A Full Day (part III)

[If you thought this day was over, you are very wrong.]

2:30pm: Angela, Leah, Joella, and I meet up with Becky briefly, then part to eat lunch elsewhere. We find a Coffee Shop Diner (yeah, weird... the theme of the diner was "coffee shop") and ate (!) and drank a lot of water. We then recollect Becky and leave for Pennsylvania. Becky has had a shower and looks bright and feels sore. I envy her cleanness, and wish to take a shower after those eight miles. I had never before run/walked eight miles!

4:45pm: We arrive in Lancaster in time for showers and brief naps before our dinner plans.

6pm: Carmen comes and we walk to Sukhothai to celebrate Leah's birthday! We are so relaxed at our long table in the middle of that blue and green restaurant, with lily pad-shaped lights above us. We realize that we have much to celebrate: Leah is one year older, Becky finished her marathon, Carmen graduated from her clinical pastoral education and received a position as an associate pastor nearby, I graduated from college, Carmen will be joining the house as I move out, and we are six friends sitting around one table. The last is reason enough to celebrate.

We walk home in a cold rain, the sky still light, the air fresher and scented with invisible honeysuckle.

A Full Day (part II)

7am: The marathon begins! Angela and I see Becky and scream a little.

7:45am: After an ordeal, we find a McDonald's that is open and not corded off for the race. Leah befriends the cashier.

8:30am: We find a good spot for cheering between the 17th and 18th mile markers. We figure we will wait over an hour for Becky to pass by. So we get comfortable, ready to read, making friends with other cheerers: a woman in a wheelchair, and her husband.

It's not long before we put our books away. The runners are passing by, looking sweaty, tired, in need of encouraging words. We begin to clap, loudly pointing out shirt colors and hat colors in an effort to single out the runners, so they know we are encouraging them specifically. This is great fun, by the way! They perk up as we clap and tell them how far they have come. Their posture improves. Their breathing looks less labored. They know they can do it, too.

10:08am: I find Becky. She is looking incredibly tired. She says she has just thrown up all her liquids and she needs water. But she's worried she'll drink too much and throw it all up again. We run past 18 miles. She throws up.

We run past 19 miles and meet up with Joella. Then we begin to ascend a ridiculous hill/mountain. A 70-year-old Polish man comes up behind us. He sees Becky struggling. "I will pull you up this mountain," he breathes, and holds onto her arm, bringing her forward, ahead of Jo and me. We crest the hill/mountain.

10:46am: We pass the 20-mile mark. Becky's new personal record for 20 miles. The last time, it took her four hours and six minutes to get that far. This time, three hours, 46 minutes.

She throws up once more after this. People are concerned, asking a few times if they should call for help or a ride. Jo and I reassure them as Becky shakes her head: she has determined to finish.

11something am: Cathy's sisters (Cath is Becky's running partner) join us wearing bright orange regalia and inflated ducky inner tubes. Their encouragement is so jubilant that everyone around us perks up! One man says to me, "I'm being passed by inflatable animals. Should I be worried?"

At this point, we are headed back down the mountain. Joella and I wonder how we will exit the race and still make it to the finish line ahead of Becky...without getting lost. Is there any chance for us? With less than four miles left of the race, we begin to think we will have to finish with her. Super.

Becky is looking better. She has color. She starts to run with some speed that tires me.

12:01pm: We meet again with the Polish man. He has been ahead this whole time. Becky, Jo, Debby, and Patty pass him. I decide to stay with him (for his sake and for mine). He asks me questions; he can still maintain conversation despite the fact that we're at mile 25! He has run over 230 (yeah, read that again) marathons. Next week he'll run a marathon in Fargo, his 49th state.

12:11pm: Becky finishes her first marathon!

A Full Day (part I)

4:30am: Leah, Joella, Angela, and I leave our house for Wilmington, Delaware. Why? We want to see Becky run her marathon. Ang and I made posters to cheer her on. We brought our lawn chairs and books. If I knitted, I would have brought that, too.

6:15am: We decide we should begin to think about a breakfast stop before getting to the race location. As we are turning onto route 100, Angela spots something out of the ordinary: a girl is lying on her face on the sidewalk next to this high-traffic road, just in front of a pizza shop. "Should we stop? Do you think she needs help?" Angela asks. Of course, as she says this, she is turning off the road, near the sidewalk. Leah is the first out of the car. In our heads, we each think, "I'm so glad Leah is a doctor."

The girl is conscious, trembling, soaking wet from mid-torso down. She has no shoes on, her eyes are open. Her arm hangs out into the street. We can't move her, of course, so we grab two blankets from the car to cover her. She looks so cold. And though it has been raining, it doesn't seem to make sense that she is so unevenly wet. Joella exits the car already on her phone, calling 911. A couple pulls up. The man sits in the road, holding her hand, saying, "you're gonna be fine, sweetie. You're gonna be fine."

Another woman comes up. She thinks she knows the girl. She keeps saying, "are you all right? Is your name Jade? I know this girl!" She is worried; she is overly excited, and therefore not helpful. I am annoyed. Of course the girl is not all right.

When the ambulance arrives, the EMTs check her vitals, brace her neck, move her onto a stretcher, then onto the gurney, into the ambulance, out of sight and away from the loud woman. We stand about waiting for a few moments, in case we could be of any use. Our work is done here, so we leave, praying for her.

6:45am: Breakfast will have to wait until after the race begins at 7am.

The Twins Across the Street

Transition.

(oops! Did I just drop that word? How clumsy of me! And nowhere to put it. Maybe I'll just throw it up there, high on that shelf that I can't see or reach with a ten-foot pole, right next to "fasting" and "jihad"--out of sight out of mind.)

Across the street live two elderly couples. Already, communal living in the U.S. is odd enough. But even stranger, they always dress as twins. The men dress exactly alike, and the ladies dress exactly alike. Every day. I just saw the ladies leaving their house in dark blue elastic pants and light yellow sweaters. They had their basket on wheels, going to a store downtown. They brought so much order to my disheveled spirit. I thought, "their lives have continued past the age of 22. Now there is a feat. I can do this."

It is strange, the comfort I have taken in just seeing elderly people recently. In the high school where I was student teaching, most of the teachers were rather young, and of course the students were 18 or under. The university is comprised of many young people. Even my church is primarily under 35. I simply have not had a diverse range of ages in my life over the last four years. How sweet to see these two couples living in unity as though never perturbed. I wish I knew them. I wish I could see up close what thoughts come with being over 70.

My grandparents are now looking toward 80, and with it has come a marked change in their lives. My grandmother is looking after my grandfather, caring for the home, the expenses, the driving, the doctor's appointments. He is not allowed out of her sight for extended periods of time. They are downsizing: packing, selling, trashing, and preparing to move into a retirement community. My thought: major suckfest. But for what it's worth, it puts my own transitions into perspective.

I need less stuff. I need more Christ. I know the response post for this one, in three or four months' time, will be something to do with not knowing where I have put my hangers. They always seem to be lost in the shuffle. I know that uncertainty regarding a job will not be the determining factor of the age I live to see.

Maybe, one day, I will even marry a man with a twin brother; and I will walk to the store with this twin brother's wife, dressed exactly the same: a show of solidarity: we have lived long, and no amount of living can drive from us our sense of humor!

Letter to Student Teachers of English

Dear Student Teacher of English,

I'll start where we usually start: if you're nervous about student teaching, and tired of listening to the naysayers regarding “the economy and everything,” I feel for you. Whatever. Try hard not to listen to them. The thing about teaching is that we always need teachers. There is no lack of students in the world. Maybe there is a lack of funding. For now. But you are learning how to transmit a worthwhile area of knowledge. English is valuable and English teachers are valuable. Keep your head up.

I can't ever tell you how much I have to learn in teaching. Even if your cooperating teacher is a slacker or a jerk, you still have a lot to learn from him/her. My cooperating teacher was a model of professionalism. And, of course, all the areas of professionalism you've heard about are important. My co-op came in at 7:25 every morning, the last possible minute per her contract (but she was never, ever late). A few times this semester, I arrived a minute or two later than her. She noticed. I felt like a real idiot.

If you want to take professionalism to a whole new level, refuse to complain. A few times I was openly annoyed about having to cooperate with (what I thought was) an unjust IEP. I shouldn't have said anything about it. I noticed my cooperating teacher's silence when she had the opportunity of agreeing with me and complaining about the system. She didn't blame or mud-sling. She came to work. And she worked hard. You always have the opportunity to complain. But complaining is the lowest form of interaction. Why not analyze something? Or invent something new? Or laugh? Or friggin' grade something? You have a lot of that to do all the time. That is the kind of person you want to be in the classroom.

Do not let yourself be made afraid of anything or anyone. You're ready for this. Be fearless. Every afternoon when you get in the car, forgive yourself for what you did stupidly. If you're like me, you're going to do a whole lot of stupid crap. You will look in your rearview mirror, and catch your own eye, and scowl, and say to yourself, “seriously? Where did you escape from?” Forgive yourself. Before you go into the building the next morning, release yourself again from yesterday's mistakes. It's a new day, and it's going to be okay.

Write your cooperating teacher a letter of gratitude afterward, no matter what kind of person he/she was. You shared a classroom. You're bonded. Deal with it.

Alright, stop reading this and go do a great job!

Sincerely,

Carolyn