Yes, children, this is the cool-out corner. We're slowing it down for all the lovers in the house.

As much as I loved my little attic apartment in Nashville, it was full of windows that didn't open. AC units that filled the lower halves, skylights that let in no breeze. It has cooled off enough in Florida that I can leave the windows open all day. There are one or two hot hours in the middle before it begins to cool again, and at night the wind comes through delicious and dark passing from one side through the other.

Amidst exhaustion, there is quiet. Among chaos and 14-hour days, there are barbeques where other teachers ride bareback in a history teacher's backyard, pumpkin ale on the lanais, sushi with my doppelganger, froyo shops with so few customers they'll make you any flavor you want. Peppermint even. In October. There are avocadoes falling from trees and mattresses piled by the street. And despite the rain that seems to stream so often, the sun beats down and evaporates the pond until it seems one big lily pad.

I've given up my chance at Fall and family Thanksgiving for rest, staying in. 2012 is the year, 32 the age, where holidays have ceased to have the importance they once did. And so, this year, I'll stay where it's sure to be sunny, paint my classroom with students, maybe find another teacher with the same idea and forego the airports, the too-little-time to catch up with family and friends, the football game and rental cars. Taking all that out of the equation sounds like bliss. Instead, maybe a night out in Tampa or Orlando, a trip to the beach, St. Pete.

In the weeks between now and then, there's sure to be parent/teacher conferences in which I must defend the justification of a student's failing grade. There are lessons on the minstrel show, Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, and Time and Distance Overcome—all to begin engaging students with why blackface isn't funny. Because the students who came to school on celebrity day dressed as Flava Flav, complete with brown paint smeared over their skin and oversized clock necklaces, were not my students. But there are 140 who are and who I can talk to about whatever has been left unspoken. All that unspeaking is going to be tiresome, but I feel a responsibility to do it.

Because as Da Mayor said in Do the Right Thing: "Those that'll tell don't know, and those that know won't tell."