Searching for omens is something humans must do consiously or unconsciously all the time.
Or maybe it's just me.
Last night, after Chester's second seizure in two hours, the cresent moon stared blindly into the cup of the empty Big Dipper. Chester struggled to urinate, circling the small yard like a prisoner taking advantage of his daily hour of exercise. I watched the sky as the breeze from the south pushed a curtain of clouds first over the moon and then the stars, inching out their performance one star at a time.
I sat squat against myself, hugging my last bit of warmth waiting for Chester to release the gallon of water he always drinks after his seizures. To no avail. It would take at least 10 more trips out to the backyard before he finally settled down on his bed and we slept, one ear open, waiting for the possibility of one more seizure.
He had three this weekend. Another omen, I'm sure.
Today the breeze is a gusting wind shaking off the early blooms of the cherry tree and sending clouds racing across a tattered blue sky. The rain comes in fits, never enough to get anything wet, and then passes to make way for blasts of sunshine and filtered shadows.
I went to work for the morning. With a field trip planned to the Aquarium, I didn't feel it was fair to leave my teaching partner in the lurch, so I pulled myself into work just in time to board the city bus and make our way to the waterfront.
On the bus, two old men sat in the last seats across the aisle from each other. With 22 students, everyone seat was used and some of us held on precariously to the straps above our heads, swaying in the middle of the aisle. Our youngest student (not in age, but spirit...she still wears jumpers...something you don't see much in a 5th grader anymore), stood between the two old men. They were drunk and one held a paperbag with the tall label of the beer can protruding from the top. He drank then spit then glared at me while I glared momma cub eyes back at him. He spit again and said loudly, "Ya gonna tell on me, bitch?"
R., the student, looked cautiously at him, then stared panic stricken back at me. I tried, with my eyes, to tell her all would be okay. I tried to manuver my way back to them, to position my body in such a way that the beer man would not be so close to the jumper-clad child. The bus was too full and all I could do was send reassuring messages with one eye while I sent threatening signals with the other.
Finally, we got off the bus. Of course, beer man and his friend did, too. The students waited patiently on the sidewalk as the men walked past them, spitting and laughing. Four girls huddled around R, wrapping their arms around her tiny shoulders.
"You okay, R?" I asked.
"He called you the b-word," she gasped, astonished.
"It's okay, sweetie," I reassured her. "He's not the first and he won't be the last."
Some students laughed, others looked at me in wonder.
I wanted to tell her -- there are constants in the world. Stars, drunks, dying dogs, and sleepy teachers.
Somewhere in there are omens.
9 comments:
Oh, sweetly done 'bus' tale!
Perhaps you're lucky that Chester can't express his druthers. This can't be a very satisfactory life for him. You are between a rock and a hard spot ... but so is he.
Poor old Chester. Poor you, to watch him go, slowly. It's a long goodbye. The whole thing, your blog, is a short story worth publishing.
You handled it just right. Me, with my temper, I probably would have gotten the whole school district kicked off the bus.
I agree that looking for omens is probably an ongoing primal activity. When I was a little girl, two seagulls landing on Clear Creek Road meant a good day ahead. No moon in the sky meant someone nearby had died that day. Sunshine is always a good omen. Blosseming fruit trees are a good omen. Finding a dime is good and finding a quarter is an even better omen. Bird songs are a good omen and so is the constant croacking of the frogs. Croaking frogs are, for me, the best omen at all. All the nearby world is safe, else the frogs wouldn't belly out their croaks.
I hear you about omens. Signs, answers-- isn't that why people believe in God, for when the answers aren't coming from our own heads?
He's a beautiful man, your Chester. Give him a kiss for me and Lucy.
Everyone thinks that you handled this situation so wonderfully, but, I certainly don't. In fact, I'm really angry with you in how you responded to R., who must be 10, or 11 years old. A strange man, in a scary situation and without provocation calls her a "bitch" and your response to her is to tell her it will happen again? What is this telling her incredibly fragile sense of self and developing ego? Aren't you telling her in some way that she was responsible, that she in some way played a part in this exchange? I was with you on the mama bear non-verbal comforting that happened on the bus, but then there was no follow through, when you could have told her that no one had the right to speak to her that way. That she didn't ever deserve to be spoken to that way. Now, words from her teacher on high come down, not only failing to confirm her right not to have to put up with verbal abuse, but to expect it. How do you think she will internalize and incorporate that into her sense of self? I think you forgot the age of your audience.
Perhaps I wasn't clear...the man was calling me a bitch...not her. Everyone, including R. because we talked about it later (though I didn't write about it) knew he was talking to me. R. was upset (as she confirmed later) that anyone would dare to call me a bitch, which is a testament, I believe to how she feels about me.
Never once did I feel as if she were in an unsafe situation. She was in an uncomfortable situation as was everyone else on the bus, but it was not unsafe.
As for the message she walked away with, the other day we were discussing insulting names people call you and how name-calling is about power and about putting people in the position of "other" (We're reading a book called MISFITS) and R. brought up the example from the bus ride, that the drunk man had called me the b-word and how wrong she thought that was because I wasn't and he didn't know me.
We talked as a class about why he would do that and we had an amazing 10-year old discussion about people acting out in such a way as a threat to those who would call them on their behavior.
What I tried to convey in my words to R and to the rest of the class is that, hard as it may sound, there are people out there who are going to call you names but that doesn't make the "name" the truth.
I apologize if you were upset or offended by the retelling of the event...my purpose for writing my blog is to make sense of the many jumbled things that happen in my life as a teacher and how there are these bizarre connections. I can't write EVERYTHING that happens, but obviously there was a hole for your understanding.
I'm not the kind of teacher who would just blow off an incident like that without checking in fully with my students. I feel my teaching partner and I did a good job of debriefing the bus incident and talking about what kids can control and what they can't. For instance, we brainstormed ways for R. (or other students in her situation) to handle the situation herself and they came up with great solutions (move your seat, tell the bus driver, move closer to friends, or get off the bus and take the next one.)
Hope that makes better sense to you...if not, well...so be it.
I'm sorry. I didn't fully understand the situation and it does sound like you did handle it well. Please accept my apology.
On my first reading, I thought the "Bitch!" was directed at NoApologies. After reading Artmom's comment, I went back and re-read it .... still seems clear that it was aimed at NoApologies who was having a glaring contest with the guy.
Hey, no biggie...I like feedback...it makes me a better writer...if there is confusion, then that gives me a message just as much as a compliment...I appreciate your anger as that is very much what I felt like on the bus trip...
Thanks for apologizing...
Post a Comment