The plan was simple,

the list established,

3 small items

to do.

But life, it happens

in mysterious ways.

The destiny of my list

of to do’s

was to sit

untouched

just under the lamp,

disturbing the peaceful dust.

I’m sorry to do list,

with your neat little arrows

and carefully scripted writing,

that I could not spend time with you

this morning.

You shouldn’t have been surprised.

I’ve done this before

to your sisters and brothers,

scrawled on post-it’s,

typed neatly on the computer.

You were full of hope when I walked in the door

and now you sit like a

jilted woman,

your crispness

already fading.

We both know the truth.

You’re now a “should have been done list.”

The short days of winter tug at my insides.  A gloomy sky presides over my mood and not even a gently falling snow can sooth the melancholy.  I turn on lamps, brew coffee.  I straighten desks and jot post-it’s about missing work and smart moments.  I catch up with reading journals and attempt to write thoughtful letters.  The sound of the band bleats randomly.  A clarinet squeaks, the band teacher yells, I take a sip of coffee.  This is the teacher’s quite time.  Luxurious mornings free of last minute meetings, an endless to do list and a stack of papers to be looked at.  I yearn for the time when the short days of winter will melt into brisk spring and blooming tulips.  Until then I will let my 25 little sunshines fill my heart with joy.

Who knew?

I am more willing  to accept that there are many things I do not know about the world.  As a teacher I often find out new information about topics and issues.  Sometimes from students and sometimes from reading or movies.  But sometimes I learn new things in the most unexpected places.  For example, the other day I was in Trader Joe’s and I looked down and this is what I saw.  Brussel Sprouts…on the stalk.  I just stared at them stupidly and then, I took a picture.  It was so amazing, I really never knew that they came on the stalk.  It just goes to show you that you can learn something new anywhere, even at the grocery store.

My heart jumps

the moment I see the tip of the Hancock Building

jutting

from the horizon

over the sea of traffic that stands in my way.

The best time is at night,

late

when the highway is open and wide

with possibility

and I drive with determination

escaping from the doldrums

of the rows of houses all the same.

suddenly it springs up

like an oasis

and a chill goes

through me

I’m almost home.

For lack of a better word I’m feeling pretty bummed this week.  The rain and cold ushered in a host of bad news and ugly feelings.  A surprise Monday morning meeting didn’t help.  Well, it wasn’t really a surprise, I just forgot.  But it was one of those meetings where the essential message is “you’re a great teacher, but your kids need to score higher on state tests.”  We get to have them monthly now.  I shouldn’t feel bad, I know it’s happening to most people, but I do.  It makes me want to climb to the top of a building and scream.  I see students  go home dejected every day, empty of life, run down.  Is anyone addressing those issues?  Do those teachers get meetings where the essence is “your kids score well on tests, but they aren’t happy, they can’t think outside the box, and they’re creativity is being squashed.  In fact they don’t do anything that isn’t on the test.”  Something tells me the answer is no.

1:00pm:  the smell of leftover lunch lingers in the air.  The students are sprawled around the room, some at desks, some on the floor, all working on writing their memoirs.  They furrow their brows in concentration, some stare into space smiling at a private memory then rushing to jot it down before it’s lost.  It was in the midst of this peaceful, nay Utopian moment, that the sweet embracing silence was broken by the jagged, juicy, deep bass of a fart.  It rocked the classroom like an earthquake, a sonic boom.  There was a horrified silence as 25 pairs of eyes turned towards the epicenter and widened in shock.  There could be no doubt as to who it came from.  It was the Legendary Teacher Fart.  The gravity of the situation struck the class, To laugh or not to laugh?  They held there composure for at least 15 seconds before the first traitor cracked with a snort.  In minutes a thunderous tsunami of guffaws filled the room.

I’ve been watching that show about people who hoard for a living and I realized that my grandfather was a hoarder.  He wasn’t as extreme as those people.  There was no garbage on the floor or rotting food.  In fact, my grandparents Oak Park apartment was usually neat and free from clutter, with the exception of the “pink” bedroom.  But everywhere you looked, in every nook and cranny, were books.  Books, books, books and more books.  I remember trailing my finger along their dusty spines as my parents drank after dinner liquors at the dining room table.  I could get paid a quarter if I dusted every bookshelf in the place, which was probably considered slave labor since the book shelf count must have been over 30, at least.  It was during one of these after dinner dusting jobs that I committed my first crime.

Everyone once and a while I would discover a special book.  A truly inspirational book.  One that could change my life forever.  That night I discovered one of these such books.  As I was poking the feather “duster” around in one the particularly old hallway shelves I came across a foreign language book.  More specially an instructional book, with many foreign languages in it.  Even more specifically, A book with a bunch of foreign swear words in it.  As realization set in I quickly glanced over my shoulder to make sure no one was watching and  I slid it from the shelf like a fish slides through water.  The old spine creaked so loud I was sure they could hear it in the next room.  I held my breath letting the dust particles burn my nose.  Laughter erupted in the next room and I opened to the first page.  ‘oh yes!’ I thought.  ‘This is awesome.’  There was every swear word I knew, and some I didn’t and they were translated into at least ten different languages. ‘I’ll be the only kid at school who can swear in Russian’ I thought.” I let out a low whistle.

I heard the scrape of a chair and jolted suddenly as I realized the gravity of the situation.  If caught red handed there would be a swift and severe punishment.  I quickly slid the book into my Hello Kitty bag and went back into the dining room as if I had not just committed my very first theft.

All the way home I kept fingering the edge of the book through bag.  Nervously anticipating when I would get to take it out and commit it’s contents to memory before destroying the evidence.

Later that night, buried under the covers with a flashlight I mastered by first obscene hand gesture in Italian.

It’s at this point in the story when, I’m sorry to say, my memory fails me.  I suppose I could craft an ending that would satisfy the reader.  Perhaps I stayed up all night riddled with guilt, the book swearing at me from the back of the closet like Edgar Allen Poe’s telltale heart.  I may have approached my parents, book in hand, to offer a tearful apology and “learn my lesson” about stealing.  The truth is, none of that happened.  I forgot about the book, probably threw it away years later. (There were so many books at my grandparent’s that they never even missed it.)  I had clearly overestimated the usefulness of foreign obscenities to skyrocket me to popularity with my classmates.

Many years after that I took another book from my grandparents.  It was after my grandmother had passed away and we were moving my grandfather from the apartment he had lived in for over 35 years into someplace closer to us.  a move that required him to get rid of most of his books.   The book I took this time was a book of poetry with the words “to Kay, for Christmas 1945″ in my grandfather’s shaky handwriting.  It sits in a place of honor on my shelf to this day.

Someone placed a single rose on the severed stump

My face must have been priceless
when I saw it
or more specifically
the empty air
where it once
majestically
stood.
The stump
sat
severed
alone
amidst
a pile of woodchips
and leaves
robbed of the chance
to die gracefully
to turn a brilliant Autumn shade
and go out

in a

blaze
of
glory
I stood on the stump
counting the rings
and ached
for my favorite
tree.

In memory of the tree

One of my mother’s favorite stories about me is from when we went to Disney World.  My father and I had gone on the log ride. (One of these rides where you get in a car with three other people, go up a long conveyor belt, take a quick U-turn and then hurdle straight down a big slide into the water, getting completely soaked in the process.)  I recall only the first part of the story which is where somewhere during the fateful U-turn I looked back to my dad and said something to the affect of “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

My mother likes to tell it from the top of the slide though.  Where we are just peeking out over the top and the car pauses for a split second and then launches downward at lightening speed.   Everyone, anticipating the wall of water to come, ducks their heads.  I am the lonely figure sitting stick straight up, my mouth frozen open in a scream.  We never get to the part where I probably got a mouth full of water and a possible case of typhoid, because my mother usually starts laughing so hard that she can’t stop.   Thus, my history of cowardice began.

The summer carnival was a big event in our little suburban town.  I used to watch the rides with a sick feeling mixed with dread.  Oh sure, I’d dare to take on the Tilt-A-Wheel, but anything that went upside down was completely out. The Zipper? No way.  The Spinner? I don’t think so.  The Brain Scrambler?  Not for me.  I remember laying in bed late at night listening to the death spin of the Chicago Loop, a circular track that would hold people upside down until they begged for mercy and money fell out of their pockets.  That was the summer that I was 12.

This particular summer was gloriously hot and it must have affected my brain because I had dared to ride the flying bobs. Pumped up by the blasting rock music and flashing lights I made a decision that would affect the course of my life forever.  Everyone was going to ride the Kamikazi, a towering monolithic structure made of rusty steel recycled from a World War II tank and brittle kitten bones.

“Are you coming Katie?”  Angelica asked.  I though for a moment.  At 12, given the choice between being left out and facing my mortal fear, I made the logical sane decision to face my mortal fear.

“Yeah, sure,” I squeaked.  As we stood in line I watched the two cars swing higher and higher as the screams from its victims grew louder and louder.  They swished up and up, crossing each other’s paths and meeting at the top where they paused and then shuttled back down to Earth.  As we got closer I began to giggle hysterically and sweat.

“We’re lucky to get on,” Tara said.  “Looks like they’re shutting down for the night.”  We were indeed the last ones in line.

“Yeah, lucky…”

Finally it was our turn.  I had one thing to keep me going, one thing I clung to, one thing that would save me, and that one thing was that I would be with my friends.  They would get me through this.  They would be my rock.  We stepped up and I watched them trail into the car in front of me.

“Not you,” the carnival man barked.  “Car’s full, go over to the other side.”  I stared at him stupidly.

“But then I’d be the only person on the car,” I said meekly.

“You catch on fast kid,” he leered at me the smell of stale cigar and fish sticks slapped me in the face.   I could see from his yellow rotten teeth and bloodshot eyes that he didn’t care. I  slowly trudged over to the back of the ride my one shred of hope gone.  I carefully selected a seat near the middle of the car and prayed for a miracle.  A tall, good-looking miracle to hold my hand and then buy me an ice cream.

The Carnie came over to strap me in and slammed the rusty metal grate shut needlessly hard.  As the cell door shut a single bolt fell from just above my head and clattered to the floor between my feet.  I tightened my grip on the icy metal bar.  The ride started up and began swinging forward and back.  “This isn’t so bad” I thought,  “It just swings.  No Biggie.”

I relaxed my grip a little and shouted to the other car as it passed, “Hey this is fun!”  I could hear Tara laughing.  What happened next has become a sort of legend in the suburban town of Roselle, Illinois.  My memory gets a little hazy since I went into a trance-like state of fear.  But this is what I remember.

My car swung down and as I passed the operation booth my smile of glee was met with a malicious cackle from the monster inside. Swing.

I flew up into the air, paused for a second, and then the car swung backwards and as I passed the booth again I caught a quick flash of metal being pushed.  Swish.

The beast responded with a groan and swung even higher until I was almost upside down and then with a fury swung forward and over until I was suspended looking at the ground, and there we stayed.

The scream started somewhere down in my toes and gathered steam as it barreled through my body stopping only momentarily in my stomach to grab some bile.  It resonated out of my mouth at a decibel so high that it was recorded on electronic devices up to three states away.  Babies cried, people stared, dogs barked, glass broke, cable service was interrupted, the tides changed.  Minutes passed. Tick, Tick, Tick…and still I screamed.  It was the kind of primal sound that hadn’t been heard since the big bang. Suddenly the wind was rushing through my hair at the car catapulted downward, swung us around like the spin cycle for a few minutes, and finally came to a merciful stop.  Just as the car jolted still my scream emptied the last of itself out into the air and drifted off to rest somewhere over Lake Michigan.  The metal grate clicked open and I stumbled out and down the ramp into the sweet night air.

“Are you ok?”  Angelica asked.

“Huh?” I gasped, “Oh yeah, no biggie, it was fun.”  And then the truth hit me… it was a little fun.  In fact, it was a lot fun.

Slice of Life is hosted at Two Writing Teachers

It was an uneventful day, but a long one.  The kind of day where I was looking for an afternoon cup of coffee to help me complete the work I needed to do.  I trudged over to the freezer to see if there was something easy to be tossed in the oven for dinner.

“huh, what’s all that brown frozen stuff all over the freezer?”

I stood with my hand on the door staring at it stupidly until the light of recognition finally smacked me.  I had left a can of Diet Coke in the freezer yesterday.  Oh shoot.

“Wait a minute,” I said to no one in particular.  “Where’s the can?”  I mean it was a freezer, it couldn’t have gone far. I searched the back and sides, but it was no where, little did I know the answer lay in my hands.  I glanced at the door and there is was, frozen to the wire rack of the door shelf, in mid air.  I closed over the door to check…yes folks, in mid air, held by a tenuously perched frozen chunk.   Now that’s some cool science.

In true form I snapped a picture and posted it on facebook.  It got more responses than any photo I have ever posted.  There was a truth in that blown Diet Coke that spoke to people.



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