Just a Blade of Blue Grass (TinyLetter Archive)

 Dear You,

For the second time in a row, I upgraded my boarding pass hours before my flight to "business class," which on Southwest means absolutely zilch except that you get a drink coupon and can board in those first fifteen spots after pre-boarding. So when they announced that the flight was full and that all those people who were ambling around the back of the plane needed to turn around and claim one of the front spaces, I eyed the hulking man-boy who approached my row with dread. Sigh. No right arm-rest for two hours. But once he helped to twist the stubborn air conditioning vent open, I softened a bit. Enough that when he commented, The air is going to come on more, right? I wasn't annoyed. Then he made a second comment that struck me as a little odd, and I turned and looked at him: Is this your first time? Turns out it was. 25 years old and he'd never been on a plane before. Suddenly I was trying to make sense of this experience in a whole new way. As the plane lifted off, he said, That wasn't so bad. But then, Is it going to stay that loud? We both looked out the window as he saw the city from above--the first time:so that's what that building looks like. The plane went higher and higher--then it was only white through the windows. Totally opaque, And then suddenly, we were above the clouds. It was that hour, too, when the sun is getting lower and is just beginning to glint off of everything as it starts to make its way down. The two of us stared until it hurt our eyes and we had to blink and turn our heads. I wished that I could have that experience for the first time again. Though the truth is that even if it is somewhat diminished from what it might have once been, I am still stunned by it every. damn. time. I am 33 and still sit by the window every flight I'm able and stare out at the clouds like it's a sacrament.

I'm leaving Columbus, Ohio, where I've just done my second day in a row of full-day interviews and teaching auditions in front of a class. The difference between Louisville and Columbus is the difference between In Theory and Reality. From the website, from the phone interviews, Columbus was the front-runner. Louisville wasn't as well organized, though they seemed to have heart. Columbus had so many things that on paper were exactly what I wanted: four classes instead of five, no AP testing, integrated 9th--and soon to be 10th--grade years where the teachers worked together to align lessons in English, History, and a separate Writing class. But somehow when I got there, it just didn't gel in the way I'd imagined. They used music to dismiss to classes--which sounds awesome, until you're actually in the midst of it. As a teacher, I need those 2-3 minutes of rest to clear my head before the next kids come in and I have to be on again. Some of the teachers were really nice, but others were clearly full of themselves and made no bones about pretending they had a clue who I was. And twice, people said things to me in interviews that stopped me in my tracks. Once was when someone (I think the Head of School) said that maybe in a few years, writing really wouldn't be necessary anymore. The second time was when I was speaking to the art teacher about the possibility of doing photography and she mentioned that the darkroom really wasn't needed, that no one had used in two years. Everything had gone digital and there wasn't any benefit to darkroom printing. And then she said they would probably just turn it into a closet. No one has missed it yet.

The Louisville school, on the other hand, had a warmth and vitality to it. The students were bright and comfortable. It was clear that they felt valued by their teachers and administration. In my sample lesson, the kids were willing to take risks with me, a veritable stranger. To admit the things they had done as children that involved shame or hard decisions after a free write in preparation for reading "The Gaffe" by CK Williams. One kid said he'd kicked a feral cat that was chasing him, and it stopped moving; he knew he'd taken its life. Years earlier, but he still thinks about it. A girl said her father made both her and her brother shoot a bird after he'd gifted them a BB gun. She did it because he was her father, but afterward she wept and wept. Another kid said he spoke to his dad when he came to his soccer game, even though he hasn't been allowed to talk to his dad for two years by court order. The kids at the Louisville school felt safe--not just physically, but emotionally. I don't think I'd realized how rare it can be until I was there and realized how many of my students don't feel they can speak up at our school. Walking through the halls, a kid came up to ask the Head of School if he could borrow her office to ask a girl to prom. She said Sure. In the lunchroom, someone had decorated a table for someone's birthday with glitter and balloons; a few feet away, a girl asked her two best girl friends to prom and gave them tiaras, and they all squealed and hugged each other excitedly. The English Dean made a joke about communism at the start of class and helped his students who were trying to write on the board backward. The little kids were constructing a game called Slime for the Roses, and they held a parade through the school wearing their Derby Day hats. The head of school took me to meet the choir director when she found out I'd been a choir girl, and on the way over, she mentioned that their first trans student had just transitioned that fall and that all the kids had been really supportive. In the art room, kids were listening to jazz and painting and drawing self-portraits in a circle. The art teacher was so excited to have another photographer and took me to the darkroom: two girls were working and showed me which enlargers they'd claimed as theirs all year. It's hard to explain all the ways the school was better, all the ways it felt like home. But the best part happened so quick, right in the midst of everything: the head of school had asked one of her advisees to choose several other kids to all get together and interview me. They asked good, hard questions, and even the quiet ones spoke up, and the leaders stepped back to let the quiet ones speak. It took trust for the Head of School to let one kid assemble this panel, and it's what I believe allowed them to be so forthcoming with me. It was clear throughout the school that everyone was on even ground, that people treated others with respect, and that individuality was valued. And for me, all those things added up to make it feel like home, like a place where I could really grow and still be my own sort of misfit. Which for now, means taking a chance and uprooting myself one more time to go somewhere that I'm appreciated for being almost 34, a little silly, with an iron grip bent on keeping my sense of wonder.

Yours,
Almost Done