Saturday, March 12, 2011

Caput Mortuum

The cold has crept in a little closer, for the heater fan in my car has stopped whirring forth heated air and the chill gets into every crevice.  No defroster, no heat, no air.  Poof.  Gone.  Have a great mechanic, this is a minor inconvenience.  I got off the elevator early and trudged up the next flights in the stairwell, just to think.

The snowstorm blowing in from the lake was blasting around the hollows and corners of the building, prying the cement from between the bricks, whistling and screaming in undulating choruses.  In a stairwell of cement block and glossy grey paint,  the sound magnifies to a hollow wail for there is nothing to catch the waves and break them apart.  The windows are leaky and allow the rushing wind to pull the interior air out, forming a temporary vacuum that gives the uneasy sensation of being underwater.  It's enough to give a suggestible person the wim-wams, for under these circumstances the wind has a pre-human voice.

The sound pierces whatever logic you live by, and tells you of secrets you thought no one else knew.  The force sometimes trails off and mutters itself quiet, only to start up again higher, pitchier, in a wavering, shrill jabber of dramatic babble and bark.   However, it is not Friday monster movie night; my talisman is a bag of take-out Chinese whose aroma wafts towards the higher atmospheres of home.  The noise pulls me upwards, and once you remove the anthropomorphic allusions, takes on a wheezing, orchestral hurdy-gurdy persona,  I climb up the stairs of a giant harmonica, with shrimp rolls.

I have a college education and a required master's degree, having gone back later in life; I am nearing sixty.  I have been through rigorous certification including a video taping of me teaching and several expensive (over $100) written tests.  Currently in the tenure process, I assume that this state has taught me to their qualifications and that I have met them.  I am in an inner city school labeled as failing; we are short handed and overcrowded, support staff has been reduced from fifteen to six for several years.  I owe Sallie Mae and other loan programs several thousand dollars for getting this education.  I stay at work till four or five, and take more paperwork home.  I sew their winter coats and bring them gloves; I supply notebooks and pencils, and send them to the nurse when they are ill.  I bring in treats, and geegaws for prizes.  A hired spokesperson for the city has come in and said "Maybe you need to tell yourselves that you don't do this job very well."  We are being blamed for the consequences of mismanagement from on high.  Kids don't sit still these days, and often the baggage they carry outweighs any interest in learning adjectives or fractions.  We are an elementary school, from grade three up to grade eight; we deal with crowded classrooms of students bringing in weapons, parents that physically attack us, student promiscuity, fights, screaming in hallways, children in need of services, counseling, and structure.  We need help in staff and faculty to manage the loads of emotional and learning based issues brought on by poverty, drugs, or getting home from daycare at midnight (yes that has happened).

The sound of the wind doesn't frighten me in the least, the screaming gusts whipping around corners only mimic the howls of my own thoughts.  The cats greet me at the door and I am blessed to have a warm space protected from the elements, running water, electricity, and choices.  I shut the windows that were cracked open to let in air, and go through the events of the day. Wondrous dark, that old equalizer, has fallen.  Time will change, springs forward, at 2 a.m. Sunday.  Spring forward says I, you will be alright no matter where you land.  Let go of worries and devious designs by the predators who feed their own coffers, they cannot take away that most precious commodity: what you have learned.

Sleep well; deep dreams.

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