Training Week Training Wheels

There's something strangely gratifying in seeing my Garmin 360 change from 'night mode' to 'day mode' as I drive away from the rising sun towards my first school of the year, St. Adalbert's. I will be seeing my Garmin change from 'night' to 'day' a lot on my morning drives, and sometimes will never experience the actual change to 'day' on some very rare occasions (i'm talking to you painesville) but am excited nonetheless to start another year.

Teaching elementary vs. high school for the first time was like having learned to ride a bicycle all last year with training wheels, and having made wonderful scenic and successful trips throughout the year, and then having that bike taken into the shop, and receiving in return a unicycle with a flat tire. I am attempting to ride the same wonderful scenic trips, but need to learn how to first pump the limp tire, and find my balance again.

I learned that I must have an untied shoe string radar, and speak like a witch doctor storyteller to hold children's attention. It is absolutely necessary to make eye contact with the little ones. And no matter what I did, I was never as riveting as a plastic ring with streamers on it, or a blue piece of lint on the ground for that matter.

I hope to retain one tenth of the children's imagination and fervor not only in my teaching, and work as an actor, but as a human being. Sometimes I was close to tears because I was moved by the profound ruminations of a six year old, and sometimes close to tears because a child would not stop running around the room screaming 'I'm a Half Dead Guy!' during a silent exercise.

Can't wait to travel back to CSA next week. It should be exhausting in a whole other way.

back again

back again

just tacklin' each day each dance

how did david ever do it

seems impossible when goliath is standing tall

ready to break you down and make you fall

just get back up

pop up

wake up

make up your mind

to find

to climb and reach

teach and be taught

listen to the music and don't forget to smile

when things are good

when things are not

things i've learned

now that i'm

back again

ice ice baby

In third grade Jack, who was adopted, and I thought it would be a good idea to dance on the ice on the creek that connected the pond on the left of the bike pathway in our neighborhood, to run alongside the basketball court and into a drainage sewer.

We were wearing black overall snow suits.

My jacket was blue and green and had snow goggles that made everything look sepia tinted, or in my 3^rd grade mind, ‘the olden days.’

I thought that everyone lived in sepia tone before color was invented.

I had on a hat that I didn’t like to wear, because I believed that hats made me look weird, because my large ears were such a part of my life, and without them, I felt alien.

My brother was with us.

He didn’t think it was such a good idea and watched us from the bank.

Jack and I did a dance on the ice until it broke, and we were up to the armpits in cold dirty frog water.

We screamed and screamed, and I thought this was the end.

My brother laughed and laughed at us before pulling both of us out.

We then had to walk home, our tiny bodies frozen from shirking death.

Further behind the soccer field, my brother, me, and our neighbor who lived in the blue house five down on the right from us thought we could discover the cure for cancer by mixing berries we found in the woods, dirt, and tree bark to heal his mother.

I didn’t know what cancer was, but when I imagined it in my head, I thought of Venom from Spiderman when he would become enveloped in the symbiotic villain.

In third grade, Adam Weinhardt, who had a twin named Eric, tried to push me further into the splits while we were playing soccer behind our elementary school.

I was angry and almost cried because it hurt so bad, but didn’t do anything because I was scared of him.

first grade

In first grade I was angry at my brother so I stabbed him in the face with a fork.

He had four bleeding dots impressed in his cranium to pay for his tormenting.

We had to go to Revco to get bandaids.

My mom made us wait in the blue wood paneled grand voyager because she didn’t want other customers and employees to think she had done this.

I thought that Revco was owned by a Mrs. Repko who was a 1^st grade teacher at my brother’s and my elementary school.

We never had her, but I would look at her picture in the yearbook and think how glamorous it would be to own the drug store on Pearl Rd. across from the Blockbuster.

my thoughts

sometimes, i feel like i have so many memories in my head swimming around, gently drifting to the surface of my conscious thoughts, and deep in the dark realms of my cortex. I don't want to forget any of them. That is my biggest fear, of not remembering, of not being remembered, of being another misguided blip on life's radar. Here are some of my memories. Now that they are written down, they never will be forgotten. These are the first in a series. This one is categorized as 'releasing the valve.'

Been a long time

Been a long time.

I've made mistakes, new friends, and lemon pound cake.

No longer am I a starving college student

Now I'm just starving;

For knowledge and homemade chicken noodle soup.

Not just buds in the mouth, but on the brain too.

Need to read,

need to learn,

need to memorize,

need to run faster,

jump higher,

and love harder

Time has somehow made me older than the young adults that I teach

But not always wiser.

How much you can learn from an eleven year old

about hopes

about wishes

about dreams

about magic

It's time to take flight

And left my feet leave the pavement.