I declined my contract a couple of weeks ago. I will not be teaching again next year. Instead, I will be embarking on my search for the right Ph.D. program, and we will see where that takes me. I am not the only one jumping ship. It’s not sinking, not quite, but it is sitting on stagnant waters. The heat is bearing down, and there’s little water to go around. We feel as though we are paying penance for sins we don’t understand.

 

Education is tough. It hurts in the bones, in the veins that swell into migraines, in the stomach where problems often bubble over.  I never thought it would be simple, but I assumed there were some rules and structure. It is messy business, and it is as deceivingly stable as bay waters. I’m sorry for staying with this metaphor for so long, but I am thinking of the sea because it is a powerful symbol. For me, it means freedom and self-exploration. It was my neighbor for so many years. It was a source of beautiful storms and late afternoon breezes that cooled the most unbearable days. But the sea is also a source of fear. I don’t know how to swim, and my worst death imaginable is drowning. Knowing that your lungs fill with water and that your body will bloat into an unrecognizable beast is a terrible way to die.

 

Perhaps, you could say, I had some false expectations of this profession. However, you would have to know what those expectations were. First, I thought the children would possibly outsmart me. I didn’t expect to change the world or even a single mind for that matter, but I did expect to learn and be inspired. When I say learn, I mean to see something in my students that would change me as a person for the better. I didn’t expect to see the people they would become and hate myself for being able to do nothing to stop it.

 

There are people who have changed me by small degrees, and when I work at school where those changes are meaningless, it’s hard to stay. The kids that are genuinely wonderful are fodder for good publicity. The kids that are set to be terrible people, who will steal your money, swindle your investments and sink this nation into utter disarray, ultimately usurp every ounce of our attention and our reputation. We have no standards that I can comprehend or uphold.

 

Teaching is an honor and a privilege and very noble, but not for the reasons I thought. There are some teachers, who I saw as self-deprecating who were actually excellent people and educators that cared. The treatment that these people received has been appalling. I saw teachers who loved what they did, honored it in a way I will never be able to, and they have become obsolete. They are being slowly replaced by half-competent versions of me—young educators who know nothing and care nothing to listen to their elders.

 

I have been privileged to know a handful of children who reminded that this world is too big and this life too unforgiving to just give in. They have made sacrifices beyond what should be asked at their age, and they have shown me that once I was that strong as well. Once, I was that courageous and unrelenting.  And that now, I can be that again.

 

The most noble are the most outspoken. They are those rough shells on the outside, battered for too long, who have lived in ways I can only imagine. Those outward grouches can take a kid and fill that kid and leave him or her brimming with hope and confidence.

I have hated this place so much. I have hated some these adults and children with all the passion left in me. I have also loved some of them a lot. I have cared to tears. I have changed to better in some ways and worse in others. I am leaving the school wondering if I can truly learn to swim in open water as I struggle at the same time. Can one learn to swim out of necessity this late?

Growing up, Christmas was okay. But there are a few fond memories, like the song about fishes drinking because God was born--the poetics don't translate well--or when we set up those lavish nativity scenes the length of a whole wall. The ground was made out of brown paper, and the landscape textured by the wrinkles and the plastic bags crumpled underneath. The rivers and lakes were made of tinsel. The towns people and the animals usually about 30 cents a piece at a department store. There would be children singing, workers pulling on carts full of logs or vegetables, women gathering water by the fountain, shepherds herding their cattle down a hill. In a corner would be the manger, empty, awaiting for its guest on Christmas Eve. The three kings would be waiting close by, frozen in moment of their travels, with their coffers ready and their camels by their side.

Christmas was resisting the temptation to make stories with these little figurines, to make them talk, dance, walk. Christmas was looking out in the night for the star, often Jupiter or Venus, that would signal the little plastic baby boy could finally lie in his crib.

Now Christmas is about the presents, not mine or even John's. It's about spending months of thought, deliberating what in one single moments will make a person ecstatic. So we shopped for all our loved ones with that in mind. Even if for some of them we won't  be there, we still try to imagine it on Christmas day.

This Christmas was about shopping for 100 children, trying to give them something they might like or enjoy. It was days of wrapping and hauling gifts to school. This Christmas day is about imaging the faces of 100 children, hoping that even if we didn't get them exactly what they asked of Santa Claus, that they still loved it and smiled about it for one more year.

Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it.

Happy Holidays to everybody.

4

Strolled through downtown St. Charles. Saw children laughing and gathering trading cards from the different Christmas characters. Finished our Christmas shopping. Came home and wrapped presents. They are ready to ship. After losing Christine's address, I had a minor meltdown. Health, work, life spun out of control.

Thought like always of running away but I fought capriciousness and immaturity.

5

John asked me what I needed. "Nothing," I said. "I'm overwhelmed, and I'm not sure how to cope. I want a hole to crawl in and be for a while."

So using our sleeper sofa, some blankets, and pillows, John built me a hole. When someone on television mentioned summer vacation, I crawled in my whole and curled up among the cushions and under the canopy of our blankets.

2

Went biking in the morning in Creve Coeur lake. Crowded with more people than we expected. I especially annoyed the bike trainers. I'm a fledgling and no doubt annoying as I wobble through the path.
Favorite was a guy training for skiing on his roller blades. He sang a whole lap at the top of his lungs--"I feel good..." is the only one I remember.
Must take a picture of the old barns along Maryland Heights. On the outside, they appear weak, vulnerable to a mere breeze, but after several cold days and gusts of up to 30 MPH, and so many years of cold winters, they stand as though they've always stood, Proteus-like yet humble.

Came home. Started up the cooking process. Took all afternoon into the evening. Everything turned out except I forgot the pears in the stuffing and I overdid it with the flour in the green bean casserole. Ate the turkey roulade and fell in love with the gravy. The sweet potato casserole was sweet and tangy. Invited Stephen and Abe, but they declined. Like everyone else in St. Louis, they have more family than I can tolerate. It's Southern.

3

Finally looked up the droopy right eye problem. It's called ptosis and requires surgery to fix it. I'll have to schedule an appointment with the doctor to make sure that the garbled hearing, headaches, and tiredness is unrelated. I'm hoping he'll send me to a competent opthamologist who will tell me it's a contact lens issue and will repair my drooping lid with ease. I am equally frightened of the prospect of being mad or truly ill.

Fought with my hormones and despised my ovaries for yet another month. Fantasized about stabbing myself in the womb, dramatically and Freudianish, or searing my ovaries in a pan. I hate them every day but more so on these days. Attribute my weirdness to the hormones again.

Tried to listen to music to calm my nerves, but I've no patience for it. I read instead Allen Ginsberg, which also explains my mood.

John is sick, probably because of biking in the cold.

Thought of calling my parents but they don't live in the US, so today is an ordinary day for them.

Said goodbye to the school temporarily, and wished the holiday was longer or forever. Shopped for ingredients. $104.

The menu is:
Sweet Potato Casserole
Green Bean Casserole
Pear and Prosciutto Stuffing
Spiral Stuffed Turkey Breast

All from eatingwell.com

Bought our first dutch oven. It's beastly heavy.

Will go biking everyday but Sunday this holiday. I think tomorrow it's Weldon Spring near St. Charles, so we can stop by the spice shop and get a fennel bulb.

I miss:
Christine
Facebooking
Journaling
Reading
Scrapbooking
Toronto
Snow
The boys

Feel for:
Anyone working at this time of the night
Anyone working Thanksgiving
My grandma who will spend the holidays alone

Thankful:
That Stephen got a job at wustl
John is with me
Financial stability

Hoping:
I'll get a good job next year as well

People left on Christmas list:
grandma
Asheli

I’ve read it all about how nearly half of new teachers quit by their fifth year. It has been an article in every major newspaper at some point. They often focus on teachers of public school education with little support, low funding, and all the other issues public schools are infamous for. I haven’t found one piece that addresses new teachers of the private school sector. We are outside of the margins because our jobs are apparently cushier, and we are endlessly spoiled by our wealthy donors. After all, private schools have low numbers in classes, good professional development and a good support system. However, even with their hard-hitting facts of public education, these articles never unearth anything new or provide any insight as to why new teachers have a tough time with five-year hump and why so few minorities even join the ranks of the profession. The reporters and writers dust the surface and look for the most obvious causes, which is not to say that those reasons aren’t among the ones that many talented young people quit, but I feel they are missing the core of the problems.

I am a new teacher. I am a minority. This is my third year, and I am questioning every day if I should be doing this job. Like many of the other teachers, I enjoy being with the children. I enjoy my subject, and from time to time, I even enjoy some meetings when I get to collaborate with my colleagues. I have been praised and been given bonuses. I have worked in two different departments—both of which treated me with respect and appreciation. I get two months of the year off and many holidays. I have been able to shape my courses as I want to, and even create new ones. It sounds like the perfect job for a dynamic, competitive person like me.

So it boggled my mind when I started to realize how I unhappy I am, especially right now, near Thanksgiving. I am longing for those three days off like they are my chance at resurrection. I am nothing but a corpse meandering the halls and attempt to teach my students anything at all. The core of my being trembles with exhaustion. I have done a splendid job so far, so everyone tells me. I should be ecstatic about these praises; instead I don’t care to hear them.

As I searched my young mind for answers, I realized why I don’t care for praises anymore. My husband who works in the IT department of a prominent corporation leads quite a different professional life than I do. When he receives praise, it comes with incentives I find all too appealing. He has gotten compensation time for doing extra work, and though he puts as much input energy as I do into his work, his output exceeds mine every time. His job is flexible and lenient with sick days. He relies on his team members for support and information. He receives promotions and more monetary incentives. He has company stock (not too useful lately but still) and a guarantee that if he does well in his night classes, they will pay his tuition up to several thousand dollars a year. When he comes home, his work is done. If he has to work from home, his boss is flexible enough to let him leave early. He can manage his stress because they give him some room to, and I envy him because on top of it all, for less education then I have, he earns nearly 20k more than I do.

But I never went into this job for the money. It would be facetious to think that in teaching there’s any profit. It’s quite a selfless profession, and I prepared myself for that. However, I wasn’t prepared for the 100 hours a week; the emails from parents and students 24/7; the guilt that comes with being sick and missing your classes; the endless committee and review work; the rampant disciplinary issues (yes, even at a prestigious private school); the low morale during tough times of the year; the isolation that is the island of my classroom. Above all, I wasn’t prepared for how tired and defeated many of my colleagues look. I thought because I was new at this it would be so much harder. I thought that it would be a matter of time and of getting used to navigating the rising and falling swells of work. My agenda and calendar would have to be flawless. My organizations skills would be tested. My compassion and emotions would be wrung dry. But I’m new at this, I said, so as I gain experience it will get better.

At times like this, when stress is beyond what I can handle I look around me for answers. I look to veterans for wisdom. All I see is their sleepless gait and their blank stares. I try to garner some sympathy for my newness, expecting the answer, “oh with time, you’ll improve.” What I’m met with is more groans and sighs. They sympathize, of course, because they are just as tired as, if not more than, I am. The games, the coaching, the extra activities on the weekend and all their grading has made them frail in health and short-fused in temper. Worse of all, after being told in a faculty and staff meeting that the economy is hard and that we might not even see a raise, the morale is practically nonexistent. Nobody feels secure in their jobs. Nobody knows what awaits private school education. There is no learning how navigate through swells. As teachers, we are rocks battered by the waves: strong and steady but ever-weary.

Veteran teachers are by far smarter than I am. As a new teacher, in hopes to prove my potential and my intelligence, I have been put in so many committees, made head of projects, been asked to volunteer more times than I can count. When I do something right, I’m not given comp time, but I’m asked to do it again and again, on weekends and nights if I may. I fear saying no because I know we are expendable in private schools. I fear saying no because I’m a minority in this school in age and background. I fear what others would think of me if I did not show them I can do everything and anything. My superiors encourage me each day to do more and more. They ask me if I’m challenged. They tell me it’s unfortunate we are all overwhelmed. They assure they make no demands only requests. I am free to do as a please. I have as many sick days as I wish, though with no subs those sick days are often at the expense of my colleagues’ time. Veteran teachers know how to say no and when to say it, and yet, they still look as tired as I feel.

When I look to my past to how hard I worked for my degree and all the student loans I have, I don’t know what to think. There are no promotions in my future that are desirable and that wouldn’t mean more stress and work than I know what to do with. My supposed summer vacations are spent in committees, conferences, and course preparation. My weekends are usurped by grading, planning, and emails. As a so-called minority, I have worked so hard and overcome so much that being in what seems like a dead-end career for all my effort is not worth it. I’m a highly educated individual in a blue collar job. The same kind of job many educated individuals identified as minorities work so hard to get out of.

Yes, you could blame us, the quitters, who can’t handle a little stress. You could say our characters are not built for true rigorous work, and that our time management skills are inefficient. You could call us weak-willed and whiny. You could say that minorities just have no interest in teaching because of some made-up reason that only makes sense from an Anglo perspective.

The truth is that it’s hard job and very discouraging for most of the time. The teachers that stick around often run on empty. They are powerful educators whom I admire but not whom I want to become. I can’t endure feeling like this for decades to come, and nobody seems able to give me any hope of these conditions improving. Schools overwhelm their new teachers and make insidious requests. We are favored over older teachers, whom they have to pay more on account of experience. But they also favor us because we are gullible and easy to overwork. We are guilt-tripped into commitments, persuaded that these are invaluable learning experiences. Schools batter the most efficient among us, and unless you truly savor the power you have over your students, it just isn’t worth your entire physical, mental, social and economic well being.

My claim is then this: these conditions don't make it hard for a teacher to stay, rather they make it hard not to quit.

On days like this, when I find it hard to get up or to think about what it is I’m doing with my life, I focus on small details. I buy window clings at the supermarket in the shape of pumpkins and leaves. I place them on the small window on my door. I press on the soft gel-flesh trying to smooth out the bubbles. It feels cold and spongy and comforting. I go outside of my classroom to watch the fluorescent lights shine through the purples, reds, oranges, and greens. I sit still.

I look pensively around my room, and I focus on the comic I got for my birthday signed by the artist. I read through the birthday emails of people who probably just enjoy wishing everybody a happy birthday. I don’t think about my age, or how dreary it is outside, but I do secretly wish the skies were as dark and menacing as this morning. This misty rain is unbecoming of the chaotic weather patterns of the Midwest. I am partly disappointed but glad summer has finally faded.

I go through my student’s wikis with pleasure. I can just read and comment without worrying about grades (not yet). I look forward to their arguments as they struggle to survive on the island I assigned to them. I optimistically believe that they find the work less tedious than I presupposed. I have fun with them even when they shake their heads at me or ask me too many questions, even when I find their comments irrelevant and their arguments petty, even when I’m too tired to smile for them or too exasperated to listen to their complaints. They are young and undergoing their liminal process. They are now separating slowly from their parents until one day they rejoin society as individuals of their own.

I avoid thinking about all the grading I have to do. I pretend my to-do list isn’t next to me. I ignore how tomorrow I’ll have some random outsider looking into one of my most difficult classes to satisfy his curiosity—not a fellow teacher or a student or a peer, just some random person (more like potential donor I’m sure). I don’t worry about how I will be observed by my boss every day next week, or how I’ll be giving a speech in front of parents about my innovative teaching practices next Friday. I put meetings out of my mind, and I slowly forget how many chapters I have to read in the next hour. There are reflections, tests, and vocabulary lists to grade. There are vocabulary quizzes, grammar lessons and group activities to prepare. There are recommendations to finish all by tomorrow, so I hold my breath for a second and then I let the list wander away from the forefront of my thoughts. I let go of it all for just a few seconds at a time.

Above all, I let go of ever knowing when my own liminal stage even started, and when, if ever, it will end.

My parents would never question what I read. They aren't strong readers themselves, so I don't think they felt they had the authority.

I’ve been dying to write. I hear song, I read a line, I see an image, and I crave to write. Right now, I know I could be writing, but I want hours, not this second or two I’m taking to type this, but a long flight with words.

I dreamt I was riding a wooden aircraft across the continent. It was tiny, and it barely fit four of us, but it would just float on its own. We went to the park, and we ran so hard, until our legs ached and they finally began lifting off. Then I could jump and mount the aircraft. It was like a weightless bicycle, and the air felt soft, not rough like in real life, and it was warm, not cold like it really is.

In moments like this, when it’s only four o’clock and I’m so tired I can barely see the screen, I grab my hair by the curls. I wrap them around my fingers, or I pluck the curls from each other’s grip, like petals. I used to do this as a baby. I would suck on my thumb while twirling my soft, black hair.

I need release.

1.coathanger 
2.hypere816  andoffbeat_cubana 
3.
4.noparody 
5.autumnlecroix gnomeraper andcoathanger 
6.jadesfire2 
7.coathanger  andjadesfire2 cxtx3 </div>
9.sidewalksg andxtremeotaku 
10.fallen_angel715 
11. kenzier and cxtx3 
12.coathanger 
13.opheliablue 
14.witchtara1975 
15.xtremeotaku cause i'm evil
16.andora andcatofireland 
17.jadesfire2 
18.catofireland 
19.andora 
20.sidewalksg 
21. wtf?
22. wtf?
23.sidewalksg you could get away with it.
24.gnomeraper i ain't messing with her.
25.my_livejournal 
26.xtremeotaku 
27.xtremeotaku 
28.jadesfire2 
29.cxtx3 haha, for jk, more like a f-hag
30. This was pretty hard, but you guys are awesome sauce.

Yeah, message me for answers :)

I know I'm very often a complainer, but it's part of human nature that our most introspective moments are during a time of crisis. This week I have some good news though. It's been an average week with some ups and downs. My freshmen are for the most part awesome; my seniors not so much. It's difficult for kids to talk about Civil Rights, and I've spent most of the week wracking my brains on how to solve this "history is dead" dilemma. I've presented them several points of view that illustrate that we are not in isolation of our history, but rather, as Faulkner said and Obama quoted, "the past isn't even past." I had them listen to Obama's "A More Perfect Union," and then they read Dubois. I asked them to see the irony. The irony is that Obama spoke of nearly the same exact issues that troubled Dubois more than century ago, and yet, here is this Senator, born out of "the ballot as a weapon," who truly exemplifies everything Dubois wanted for African Americans. So much progress and so little progress is evident in the same person. It's quite mind-boggling.

But every day I wonder if my seniors see the value in all I'm saying. I don't hold back. I don't believe in softening the truth, but they, all too often, seem so utterly confused. Then there's my freshman, who with brilliance, listen to a poem without seeing the words in front of them. They tear it down concept by concept, and realize that it brings together all of the themes we have spoken about so far. They possess an unending curiosity. It's not enough that I say that Dionysus was born out a fire caused by Zeus' brilliance: they need to know why. So we theorize together. We debate about the worth of Theseus or Perseus as true heroes as though referring to the next presidential candidates. They are witty, though easily distracted, and I find myself fulfilling my favorite role of the storyteller.

"Dionysus," I said, with intent to embellish what I've learned from Edith Hamilton, "was the underdog--the last god to enter Olympus. Zeus, who thought Semele was 'like way hot,' promised her anything in the world, anything at all, by the River Styx. Hera, ever-so-jealous, gives our hot Theban princess the idea to ask Zeus to see him all his glorious splendor. Zeus listens to this request, and thinks, 'well crap, she's gonna die.' But there is nothing he can do. He must comply. When poor mortal Semele sees him in that bright godly light, she bursts into flame. Out of the fire, he saves his son, Dionysus, from Semele's burning womb."

I'm well aware added a few creative details, but kids clamor for spontaneous combustion.

I have fun with my freshmen and their enthusiasm. Not all of them share that same amount of interest, but in general, they are enjoyable classes. But the seniors trouble me, and this course's current shape (it is not mine but inherited from a former teacher) will not awake interest, certainly not in the past. I must bring to the past to present in order for them to begin to see patterns their minds are too convoluted to understand yet.

Since only four seniors signed up for this course in second semester, I have been given to option to become a tech person for that teaching period. Those students would be reassigned to their second choices, and I would support and team teach technological tools within the English department. I already keep a regularly updated wiki on technology curriculum for the ninth grade, so I could expand my horizons on teaching technology tools for all four grades. It's an awesome opportunity.

It's the first time I truly feel like I'm being rewarded (not appreciated since appreciation can often be facetious in education) for my talents and innovations. I will help teachers, and in the time I don't have to spend grading things for a fourth course, I can revamp Civil Rights.

I would lie if I say I'm not still aiming for Harvard or Yale or for Canada lest McCain/Palin rule the country, but it was a good day, and a good end to my average week.

I’m not positive on how to do this anymore. I remember I used to love to bear my soul to, in many ways, complete strangers, to the whole public that would read these words. I have a fairly simple, and the urge to tell people about it has left me. It is in part because it got me in trouble more than few times with my family. Everything in this surreal, post-modern internet machine travels like light in a dimension where Newton’s unshakeable laws have no sway. Physics has no place in this world. Heavy words don’t fall, nor do they remain buoyant, nor do they bounce back with the same force they were thrown.

I don’t know what to say about myself. I couldn’t describe who I am if I tried, but that comes with the territory of the age. I could tell you I don’t want to grow up. I feel that with every second that passes, my life and chances to actually become anything close to who wanted to be slip away. I have friends that tell me to let it go. My family says they’re so proud of my success. I’m a teacher. All it takes is a good liar. All anything in this life takes is good lying. I can’t consciously lie to someone else though. First, I have to lie to myself, and then once I believe it, I can lie to the rest.

 I could be really good. I could probably get into Harvard. I’m that kind of ambitious, driven, relentless human being. I’m not ready to concede to the next generation, but I am doing so every day. I feel like I need to learn so much more, but I can’t go anywhere. I am Atum in the void, except I don’t have the power to make myself a mountain to stand on.

This journal returns to its old status of almost all entries being friends only. No journal entries have been deleted. All are still there, but just locked.

Sunday

I have never seen black so sweetly dark, so mysterious as I glance out my window and see nothing but the many yellow heads of the flames. They reflect like wispy mirages that enlarge the room deep into the darkness. I look outside the balcony and see nothing, and I have never been so delighted by this. I hear the distant hissing of the cars, but I imagine I’m in the country, detached from everything, and even the light of my computer is magical, natural, organic, like that of the candles. Not all of them are white. Some are red, the deep blood red that smells of roses, and some are pumpkin orange, sultry and suggestive in their glow.

I like these moments—moments that disrupt the cool flow of time, of routine, of city life. I like this masked mystery engulfing the coordinated hours of the outside world. I love the stillness that settles when people, without the use of technology, know not what to do with themselves. There are no lamplights, no steps, and no voices to be heard outside. A leaf rustles every minute or so. The engine of a car moans as it parks in thick pitch blackness. The colliding of keys soon thereafter and then back to the uncharacteristic, uncity silence again. It is only the buildings surrounding us, like a protective halo, that have no power. Walk two blocks and you return to the city, to the mocking of daylight. I couldn’t live like this, no, the darkness would be unnerving, but the break from the light eases the tension of feeling like it’s a Sunday and that tomorrow the Monday routine returns and the absence of life is filled by the presence of too much productivity for the sake of it.

I could do this more often if I had my typewriter again. I wonder whatever became of it. My grandmother probably threw it away.

Monday

The wind racked at the building. It pushed and pushed, like the wolf, and would have brought us down, except we were wise, and inlaid the outside walls with bricks, so though it pushed, it could not heave enough breath to bring us down, but we hardly slept from the fear, and I hear that the wooden houses on the flat, sweet, green grass tumbled down, panels like cards and people like smashed figurines.

Tuesday

I read Death of the Heart and listened to the children play. They yelled and laughed and yelled some more, their voices muffled by the windows. I thought of how nice it would be to come home and run out and play. How nice it would be to do something for the sake of doing it, and not have a major plan, not think, I’ll burn some calories, or I’ll get some down time.

John and I went to bed late Monday night, midnight, and could not sleep. The heat of our bodies overcame us and our hands moved underneath the sheets like waves. We stopped. He slept. I lay awake, stickiness still between my legs, thinking of that event at my school, Take Back the Night. The title doesn’t make sense, I decided. It’s all about rape, this event, and the women and men who are afraid to go out at night for fear of predators and criminals. I thought, still full of sweat, still full of that sensual smell, that taking back the night implied we once had it. But predators go farther than our ancestors. They are the root of evolution. The root of life as it is. They do not stop. They do not just lurk. They exist so we exist. They are our human condition.

So let’s not take back something that never belonged to us, something we blot out with our sleep. Let’s take back the voice we lost to those predators. The voice that everyone tells us must be shut down, because it knows only to grieve and not to celebrate. Because only cynics celebrate losing a war. Only liars can convince themselves of that. Only sadists could ask a person who lost all sense of true desire, all sense of sexuality, all sense of what it means to lay with someone and not lose yourself, to shut up.

Wednesday

I get ready faster than usual, and so we get to the loop at the front of the school too early. We park there. We laugh at nonsense. We kiss. I tell him he’s lovely. I tell him to behave. He says I’m lovely, and that he will behave only if I do so as well. We say if the world were made just for us, we’d lie in bed for the rest of our lives holding each other, because my skin is so soft and he smells all too good. We know how romantic and silly it sounds. It makes us laugh again.

I shut the car door. He parts for work. I have a presentation to finish. We have our taxes to send. I still have the letter for our accountant. Rent was paid yesterday. I remember his question in the car, when’s Easter? because we gave up dining out for lent. I look at my calendar filled with paper due dates and appointments to meet, but it doesn’t say when Easter will come.

You, Heat, and Memories

The day’s heat clings to the walls, and you continue to mistake scratches and black spots for mold. You’ve seen the way mold can thrive underneath the skin and consume and consume until it leaves a flimsy withered shell of something which was once strong and sturdy. You hate mold. People have died from mold.

You woke up at five this morning, and have remained half-conscious since. You blame the heat and complain that the fans only serve to disperse it momentarily, but still you sought the hot water earlier right after you had woken up in a mist of sweat from the small noon nap. You didn’t need a nap. You went to sleep at seven last night, and you suppose that’s another reason why you’re dazed. You never like to sleep longer than you should because you invite your subconscious to take hold of your mind and abuse it with dreams that cloud your brain with headaches. That’s what pains are in the middle of the night while you sleep—they’re nightmares.

You don’t have nightmares very often, but you’ve grown accustomed to considering most dreams as nightmares. You dislike feeling hostage in your own mind, but lucid dreaming was a child’s play you have forgotten. It requires an unpredictable amount of endurance that you only had as a child, like when you jump-roped and how now forty seconds of it will consume most of your breath.

Lungs are heavy. All organs are heavy. Your body has become a burden. You are aware of everything. Your paranoid heart. Your neurotic liver. Your bipolar stomach. Your hypochondriac ovaries. During your period, you can feel the veins pumping and the heat of your blood, of barrenness, slithering out of you. This makes you feel dirty, inhuman. When you have a headache, you can feel your neurons faltering, the veins constricted, and the temporalis muscle swollen.

You have become so acutely aware of your body. You notice when new stretch marks appear on your thighs like little pink lightning bolts streaking across what was once soft skin. You don’t feel your innocence leaving you anymore during sex. That’s a relief. You’ve grow accustomed that your thighs never had innocence, but your breasts at least weren’t around at the time, and thus they were born innocent, unbaptized but free of original sin. Unlike Eve, you weren’t born with breasts.

Heat to you is disconcerting. It reminds you of childhood, like the smell of rain reminds you of predictability. You prefer the cold because you can control it, because you never felt it when you were a child. Your being always mingled with the sticky heat that passed from the rainforest jungle to your urban jungle. It is impossible to separate the memories that have been returning to you over the course of the years from this heat.

You never knew the comforts of synthetic man-made things like air conditioner. In your childhood motherland, people were exposed to the elements without escape. Synthetic air. It sounded preposterous.

So unlike everyone else, you seek refuge in the cold. Snow symbolizes purity, but not the cheap one in postcards. The real one that sticks to your bones and envelops them like a second layer of muscle. This makes you feel strong.

But you still yearn for heat. Not the same heat of your childhood, a new one, a pure one—if one exists. You still seek it in scalding showers and in refusing to turn on the air conditioner—you tell yourself to save money—when it’s eight-five degrees outside.

This makes you feel dazed.