“Every other day of the week is fine”
For all of y’all it’s Monday but for me it’s Tuesday, I arrive at work today to discover the roofing project has taken a real bad turn and we have three floors with water damage. Nice! All that and I have to get the kids ready for a performance this Saturday.
It’s going to work out for the best (Oh! The cry of the optimist!) as I love being here and the work that we are doing is very necessary for the community. Mind-Builders gives kids violin lessons for $12 a lesson! And this is from a 20 year veteran who has performed all over the world. Man, you can;t beat that with a bat.
The other great thing about teaching is that it keeps me in a good creative mood and has me writing about stuff I never would have imagined. When we started the year we wanted to come up with a list of expectations from the teachers and from themselves. The phrase we came up with- “We all want to get paid but how do we want to get paid back?” The question keeps popping up in class and this is what resulted.
(Any and all thoughts are welcome in the comment section)
BETWEEN GETTING PAID AND GETTING PAID BACK
The kids tell me that they don’t know the blues.
Some of them give me the dictionary response.
Tell me that the blues are a song
That you sing when you don’t feel good.
And I’m cool with that.
I’m a teacher and if they had all the answers
Then where would I be?
Let’s talk about the blues,
That you don’t know about.
And the reds,
You have probably known too well.
And the yellows,
You may not have seen enough of.
Let’s talk about the grays
That the blues beat but are always around.
Gray is a song that we can learn together
A lot faster than the blues.
Gray is the color of you know
Whether you are pondering the sky
or staring at your feet.
Gray is the color of your four walls
Gray is the color of Monday mornings
Gray is the color of your pencil on the pad
And blue is the color of the lines that keep the gray in
Blue is the color of Sunday nights
Blue is the dull fade of the TV going blank
Blue is the color of constraint and restriction
Whether you are walking the path
Or toeing the line
Blue is why the song still stings
Even though the hurt went away
Blue is when the pictures make you cry
But you can’t throw em away.
Blue is not knowing when the gray ends.
Wanting to make it in a world that sees only colors
And the only one we want to know is green.
When we don’t recognize the beauty of blue
Or the limits of gray, the rich of red,
The welcome arms of yellow.
Blues is seeing the rich rouge of project brick,
The indigo of an uncaring uniform,
The stories the concrete can share,
The warmth of the lamppost hue,
Not knowing you live in a dazzle of light
And that you are the spectrum
Letting the world know you live
In the chaos of color
But you only see
What has been left behind.