At Home, At School

     I dreamed I was teaching at U.T.S.A., standing in front of a class wearing blue jeans, a T-shirt and Birkenstocks.  I was in my element--including the most elemental attire. In the dream, I was about the age my daughter is now--early forties, with two children.

     Teaching was, and always has been, one of my Happy Places.

     When my students turned in papers to be graded, I took them home and read them  and wrote encouraging personal notes along with suggestions for their writing. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say I probably spent more time on their papers than they did.  I used the usual English teacher shorthand: CS for comma splice, MM for misplaced modifier, FRAG for fragment, etc.

     One of my students, now a friend, later told me that she thought all those MMs meant Umm--as in yummy! She is now a teacher at U.T.S.A. as I was then, and she's almost completed her Ph.D. We always laugh at the memories of those MMs.

     Teaching in those years was a bit like being on stage.  I might have a script of sorts to get me started, but I improvised according to the mood of the audience.  I walked into the rows of desks, or I pulled the desks into a circle and sat with them.  At the end of the day, I was spent, having put every teaching trick I knew into my ninety-minute gigs.

     At the end of the month, my paychecks were probably less than theirs--waiting tables and working at electronics stores.  As very few of them chose teaching careers, I'd wager that they all earned more on the job the first year out of the hatch than I did, but I'll never regret choosing work I loved.

     After retiring from teaching, I launched a second career--leading writing groups in the little apartment behind my house. I saved the best for last!

     Members of writing groups become friends--mine and each other's.  We recommend books we love to each other.

     Here are some of the books recommended by the members of two groups this week alone:


Journal of Best Practice

The Center Can Not Hold

The Fault in our Stars

Mad Adam--and the other books in the trilogy by Margaret Atwood

The Round House

Saving Fish From Drowning

The Dog Stars

Room

The Enchanted

The Painted House


     Where else can I go where people love reading and writing as much as I do?  Where people bring food and drinks and pretty party plates whenever they feel like it?

     Diana brought me the most delicious lasagne on Sunday, my lunch on Monday--which I ate with gusto beside a little pot of yellow roses Sharon brought. I'm going to try my hand at this yummy veggie lasagne for my contribution to salon tomorrow night.

     All this--and in my own back yard!  I feel rich in spades today thinking of how lucky I am to do "work" that leads to play and friendship, a place where we are all students, all teachers!