The Interchange of Hello and Goodbye

Yesterday was a half day of school. Thank goodness. If it'd been a full day, I think the middle schoolers would've been bruised irreparably with the way they were flinging themselves into each other. The third quarter started January 10th and just ended, which explains why everyone is now in the process of becoming a rabid wolf.

Actually, okay, not everyone was rabid. My 7th grade girls flocked to the bookshelf, asking which books they should take home over the break. It filled my little heart with sunshine, the way they recommended titles to one another: Tuck Everlasting, When You Reach Me, Turtle in Paradise. It was mostly boys that were foaming at the mouth to get out of there, and the crowning glory was a dog toy flying out the window.

It was the last day for two of my students, brothers who've been at our school for seven years, now relocating due to business on the other side of Madrid. The older brother walked around in a state of disbelief all week. When his female classmates were chattering away before Thursday's vocab quiz, he pounded his fist on the desk as he's been accustomed to doing this year when the girls get to be too much. "Guys, be quiet! This is my last vocab quiz!" And then his face registered seven years of sadness as he understood what he'd said.

We stood in the hallway yesterday, saying goodbye to the high school kids who are taking a spring break missions trip to Moldova, and I noticed him in the doorway, very still. He was looking around the circle at the goodbyers, looking at the school's front gate, and I heard him say softly to himself, "Wow. Seven years."

---

A month ago, we did a short-term class week, offering assorted electives instead of our regularly schedule academia. The rest of Caitlin's and my class had gone downstairs, having been effectively bleach-splattered during a t-shirt art project, but I stayed outside with one of the girls; she needed to fabric paint her shirt still. We talked about how next year's 8th grade class will shrink a little and then grow: kids going to the States on home assignment, kids coming back again. She and one of her best friends will both be gone first semester--one to California, one to Phoenix.

"What do you think?" I asked. "Do you want to live in the States one day, or do you think you'll come back to Europe?"

"Um, probably I'll go to college in the States, and then I'll just stay there."

"Yeah? It's hard to go back and forth, isn't it?"

"Yeah. You have to say goodbye a lot. But you get to see people again. But it's hard."

"Do you think you'd ever want your kids to experience this kind of life? I mean, you get to see and do so many things most kids never will! If you have a family, do you think you'd like for them to live the way you do, or would you rather belong to one place?"

She thought about that for only three seconds. "Stay in one place. Otherwise it's too sad."

I guess I wasn't expecting that. Maybe I was. My kids have seen stuff that every American kid grows up dreaming about: They saw the Eiffel Tower in kindergarten. They've been camping in Italy. They are used to classmates that appear and vanish yearly, and if the all-school chapel service is held entirely in Spanish, their parents aren't going to write nasty notes to the administration.

They say goodbye every year. Teachers. Classmates. Family members who pass away while they're in different countries. Pets. Go away for just a few months, and in that time, everything changes. I have had to say goodbye to seven different students this year. That's been enough. I've only been here for ten months. I hardly know.

I guess they build resilience and they learn to say goodbye and probably, secretly, some of them build little shelters around their hearts to keep out anything that might hurt too much later when it has to leave.

The 7th grade girls walked out the door toward spring break after giving me hugs and saying, "We'll miss you!" And though my first response was to laugh and say, "Girls, it's only a week," I realized that this is part of the life, and you have to tell people what you think of them while you're with them, because it all goes too fast, and if you don't say it now, the chance is over. So I hugged them back and said, "I'll miss you, too," because I will, and because they need to know, and because we'll all grow up and change and separate soon enough, and because behind those words we're all saying more; we're saying I love you and I care and In this moment, you are my life.

It's finally spring.

It's finally raining.

In other news...

Laughing Boy: "I feel like a fat potato!"

and

Laughing Boy: "It's against my human race!"
Boy 2: "You mean nature?"

and

Boy with pillow between his legs, taking a nosedive into the beanbag chairs: "I'm a wizard!"

and

My students have a weird schedule today, so they've got a free period with me this hour. Right now, they're all gathered in a secret meeting at the front of the room, discussing one of my 7th graders neighbor-watching habits. I just learned that "during every awkward silence, a baby monkey is born!"

North and South

The edges of Spain carry a hundred cultures between them.

I live in the middle, in Madrid, in medieval remnants. The buildings are stocky; the earth is dry. Madrid is filled with the ghosts of kings, frozen in stone and bronze statues, with old whispers of horse hooves clip-clopping on cobblestone. It is castles and crypts and artisans who picked just the perfect flat rock to fit next to thousands of other flat rocks lining the steps that would point toward a garden that tourists, six hundred years later, would pay 10€ to walk over, never noticing quite how the grit and the gravel fit together so tightly.

The last time I remember rain in Madrid, it was night, it fell only for minutes, I was still not sleeping well. October, maybe. Madrid sees wisps of gray clouds and prays for them to fill the reservoirs; Camarma has been rationing water off and on because it is brown, dusty, dry here. Here in the land of the kings.

At the end of Christmas vacation, I bought a train ticket to Málaga, down on Spain's southern tip. Katrina was patient with me as I pointed out the orange trees on every corner, snapped pictures of water and palm trees and blooming flowers. Flowers! In January! From the top of a steep cobblestone hike, we thought we spied Morocco peeking over the edge of the Mediterranean.

Andalucía, the southernmost region of Spain, is the Spain you see on postcards and travel brochures. The tropical Spain, the Moroccan Spain. The Moors rounded the corners of their windows, their doorways. Stars are interwoven in the woodworking. It is warmer there, still ancient, but of a different flavor. You don't sense the merchants and lords and ladies on horseback as much. They are women in head coverings, stirring spices into Moroccan soup--as far from Madrid as you can get, with its bland sauces. You taste fruit and color; you are gathered into rhythm and unfurled into Arabic script, and it is just as much like Spain as you'd ever imagined.

During February's winter break, Sarah, Caitlin, and I rented a cheap hostel room in Sevilla, also part of Andalucía. We had lumpy mattresses and a roommate who asked Caitlin to borrow her deodorant at 7am, but other than that, Sevilla smelled like spring.

Sevilla is Christopher Columbus' burial site, a marriage of Gothic and Moorish, an Islamic mosque turned Catholic cathedral, an intricate carving stamped with a Spanish coat-of-arms. It is so many different kinds of history linking together in patterns that don't match and won't match and somehow still do match.

(Actually, the mosque-cathedral is in Córdoba, which is north of Sevilla. But still in Andalucía.)

Sevilla is flamenco, bullfights, trees so loaded with oranges that they're dropping to the ground in buckets, too sour to eat. We wandered the Alcazar gardens for hours, cheeks burning in February sun, and the inside of the palace was a galaxy of carving, woodwork, and keyhole doors, just dripping with magic. I started making plans just then to marry one of Europe's remaining 39 single princes, so as to move into Alcazar (a summer home, of course). And we hadn't even seen Plaza de España yet.

The fence is ceramic. CERAMIC. The fence is ceramic, the plaza has a moat around it, and we were surrounded by sour orange trees. In all of Spain, Sevilla is my favorite, like a rainbow hand-wrung over summer sky. Even when our train tickets say "Coche 9" and there are only five cars.

But if you should go north, which we did two weekends ago just because we could, Spain will be new again. On the northern coast, Spain reaches into the Bay of Biscay for British flavor. Bilbao felt how I imagine Ireland to feel: wet, wistfully lush, comfortably dreary. We slept across the street from the ocean, which was too cold for anything but fishing clam shells out of the sand, and we walked toward windmills on green cliffs while the wind grabbed our hair by the fistfuls and pulled straight up.

Bilbao is too modern for Madrid, too chilly for Sevilla, too northern-European to be Spain, and yet...it's Spain. It's all Spain, all these wonderful handfuls of mismatched foliage sprinkled across a giant peninsula that's at once dry and drenched. God is pressed into every inch of it, and you can see his tender care in the raindrops that splatter across the Basque Country, just as evident as it is in the apple blossoms that sway over dust clouds as I look out my classroom window. He is here in breeze and dust and drought, and I cannot help but fall in love with this country I never expected to live in, on a continent I was never that interested in, visiting cities I'd never thought about.

But it's so full and it's so beautiful, and He comes squeezing out of the middle of everything, and sometimes I wonder if I could explode from trying to take it all in.

Ides of March, indeed

One of the seventh graders asked me this morning if he could pinch everyone else, since he was the only one wearing green.

"It's not St. Patrick's Day yet, kiddo," I told him. "But it is the Ides of March!"

"What's that?"

I asked if anyone knew the story of Julius Caesar, of what happened to him in the fateful month of March. Together, we determined that it was, indeed, not St. Patrick's day today. Instead, it's a day of strange commemoration, a day in which we need to make sure our friends are truly our friends so they don't stab us to death in the town square.

There are such good life lessons in literature.

Dar Miedo

She came in crying and began to bite me with her words. "I don't know what you did with my sons this year, but they have not learned anything! I don't even want to send them to your class next year because you put them so far behind this year!"

I broke down crying, couldn't even answer. She was probably right.

---

This is what I woke up to Thursday morning: grasping at wisps of a dream. The mother (one of the nicest, funniest parents I've met in Spain) of my two boys who recently went back to the States, wagging her finger in my dreamself's face. It was awful.

Most of my life's fears and conflicts are theoretical, internal. I've never had a parent yell at me, nor a student. I've never been told my administration or fellow teachers that I'm clueless and am screwing up the next generation of comma-users. (In fact, my coworkers are so ridiculously affirming and gracious that it's unreal.) But I have this deep-seated fear that I'm not doing enough, can never do enough, can't be a good enough teacher, can't teach them enough. After Christmas break, I felt myself recovering from the weight of responsibility, thanks to a million good people who reminded me that my role is only a small part of thirteen years of education: not to be underestimated, for sure, but not to be overestimated, either.

Yet, I'm still a first-year teacher, and I suppose we're all prone to relapse.

---

Last night, I was jogging home from a friend's house. ("Jogging" is the loosest possible definition here. It was more like a penguin shuffle, since my hands were in my pockets to keep them warm.) The French teacher came driving by, with the older sister of one of my 8th graders in her backseat.

"I've been wanting to meet you!" big sister exclaimed as I crawled into the passenger seat. "My brother just loves English class! He comes home every day and tells us stories about stuff that happened in class, and how funny you are. He showed me his RVs, too."

(RV = Rules Violation. This kid is so polite and conscientious that he couldn't earn an RV if he tried. But he asked me to write him up one day, and I did. The infractions included "Imitating a seal" and "Calling for human justice." He was super-stoked to show his dad.)

"Aww, that's really nice," I answered, feeling a little warmer.

"He always talks about how much fun you have in class. 'And then we fell apart laughing.' That's how he describes it: fell apart laughing."

"Mostly him. All I have to do is say, 'Good morning,' and he's laughing on the floor!"

"Well, he's crazy about you. We're always hearing about English class. It's so nice to finally meet you."

---

As I write this, he and my 8th grade girl are sitting on beanbags, on opposite sides of the room, competing to see who will finish Anne Frank first. Every ten minutes or so, he'll peek over the desks and call, "What page are you on now? Seriously? Crikey! How do you read so fast?!"

Sometimes I wonder how much good it does, these simple things like beanbags and reading time, and I have to remember: Don't overestimate.

And don't underestimate, either.

A Collection of Quotes, Old and New

8th grader, before Christmas break

Him: "Do I need to keep these papers?"
Me: "Well, not unless you really want to."
"But I don't need them for the final, right?"
"Nope. Your project is your final."
"I'm gonna burn them!"
"You're going to make a Christmas bonfire with your papers?"
"Yes! They will warm me!"
"Ah, first they warmed your brain, and now they'll warm your body."
He pauses. "I'm not so sure about that first one." 

A few minutes pass. He returns.

"Am I going to need this?" He holds up a book report book cover.
"Well, are you the kind of person who likes to hang onto things for memories?"
Thoughtful pause. "You know, in a few years, this could be worth a couple million."

---

Same Boy: "I don't know what to write about. I don't know what the author was trying to say."

Me: "Well, pick on aspect of what she's talking about. Like Sameness. What are some problems that might occur if everyone was the same? Imagine if every boy in this school had the same name as you, looked exactly the same as you."

Boy: "It'd be a good-looking school!"

---

After I mentioned that I couldn't leave them unsupervised in origami class

Boy 1: "It's okay, Ms. Carlson. You can leave, and we'll just fold."
Leprechaun: "Each other!"

---

When a hundred unattached grammar pages fell out of my book

Leprechaun: "These books are really old!"
Me: "They're not so old. They're only from...1990."
Leprechaun: "Our textbook is 21! It could get married if it found a nice vocab book!"

---

During a particularly hungry morning

Boy 1: "We should put a huge bookshelf in here--to put food on!"
Leprechaun: "A fridge?"

---

As I walked up the stairs, holding a piece of cake from another staff member's birthday surprise
Boy 1: "It's your birthday?"
Leprechaun: "Happy birthday! He'll give you a hug, and I'll hold your cake!"

---

As I explained that their usernames for the bibliography-generating site should probably just be their first and last names, so they're easier to remember

Leprechaun: "Can I be prettypinkprincess?"
Boy: "Can I be handsomeunicorn?!"

Welcome to March, courtesy of eDreams

First, they wouldn't let me book the plane tickets, so I had to call the credit card company and assure them that it's really me making those fraudulent charges. That was going well, until we got to the part where the travel agency charged me three times for service fees on a reservation that never actually went through.

So I called them. "My reservation is still pending, but you charged me the service fees anyway. Is there a way I can get that refunded?"

"What is your reservation number?"

"I was not given one, since the reservation is still pending."

"Miss, you wait. You have to wait." And then, happy, flighty music. Call waiting. Okay, so she was being literal. After a minute of looping synthesizer: "Miss, do you have your confirmation number?"

Was she giving me time to find my non-existent reservation number? I mentioned again that I had none and that the reservation was still pending. And added this: "I am not wondering about the reservation but about the three credit card charges."

So she asked for my email address, found the reservation, and informed me that it was still pending. Yes, thank you. Now, about the charges?

"Miss, you need to wait. Your reservation confirmation will be there. You just need to wait."

"No, I understand that. I am not calling about the pending reservation. I am calling because I was charged for three service fees on that reservation."

"You have to wait! Just wait."

"What about the--"

"Just wait. Your reservation confirmation will be in your email."

"I understand that. I am not calling about my reservation. I am calling about the three service charges I got while trying to make that reservation. My bank is telling me that you charged me three times for using your site, even though the reservation is pending."

"You need to wait. Your reservation will be confirmed."

"I. Understand. That. Will the extra charges be able to be refunded?"

"You need to wait. They take money out, put it out, take it out again."

Um, what?! "Um, what?"

"They take it out, put it in, take it out, put it in. You have to wait."

"So...I need to wait to see if I have really gotten charged or not?"

"You need to wait. Your reservation will be there in twelve hours."

"I believe my reservation was cancelled, so I am actually wondering about the service fees and whether they can be refunded."

"Take it out, put it in. You need to wait, Miss. Your reservation will be there."

Well, thanks for that fabulous customer service. There comes a point when I need to be more bold and just hang up the phone, but I hate conflict and always end up exceeding that point by ten minutes. I finally just thanked her, hung up, and redialed--this time, reaching a man who was slightly more coherent. And then we all did the eDreams Hokey Pokey: You put the money in, you put the money out, you put the money in, and you call your bank again.

Well, it's funnier today than it was yesterday. So much can be solved by a good cry.

The Residency Process: Part There've-Been-So-Many-I've-Forgotten

March 1st is one of my favorite days of the year. It begins my favorite succession of months (ending in September), and I love to celebrate its arrival even if there are eight inches of snow on the ground. Because there's something about flipping that calendar page, about seeing April and May tagging so closely behind, that lets my soul breathe again. Although there might be blizzards a-brewin' on March 1st, in my heart it is already spring.

But can it seriously be March already? I remember this day last year: I was living in a bed and breakfast, coloring a sign to celebrate March's arrival. I was answering countless questions about when I'd be leaving for Spain, and I was getting really anxious about the fact that I still needed paperwork, that my stupid FBI check would be nearly expired again by the time I brought it to Chicago.

Last March, the long-awaited paper finally arrived. My parents made a special trip to deliver it into my hands, and I spent the better part of an hour with the church copy machine, churning out triplicate and fourthlicate forms so I could make the first trip to the sufficiently underwhelming consulate.

Last March, we got an actual snow day--declared a day ahead of time. On the day the snow was whipping so hard we could barely see into the parking lot, we stayed in school until 1:00. My little guy was huddled near a heater, and his sister mentioned that they wouldn't be back next year; my heart cracked in two. Last March, middle schoolers in Spain felt light years away. All I knew was that I'd spent all year preparing to say goodbye to one seventh grade boy, and now he was going to be the one to leave me behind.

Last March, I drove home from the half-day and cried--because I hate driving on ice and because my student was leaving. The following day, the preemptive snow day, was a balmy 50-something degrees, which everyone spent outside, in shorts, shoveling the last snow off their melting driveways.

Last March, I moved for the third time in a twelve-month period. I got rid of extra clothing. I stacked more junk in my old bedroom at my parents' house. I spent my lunch breaks in the library of a middle school that no longer exists (it collapsed beneath the floodwaters in June).

---

This March enters on the tail of a beautiful week, starting with the slight sunburn I received on my Sunday-afternoon walk. The fields across from the school are alive with green; the pungent pig fertilizer stench has finally stopped wafting down the hill. I am jogging (which never happens) in shorts (which never happens in March), and everything seems bright and full again because I am outdoors (which never happens before March). In this I am my mother's daughter: I was made for open spaces; I was made for long walks and the wide outside. Everyone at home is posting facebook statuses about snow days, and I feel completely disconnected from that wintry world. (I don't say this to inspire envy but to let you know that I may escape southwest for subsequent American winters.)

This March, I am an official Spanish resident with an official plastic card. (Picked it up yesterday! Just in time to start the renewal process! Oh, Spain.) This March, I understand that this is just how Spanish bureaucracy is, that I need to take deep breaths and flow with it. This March, I'm shocked every time I realize that my memories of last year happened in Spain.

This March, it is hitting me: the wide-eyed joy of having survived nearly a full school year, and the silent sadness that it's almost over. Last March, I knew nothing about these kids except for their names, and next March, I know I'm going to be treading the edges of emotion as I step closer to saying goodbyes. But this March, my heart becomes Spanish-sun warm when they stop by my room to talk, share their last mini chocolate cake, wish me a good weekend. The snow and paperwork crap and sleeping on air mattresses were worth every second of last March--because this March, I am full to bursting.

Matchmakers

In first grade, the year I would not speak up in class except to answer questions (speaking quietly even then so no one could hear if I got them wrong), we found a Post-It note on the teacher's desk. It said simply, "Little Richard." They'd been talking about his recent release from jail at the staff meeting, she'd explained, so she'd doodled the name on a paper.

Romantics that we were, our little posse plucked handfuls of dandelion bouquets at recess. We presented them to her in Dixie cups full of water, giggling about how much she must love Little Richard, how they'd probably get married the next day. We clumped together at the end of the day, making lists of wedding details, and she took it all in stride. What's the harm in letting six-year-olds dream?

Little Shar was not just a dreamer; she was a doer. While the other kids forgot about the impending Little Richard wedding on their bus rides home, I was busy thinking of all the things I needed to get ready. (Have I ever mentioned the time two sixth graders decided to get "married" at recess? How I was going to be one of the bridesmaids if another girl was sick--but that she showed up at school in perfect health and I was demoted to the role of bouncer? How that mainly meant keeping a jealous sixth-grade guy--who also had a crush on the bride--away from the ceremony? Let's be honest: I was terrified. I missed most of the wedding so I could keep my wary eyes trained on him as he paced at the other end of the gym. If he'd plowed us down like I imagined he might, I would have forsaken it all and run. Thankfully, they got "married" peacefully, and the "preacher" ended up bringing his own Bible, so we didn't have to use the one I'd tucked into my backpack the night before--just in case. Anyway, point is, spur-of-the-moment weddings were kind of my thing in elementary school.)

I put my Bible in my backpack. I created colored-pencil flowers on cardboard, painstakingly cut them out. I even drew what was meant to be a life-size portrait of Little Richard. (The cardboard pieces were only 12 inches tall, so I had to improvise. I had no clue what the real Little Richard looked like: my version had a red bow tie and yellow skin.)

I carried it all to school, eagerly awaiting the moment when we'd surprise the teacher with our marvelous wedding preparations. I waited. I waited and waited and waited, and it became clear that the others weren't going to participate. So, in the middle of the morning, as my teacher leaned over Josh's desk to help him with homework, I snaked my hand down into the backpack and retrieved the flowers. I remember a burst of uncharacteristic spontaneity. I remember flinging paper daisies into the air. I remember crying, "Happy wedding day!"

She stopped, looked at me. "What did you say?"

"It's your wedding day! Pick up your flowers!"

That night, my parents got a phone call. It was their first--and last--discipline-related phone call from school.

---

I told this story to my eighth graders today (it related to grammar somehow). They thought the flower-flinging was hilarious. We laughed together, and then they classified parts of speech.

---

There is one single male at our school. One. In a sea of families and single female teachers, there is one guy. And I feel a little sorry for him, because wherever there are single people, there are people trying to help them become less single. (I suspect it happens slightly less here, with so many of us in the same phase of life, but still. It happens.) If you're the lone wolf in an ocean of wolfesses, people say things. People nudge one another. People make suggestions. I've had the suggestion made at least once because, after all, we have three things in common: we both love Jesus, we are both human beings, and we are both single.

---

So Leprechaun is standing near the bookshelf in my classroom, making a big show of peeking at my computer screen and pretending to be shocked at what he finds. (This is an old game. The most shocking thing I have open on the internet is amazon.com.) He leans over the monitor and puts a hand to his mouth. "What? What do I have open this time?" I ask.

"Nothing. Just your email." Then--insert impish grin--he leans over again. "Wait, what? Mr. Single Teacher?!"

"First of all, Leprechaun, sit down and do your homework. Second of all, I don't think Mr. Single Teacher has emailed me all year."

But this is the joy of having single teachers. You want them to be blissfully happy. You want them to fall in love and be adorable and, most of all, invite you to the wedding. I knew that feeling when I was six years old, shading in the cardboard profile of Little Richard. And I know that, even as Leprechaun is quietly labeling nouns and prepositions at his desk, he can't help grinning as he pretends to toss flowers in the air and mouths, "Happy wedding!"

---

It doesn't help that the other teacher and I have lunch duty together this week. He poked his head into my room to ask which of us should circulate the building first, which should eat. I said I'd walk around; I followed him out of the room; I glanced over to see an eighth grade boy with glinting eyes giving me a silent smile, invisible flowers being strewn all across the lunch table.

Equinox Nearing

Sometimes I leave my classroom while it's still bright out, and I think to myself, "Wow! I finished early today! Look at all that sun!" Then I realize that I'm not going home sooner; it's just that the sun is staying awake longer.