Full Circle

For my 20^th birthday, my husband (oh my gosh, that was so, so long ago… when I had a husband) gave me, among other things, a huge wooden desk, circa the 1940’s, that he’d purchased at a used furniture store. My other gifts—purchased thoughtfully to celebrate and support the launch of my career as a writer—were a four-door file cabinet, a brass stamp holder (because back then, all my submissions went through postal mail; we didn’t have internet yet), a stapler and a box of staples. All of these items except the stamp holder, which was stolen when our house was fumigated, I still have—including the original box of staples (missing a hundred or so).

The desk, back then, was already old and worn, with multiple scratches and coffee rings marring the finish on the top. But it was big and solid and vintage, and I filled it with file folders, manila envelopes, pens, pencils and notepads. Oh, and plain white paper for my IBM Selectric typewriter. And then I started writing.

Just a few short years later, when I was 23, we needed a photo for the back cover of my first book, so my husband took this one:

There’s my typewriter and the stamp holder. A thick, kidney-shaped sheet of glass came with the desk to protect the top, and you can see it reflecting the light from the desk lamp. You can also see my leather-bound, Thompson Chain Reference Bible in the background. I wrote my first book at that desk, typing away between 4:00 and 6:00 in the morning, stopping when my son, who was an infant, woke. He’s 39 now.

I loved that life. My oldest daughter is a poet and a teacher now, with a son who is the same age I was when I began writing that first book. But back then, she was an adorable four-year-old with an incredible imagination and a mind that never slumbered. I would spend the first hours of the morning writing, then stop when my son woke, fixing breakfast for the kids and my irascible husband who would criticize the way I stirred his coffee or buttered his toast (made with the bread I baked myself every week). But then the hubby would shuffle off to work, and the kids and I would be left to have adventures and read books and sing and dance until lunch, after which they would nap and I would return to working on my book.

Happy, happy times. I wanted to live my life that way. Or, almost. While my husband had initially been supportive of everything I did, his criticism and disapproval eventually became toxic. Two more children would join our family before I finally decided I could no longer live with his negative energy or the verbal sparring that had become the daily norm for us. I left him, went back to college full time, then began teaching high school, then returned to college to get my master’s degree, then began more teaching as an adjunct professor at night. I still found time to write, but I had to fit it in the tiny cracks of space I found between child-rearing and working and taking care of the house and the yard and doing the shopping and so many other things. But I longed to return to the long slow days in which I immersed myself in my two greatest joys—my kids and my writing.

In June I retired after 27 years of teaching. In August, I bought a little house I want to live in for a long time, with lots of natural light and quiet mornings, much like I had when my kids were little. I decided to make the den my writing cave, so I put in a new floor and painted the walls a pale green, then set up all the comfortable, familiar writing tools—my good old desk, my file cabinet alongside it. The typewriter has been replaced by a laptop, and on the desktop now is a huge copy of Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary and atop that, the Cambridge edition of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare.

Two nights ago, I came into this room and sat down at this good old desk to spend an hour writing the previous blog post. Before I began, I stopped for a moment to thank the Universe that I have finally come full circle, with long days in which to write and care for my babies, although the “babies” now are two spoiled cats and one very quirky dog. When I looked up from my acknowledgement of blessings, my eyes fell upon that old picture of me sitting at this desk. I’d found it in a box during the move. Now it sits upon the desk, a reminder of how fleeting time truly is, how every moment we spend with our children is an investment in their future, no matter how small or idle the activity we’re engaged in. And it reminds me as well that yes, I can do this; I’m a writer. It’s time to get to it.

1. And Done.

I carried my cell phone in the back pocket of my jeans today--like the kids--in order to live tweet through my last day of work. Until I realized it wasn't. So I just used it to note all the things I'm not going to miss about teaching high school:

I'll never sit at the light at Euclid and 11th street--whether on my bike or in the truck--at 7:10a.m. watching mothers on their cell phones, waiting for the light to change, oblivious to the kids and skateboards and bikes around them, oblivious to the horrible example they're setting for the teen they're taking to school who will be driving soon.

I'll never endure another Back-to-School night.

I'll never again sit in my room alone after school grading essays during finals week while all my colleagues and friends in the art and voc ed department run off gleefully to have lunch together.

I'll never have to try to carefully compose a "professional" response to a parent's rude and accusatory email.

The list goes on.

People have been telling me for days that I can now "sleep in!" but the truth is, I'm an early riser and will continue to be so in retirement (just not at 4:00a.m., which has been the case for the past fifteen years).

I realized this morning that really, this isn't my last day of "work." That day happened a long, long time ago, and I'll never be able to put my finger on which one it was, but after years of teaching, it just ceased to feel like work. The campus was a place I went to every week day to hang out with teenagers, share some insights into literature, provide guidance and support where needed, and do some paperwork. In exchange for that, I received a paycheck once a month, and I never stopped being amazed and grateful when I did.

So there was no big sigh of relief when the final bell rang today, no celebratory shout of "Woo hooooo!" emanating from my portable classroom. In fact, my room was so instantly flooded with kids coming by to wish me well, it hardly seemed like an end to anything. Just more of the same good stuff I've been privileged to experience for the last twenty-seven years.

2

In the midst of giving a final, grading yesterday's finals, continuing to pack up my room and writing letters of recommendation for students applying to summer programs in advance of their senior year, I was visited today by several favorites--Nico (please vote for him for Upland school board and city council), Allison, Crissy (aka "Scottie" as she is also the school mascot in the giant scottie dog costume), Mariah (who brought me not one but two red velvet cupcakes, oh my buddha!) and most poignantly, Desiree Dragna, teacher of freshmen and my replacement for next year.

Desiree came looking for "wisdom," as she put it, and I had to laugh. My joke with the Honors kids is that they were unfortunate enough to get me and not a "real" teacher. As the year progresses, some of them come to appreciate the fact that I am unconventional in my teaching. Not all, of course.

As I'm sure I've mentioned, this is my 27th year of teaching. OK, full disclosure: It's actually going to be 26.5. My first paid teaching assignment began after winter break at a tiny middle school in San Bernardino called Richardson Prep High. (Yes, it is a middle school.) In all my years of teaching, I've never met anyone else who has taught there. Until today. And there was Desiree, young and thin and pretty with long, brown hair. Wow. Except for the "pretty," that was me a few decades ago. Best of all, she is down to earth, unpretentious, and the minute she begins to talk about teaching, it's clear that she loves her job, loves the kids and, as she put it, feels Upland High School is her "home." She is absolutely perfect to take up where I left off with the Honors program and with my sweathogs as well. I had a lot of happy moments today (especially when eating those cupcakes), but this just absolutely made me feel at peace in leaving.

People have told me in recent weeks (when I've said I will miss the new crop of freshmen coming in) that it's ok; those kids don't know me, so they don't know what they're missing. I don't know about all that, but I have wondered who will be there to love them as I do. Desiree. Desiree already loves them and she hasn't even met them yet.

And we decided, Desiree and I, that while she may be the new kid now, she's going to hang in there and stay at Upland for a couple of decades, until everyone else with seniority over her retires or leaves the planet, at which point she'll be the one calling the shots. I wish her all the best. She's gonna be fantastic.

3

It was my intention to count down the last five days of work, a 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 celebration of all the good things that came along with teaching. But who had time to write? I've been busy teaching, creating finals, grading essays and make-up work, to say nothing of cleaning out my classroom. (Where do I put all this memorabilia? I want to keep forever the notes, cards, drawings and goofy things for my desk kids have made for me over the years. I still have the tiny clay giraffe Diego Salas made for me a dozen years ago.)

So the days have gotten away from me. But then this happened today, which really spurred me on to document some of the wonderfulness:

As part of our regular celebration of poets and poetry, my Honors classes and I watched Dead Poets Society whenever we had a spare twenty minutes here and there. It took the entire year to finish it, but we did.

So today, at the end of Period One, when I collected all their finals and told them they had completed all work for the class (except for those who will still turn in re-writes tomorrow or the next day), there elapsed a second or two of silence. Then Steve got out of his seat, stood upon his desk and said, "O captain, my captain." Another second clicked off, then other students slowly got out of their desks and stood upon them, saying the same thing. By the third "O captain, my captain," I was nearly overwhelmed with emotion.

Pretty sure they have no idea how much I love them. They are amazing and wonderful.

And on Saturday, we had the Journalism banquet. Every year, after we've distributed the final newspaper for the school year, we all gather at a restaurant and share a meal and laugh over the highlights (and lowlights) of the past ten months. We had a particularly wonderful staff this year, with some funny, quirky new kids and of course, the seasoned veterans who make the paper great. Often, I feel like I'm herding cats or standing in a circus ring with a whip and a chair, trying to get the wild beasts to get their stories done. I scolded them a lot this year.

And what did they do in return? They gave me gifts.

They gave me two beautiful bouquets of flowers and a box of chocolates and a Starbucks gift card and an adorable stuffed giraffe—and a picture of me with the entire class that they had just taken two days before. It was mounted in a frame and around the matting they had all written personal notes. The only reason I didn't break down crying was that they'd had me laughing all evening. These, too, are amazing and wonderful kids.

One of the chores I had to do today was to return 36 copies of the freshman literature textbook to the library. They've been in my classroom for a decade. Two of my freshman favorites, Rosa and Denny, just happened to stop by my room after school. When I asked Rosa to help, she and Denny took over the job, pushing a cart over from the library, loading it up, then navigating the unwieldy vessel all the way back to the library.

More amazing and wonderful kids.

What will tomorrow bring?