Category: Uncategorized

The Game

Redford gets so excited about the treat that he’ll get when he loads up into the car that sometimes he doesn’t wait for me to open the door before he tries to jump in.  He’s so pretty.

This morning, he did just that, and while I was fretting over his noggin, I dropped Violet’s leash.  She seized the opportunity to sprint toward the road, which of course made me freak out and run after her.  And then I remembered.  That’s her game.  As long as you chase her, she’ll run.  So I turned my attention back to my special needs son.  Sure enough, Violet came strolling back up the driveway and jumped in the car.

I was reminded of this kid, Michael, who I had my third year teaching in NY.  He was a handsome little guy, always in uniform:  navy pants, yellow button-down, navy tie.  (Some public schools in NY—mostly low socio-economic schools—opt to be uniform schools.)  Smart too.  But Michael was a desk-thrower.  And he cursed A LOT.  He’d have these fits where I’d have to evacuate the rest of the kids from the class and let him wreck the joint.  And sometimes he’d get mad and leave the classroom.  The first few times I ran after him.  I was worried he might hurt somebody or run out in the street and get hit by a bus or something.  About the fifth time, I don’t know, the novelty had worn off maybe, and it took me a little longer to follow him.  When I got into the hall, he was peeking back through the double doors to make sure I was coming.  That’s when I realized, he didn’t want to run away; he wanted to be chased.  Dogs and fourth-graders, man.

P.S.  I used to talk to Michael’s grandmother every day after school.  One Monday, I went out to tell her that he had a GREAT day.  I told her, “He was calm and focused.  He didn’t curse or have any tantrums.  He did all his work.”  She said, “Yeah, he started anti-psychotic meds on Saturday.”

Sorry, It’s Terminal

Five years ago, for about two weeks, I woke up at 3:00am and could not go back to sleep.  My mom told me I had terminal insomnia, and I was like, “Oh my god!  It’s FATAL?!”  And she said, no, terminal as in ‘end’, like the end of my sleep was disrupted.  Whew.

The good part was it went away.  It came back any time I had a big stressor in my life—moving, changing jobs, family stuff—but it was always temporary.  Now I’m going on four months of pretty consistent 3:00am wake-ups.  I’m pretty cranky about it too.  It’s hard to teach 30 nine-year-olds reading, writing, math, science, and social studies on five hours of sleep a night.

The shitty part is that I’m still so tired when I wake up.  My eyes refuse to stay open, but when I close them, my mind burns a big, fluorescent sign that says OPEN FOR BUSINESS.

Open This Door

The following is a piece of fiction I wrote once during a writing workshop:

The familiar orange corrugated metal looms ahead.  I almost tag the bumper of a 19-foot rental truck which is backing out at an odd angle.  The guy in the driver’s seat slams on the brakes, and I say, “That’s right.  Comin’ through,” to my closed window, knowing full well that the truck could’ve reduced my Civic to a bottle cap.  I curse as my first attempt to push myself up out of the car fails.  I use the steering wheel and the seat belt to hoist myself up and have to lean against the car door to catch my breath.  Inside, six people stand in each of two lines, waiting for their turn with one of the slack-jawed “customer service associates”.  I change lines three times before I give up and stay in the line closest to the air-conditioning duct.  When I reach the counter, “Curtis”, as his name tag reads, says, “Welcome to U-Haul.  How can I help you?” with all the warmth of a mule.

“I need to get into unit 3270,” I say, pushing my driver’s license across the counter toward him.  He glances at the ID and then looks back at me.

“This dudden look like you,” he says.

“I know.  I dyed my hair blond for summer,” I say.  He stares.  “And I’ve put on a few pounds, but it’s me.”  He blinks.  I spit out my name, date of birth, and address.

He walks away, and I think the idiot might be going to find his manager, but he yanks open a drawer and pulls out a key on a giant rectangular keyring that has my storage unit’s number on it.

“Thanks.”  I swipe the key from his hand and push through the swinging door that leads to the units.  I buzz the elevator for a good ten minutes before I surrender to the fact that this is a freight elevator and moves only when someone inside decides to make it move.

I throw myself a little pity party as I trudge up the stairs to the third floor.  I have to stop on every landing to rest.  On my floor, I pretend to search for my key, giving my lungs a chance to stop burning, for the benefit of the dude loading up a cart about ten feet away, then I snake through the units.  When I reach 3270 I press my hands against the door and stare at the locks.  Could it be any hotter in this metal hell?

All right, goddammit, I’m going to open this door.

I’m going to open this door, I’m going to pull out that Total Gym, I’m going to take it home, and I’m going to work out until I look like Christie Brinkley.  Hell, I’ll settle for looking like Chuck Norris if it means I won’t wheeze like a smoker when I climb the subway stairs.

I’m going to open this door.  I’m going to work out.

I’m going to open this door.  I’m going to sell this fucking machine on eBay.

I’m going to open this door.

I find myself standing in front of Curtis holding out the giant keyring to him.  He glances at my license as he hands it to me.  “Yeah, I see it now, but you do look a lot different,” he says, his gaze slowly working its way down my bulges. I grab the license and walk out.

I didn’t open the door.

Show, Don’t Tell

I’m trying to teach my students the whole show-don’t-tell thing so I wrote this little story…can YOU tell how I was feeling?  (I know it’s vanilla, but remember, my audience was 9-year-olds.)

“Let’s go on that one,” said my friend Geoff, pointing at a metal tower that stretched about a hundred twenty feet in the air.  We had decided to spend our last day of freedom before the school year started at Carowinds, wringing every ounce of fun out of our summer vacation.  The sign in front of us said ‘Drop Zone’, which pretty much summed up the ride.  Surrounding the giant pole were sixteen outward-facing seats.  The passengers were pulled slowly up to the top of the ride and then released to fall sixty miles per hour toward Earth before the airbrakes screamed on.  Geoff and I had had a discussion in the car on the way to the amusement park about rides.  “I don’t understand people who don’t like roller coasters,” I had said.  “They’re so much fun.”  Now as we stood in front of this towering colossus, I was having second thoughts.


For all the previous rides, I had shifted from foot to foot, sat on the handrail, and urged the line on quietly, “Come on.  Come on.”  I couldn’t wait to get to the front.  Now I found myself dragging my feet, whispering, “Slow down.”  In no time at all, we were at the gate.  It swung open, and Geoff and I stepped through.  I let my eyes wander up the shaft and almost fell over backwards.  Could I tell Geoff I didn’t want to go?  Could I lie and say I wasn’t feeling well?  Come to think of it, I wasn’t feeling well.

My brain didn’t work fast enough, and I found myself sliding back into the hard seat.  The u-shaped brace lowered itself toward my belly button.  I grabbed onto it and felt it click into place.  There was no turning back.  The operator’s voice droned a welcome and some safety instructions, but all I could hear was a rushing roar like a space shuttle engine.  The seats raised about two feet and stopped.  My legs dangled like a kindergartener’s in a big chair.  I pushed myself back into the seat and grasped tightly to the safety bar. No, no, no.  This was a bad idea.  I turned my head to the side.  Geoff was staring straight ahead and smiling.

The seats began to rise steadily.  First, I saw the tops of people’s heads, then the roofs of the ride pavillions, next the tops of trees, and finally the skyline of Charlotte in the distance.  I could see for miles.  I had a vision of my safety bar popping up. Don’t think about that, Amy.  I squeezed my eyes shut.  That made things worse because all the swooning in my head shot to my stomach.  My eyes slammed back open.

And then it happened.  The brakes were released.  Geoff laughed loudly.  My arms and legs stiffened, but my hair shot skyward as we hurtled toward the ground.  Tears blew upward to my hairline, and a silent scream erupted from my throat. Make it stop.  Eons passed.

The brakes finally screeched on.  We coasted the last 15 feet and stopped with a jerk.  The shoulder braces popped up, and I tumbled forward out of the seat.  My arms and legs had no bones; I wobbled toward the exit.  Geoff was smiling and exclaiming that he wanted to go again.  “No way,” I said.  Never again would I question people who didn’t like roller coasters.  Now I knew how they felt.

Mom

Warm and soft, and even though she hasn’t used musk lotion since probably 1989, I can still smell it on her.  She envelops me in loud hugs.

She rejoices in singing, in reading a good yarn, in dandling her grandbabies on her knee, in filling a garden with mulch.

And when I complain about life, she says, “Do you want me to listen or do you want my advice?”