#588: On Not Going Back to the Schoolhouse on the First Day of School for the 4th Year In a Row

I hardly give it a thought
until my wife heads out of the house
with a tub of red vines for the
drum line info table where her
students will entice the 9th graders
into joining indoor percussion.
Then, I give it a thought.
This is the fourth school year
in a row that I have not reported
back to work with my colleagues.
Finally, this “not going back” is
starting to feel somewhat normal,
as that other life I led for 32 years
begins to blur and fray in the mind
as if it was some kind of strange,
super long, uber-realistic dream.

I’m not trying to forget.
I was not traumatized by the work.
Most of what I remember is
the best of how I felt and what
I lived from day to day.
My colleagues and my students
inspired and challenged and
surprised me at every turn
and I was perpetually learning.
That frenetic pace–I don’t miss that,
that feeling of never being able
to finish anything, of always
feeling not quite ready, always
having an impossible number
of things that need doing
and never having enough time.
The real ugly stuff, (I know there
was some of it), fades faster
and faster. I have to dig for it,
and mostly, I don’t do any of that.

But I still do, on occasion,
have the teaching nightmare,
the one in which everything
in the classroom that can go
wrong, goes wrong, spectacularly.
Sometimes in waking hours
I think about the job I used to do
in absolute awe: how did I do it?
Could I, even if I wanted, do it again?
I have doubts about this. And yet,
there are moments, around my writer
friends mostly, facilitating a discussion,
presenting an idea or a concept, giving
a reading, or by myself, writing,
making music, playing the drums, even,
when I feel that inclination,
that impulse, mostly learned by trial and error,
but partly innate, almost mystical:
the force is still strong in this one,
only manifesting itself more inwardly,
more personally, and in conditions
where it’s possible, perhaps, to finally
get it right.