Bits and Pieces

Been busy, been hiding, been looking for sunlight.  Yesterday, driving home from a Saturday workday down the lumped city street provided an archeology lesson in transportation.  The frothed waves of snow, once elegant in starkness, had melted into the brown-black ebb of winter accumulation, receding towards curbs and gutters, sides and rails bent from the plows pushing it to wherever it would go.  Not a day in this February rose above freezing, producing stratified layers of crystallized memory.  Artifacts began to appear from the temporary thaw.

Mostly pieces of car; black bumper shards, amber light housings, silver-painted ornamentation, and chunks of what I imagine were once exhaust systems now littered medians and roadsides.  So many fender-benders were the foundation of these histories, yet there were pieces laying on the asphalt that seemed to be plain tired and gave up the ghost; you go on, I'm going to fall off right here; no,no, it's all right, I just can't do this anymore, let me fall asleep on this ice floe, it is the time of ending, bye bye.

My door had clogged with ice inside the hinge, which expanded down towards the wheel well and pushed a piece of fender outward.  Intertwined as it was, I couldn't knock the ice out without possibly whacking the whole panel off, and it isn't likely the traffic officers would understand that much duct tape in reassembly.  Poor car, dear car, you are disappearing as though made of pie crust.  I would be happy driving this clunker the rest of days, but it won't be so; when I lived in Florida, it amazed me that there were Nash Metropolitans in Tweety Bird colors without a speck of rust.  Up here, the cars are eaten like salami sandwiches by the weather.

It had been a longish week full of tests and notes from parents telling me they didn't understand the math homework.  Me neither, at least, I know what to do, but the thinking process behind it is punctuated with the new mathspeak.  I've been on this Unit for four weeks, and I am going to print out directions for parents, which show what the language means and why the hell are they expecting six year olds to break apart a three item number sentence using the ten ones system.  If you know what I just said, please send a postcard.

But then there was the dismissal when another teacher came up to me after the kids were on the buses.  "They're looking for you in the office.  A parent is waiting."  Oh crap.  Now what did I do?

The father is from another country, and he and I are communicating daily in a written journal so that his son can see that the adults are going to win this one. The behavior and work habits have improved immensely, and the boy will be fine as long as he understands that he is not running my class.  The parent extended his hand to shake mine and said that he wanted to thank me for working with his son.  What?  You what?  I was hoping that the other people in the office were hearing this.

"I have noticed great improvement in my son's behavior, thank you for helping him."  I replied that his interest was a large part of the child's desire to please, and that the student was reaching his potential because of the parent involvement.  And you are certainly welcome.  He asked how he could further help his son; wonderful.

And there is more sun, we are up to 10 hours and 56 minutes of light this first day of March; the plants in the window are showing growth.  A fox has been reported hanging around the parking lot, a small flash of orange ribbon against the snow.  It comes during the evening; I have not seen the critter, but I hope that it is left alone.  

Moonrise came early yesterday, in mid-afternoon the half-sphere of ghostly white rose in the east, no more than the breath of a cloud.  I've been brushing up on memorized poems, for threads of lines change articles; but becomes yet, or too many 'the's' are inserted.  I have projects to begin, and will swipe up the remnants of others in anticipation.  Clean house, mind, ready for the coming light.  Drop into dreams of heartfelt wishes, put a foot out there, go someplace, engage each other, tell the truth to yourself.  I'm going to make soup for supper from the leftover chicken, something warm in a yellow broth.  Today soup is my truth.  Sleep well, the basket of unsorted things may spill, but so what?  No one cares about that.  Spiritus mundi.  Tuck in.