Equinox

This year there was a harvest moon on Friday the 13th. Someone knew that in one of my classes, but no one was really sure what a harvest moon was. There were a lot of theories – when there are two full moons in one month? when the moon looks really big? or maybe orange? or maybe that’s the sun? Once the guesses got wilder, I suggested we look it up.

A harvest moon, it turns out, is the full moon that occurs nearest to the Autumn Equinox. Everyone knew what autumn meant, but equinox presented another conundrum. (Groans.”Stop with the big words, Miss. If you mean problem then say problem.” I mentally added conundrum to our list.) Equinox is when day and night are equal. (Ok, it’s technically the instant of time when the sun crosses the equator, but we stuck with the equinox/equal idea.)

The autumnal equinox this year occurred at 3:50 am on Monday, September 23. I’m not sure if that means that day and night were equal on Sunday or Monday, but Sunday was my equinox. I spent the weekend at a cottage with friends. On Saturday, we spent the morning floating on the lake and laughing. Sunday morning was different. I woke up early and tiptoed out of the house in my pajamas. From the tiny dock – really just a few pieces of wood and a narrow ladder – I watched the sun rise. A loon called, long and lonely. I expected the sun to bring warmth, but instead a breeze came, insistent. I could imagine that the trees across the lake, backlit by the sun and mostly dark, were deeply green, but the trees near me revealed the truth: their leaves were already showing gold and red. I relished the moment between morning and day, the last bit of vacation that reminded me that the school year was well underway. It felt like a moment of balance.

Then I remembered my tea was waiting, probably already cool. I tried to memorize the moment, to catch what was already behind me, really, then I went inside to read.

On Monday I asked “Who remembers equinox?” Most of them raised their hands.

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Ask for help

Since day 1 she’s been glaring at me. By day 5 I work up the confidence to ask if something is wrong. “No,” she says casually, “I just have resting bitch face.” She’s 16. I laugh with her, but seconds later wish I had pushed back. I wish I had said, “No, not bitchy. You look sad, scared, wary and maybe just a little doubtful. You look like you and you are not a bitch.” But I didn’t.

Every day I say, “I need you to put your phone away.”
I say, “I know this is hard, but the phone is keeping you from doing your best thinking.”
I say, “Maybe you could create a 20 minute reading playlist so that you can read without touching your phone.”
She puts her phone away politely, but it always comes back out.

She has already failed English once. She does not like to read. She does not write. Still, when she wrote her goals in her notebook on Friday, the first one was “Read every day for the assigned time with no phone distraction.” She doesn’t say a thing about it, just hands me her notebook at the end of class, like she does every day.

We’ve read memoirs almost every day since school started. We’ve read poems and essays and picture books. We’ve looked at craft moves and done our own mini-writes. She doesn’t do much. “Resting bitch face” I remind myself when I look at her. I want so badly for her face to tell a different story.

Today we start 100-word memoirs. She checks her phone several times. She goes to the bathroom. Then she starts to write and does not stop until time is up. She shares a line with the class. As class ends, I ask students to write down one or two things they want to work on in their memoir tomorrow. She calls me over.

“I think it’s good the way it is,” she says. I feel my protest rising, then squash my first reaction. “Ok,” I say. We pause.

“Will you read it?” her eyes go down, her face turns away from me.

Her memoir is beautiful and powerful. She will edit it – we will edit it together – but her words, her story… it blows me away. I tell her so.

She says, “I want to enter that contest, the one about ‘One Strong Woman.'”
“Yes,” I say, “I think you should.”

In her notebook, her other goal is “actually ask for help.”

“I’ll help,” I say.

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Words to describe the love

This summer, my father-in-law had a heart attack as he walked home from picking up a newspaper at a corner store. He and my mother-in-law were visiting family in Massachusetts, thousands of miles from their home in Arizona. By rights, Jim should have died. He literally collapsed on a neighborhood street.

But he didn’t die. Angels intervened. Neighbours sitting on a porch, enjoying the morning, saw him fall. An off-duty EMT was home and began effective CPR almost immediately. The ambulance that came for him was from a major trauma center.

For a few days, things were chaotic and unclear. Family drove in, flew in, called in and stayed close in every way that they could. And then, miraculously, Jim was ok. There were some cuts from the fall, some broken bones from the CPR and a defibrillator implanted for his heart, but in large part, he’s just fine. By the end of the summer, he was walking around, wondering when he’d be able to get back to his long hikes in the desert canyons of Arizona.

There are no words for this sort of miracle. I couldn’t write about this when it happened in July, and I can barely gather all the threads now: the wrenching loss; the nearly unbelievable salvation; the incredible rebirth; the emotions and experiences of so many people.

Today I received a beautiful letter from my mother-in-law, thanking her family for our support. My father-in-law wrote about his experience almost right afterwards,and I found his account equally moving. Each letter is haunting, so I’ve turned them into found poems. It’s the only way I can capture those few weeks in July.

My Strange Disappearance
I didn’t return in a reasonable time.
I have no memories
so I’m reconstructing
from what people have told me.
I presumably stopped breathing,
my heart presumably stopped pumping.

Some force was certainly at work
to bring two strangers to my side
to bring me back from sudden death.

Unless I imagined this
family mysteriously appeared.

Do I believe in angels?
I sure believe in something.
I like the word angels.

-found in a letter from Jim Perry

Words to describe the love
I’ve been looking for words
But each time I thought or spoke
I felt raw and open.

I wake in the middle
of the night or
on my early morning walks.
I am swept away.
The heart-distance is non-existence.

How tender and fragile life is.

Please know that
if you need me,
I will come.

-found in a letter by Shirley Dunn Perry

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Ready, again

Monday evening, 8:30pm

School starts tomorrow. Again.

Heaven knows I am not a new teacher. I’ve done this before. In fact, I’ve done this more than 20 times. Before that, I think I count at least 18 starts as a student. And I can add in the years my own children have started school.

I’m still nervous.

Today, I took a long walk with my husband, took another walk with my oldest child, chatted with a friend, read with my youngest, tidied the house. I went online to look up one little thing and ended up reading more than one article about the structure of The Scarlet Letter. I cannot explain how this happened. I don’t even teach The Scarlet Letter anymore.

But since I was online, I took the tiniest of peeks at my class lists. Again.

That done, I tried to read my book. No dice: I was way too distracted. So, I sewed. Doesn’t everyone make pencil cases the day before school starts? And since I was at it, I made *lined* pencil cases. Which I think we can all agree is a little on the ridiculous side. At least my children are happy.

Now, I’m on the computer. Again. Should I change my lesson plans? Nope. Have I missed something? Maybe. I think I should look up one more possible mentor text. But I won’t. I’m going to take a bath and try – again – to read that book.

I’ve chosen my outfit; my husband has packed my lunch. My bookbag waits by the door. The breakfast table is already set, just in case. The children are similarly prepared. I’m ready for another first day. I’m ready to meet the students. I’m ready to be in the classroom. I’m ready to talk about books, to write, to struggle through the hard parts and celebrate the successes.

I’m ready to fall head over heels for a group of young people I don’t even know yet. Again.

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