Today Jaime was spending lunch detention with me for being a stinker in class. After he honestly owned up to his nefarious malfeasances, we began to chat about life. I noticed a pink ink scrawling on his forearm that said Tia twice, both in bold block letters. I asked if that was his girlfriend, and he said no.
"But we do like each other a lot and we're going to a concert together on Friday and every time I get off the phone with her I tell her I love her."
I was puzzled. "And you're not going out? But you are going out Friday and you even say 'I love you.'"
We looked intently at each other, me wondering if he could see that they were doing what they said they weren't, and him wondering if I could really get it at all. I'm not sure who was more baffled at the other.
"Yeah, but her last boyfriend was really mean to her and it's going to take her a while to get over it. Maybe we'll go out sometime this year."
And then it was time for his electives to start and he hurried off to class after apologizing again, and I was left sitting on a wobbly desk to wonder at the gravity of 12 & 13-year-old relationships. Even though it is nearing 20 years ago, I remember how true my feelings were, & how deep my passions ran. In 7th grade I would watch Justin from across Language Arts, the nerves all over my body tingling when we made eye contact. I never even came close to telling him I loved him, but I did dance with him at the dances sometimes. We never went out either. I wonder what would have happened if I could have told him of my undying affection? Would the evolution of my understanding of the word love have been changed? I am grateful for my unintentioned silence. I still don't understand much about love, but am more careful about how I speak it.
Coleridge said that prose is words in their best order; poetry--the best words in their best order. How do I live beyond prose in the way that I love, both in the words that I speak and the silences and white spaces that hover behind & around my words? How do I order the words in my life? Are they surrounded by enough white space for those reading my life to be able to pause, to consider, to breathe?
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1 comment:
I too am a teacher. I wonder each day what issues my students will bring to school with them. Am I out of touch with their reality? What is my responsibibility to help them to find the goodness in their world and maybe pass it on to others. Each day we touch a life make it a good thing.
Doug
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