Graduation was a piece of cake

Graduation is tricky business for an elementary teacher. We are far removed from and often, long-forgotten by, the soon-to-be-embarking-from-our-hallowed-halls adults huddled on the stage, squirming uncomfortably in slippery robes and unbalanced hats perched precariously on heads that are turned to the future while their feet tap nervously as they inch closer towards receiving their boarding passes for their flights out of here. 

I love graduation. I love watching the moms who started out on their knees to catch up tiny toddlers to care and comfort them and, sixteen years later, fall to their knees again, to capture this milestone moment in their hearts and on their cameras. It is as much their achievement as it is their graduate's. 

Graduation is such a monumental moment because it clearly delineates the abrupt shift from child to fledgling adult. The safety net of school is gone. Where you go now...is up to you.

My heart was in my throat as I watched this group in which I had invested a year of my life. They were my first 4th grade as I had been unceremoniously booted from my middle school position. "You wanted her...then you take her," my new administrator had been told; my title exchanged like I was a used car. My Blue Book value was appallingly low. I was NOT happy. My self-esteem, self-respect, and reputation had taken a serious hit. My middle school mentality did not embrace this transfer to the land of sunshine and sparkles. Nine-year-olds are a lot needier than 6th graders and not well-versed in the language of sarcasm. I don't do hugs. And then the Common Core modules struck like a biblical plague. I momentarily considered grabbing the mic at graduation so I could teach these poor kids about the French & Indian War as I hadn't even gotten CLOSE to it their year. Poor dears. 

It was a magical year. 

I loved those kids with a ferocity that floored me. In middle school, moments would pop up when you had to be a mom too. In elementary, you have to balance being an educator and a mom simultaneously...ALL THE TIME.  You are emotionally exhausted every day. 

I squinted in my seat as I watched them...not because of the tears (I'm not crying...YOU'RE crying)...but because I could just make out the ghosts of those children from Room 24. My poet-athlete who wrote an achingly beautiful ode to his father, winning the grand prize of a writing contest. My statuesque student who I urged daily to square up her shoulders and stand tall, walked confidently across the stage. My teacher's kid (who I dreaded)..."I didn't want you," I confided to her later, "and now I don't want to let you go." Smiles, high-fives, and hugs would be sporadically exchanged as they steadily progressed from one grade level to the next. Room 24 would occasionally receive a celebrity visit noted with applause, candy, and an invitation to sit in the "Multiplication License Chair." My Field Day shirts were designed, created, and produced by one of my graduating seniors. I took my last FFA selfie with one of my honeys as we chronicled her and her horse, Pete's, appearance throughout that annual event.  Momentos of that first year still decorate my classroom:  a watercolor elephant on the wall, an animatronic dancing dog, a dachshund necklace. 

I didn't know it, sitting there at graduation...but there was one gift left.

Text from my archnemesis Tyler as I was making a low-key exit: "Don't leave. Jake is looking for you."

Text from Amy, annoyed:  "Remember, back when you were in the elementary, you used to use polite language?"

Turning around, I headed back to the auditorium, looking for Jake in the milling crowd.

Jake.

Who, in 4th grade, was a BIG personality in a small package.

Who, in 4th grade, had a grin that stretched from wall-to-wall.

Who, in 4th grade, taught me the difference between the words "bad" and "naughty." Jake was not bad...he was naughty. And, heaven help me, I love the naughty ones.

Who, in 4th grade, taught me that parental involvement would always have an infinitely greater impact on children than a teacher EVER could BUT...when parents and teachers team up...that kid doesn't stand a chance! Poor Jake. 

Jake. With a grin stretching from wall-to-wall, fought his way through the crowd to me with a box bigger than a 4th grader. I couldn't see a whole lot past that point (I'm not crying...YOU'RE crying). Jake couldn't see either, obviously. He couldn't see that the greatest gift in the world that he could ever give me was becoming the amazing man he is...walking across that stage (like through the magical wardrobe of Narnia) and entering a world where he will make a difference. Knowing I played an infinitesimally benign role in his life is so satisfying...soul-satisfying. But I'll take an adorable dachshund constructed out of cupcakes too!

 

Pasteurized? No...up my nose

There is a reason realtors suggest having an apple pie or chocolate chip cookies baking when selling a house. There is a reason that the aromatherapy business chalks up over a billion dollars in sales each year. And there is a reason why I have NOT volunteered to be on my school's LEAP committee AND there is a reason that I rarely venture out of my classroom. I try to keep my nose out of other peoples' business and hope (in vain) that they return the favor. And what do I get for my trouble? A whipped cream pie injected up my nostrils by a giggling 3rd grader who refused to be intimidated, threatened, or bribed. To be fair, it was better than the giant toilet brush used for Covid testing but still...

Upon entering the auditorium, I was neither prepared nor pleased to be wrestled into a black plastic garbage bag with a spiffy shower cap to capture my hair before being pulled on stage with the other "volunteers." "I'm getting you a dictionary for your birthday next year," I growled at Erin who danced around in delight that I admitted that I was even THINKING about getting her a gift. Wrong reaction. Frowning, I did a quick inventory of my fellow victims and was startled that they were all smiling. Idiots. It was time to awaken the sheep. "Don't you understand what's happening here?" I asked, gesturing to the wild crowd whipping themselves into a frenzy. To my shock, I learned that they had signed up for this spectacle. "But I didn't sign up," I sputtered. They nodded happily, laughing. "You wouldn't have come if we'd told you," Erin explained. No, duh.

I sighed dismally and resigned myself to my fate. Thank goodness my generous paycheck reflects these daily humiliations that I am forced to endure. My archnemesis Tyler was sacrificed to the mob before me. I watched in horror as he moved to sit in the chair positioned on the tarp, only to have Erin heartlessly whip it away so that he cruelly fell to the floor. Could this get any worse? She pretended to apologize right before he got smacked in the face with a pie. I inched closer to the exit. 

The 3rd grader who selected me obviously lacked the gift of foresight. Towering over him, I offered him several options. "Let's just forget about all this and head to the vending machine," I said, smiling encouragingly. Nope. Okay. "Wouldn't it be HILARIOUS," I tried again, "if, instead of hitting me with the pie, you veer off at the last minute and hit Mr. King? And then...you and I will head off to the vending machine. The world is your oyster, kid." Nope. Must be the boy wasn't into seafood or didn't understand idioms. What on earth are they teaching in schools these days? Time to pull out the big guns. Looking as menacing as a woman wearing a shower cap and black garbage bag can, I snarled, "You better HOPE that you don't have me next year!" He giggled. Dang. I sat down...holding onto the chair and keeping an eye on Erin the entire time. I should have kept my eyes shut because that third grader pummeled me with the pie. Hope he enjoys writing three page essays about Reaganomics and the navigational travel patterns of dung beetles. 

The olfactory system has an amazing ability to trigger memories. The scent of honeysuckle transports me to a Nantucket bike ride. Lilacs lift me back to my childhood home. A blast of Brut deodorant plants me as a passenger on a three-wheeler, ripping through the woods as a teenager. But Spring in Wyoming County often has us wishing to be distanced from our sense of smell...especially if you attend school surrounded by fertilized fields. Now add in an unseasonably hot and humid day. And layer THAT with whipped cream conditioner in your hair and dairy drying into your denim. What a combination! Sour milk and manure. Where is Erin? I am going to "tractor" down and kick her in the "dairy air." 

Geri's Retirement Party

 September:  "Ya know, we should start our plans for Geri's retirement party," I said to my 4th grade team before Rachel tried to gently explain that she'd signed us up for the first character-building assembly of the school year. "To get it out of the way." I got to work over-seeing my husband wrestle several six-foot-tall hand-shaped props out of cardboard. "It'll be a cinch," I assured him, "Zip-zip." We temporarily shelved our plans for Geri's retirement party as the team choreographed a complicated Mr. Hamburger Helper-inspired dance segment so that students would be better behaved. 

October:  "Maybe now we can begin planning for Geri's retirement party," I started to suggest before it was lost in the excruciating debate that determined the song choice, theme, and dance moves that would accompany our annual 4th grade flash mob for Halloween. Oh, and don't forget the HOURS of coordinated costume planning. I was scared to bring the subject of Geri's retirement party back up.

November/December:  Thanksgiving/Christmas. Erin's holiday play in which I was unceremoniously threated and coerced to participate...then cruelly deceived when promised a "small" part.

January: Panic began to set in as our team leader started the transition process marking her new position as an administrator. We began chronicling what we would lovingly label "The first lasts..." as in:  "This will be the last time we do this as a team..." as we tried to stave off the inevitable changes that would irrevocably alter our team forever (Dramatic much?). T-shirts were made for every occasion. Toasts were made at any and all events. Team meeting went off the rails:

Geri:  How many beans in a can?"

Answer:  "239. One more and it would be 240." (Read it out loud if you don't get it.) 

A big (but closeted) fan of potty humor including what I call the little "f-word" which is banned from Room 24, Rachel laughed until tears ripped down her face. As the self-appointed team secretary, I dutifully noted the event and illustrated it for posterity (and to prove to everyone why I hated team meetings so much). For the record, that little gem, by no means the most rare and valued of all of our team meeting jewels, occurred on Thursday, January 13th.

February: Survived the week-long onslaught of three team members' birthdays. Plunged into our ridiculously unreasonable and ultimately unachievable biography project (research/essay/weird and often scary doll constructed out of a 2-liter bottle/tri-fold poster board and public speaking presentation-they're nine. I'm 52 and wouldn't want to do that!). Arranged a one hundred valentines display for our out-going principal which consisted of two members painstakingly taping up each Valentine on the wall, presumably in the shape of the digits that make up "100" AND a heart (This was after an hours-long font debate) while other members painstakingly criticized their efforts and demanded immediate change. 

Every month, another thing. Dance parties. School assemblies. Quarterly testing. Report cards. Five week progress notes (Where did THEY come from...??? I thought streamlining to 3 report cards a year was supposed to free us up?). More theme t-shirts. More toasts. Clinging to one another as we were being slowly ripped apart.

From December until April, I emotionally tapped out as my focus abruptly shifted to personal issues. By the time my head was on straight again, Geri's retirement loomed over us and I was officially freaking out. "Don't worry," Rachel soothed, "You know we always work better under pressure."

May:  Secret Meeting Number One met. Well, most of us. "What time was it again?" "Where was the meeting? I couldn't find you guys!" "What meeting?" I threw every idea I had at them...providing a foundation upon which to build as we re-constructed my idiotic plans. "They'll toss most of them," I assured Katriel who listened as I asked if she knew how to scale a rope and dangle headfirst by one leg. To our shock, the Secret Meeting Members enthusiastically (and desperately, if you ask me) embraced ALL of the ideas. Okay. We would need to write a song parody detailing Geri's lovable eccentricities. Practice singing the song parody despite the fact that NONE of us could sing (One of us has infamously been kicked out of not one, but two, bands!). Enlist the help of a talented but patient guitarist (Thanks, Aaron). Plan a Geri-themed trivia contest. Incorporate all of Geri's fun-but-odd snack preferences. Buy a dozen pairs of drug-store eyeglasses for a round of  "Geri's Memory Loss Moments" to incorporate beloved friends' anecdotes of Geri's exploits (Like how she intentionally "loses" things at Disney so she doesn't have to carry them around the park and then conveniently picks them up at the end of the day from Lost & Found.).

May:  Secret Meeting Number Two:  MOST of us managed to be there. Kelly and Katriel, using our brainstormed list of every adorably weird and wonderful mishap involving Geri that we could think of, provided the lyrics to parody Ricky Nelson's "Garden Party." We were on our way! 

May:  Secret Meeting Number Three:  Turns out, singing with an accompaniment is not easy. Tempers flared. Accusations flew. "I can't sit next to Amy," Kelly declared.

May:  Secret Meeting Number Four:  Time to revise. Accept our limitations. Trim back a bit. Aaron, with the patience of a saint, began cuing us in with his foot. I'm pretty sure he wanted to use that foot to give us a boot in the...

Thursday, June 2nd:  "Are you going to ride with us on Saturday?" Geri asked me during our lunchtime game of euchre. "Ride where?" I asked, glaring at my hand of nines and tens while considering "going alone." 

"To the Teacher Dinner."

We all put our cards down and stared at her. "You DO know that the Retirement Dinner is tomorrow, right?" Kelly asked softly, thinking about the hours of practice and arguing we'd put in for the past few weeks. "Friday," Katriel stressed, "NOT Saturday?" Geri looked at me, certain that I was somehow responsible for this mix-up. "Are you sure?" 

"YES!!!" we all screamed.

I told Rachel about this later who immediately saw it as an opportunity to add another lyric. 

"Geri missed the retirement party

because she thought it was Saturday

We sang her song without her there

and now she'll have to pay."

I hope Geri's retirement doesn't work

 I don't have friends. I have acquaintances...colleagues...co-workers...companions. I am surrounded by sweet, supportive, loving people. I trust none of them. I refuse to venture into deeper relationships for fear of drowning...preferring to stick to the shallows because, unfortunately, I AM shallow. My smiles and small talk are all a pretense. Fake. I am a fraud. And I know, ultimately, you will eventually discover that so I only let you peek behind the curtain on rare occasions. Fair warning: I will eventually sabotage any and all relationships that manage to establish a tenuous hold. AND...if I am clear-headed enough to see that a potential friendship is developing, I will slap it down with a sarcastic Spinebuster to wrestle that blossoming relationship into submission. Let's not delve into the psychology of my intimacy issues right now. My marriage of 32 years proves only that Brad is a masochist. Genetically, my daughters HAVE to love me but moved to the opposite coast because it's much easier to love me from afar. Joan has stubbornly remained in the picture for three decades only because she retains the fluid flexibility of a rubber band and exhibits the foolish and fearless qualities of that bird that darts in and out of a river hippopotamus' mouth. 

And then there's Geri. 

Conflict and confrontations are the coffin nails of all of my relationships.

Except for my relationship with Geri.

We have screamed, scratched, spat, insulted, injured, demeaned, and bullied each other for nearly twenty years. Newly-introduced team members have sat, horrified, as we'd recreate scenes from Godzilla versus Kong in front of them. My daughters, as young children, sat nonplussed, strapped in the car as Geri and I battled in the front seat about directions and restaurant choices ("I don't care where we eat, Amy," Geri said exasperatedly as we debated and deliberated each passing choice on the road. I settled on Red Lobster. "You KNOW I don't like seafood," she seethed.). Geri's brother once thrust himself sacrificially between us as we flung f-words at one another like grenades. Meanwhile, Sydney Lynn sat on the floor of our vacation rental and patiently duct-taped her battered boogie board back together, oblivious to the war waging around her.

 I cannot explain it. This sick, mutually co-dependent, relationship of ours. Where we can hurt each other but, God forbid, anyone else even THINK about being mean to one of us...and the other one will POUNCE, Unleashed fury. We are protective feral wolves if anyone else threatens the other. 

Expectations make me nervous. I will NEVER live up to them. But in my relationship with Geri, it was always clear that one of us was always gearing up to say or do something stupid; one of us would inevitably suffer from foot-in-the-mouthitis. Our ideologies never matched up...we never agreed...we were always incensed and irritated with one another. There were no apologies offered. No forgiveness bestowed. We fumed. Pouted. Ranted. Stewed. And then got over it. 

The foundation of our relationship is failure. Built upon the fact that we were going to let one another down, again and again. And each time, we'd haul one another up out of the mud (that we'd been brutally pushed into by the other) and start fresh.

And now we are single-digit days away from Geri's retirement. "We haven't had a good storm-out in awhile," my fellow team member and my-trying-to-keep-her-at-arm's-distance-but-failing friend Katriel observed, referencing the hundreds of times that I've seemingly reached my limit...standing up dramatically, kicking back my chair, and stomping angrily out the classroom door during a 4th grade meeting. I teared up, nodding nostalgically. "I guess those days are gone," I said, voice trembling. 

As we met to play cards in Geri's classroom during lunch this past week, we discussed our constantly revised schedule leading to the end of the school year. Geri, shockingly disagreeing with one of my intelligently-thought-out and reasonable suggestions, snapped at me with a ridiculous rebuttal. I glared at her over my cards. "Amy," Geri snarled, "Stop being so sensitive." I threw down my hand...abruptly stood up, kicking back my chair...and stormed out as Katriel golf-clapped my performance. 

Screen fade.

And...that's a wrap.