver home because his mom lives SOMEWHERE IN THIS STATE.
And he doesn’t want to tell it again.
Because that kid who said he likes the small class can’t quite do work when “he’s going through some emotional tough shit, Miss,” and I let him have extra time.
Because that kid who said, “I ain’t gonna do it” has lingered into lunch on five occasions, emptying my wallet for a few bucks to have a meal.
Because I can’t lie. And I can’t tell the truth. And I can’t be a CEO recruiter who could never understand why a day filled with luncheons and a flexible schedule will never be my day. I can’t fit in with the blond-and-blue-eyed bitches just as well as I can’t fit my kids in with kids who won’t do their fucking homework (and yet I love them anyway).
There is no middle ground. There is no balance to what I face every day (tears and joy, tears and joy) and what I want my kids to see (apathy mixed with perseverance???).
And there is no way in hell a single one of these women would understand where I’m coming from anyway.
So why am I here? Why am I asking these questions?
I put my coat on and the hostess begins a story about running out of gas at the top of a pass on the way to a camping trip and coasting down the mountain into the only gas station in town.
I tell my story of driving 5000 miles in a Prius and running out gas in a no-cell-phone range and putting on my bike helmet and riding my bike down I-70 for six miles at 21:30 and my husband guarding the three kids in the back seat.
“I like your story better,” she admits as she walks me to the door. “I think I might steal it and call it my own.”
She’d be just like those other teachers who Z thinks “don’t have the skills” to teach him. Just like my kids who I can’t quite fit in to this frenzied life of private schools and ski team training.
Just like me. Stuck in the middle, good story in hand, just not quite the right place to publish it.
joy found in river
dipped in snowmelt for hot days
better than a beach
no hot tub lies here
just a circular rock wall
perfect for chilling
Colorado sun
mixed with friends, camping, river:
rays of happiness
blue moon this July
because of this rare campout?
old friends united
over the mountains
it fills sky with silver light
it guided us home
tomorrow? August
all the stress and joy it brings
to our small family
but for now? spotlight
reminding of our past
our future lit up
New York left behind
tears in my throat once again
goodbye hilly farms
off to Canada
tourists, crazy drivers
(no speeding tickets?)
traffic jam entrance
into tall tower city
and strange busker fest
no one greets us, ‘eh’
just my friend, daughter’s namesake
waiting with a meal
i miss the silence
the small waves of Finger Lakes
coaxing me to sleep
sigh… the road takes us
through ups and downs, silence, crowds…
as i’ve asked it to
chilled out lake beach day
Denver’s blue skies followed us
a day to ourselves
camp cookouts, sailboats
gentle hum of mini waves
not a soul in sight
only one thing gone:
his arms, his love around us
(at home he awaits)
peace comes in sparkles
small sun rays dipped in forests
shining through the dark
sunrise silent view
collecting glacial water
from my hometown lake
impossible sights
832 steps
made by miracles
spring water fill up
waterfall wonderment walk
distant valley view
lunch at the vineyard
blue as sky midday lake taste
(feast as delicious)
swim in clear waters
girls fearless of bottom plants
wet fun in cool lake
grade school best friends meet
each of us toting three kids
(could have been our life)
but i’ll take this view:
journeys home–here, everywhere
all have a sunrise
small town tire delay
gives us reason for lobster
(just a short Maine walk)
two missed turns later
we find winding New Hampshire
ready for ice cream
fixed reservation
at a camp we’ve never seen
top out my Monday
late night text shocker:
best sleeping bag left in Maine
(adventure goes on)
we find our way back
on lobster walks, ice cream runs
till we feel at home
that’s how the road plays:
missed turns, rushed escape attempts
journeys everywhere
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