I am looking for an address. An address that I wrote at least a year ago. I am sure I wrote it on a paper and kept in a book that I was reading. I go through anthologies of Wordsworth and Burns. Maybe I kept it in my King Lear. I am not sure. I guess I will have to look through all of them. My old books, my friends. I don't quite touch them the way I used to 15 years ago.
Two decades ago I quit teaching. Two decades ago I stopped being the giver. When I first decided to teach, a lot of people asked an impatient woman with a quick temper why she wanted to get into teaching. Where children would inevitably test my patience. Where I would be alternately hated and loved. Where the homework exercises would earn me grumbles. Where my strict grading would elicit strong reactions.
Teaching changed me. To knowing words, to knowing their meanings. Creating the magic that I experienced when I first read Paradise lost. I wanted to share my passion.
And then I see it. A card. A hand crafted card, with the crude charm of a fifth grader. Wishing me season's greetings. And on the inside, a handwritten "Happy New Year". I remember her. I remember all of them, in fact. I can at least recollect one incident about them! I smile, my eyes mist over. I am not sure where she is now, where most of them are. But to know that I was appreciated enough to warrant a personal greeting from one person is enough....quite enough.
Oh I remember, I kept the slip of paper in one of my journals. I think I will read my old ones now...I will remember again..
Two decades ago I quit teaching. Two decades ago I stopped being the giver. When I first decided to teach, a lot of people asked an impatient woman with a quick temper why she wanted to get into teaching. Where children would inevitably test my patience. Where I would be alternately hated and loved. Where the homework exercises would earn me grumbles. Where my strict grading would elicit strong reactions.
Teaching changed me. To knowing words, to knowing their meanings. Creating the magic that I experienced when I first read Paradise lost. I wanted to share my passion.
And then I see it. A card. A hand crafted card, with the crude charm of a fifth grader. Wishing me season's greetings. And on the inside, a handwritten "Happy New Year". I remember her. I remember all of them, in fact. I can at least recollect one incident about them! I smile, my eyes mist over. I am not sure where she is now, where most of them are. But to know that I was appreciated enough to warrant a personal greeting from one person is enough....quite enough.
Oh I remember, I kept the slip of paper in one of my journals. I think I will read my old ones now...I will remember again..
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