Walking the Walk

This morning, I lay in bed long after the sun should have risen, waiting for the light. The hurricane that missed us must have taken the sun with it, leaving darkness in its wake. I rose and made coffee, rose and opened all the windows in the house, rose and listened to the rain. It felt like a respite. For three days, I have been unpacking. I listen to CD's, screw curtain brackets into wood frames, go grocery shopping at Wal-Mart. Driving through this one-horse town, I can't help but be excited. When people hear where I've moved from, they offer me consolation. They say "it's not so bad." No one seems to believe that I'm glad to be here, that I chose this. Truthfully, I surprised even myself by coming here and giving up the urban comforts I so depend on. But there is so much to make up for it. Yesterday, I heard what sounded like dinosaurs outside. I went to my front door window and gaped as two huge tawny birds with red heads and black beaks walked through the yard, as tall as me. The sound was so terrible and ancient I thought they would rush me when I stepped out to take pictures. Cranes, my Dad said when I sent him a photo. Coming home from procuring appliances, I slow as a tractor crosses the highway from an orange juice factory a mile from my home. I turn onto a side road that passes between orange groves and marvel when I get home with my produce that all the citrus from the local market comes from Chile.

If you had asked me on Wednesday if I'd made a mistake coming here, I would've hesitated on answering. Two guys in one of my freshmen English classes ended up chest to chest, on the verge of a fight, as I stood to the side and tried to talk them down. After convincing them to move seats, I thanked them for not making it physical, at which point they would have automatically been suspended. I stood before the photo class as if before a wall. A hostility charged the air, and I could have choked on it. My only concern with photography before was helping to fill whatever was lacking in their knowledge of the subject. I'd never stopped to think that I was taking someone's place, the person who'd shown them everything they know, regardless of his issues as a teacher. One day, I was so nervous that I couldn't finish my lunch. The next day, I ate my leftover third of peanut butter sandwich and root chips that I had forgotten to take out of my bag the day before. Friday, I didn't eat lunch at all. And once the week was over, I went to the parking lot to find I had my second flat tire in a week. But I didn't lose hope. Because that day, the most hostile of the photo students--one who had insulted my photos and told me there was nothing he needed or wanted to learn--shifted. I'd shown a TED video of the street photographer I love, JR. I showed it in all my classes and used it as the basis for conversation about communication and social change. I was dreading showing it in photography, because I was already feeling worn down by them. But they got excited. The kid who said he had nothing to learn, who refused to take photos when I took them around the school on Thursday, who'd refused to do the in-class assignment, he got excited. He talked and talked about how inspiring the project was that JR had done, how he wanted to do it in this town. Several kids started to talk about where we would display the pictures, about why it mattered.

And that was it. I'd gone all week with nary a lesson plan, clinging to books and videos and group work and free writes, improvising whatever commentary went along with them. A boy in my last English class stayed behind to talk to me about photography and showed me a photo he'd taken of leaves on a tree. I said it was great. And regardless of its composition, I meant it.