If you are a loyal blog reader, you can guess where I’m sitting to compose this post, and you would be correct.  Today is my last official day of summer, and I’m starting it off in my favorite place – the back patio of Letizia’s.  The sun streams through the trees onto robust flower beds, the tiny finches creep closer and closer to the leftover crumbs of the cookie I didn’t need to eat, small children babble unintelligibly to their sleep-deprived mothers, and the constant bubbling of the water features in each corner ripple just below the surface of my attention.  Few places beat this patio in the summer, and one of my greatest joys in writing my way through this season has been spending long mornings in this peaceful place.

As I poured milk in my coffee this morning, the man next to me doing the same said good morning.  We exchanged pleasantries, and I asked him how his day was going.  Busy, he said.  He is the 1^st ward superintendent of the Department of Streets and Sanitation, and he was headed to oversee the cleanup of a fatal early morning car crash that had unfolded a few blocks away.  He asked me if I lived in the 1^st ward, and of course, I have no idea, so I gave him the cross streets of my address.  “You’re in the 1^st ward!” he exclaimed, and pulled out his business card.  (I’ve gotten more business cards in the last two months than in the entirety of my adult life).  He introduced himself and told me if I ever needed anything to call him. He would do his best to take care of it.  I can’t help but wonder what kind of streets and sanitation emergency I might have in the future that Orlando could mitigate, but when a man in work boots and a neon vest tells me he’ll take care of me, it’s got me feeling a little Disney-princessy (Think retro. Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty, not Mulan or Moana). The raging feminist in me is completely fine with this, FYI.

Orlando went on to ask me if I had the day off, and I said yes, but it would be my last for a while since I am a high school teacher, and I’m back to work tomorrow. He was aghast at the early start of my school year, and expressed the common opinion that “he could never teach high school.”  I said, maybe so, but I could never do what he does, so we all have our talents.  We chatted a bit more, I wished him luck on his busy day, and as he went out the front door to face a violent collision scene, I headed out here to my happy place on the back patio. 

In thinking about it, my job and Orlando’s really aren’t all that different.  Each day we wake up with an idea of what our day will entail, and then we’re thrown curve ball after curve ball.  Some days we’re sure we can make everybody happy, and other days it seems we piss everybody off.  We listen, instruct, reassure, comfort, cajole, and demand.  I’d imagine Orlando occasionally actually wades through excrement, and at times I just feel like I am.  At the end of the day, though, my job brings me joy and fulfillment, and from the smile on Orlando’s face, I can tell that his does the same.

I’m not sure how Orlando felt this morning, walking out the door of the coffee shop, but it might be a little bit like how I feel today. This will be my tenth year teaching, but any teacher worth a damn will tell you, the feeling in your stomach when starting a new school year is not entirely unlike what you might feel approaching the aftermath of a head-on collision.  Nerves and doubt simmer beneath the oft-tested certainty that you’ve got this.  On some level, I know what I’m going to face in the coming weeks, but I also have no idea.  There will be new students filling my desks, new colleagues in my department and beyond, new policies, new elements of curriculum, and new challenges every single day. I’m also mildly apprehensive about how I’ll be able to keep up my social life while tackling a new school year, but I have some pretty kick-ass friends who I know will hold me accountable.  As a much-respected instructor of mine would say, it’s time to “buck up baby,” and dive into this new school year with gusto.  I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.

 

Until next time…