Lessons I Didn't Learn: Prologue

A deep sigh emanated from the other end of the telephone receiver.  "Someone be right up," a voice said after a pause.  

Click.  

I looked down at the lifeless receiver I was clutching in my hand with resigned dismay.  I let it slide back into the cradle and turned my gaze out the window.  It was a beautiful day in the South Bronx.  Fluffy clouds speckled a perfect blue sky that hung over a collage of brown and gray rooftops.  Somewhere a couple blocks away, a car alarm sang faintly, insistently.  I heard - felt, rather - the bass from a passing car.  I tried very hard - very consciously - to absorb whatever peace this tableau offered for a brief moment.  Outside, all was quiet.

I took a deep breath and turned my attention back to my reality:  My classroom, inside which the sky was falling.  The inmates had taken over the asylum.  Or, to be more accurate, the kindergartners had taken over.

"Someone be right up."  

On the feeble strength of that promise (broken in the past many times over), I gathered what was left of my strength and sanity and made one final attempt at restoring order. 

I gazed around the room, dully assessing the situation.  Chairs were overturned, crayons were strewn haphazardly around, and children were running amok.  I absently ducked a marker whizzing by my ear as I tried to prioritize:  Do I first break up the fight, or pluck the dancing kid from the top of the table?  As these thoughts went through my mind, I was already in motion, gently swooping the dancer from the table, placing him on the floor with a chastising look as I raced toward the fight.

"Someone be right up."

I felt the ping of a crayon hitting me in the back as a tiny student ran past me, giggling devilishly in the midst of a lap around the classroom.  I managed to break up the fight with minimal resistance (I was bigger than the 5 year olds - a nice change of pace) but it still smacked of breaking up a gladiatorial match in the coliseum.  Spectators booed, opponents cursed each other (and their opponent's mother) as they were physically dragged from each other.  They were unharmed, but their 5-year-old natures surfaced once they were apart.  Crying for mommies ensued.  

"Kayden," I said with as much gentleness as possible to one of the brawlers, "why were you guys fighting?"

"He -- he -- he -- he said," he gasped between sobs, "-- he said I was -- said I was a dummyyyyyyyyyyy!!"  The remembrance renewed his uncontrollable sobbing.

A dummy?  Most five-year-olds would have tattled.  They would have found their teacher, and tattled their little brains out.  The matter have been treated gravely by the Adult in Charge, and everyone would now be making Play-Dough spaghetti together.  This was the South Bronx, though.  These five-year-olds threw down.

I looked up from Kayden and saw that the dancer was back on the table for a reprise, the sprinter was still going strong, and - - "YOU!"  I spotted the crayon sniper, perched on a counter, whipping crayons and markers at unsuspecting targets.  She was grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

I sighed, ruffled Kayden's hair, and secure in the knowledge that both fighters were now separate, and enveloped in groups of concerned peers counseling them ("don't cry, he's a dum-dum!"), headed towards the sniper.  She was nearest at the moment.

. . . . . . .

It took five adults to subdue the kindergartners that day.  Five grown adults - myself, the principal, the literacy coach, a nearby teacher on her planning period, and eventually, their classroom teacher, plucked from her lunch break.  All of them cast accusatory looks at me.  All of them wanted to know what happened here.  All of them wanted to know I lost control to such an incredible degree.

I was asking the same question myself.  

. . . . . . .

Our culture is filled with inspiring teacher stories ("Lean on Me", "Mr. Holland's Opus", "Stand and Deliver", "Dangerous Minds", "Half Nelson", I could go on, but I won't).  They usually involve some noble soul striding in from a hazy prior life to inspire students to greatness - beyond greatness, even.  We wipe away tears hearing these stories, moved past the point of admiration.  It fills us to the brim, these huge stories of selflessness and determination in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.  Tales of regular people reaching so far past themselves in the pursuit of making other people better, of making kids matter - kids who otherwise wouldn't.  Matter, that is.

This is not that story.  This is not a heartwarming story of overcoming odds and breaking through boundaries.  This is the opposite of those stories.  This is a story of my attempt to be like those other stories and my subsequent miserable, utter failure.  This is not a tale for the feint of heart.  This is a story about losing - losing hope, losing faith, nearly losing sanity.  And also, it's a story about poop.  And dead pigeons.  And stolen cars.  

Thank you, Kidney Infection!

I have been sequestered at home for the past two days with a kidney infection. It's been pretty bad - today I felt a real sense of accomplishment that I was able to put on pants when the delivery guy rang the bell. It's rendered me pretty much incapacitated (walking huuuurts), so I've had lots of time to cruise the internet and get caught up on a lot of link-clicking I'd generally have to skip. And I have to say, OMG! People I know are totally awesome and doing awesome shit that makes me feel sort of lame for being so lazy and not living up to my potential!

Should you find yourself bedridden by a kidney infection (or bad sushi) or just have some free time and want an awesome way to entertain yourself, please, check out my awesome friends and acquaintances (in no particular order):

1) I went to high school with Mandi. My memory is, in general, pretty vague and unreliable but I think we had yearbook together at one point and had a pretty fun time. Anyway, Mandi is now poised to become a hugely famous and successful author. I can't wait to name drop. Please check out her blog, and shortly, her book, The Crantz Chronicles.

2) I work with Lauren. She moved to NYC from Alabama and is just a doll. She's so sweet and, as it turns out, way talented! She collaborated on this wicked catchy tune with a friend of hers (whose music I am really digging).

3) My boyfriend left on Monday for Russia (which, admittedly, has made the past two days suck that much more). He's acting with his company, Studio Six, in a major international theater festival. NYC representing in Moscow! Take a look, feel proud to be an American, have flashbacks of "Rocky IV"!

4) My other co-worker/pal, Jen, just did a review for a graphic novel that made me want to read more graphic novels.

Also, one of my best friends just finished the first chapter in a book he's been working on for a while now (not yet available for public consumption). He also somehow finds time to do an amazing Song of the Day blog that is always entertaining (email him to sign up, it's awesome!).

Cheers to all the amazing people in my life who inspire me/make me feel like a lazy bastard on a daily basis! xoxo

Prologue: Farewell Manhattan

Dear Manhattan,

I don't quite know how to tell you this, so I'm going to just come right out and say it: I'm leaving you. For the past 10 years, it's been you and me, kid. I feel like I owe you an explanation (also, I will still see you when I go to work, and we have mutual friends - I don't want things to be "weird").

In January of 1999, I saw you for the first time as an adult. And I fell instantly in love. Remember that blizzard? I skipped down your snowy streets, marveled at your graceful, powerful buildings, and watched, amazed, at how quickly the frenetic energy of Greenwich Village swallowed up the peaceful stillness of the sudden snowfall. That energy, the pounding, constant energy, was what really did me in. There was a feeling of vast potential - limitless possibility I had never felt before. And the people! On the subway, so many languages swirled around; on the streets, so many ethnicities mixed and interacted and lived together. Peacefully, mostly.

In September of that year, in one whirlwind weekend, I moved from Kentucky to New York. I rang in 2000 with my cousin and friends in Brooklyn (after attempting, briefly, the chaotic ball drop in Times Square - never again). I remember feeling so lucky, watching those poor suckers in Times Square as I sipped champagne in a warm apartment, surrounded by people I loved.

The ensuing New Year's celebrations were not all so happy - some were more, others were less (namely, one spent racing, in a full sprint, through Penn Station). Men, friends, jobs all drifted in and out of my life. But I always had you, Manhattan. I had a brief moment of weakness in 2006 when I nearly left you (for Seoul, oh what a mistake that would have been!). But nothing could quite pull me away from you - I could wander Central Park for hours, take the bus to the Cloisters and soak in the medieval ambiance, get lost in the crowds of Herald Square, or simply walk your streets in anonymity for hours.

Like a true Manhattanite, I eschewed the boroughs for many years. A friend moving to Brooklyn or Queens may as well have been moving to L.A. Gradually, though, I started venturing across the bridge more and more often. I remember one night in particular, when my friend Melissa invited me to go to Brooklyn with her to see a band play. It was an early summer night, and I remember being completely charmed (against my will) by the tree-lined streets, the brownstones, and the little shops, cafes and bars.

I didn't know it then, but Brooklyn had sunk its hooks into me.

It makes sense, really. My grandmother was a dyed-in-the-wool Brooklynite. Her Irish grandparents had settled in Flatbush, Brooklyn around the turn of the century, and she lived there until a dashing Merchant Marine from Pennsylvania stole her heart and carried her off to Ohio, where they raised a family (including my father) and lived happily for the next 50+ years. She may have lived in Ohio, but she rooted for the Dodgers and spoke with a thick Brooklyn accent until the day she spirited off to the Big Party in the Sky.

So, this summer, when my life changed abruptly and watching the East River swirl from a park bench in the Carl Schurz Park no longer brought me the same sense of calm, I shouldn't have been surprised when I felt a pull from the other side of the river. Those tree-lined streets called to me, Manhattan. I don't expect you to understand.

I have history here. I feel a sense of belonging here that you didn't always give me. In other words, it's not you, it's me.

One of the things I loved most about you was the ability to just get lost - disappear. After living so long in a small Kentucky community, where everyone knows everyone's business, anonymity was such a relief. For as long as I wanted, or needed, I could just vanish. Into the crowds, into the clubs, into the restaurants, into the stores, into the faceless ether.

The thing is, I think I'm done being lost. I think I'm ready to be found.

You'll always have a special place in my heart, Manhattan.

Stay dirty.

Love,

Meg

Brooklyn. 2011.

Adventures in Brooklyn: Park Slope, take 1

It was today, a week and two days after I moved to Brooklyn, that the first cold fingers of possible regret wound their way around my heart. A friend of mine was doing a Bloody Mary mix tasting at a local grocery. I needed a reason to get out of my apartment after a day spent unpacking and unsuccessfully trying to install minor home improvement items (such as a blasted paper towel holder - oh, it went in, eventually. A touch askance, maybe, but it's in) . Bloody Mary mix sounded like a damn good reason to walk away from the endless boxes for a bit.

I started walking down Seventh Avenue, happy to be relieved at last from unpacking, and enjoying the beautiful, almost-springlike weather. I came upon a slow-moving mass of people, several of whom were pushing strollers. Oy, the strollers. I knew this was a permanent feature of this particular neighborhood, and I'd been prepared. Or I thought I'd been prepared. As I squeezed past the stroller herd with a forced smile at the collective of fashionably dressed parents, my gaze was drawn up the busy street and my mouth dropped open. It was like a sea. A sea of strollers.

Big strollers, little strollers, three-wheeled strollers, covered strollers; all different makes, models and colors, rolling up and down Seventh Avenue. I sighed and hunkered down. Hands stuffed in my pockets, I weaved through another wave of strollers, and noticed how the shops and cafes I had found so charming before had suddenly taken on a slightly pretentious air - Eco-this, organically-grown that, local, sustainable, responsible... By the time I passed the food co-op on Union Street, I was aghast. What had I done?? Had I moved into the epicenter of a New Age, over-intellectualized, proselytizing nuevo-Yuppie enclave? I do consider myself a liberal, and I try to lead a socially and environmentally responsible life (yerch, even writing that made me a little nauseous), but I think there's a difference between practicing and preaching. And quite honestly, the whole scene was sort of overkill for my taste. As much as I find the careful tastefulness of the Old Monied women of the Upper East Side, with their fur coats and nannies, tiny dogs and immaculate manicures, unpalatable, I found this tableau of babies in unbleached, organic cotton onesies and parents sipping soy chai lattes (organic! local!) equally lacking in charm. What was I, a happily child-free, usually-recycling, sometimes-exercising, "normal" person doing here? I don't have a degree from a fancy college. I read the NY Times, but mostly just the Travel section.

The thought rose like a bubble in my chest, "I don't even like Sufjan Stevens".

I reached the grocery, finally. By now I was seething with contempt for this place, and walking in there did no good for my already sour mood. It was like a caricature of everything I had found irritating on my walk over - children running amok ("No, Charles! You know you can only have soy yogurt!"), long lines for overpriced, fancy (organic!) food, expensive gadgets (including a sea salt grater. You know, for your sustainably, um, farmed sea salt) - I barely made it past the local, organic jars of marinara sauce before I turned on my heel in full retreat. No Bloody Mary in the world could entice me to fight that crowd.

As I stormed back to my apartment, now in a full-on snit, I desperately looked for some redeeming quality to this neighborhood. By redeeming, I mean something real - some signs of actual life, beyond what the current issue of "The Atlantic" or "Organic Parenting" is prescribing. Some personality, if you will. As a stroller rolled over my shoe on Seventh Avenue, I shook my head and mumbled, "Fucking strollers, man!" A middle-aged woman sitting on a bench drinking a (soy?) coffee scowled at me in disapproval. Like an angst-ridden teenager, I rolled my eyes in response and stomped myself into the nearest deli, where, with no small feeling of rebellious delight, I bought a pack of cigarettes and a Diet Coke.

Extra chemicals, please.