Replacement human: Position filled.
Yesterday, I hosted a new ESL Teaching Fellow in my classroom, a bright young woman I already know and already like. My principal hired her to fill the vacancy I will leave behind. I’m leaving, quite by choice and after considerable effort, and that means IS 162 will require an ESL teacher. A third of my current students are moving on to high school anyway, so I couldn’t hold onto them even if I stayed. The nature of school is that people come and go. Those are the facts. The purpose of education is to be off and out, right? Isn’t that a bit like what I’m doing, by leaving the world of middle school, probably forever, for grad school?
Yes. But.
In his iconic all-synthesizer classic “Cars,” Gary Newman sang, “Here in my car, I feel safest of all.” I had never given it much thought, until I headed home yesterday and wanted to cry but couldn’t because I don’t have a car. If you cry on the subway, especially at rush hour, you have to do it standing up, your own face very close to the those of people you don’t know. People who will either try very hard not to notice that you are crying or will stare at you curiously. In either case, there is no sympathy and no comfort.
I didn’t want sympathy or comfort though. I wanted privacy. I wanted to be in a space that was mine enough so that I could have a few moments to grieve the loss of a beginning, an experience, an experiment that is about to be over and continued by someone else.
As I sat on that train, I was filled with images, mostly faces. And names, so many names. Names from every year, every class. Armando. Natalia. William. Said. Diana. Joana. Melissa. Karina. Jairo. Ilina, oh Ilina. Jose. Kasandra. Wanderlin. Damian. Abner. Sebastien. Lyze. Edwin. Jenill. Koralina, my birthday twin. Graciela. Stephanie. Stefania. Estefanny. Don’t cry, don’t cry.
New York fills you up with sights and sounds, with passion and mission. The place bulges with humanity. But, central to all its smaller cruelties is the inescapable fact there is no space and no time to react with any humanity at all. But, tired as I am, it is a little hard not to keep trying.
This is a wonderful post. I especially like the last sentence with its double meaning: I can’t stop trying although I am tired; I can’t stop trying because I am tired.
Any adventure worth having has a little heartbreak at the end.