Melted

Remember the toys from years ago that were conceived by designers who thought that heating elements  were essential components?  I had a Vacu-form, a Creepy Crawler Designer, a woodburning kit, a chemistry set with an alcohol lamp, and an Easy Bake oven.  My room smelled of melting plastic and hot metal, with elixirs of sulfur mixing with vanilla cake.  Tonight, my apartment is seething with hot melting plastic and the familiar dizzy high is just kicking in.  I wish I could stop, but I have 90 plastic cups to melt in the oven at 250 degrees and a class that has to make a Christmas present for their parents.  Not only do they have to be melted, but the bottoms cut off and two holes punched in each; what for?

Suncatchers.  Cups made of Number 6 plastic are made of the same formula as Shrinky Dink plastic, and so will melt into circle shapes that are then strung together and hung in front of a sunny window to throw red, yellow and green shards of light all around the room.  This sounded like such a good idea, and fit all the ethnic groups in the room; those who celebrate and those who don't.

But heck, do you realize how many of my kids don't know how to tie?  I didn't, therefore some very fast calculations as to what and when have to be examined since I will be damned if I am tying 90 discs together.  It's taken me two hours to melt cups, and god knows what's happened to my brain.  No wise observations, thank you.

The full moon climbed the sky staircase this cracking cold evening, I had slogged down a snow filled alley to get to a shop for a few packages; a heavy man had to pick up his English bulldog who stood paralyzed in the snow.  Wise dog, they aren't made for plowing through drifts, so stocky and wide.  A couple was in the shop with me, buying everything in sight as they were stoned, a state where every thing is amazing.  Wow, I need that, they would say as articles were examined and held up for scrutiny.  I can only hope they found their way to the next shop down, where empty boxes of Trix and Lucky Charms had been turned into clocks, and a Barbie doll holding Christmas ornaments stood in an aquarium of small silver fish.

Later the next day, after the Jimmy Hendrix plastic daze, the flattened, warped discs were loaded into a bag with string and sparkly gold pipe cleaners.  The kids were enchanted, and as I did the stringing, all they had to do was tie the end off.  Some were tied into necklaces, others were knotted into Gordian mazes.  But just wait till you see them try to fold wrapping paper.  I ended up doing thirty presents, fold fold, tape tape.  Twist on the pipe cleaner.  Voila, le suncatcher; I demonstrated, holding the completed concoction up to the window.  They oohed and ahhhed.  One day left to go.

Several of the students brought in homemade presents for me, drawn pictures with "The Best Teaher" crayoned on them; the best teaher better step up on the phonics lessons.   My favorite was my little guy who had wrapped up books from his own shelf at home.  But, this is a great book, I said, you need this at home....I got three of them, he said, holding up three fingers, first grade style.  I opened his last offering and by jingo, it was one of my own books that he had taken home earlier, my name still in it.  He beamed as I said it was one of my favorites, then read it to the class.  

They just want everything to be all right.  All the hugs I received that day said so.  We sent home bags of food with some, with those living in shelters;  mittens, hats, coats, pants, shirts, you need it, let me know.  They said they would miss me, I told them they would be missed as well, and that's true.  You worry about them, with their stories of rats running over the beds, of break ins, of sleeping on piles of clothes, Moms going off for days, and they end up shuffled to aunts, grandparents, neighbors.  It lends sadness to what I can and cannot do.

In memory, I still smell the heat of Christmas bulbs against resin-full pine needles packed with heavy silver tinsel that became brittle and broke apart.  We had bubble lights, glass ornaments, foil stars.  It was with trepidation that my parents would plug in the lights, no more than fifteen minutes or the tree would explode.  Let's not get crazy here.  Stories of aluminum trees electrocuting their owners verified that Christmas trees would kill you the second you turned your back.  It was magic when they didn't, and became all right, if only for a moment.

Another solstice to stretch into the equinox; there is much to get through before snow melts and buds swell.  Sleep through this night safely, nothing will harm you.