flying through life with my hair on fire...i am a planet called mom, with four moons in my orbit.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Bearings


Since I started working at Desert Academy I've been delighted to be there. Desert is a small, dynamic private middle and high school. The head is a former teacher of mine, from 8th grade. He's long been a friend, and I used to babysit his kids when they were babies. Just a few weeks ago I went out and had drinks with the youngest of the two, who was 6 months when I cared for her. She's now 21 and fabulous.
I feel old.
But I digress.
I assist the admissions director and the finance director in their day to day stuff. Filing, errands, answering phones, researching updated college guides, creating sign up sheets and binders for college counseling, typing letters and minutes...you get the picture.
Of course, I crave more.
Many of the teachers were born in the...1980s. I would guess that none of them recall with much detail the Challenger disaster, nor do they likely have a memory of the hostage crisis. Of course, not all the faculty are 10+ years younger than yours truly but many are...and they are teaching. They are creating, and imparting wisdom to the next generation.
So, I think I want to do this. I think I want to teach. But then...do I? Really? Do I want to track grades and create lesson plans, mark kids tardy and tell blossoming girls to pull their shirts down to meet the tops of their pants? Do I want to remind boys to remove their hats in class, and police homework assignments? Do I want to be assigned to committees and be required to attend prom...as a boring adult?
I am getting to know these kids, slowly. The ones I've met are wonderful, intelligent, inspiring. Some are shifty eyed and uncomfortable in their own skin, yes, but I remember being on the other side of this relationship--feeling some sense of weirdness in the presence of adults. There was always something unsettling about them when I was an adolescent. Adolescence is, after all, a strange limbo. Striving to be independent and grown up while feeling a deep sense of disdain and impatience for all things "independent and grown up." We adults represent all that is suppressed, and since school started on the 21st I've already heard the assertion that we're trying to make them "conform."
Once upon a time I fought the power too. Wore black clothes, dyed my hair black, walked around looking morose. Hated being home, craved being with my friends....
I can't say I did it all but I did a lot. And now, I am in other shoes. Now, people rely on me, and my yearning for independence and wider boundaries has come to fruition. Now, I am the gatekeeper and the task master.
So...do I really want to gate keep other people's rebellious kids?
Perhaps not. I mean, I have a two-year-old and all.
What I crave, then, is this: to create. To inspire. To leave a mark. I could do this through teaching, certainly, or I could stay the course, file the files, write the letters, and answer the phones. Let my day job inform my own creative pursuits.
Assuming I pursue them.

This is rather old news. This has long been my struggle. But at what point will I reach the top of the peak, find that incredible view, step off into the void...and soar?

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