Wheels are turning

At the end of the summer, I find myself living in Washington DC. The prospect of free rent and the proximity of D makes it the best choice of a temporary home, and now that our plans have readjusted themselves I no longer need to look for long-term housing. When people say "Oh, so what do you do?" I look at them, take a pause, and reply "Nothing."

Of course, this could not be farther from the truth. I am happy to elaborate should they care to hear, and luckily most of my friends do continue their enquiries. When I say that I have been doing nothing, this is merely the indicator that I am not currently involved in "productive pursuits, as defined by the industrialist economy. I have no job, am not a student, and am not making money (legally, or by other means). What I have been able to do in the past three weeks is disentangle myself from the frenzy of my former state.

When I walked into the travel bookstore on 14th and V, I told the owner that I was getting ready to travel in South America for some time, and needed a guide book to start me off. Immediately I felt bombarded by feelings of guilt, elitism, privelege, and hypocrisy; earlier that day, I'd recieved a message from a friend in Miami reminding me that Dade County Public Schools had started without me. Rationally I am aware of the fact that my talents are going to be better utilized outside of Miami Central, that battling with hordes of 9th graders, the school system, and idiotic bureaucratic policies does not bring fulfillment to my life, but a very tiny part of me felt that I should be there to begin the new scholastic cycle. I then walked over to the stack labeled "Central, South America" and quickly got over myself. After a leisurely selection process, I returned to the counter to pay for my thick, juicy book ripe with possibilities. The clerk told me that I'd made a good choice, and I felt the need to justify my seemingly frivolous travel plans. "I just finished Teach for America" I told her, and it hit me. I finished. I'm done. My responsibilities and duties to the organization, the school system, to decorum, politeness, professionalism, and well-intentioned industry were over. This realization seemed beyond belief.

"It's time to do something for me for a change" I said in response to her congratulations. Quite true. It is time for Thea. TFA changed my life in thousands of ways; it most definitely made me rethink my career goals and life plan, as well as my social and civic responsibilities. I do not, however, owe my life to TFA, or to the struggle against educational inequity. I gave them my promised two years, which goes above and beyond what they expect from most of their members. Shit, I even gave them their significant gains: take that, learning gap!

During my time in Miami I gave up a lot of me. It wasn't all TFA's fault, nor was it all Miami's fault; a lot of it was the school, a lot of it was FIU, and a lot of it was me being willing to give. There were some things that I struggled fiercely to keep: home-cooked meals, sleep, weekends off, and a modicum of psychological detachment. I won most of the time.

Now, I don't have to fight so much. I become a different person when I am not constantly under assault or attempting to attack something, and I like that different person a hell of a lot more.

I don't do "nothing;" I cook, I enjoy the smell and feel of freshly laundered towels, I read a LOT, I exercise, I eat well, I see my boyfriend and my family, and I think. One thing that has been suspiciously absent from my life for a while is thinking. I'm talking about slow, plodding, idea-building synapse reactions that stimulate my brain. For the past two years or so I've calibrated my brain to last-minute decisions, scrambling to avoid punishment or retribution, and frenzied calculations of doing the least harm. Finally there is time in my schedule for less than lightning quick decisions, and time for thought about what exactly I want from life.

Most of the milestone decisions that I have encountered have been solved with non-decisions: soccer, college, and TFA. Traditionally, I am a horrible decision maker. Decisive, yes, but prone to agonize excessively and thus procrastinate past the point of effectiveness. Questions about grad school, my personal life, and my professional goals still encroach on my sunny perspective, but at least I can begin to think about them realistically and logically.

In the meantime, I enjoy doing "nothing." It's okay for a little while. It's also okay if I cook a few dinners, do some laundry, and play the part of temporary homemaker. It's not my calling, nor something that I would like to do long-term, but it's comforting. D is finishing up his last week working for the Man in corporate America, and I have less scheduled responsibilities than he does. This provides me with great things, like the ability to ponder gender equality in the middle of the afternoon, a luxury that has been absent from my life for quite some time. It doesn't make me less strong or less of a modern woman to do a load of laundry and put the dishes away, even though these seem like menial tasks.

It takes a lot to realize that what is fair is not always what is equal. I thought that I'd learned this lesson last year, but to truly understand it you have to have been on both sides. When shit hit the fan in the Zone, and State scrutiny of schools stepped up the pressure on everyone, D started coming to Miami a lot more than I ventured up north. It was a small concession, but it made my life immesurably easier. We didn't travel an equal amount, and we didn't quite spend an equal amout on seeing each other, but it was "fair" in both of our minds. This is no small accomplishment, and not something that we agreed upon instantaneously. Now that my life is somewhat less stressful than his, my belongings are (mostly) stored and organized, I get to return the favor, albeit in a different form. I am not rejecting feminism by cooking for my boyfriend and helping out around the house. It's okay to help him move, because helped me do it in June. If I have to fold clothes for a week or so, I can temporarily adjust. It may not be an equal division of labor, but I believe that it's fair. I know that at some point, he'll return the favor.

In other contexts I might feel a little bitter, even resentful about my current posision in life, but since I am a sentient, logical being I do not. If I stop to think about things, my life begins to make sense again. It moves along with a pace that better suits my psyche. I may be homeless and unemployed, but I'm starting to use my out of shape brain, and it's good to feel wheels grinding away up there. Let's see where they take me.

How about a nice cold one?

I have decided that I'm just not cut out for the service industry. Unfortunately, I am beginning to discover that EDUCATION is also included in this blanket category. Here I thought that my heaven-sent cushy summer job had something to do with "education" and "some of the brightest students," instead of those kids that couldn't get into an academic summer program and needed their parents to start signing checks before they could attach "college credit" to their college apps. This is highly specious college credit, if you didn't figure that out on the first try.

Let my preface my tirade by expressing my gratitude for being able to "live" in Spain for a month with relatively little cost. By "live" I of course mean spend a month in a semi-shady hotel room with the worst food on the Iberian Penninsula, and by relatively little cost, I would of course downplay my addiction to Spanish fashion in the form of Zara and locally made shoes.

My Spanish got a much-needed tune-up, and after nearly two years of disuse, that felt good. I also got to meet some pretty amazing Sevillanos, whom I know I will stay in touch with.

Let's recap: shoes, a few dresses, pleasant interactions with approximately 8 people, that's what I got out of my last visit to Spain.

The rest of my time was divided between being shot down by my boss after an attempt at "order" "discipline" or "planning," sitting in Starbucks to ensure that the chavales didn't drink/have sex/get lost in the 15 cubic meter commercial space, guiding groups of whiny children in 100+ degree heat, finding tiritas to cover the inevitable bloodied heel from four-inch stilettos, and/or searching for that place deep down within my soul from which I could drag up a plastered on "happy face" which would signal to both my employer and clients that I wished nothing more than to be at their beck and call for a mere pittance of a salary. Oh, and did I mention that I lost my cameras (yes, that's cameraS with a plural) in the JFK airport? There's something about Spain that sucks Nikon N80's into oblivion.

At typical evening waiting outside the illustrious Hotel Don Paco for the little angels.

Scheduled departure time: 7:45. At this time two children are outside the hotel ready to go: the alterna-chick from Manhattan, silent brooding boy, and the One-In-A-Million considerate JAP.

7:55- Andy, Brandi, Bobbi, Joey, Amy, and Sam (all girls) stumble downstairs in their too-short skirts, too-small shirts, and too-tall shoes. I mumble my daily futile plea, which as usual falls on deaf ears: "If you can't walk in your shoes, please don't wear them."


8:00- Said androgynously named bunch collectively ignore my well intentioned warning and proceed to take upwards of 30 pictures of themselves, in various groups and from various angles.

8:15- Myself, or one of the other illustrious leaders verbalizes the need to depart for restaurant.

8:16- Someone starts crying re: hair that has not been properly straightened; shoes not appropriate for venue (go figure!); Andy, Randi, Bobbi, Joey, Amy, or Sam is wearing part or all of my outfit and we cannot be seen together; Sandy (boy) is not here, and I can't eat without my boyfriend.

8:20- Crying person is appeased, per request of Program Director, by any means necessary.

8:30- Group departs on foot for dinner.

8:45- Group arrives at restaurant (normally a 5 minute walk, elongated beyond recognition due to stilettos) to greet angry restaurateur who has been ready for an hour. Staff member apologizes, then proceeds to apologize for rude behavior of students yelling at each other, scrambling for seats, and rearranging entire restaurant seating area to prohibit other customers from eating.

9:25- 8 bulimic girls visit bathroom one at a time (or all at once) to vomit up pre-paid dinner.

9:30- Staff member again apologizes to owner, waitstaff, and manager for group behavior and rudeness, then leaves with students.

9:50- Return to hotel so that children could dig up the sequestered alcohol from myriad corners of room and proceed to get drunk, while staff members patrol hallways and monitor activities.

To be fair, I could interact with most of the children (note caveat of *most*) on an individual basis; some of them were even smart/interesting, like the kid who worked three jobs to pay for his own trip, and was genuinely interesteed in Spanish history and culture. But there is still something so foul, so unbearable about the behavior of teens in large, uncontrolled masses that leaves a slime of filth on my psyche. It's not indelible, but neither is it removed with great facility.

The easiest way, and most pleasurable as I learned from one of my first teaching mentors, is to wash it down with a nice cold one. Unfortunately, this was contractually prohibited by my employer while I was within EU territory. Very quickly, however, we learned to adapt as the children did, sneaking a manzanilla, a cerveza, or a cubata from the bar when the little ones were at play. Ironically, I never snuck around to drink in high school, so this couldn't hearken back to old times of illicit drinking and partying, but even without that sort of nostalgia I felt immersed in that same awful, vindictive, manipulative, petty, stupid culture.

Ick.

I'm glad it's all over. Now, I think I'll walk downstairs to my own refrigerator, in the privacy of my adult living space and grab one (not five, not three, not ten, but ONE) cold beer to savor on a hot summer evening. That's what life should be like.