Learning to Breathe

By A.E. Bayne

Sometimes I am just not ready for a thing to happen. I have been in such a hurry for life to move me forward, out, away, beyond, that I have forced a thing, a next step, when it is not its time. And so, I have been unhappy with my lot, and have sought to change those things which I cannot. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the way I’ve lived my life, not horribly, but rushing, always rushing away from the present without first learning the lessons to take me forward.

So, I ask myself what is terrifying about today? I woke at five, sweating and restless, not quite ready for this warmer weather under my flannel sheets. I spent the early morning enjoying toast with strawberry jam and jasmine green tea, and then later making boiled eggs and the same toast for Xaviar. Six forty rolled around the clock face and Xaviar headed out to catch the bus over to the high school for his morning Latin class. I took a quick shower, but lingered in my room while picking out an outfit and brushing on my make-up. I left the house around seven fifteen with plans in my mind to teach three separate lessons to my eighth grade students about Anne Frank and WWII, the erosion of Jewish rights in Nazi Germany, and a model of intolerance. Roughly twelve minutes later I was traversing my hallway at school, dropping in on three colleagues to chat before reaching my own classroom door.

Homeroom and the first three periods went smoothly; I even had time to grade papers while the kids watched part of an Anne Frank documentary. So far, so good!

I brought an enormous Granny Smith apple for lunch that threatened to break my apple slicer with its girth. Winning that battle, I lightly salted half of the sliced apple and tucked the other half away for later. My colleagues and I chatted about various students, all the “he said, she said” drama of the eighth grade microcosm, and tuned out the din of the noisy lunch room behind us. We rolled our eyes as children squealed when helicopters flew close to the top of our building. Upon leaving the lunch room, I checked my mailbox and found a flyer for a traveling theater group that reenacts Edgar Allan Poe’s life and poems. This is the year of his 200th birthday, which is impossible; yet it is comforting to know that people still care enough to keep his memory alive.

Back in the classroom, I finished teaching my final two classes for the day and took a breather for a quick five minutes to check my email, both work and personal (oh, I know, so bad). It was time for hall duty, so I grabbed a bundle of papers to grade and headed downstairs to the desk in front of the library. Not quite, “Stop! Who goes there?” I chatted with Rocky, our technology specialist, whose name always makes me think of the Beatles’ song, and made plans with him to reserve an I-Book cart so that my students can make poetry podcasts in April. I graded enough papers to fell Skyline Drive; most were fairly well done, and some will go back for corrections. Such is the way of the hormonally challenged eighth grader.

I stopped in the library after duty to tell Cindy, our librarian, about the Edgar Allan Poe theater group, and she reminded me that the author, Roland Smith, will be visiting our school in two weeks. He has written many adolescent novels, including most recently Elephant Run and Peak. She mentioned that we are also going to take him to dinner on the Monday evening prior to his visit to the school, so even better. She also reminded me of the upcoming book talks from Rhonda, a librarian from the public library in town. She always has the kids on the edges of their seats. The future looks bright!

I returned to my classroom with time to grab the flyer for the theater production and start downstairs to see Jane, our bookkeeper, for a chat about English department funds; but my fellow eighth grade language arts teacher, Linda, had questions about an upcoming test that we are trying to publish to the LAN server so the kids can take it on the computers. We figured it out and I still had time to run down to see Jane to talk cash. “Looks good,” she said, I would just need to get the principal’s John Hancock. He’ll be back tomorrow.

I jogged back up the stairs because it was time for the kids to arrive for afternoon homeroom and bus call. Turned the projector on…quieted them down…”Yes, you may go see your math teacher”…”No, I do not have any candy for you”…”Off the desks!”…”Second load can go to their lockers now”…”OFF the desks!” I talked to a student about her grade in class; I talked to another about a teacher who was “unfair”; I talked to a boy about how he hadn’t seen his father since 2006. I chatted with the last two students about what fun live theater is to watch, and then waved to them as they left the room for the day. I smiled, a lot. It may be the last one they see for the rest of the day.

I breathed.

Xaviar arrived. He read; I entered grades for an hour. We left the school and headed toward my mom’s house to help her unhook all of her Verizon Fios boxes so that she can send them back to the company. She asked for help because technology has always made her nervous and she thinks she will break the boxes. She offered me jewelry that would go in her yard sale next weekend. I took a few pieces.

We called for pizza from Primavera – two for one deal. We headed home for pizza and salad on the porch, only to arrive to find Dusty sitting in the middle of a bag of trash that I left in the laundry room that morning. “Oh, Dusty!” My fault for not removing it. She trotted outside, ignoring me. I picked up the mess, then we ate, after which Xaviar headed inside to watch an episode of Star Trek: Next Generation. I checked Facebook (mindsuck that it is) and cleaned up the dinner dishes (what few there were), then put a load of Xaviar’s clothes into the washer for tomorrow. Then I grabbed my notebook and headed outside to think about what it is from which I am running.

I’ve been asking myself this question a lot lately, to the point where I don’t even like to make plans too far in advance so that I can live more wholly (holy?) in the moment. As I read back over my day that I have recounted here, I realize just how beautiful each moment of it was. My son, the kids at school with their reactions and sorted tales of woe, my supportive colleagues, my mom, my messy dog - hell, even waking up was a moment to relish, rather than one from which I should run (back under the covers?).

Now, I’m kicking back on the porch, watching the hairs prickle and stand on my arms as the sun warms them and the wind through the screens chills them. I’m listening to the dry leaves shush each other like a frenzied gaggle of librarians, and I notice there is an enormous branch hanging from the maple tree over my bedroom and resting on my roof. My body jerks to get up, to fix it now, to rush forward to the next thing, but I remain seated and let the rolling wind calm me once more.