Even the random, rather mundane moments of daily life deserve, well, illumination, even if such concocting of connectedness amounts to nothing more than recognizing spirited miscongruence.
Last week, after biking to school (my second time), washing up, and putting on my shirt and tie in the faculty restroom, I reported to my morning hall duty. As usual, I stood back to see the normal gamut of sleepy-student behavior at that time of day: boys insulting each others’ sports teams’ performance in yesterday’s games, girls overcome with emotion at seeing their friends again after their seventeen-hour separation, coffee-loaded teachers straggling towards their rooms.
It was one of these teachers (minus the coffee) who I noticed in particular. He had stopped at my classroom door one day, after news leaked that I was going to be riding my bike thirteen miles to school, to say, “You make me look bad, you know,” he grinned. “I live, like, just across the field from school. Less than a mile. And I drive.”
“Hmmmm,” I said.
“And you know what’s worse?” he continued. “My wife–she teaches here, too–drives, too. Separately. I should be so embarrassed,” he said.
“Yes, you should be,” I chuckled back.
So anyway, last week, there I was, attending my morning duty after my invigorating ride, watching but not hearing CNN through a classroom doorway, and here approaching me was this same teacher. We greeted each other, and as he passed by, I noticed his shirt collar buttons.
The fact that they were so nicely buttoned seemed really to stand out.
I finished my duty, conducted my first class, and then went to the bathroom where I realized that when I’d dressed myself after my ride, I’d forgotten all about my own collar buttons. Could that somehow have been why I noticed his?
Such connections do or don’t happen daily with students, too. Take Friday:
To help them brainstorm topics for their persuasive essays, I instructed my students to make a list of five to ten things that they are concerned about. “For example,” I told them, “I am concerned about how much soda people drink, the amount of TV that people watch, and our nation’s huge war budget.”
A few minutes later, after giving them time to scrawl their thoughts, I asked if anyone wanted to share what they’d written. One little girl in the back raised her hand.
“Yes?” I asked. “What is one of your concerns?”
“Mr. C,” she said, “Why do penguins eat their poop?”
She was dead serious, but it was all I could do to suggest that maybe something else on her list would be more appropriate for a persuasive topic.
Persuasive poop’s irreverent surfacing under the guise of persuasion hasn’t been my only recent foray into relatively meaningless free association.
At the church we visited on Sunday, the minister talked about the church being the bride of Christ. For emphasis, he had with him on stage a bridal gown on a stand. It was quite glamorous, really, a sleeveless, strapless, well-trained gown with a voluminous bodice, which at one point he patted almost affectionately, as if he thought it was out of place.
Right then and there, I decided that at the next wedding that M and I attend, I, not she, would accept the usher’s arm when we are escorted to our seats.
Wouldn’t that be just hilarious?
And random, too!
