I know this is old news.
I know I'm a day late and several dollars short.
I know you've seen this already courtesy of a much cooler blog: Greener Grass
But I wanted to share it with you guys anyway.
So, here it is
Hope you enjoy for a second time, or maybe fourteenth...
David
Monday, October 31, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
On Top of the World, or Happy Friday!
Being a teacher is not the easiest thing for one's self-esteem. Most days you come home, avoid the mirror, and try to forget the brutally honest things kids tell you about yourself or ask. You try to increase the depth of your skin each year, hoping that you're have gotten a little older and verbal statements don't get to you. It's not that they are trying to be rude, but more like they are just really good at it and no one has told them to be a little more modest with their gifts. It's not an odd thing to be told you should have done something more meaningful with your life, or that you're balding, or that you look really good for 48, etc. It's also not an odd thing to wonder those same things until you realize that you're only 31 and are doing something very meaningful with your life. However, some days you hear a student say something about you and it erases everything and yesterday was that day.
I had left the door open after 7th period and the kids where their usual, overly loud selves and out of the roar, I heard two students say:
"Man, everyone is always is saying good-bye to Mr. Dark..."
"It's because he's so boss..."
"Yeah, he is so boss..."
So, that is that. I am sure those same kids had just said I was bald or that that I have a pimple on the right side of my face, but for 1.2 seconds, I was thought to be boss. I'm not even exactly sure what that means, but if its good enough for Springsteen, its good enough for me.
Happy Friday,
David
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Throwing the Yellow Dodder--Snippet 10
* This is a continuation of a work of fiction.
....He knew why I ticked and why I was really smiling." Mable replied having completely ignored Lucy's comment, knowing she hadn't really meant it and Lucy was glad she had.
" I think I know just what you mean, Mrs. Mable. I took my boy down to the coast last year and it was something we should have done a long, long time ago. It was just so beautiful, Mrs. Mable. It was my first time down to the coast and it almost knocked the breath out of me. All that pretty, blue water and white sand spread out before you like Thanksgiving dinner. It was so beautiful that I had to hide a couple of tears from my boy, but the strangest thing happened. As soon as I saw that big water coming and going, I wanted to share it with Melvin. It was as if those little, blue waves were bringing all things back to me as they came into the shore. Now, I know what you're thinking. Why in the name of all that is good and holy would I want to share something so beautiful and peaceful with a rat behind like Melvin? And I agree with ya'. I hate that man and all that he's done to me and Clive, but I must be pure crazy because something inside me still loves that bastard and I can't seem to kill it no matter how hard or cold I try to make myself."
And as she spoke, Mable listened, but all she could see and feel was the cool wind blowing off the lake and it was as if she were eighteen again and her sweet William was beside her and they were holding hands so tight that her fingers began to hurt, but she didn't want to let go and knew he wouldn't. He kept smiling at her with the biggest dumb grin his bright face could make and she knew why. He was hers for as long as she wanted to be and they were on there way to see the whole wide world through the small square and rectangle windows of his Ford coupe. Every mile unfolded before them and was theirs for the taking. All they had to do was open wide their eyes and hold onto each other tighter and it would be theirs. Driving over the edge of the world only to see it open up before you like nothing has or ever will again. Red steel moving down the gray concrete road like a blurry fog and not stopping until the black tires felt the sand beneath them and the chrome hood felt the salt from sea breeze settle onto it.
Mable knew the coast that Lucy was talking about. William had taken her there on their honeymoon. It was what she dreamed of so often when she wandered into the restless sleep that only older people knew of. Sand so white it hurt your eyes when you looked down at it; millions of crystal grains stretched out further than your imagination and as old as the earth. Heated and melted deep down in the core of the great earth and pushed to the surface pure as spring grasses. Cool to the feet in the early morning and late afternoon. Mable stretched her feet out of her chairs as she wished so badly to move her toes in the cool sand digging little toe-shaped holes deeper and deeper until her feet were covered and at rest. Mable longed to race William to the water and dive in and feel as if all that bad about life was being taken out to sea and all that was good was left to sit on the beach in the thin layer of clear water that covered the shore. She squeezed her eyes tight and tried to feel the waves push her down into the bottom and then pull her up and then push her out to deeper water. She opened her eyes quickly because this is always the way it went and it always went poorly for her daydream. She would spring from the bottom and rush to the top only to see William swimming away from her and she could never catch him or shout loud enough to get him to turn around. It had not been that way. Time had changed the dream and she couldn't change it back. He had left her behind and she was left to drift out to sea with all that evil in the world and in her...
Hope you enjoy,
David
....He knew why I ticked and why I was really smiling." Mable replied having completely ignored Lucy's comment, knowing she hadn't really meant it and Lucy was glad she had.
" I think I know just what you mean, Mrs. Mable. I took my boy down to the coast last year and it was something we should have done a long, long time ago. It was just so beautiful, Mrs. Mable. It was my first time down to the coast and it almost knocked the breath out of me. All that pretty, blue water and white sand spread out before you like Thanksgiving dinner. It was so beautiful that I had to hide a couple of tears from my boy, but the strangest thing happened. As soon as I saw that big water coming and going, I wanted to share it with Melvin. It was as if those little, blue waves were bringing all things back to me as they came into the shore. Now, I know what you're thinking. Why in the name of all that is good and holy would I want to share something so beautiful and peaceful with a rat behind like Melvin? And I agree with ya'. I hate that man and all that he's done to me and Clive, but I must be pure crazy because something inside me still loves that bastard and I can't seem to kill it no matter how hard or cold I try to make myself."
And as she spoke, Mable listened, but all she could see and feel was the cool wind blowing off the lake and it was as if she were eighteen again and her sweet William was beside her and they were holding hands so tight that her fingers began to hurt, but she didn't want to let go and knew he wouldn't. He kept smiling at her with the biggest dumb grin his bright face could make and she knew why. He was hers for as long as she wanted to be and they were on there way to see the whole wide world through the small square and rectangle windows of his Ford coupe. Every mile unfolded before them and was theirs for the taking. All they had to do was open wide their eyes and hold onto each other tighter and it would be theirs. Driving over the edge of the world only to see it open up before you like nothing has or ever will again. Red steel moving down the gray concrete road like a blurry fog and not stopping until the black tires felt the sand beneath them and the chrome hood felt the salt from sea breeze settle onto it.
Mable knew the coast that Lucy was talking about. William had taken her there on their honeymoon. It was what she dreamed of so often when she wandered into the restless sleep that only older people knew of. Sand so white it hurt your eyes when you looked down at it; millions of crystal grains stretched out further than your imagination and as old as the earth. Heated and melted deep down in the core of the great earth and pushed to the surface pure as spring grasses. Cool to the feet in the early morning and late afternoon. Mable stretched her feet out of her chairs as she wished so badly to move her toes in the cool sand digging little toe-shaped holes deeper and deeper until her feet were covered and at rest. Mable longed to race William to the water and dive in and feel as if all that bad about life was being taken out to sea and all that was good was left to sit on the beach in the thin layer of clear water that covered the shore. She squeezed her eyes tight and tried to feel the waves push her down into the bottom and then pull her up and then push her out to deeper water. She opened her eyes quickly because this is always the way it went and it always went poorly for her daydream. She would spring from the bottom and rush to the top only to see William swimming away from her and she could never catch him or shout loud enough to get him to turn around. It had not been that way. Time had changed the dream and she couldn't change it back. He had left her behind and she was left to drift out to sea with all that evil in the world and in her...
Hope you enjoy,
David
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