First Week of School

This week, after a summer of fun and relaxation it's back to work.  That involves getting up at five, five days a week, and driving seven miles on I-5 to get ready to go on stage for six hours in front of thirty squirrelly ten-year-olds looking for guidance, entertainment and knowledge.   

It's good, in the sense that these are all mostly sweet kids trying to do their best, and that I'm trying to help out.  It sucks, in that I have to get up so early and do something I wouldn't necessarily do if I had my druthers.

Wednesday I went to the all-school assembly with my new class.  I ran across many of last year's students, now with their new teacher, who all hollered out, "Hey, Mr. D,"  and smiled and waved.  That feels good.

Thursday was a marathon.  I called off building security at o-dark hundred, made lesson plans for two classes, prepped for art, and went to an hour-long staff meeting before greeting students.  This was Picture Day, as well as PE and messy art project day, so you can imagine the conflict that brings to a few of the fashion-conscious young girls. 

Since we're still getting to know one another, there was also sharing of stuffed sea horses, rubber elephants, and soccer trophies.  During lunch break, I distributed thirty sets of paper, brushes and water colors for the first stage of making the Name Posters that will encircle the room. 

One student was asked to please leave the class and sit out in the hall  Two other students put a petition in my "Notes to Teacher" basket to have the aforementioned student moved because he talks and bothers them.  He and I have had several heart-felt talks--a good kid with no impulse control.

Wednesday, after the anti-bullying assembly, I listened to a long, halting and whispered complaint by a wee wisp of a girl about a classmate named Gladys (I didn't know kids had been named Gladys for the past fifty years).  Julia wanted to play with just Ellie, but Gladys insisted upon joining their game.  I said I'd talk to Mrs. B____ about Gladys, but I doubt if I'll get to that for awhile.

There were also lessons in place value of numbers through the millions, how to write a good sentence and how to decode unfamiliar multi-syllabic words.

I checked out Craigslist Puerto Vallarta on my laptop at lunch, and didn't see much of anything except $1200/month condos.  I sat, mesmerized, in front of the laptop looking at my screensaver:  all the pics I took this summer in Guanajuato. 

Now, at the end of the first week of school, I remember last night's dream was about work.  I woke up thinking about how I might impress upon these young people the importance and joy of learning.  Later today--Saturday--I'll grade papers, and tomorrow I'll go in to school so I can put up the completed Name Posters and laminate the Rats.

Changes

In addition to enjoying the last few days of a late, late summer, and before the weeks of preparing for what might well become our final year of work, my dear wife and I have spent a lot of time talking about what our next pre-retirement step should be.  Soon after our kind of disillusioning visit to Guanajuato, we seemed to decide that we should just stay in the States, in a small Oregon or Washington town near the coast, and work for progressive political change in this country.  I began to channel Airstreams, and radical RV caravans  to demonstrations on the Mall in DC.

The Little Virgin's Basilica in Talpa

A few days later, our feelings had changed.

First, BFW said that she'd checked Craigslist and even the tiniest of local towns had decent rentals that were too expensive.  Although I privately disagreed with her--my research showed the rents were about the same in Seaside as Puerto Vallarta--I didn't argue because, second, neither of us really wanted to hang around in the same ol'-same ol' U S of A.  Last, and most importantly, we really wanted the adventure of moving to a foreign land.

After realizing that we would like to maintain our connections with friends in the Puerto Vallarta area, we turned our sights to high up in the mountains above the bay, where it's cooler in the summer.  We're thinking right now of a little town called Talpa de Allende, which is about 3 hours by bus from PV, and the home of the miraculous Little Virgin of Guadalupe, to whom infirm from all over Mexico and the world come to be healed.

Recce

A week ago we returned from vacation in a city in the very center of Mexico. Guanajuato gained incredible riches and was the scene of almost irredeemable cruelty in the pursuit of silver 400 years ago, cradled the bloody beginning of the revolt against Spanish rule, was a beneficiary of Porfirio Diaz's excess, and then languished for the next three generations.


In the past thirty or forty years, the city rebuilt itself as global repository of appreciation for the Spanish author Cervantes and his greatest creations, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. It became a summer tourist magnet for middle class Mexicans, making the most of its UNESCO designation as world heritage site, its enterprising University students, and its old, quirky, and picturesque cityscape.

We went there for 8 days with the idea of a possible move when we retire next year, checking the place against our imagination of what we wanted it to be. The jury is still out, but, with me at least, it lost its idealized shine. We realize that a smaller, friendlier place would suit us better.

Hooray!

My two daughters and I have made it a Fourth of July tradition to join tens of thousands of other revelers at Gasworks Park to witness, against a backdrop of the city's downtown towers, the incredible fireworks show over Lake Union .

We went again this year.

Hours spent sitting on a small blanket next to hundreds of good-natured, though occasionally raucous, neighbors, suffering severe sneezing attacks from the over-abundant allergens, remembering what a blessing it has been to not be downwind of smokers, enduring a never-ending stream of bumbling, stumbling late comers looking for their square yard of earth...this, and the good company, is what made it all worth the wait:

Solstice Sunrise

I got up at 4:30 to witness sunrise on this auspicious day. The idea came from the "How-to of the Day" app on my home page, yesterday entitled, "How to Celebrate Solstice...No. 1. Witness sunrise." The perfect place to do it popped into my head immediately: on top of Zodiac Hill at Gasworks Park. The man-made hill is topped with an intricate mosaic zodiac, in a park that has dramatic displays of rusting boilers and cracking columns from the days when energy was created here, across a lake from downtown.

From the north, the park pedundas into Lake Union whose south end is rimmed with office towers. I took a picture of the rising sun reflecting off one of the thousands of windows. It's not so dramatic as the top one, but I like the form and muted colors.

It was before 5 when I arrived at the park, a short drive from home. I'd imagined that there would be dozens of druids there to await the moment, but as I began to trudge up the hill, I only saw one man, walking around with short steps, making small gestures as if talking to himself. As I went up one side, he must have gone down the other, for the place was empty when I arrived. But not for long.

As I stood at the edge of the hill and sussed out the spot where the sun would rise, I saw three women headed my way. Looking at them out of the corner of my eye, I was prepared to nod a greeting as they drew closer, but they didn't look in my direction. A few minutes later I glanced behind me and saw that they had joined hands, with eyes closed, in the center of the zodiac sculpture that is inlaid on the small plaza at the hilltop.

A few minutes later a young couple began making their way in our direction under the lightening sky. I heard them laugh as they dallied upwards, hand in hand. Only a few other people were then visible on the grounds of the park, maybe a hundred yards away, all of us in some way awaiting sunrise with a casual, but private, expectancy. Around us were the sounds of a city beginning to come to life for another day, and one that promised to be beautiful.

It was hard to define the exact moment. A point on the horizon got brighter and brighter, behind an occasional truck on the I-5 bridge. Then there came a time when the brightness became a gleam and the longest day of the year had officially begun.

I took in the scene and snapped pictures, the couple chatted quietly, yet playfully, as he shot a video on his iPhone. On top of the zodiac, the trio stood shoulder-to-shoulder, with burning punks in their hands, facing the rising sun. Time stretched slowly, ineluctably, into a new season.