Semester Break

I write about various cycles in my life—Hallowe’en and Candlemas, planting and reaping, seasons shifting—but there is one that dominates all others. The school year. And, I am pleased to say, we passed a huge milestone this week. The school year is half over. This means two new classes of students arrive in my room on Monday, while American Lit. sticks around for the year. It means that the kids that I’ve seen a little too much of this semester have moved onto other teachers, and we go back to greeting one another in the halls. It means, for about one week, there is very little grading, NO weird papers slipped into the basket under the extra credit three weeks late (hoping I won’t notice), no one with a test to make up because they were out with the Swine Flu, no one wondering if reading the poem will put their grade over into the desired category…nothing weird. The basket is empty. All of the grades are entered. The filing is done. I even washed Lamb Chop, the bathroom pass. It is a lovely moment—a brief shining pause in the daily paper shuffle that is, in so many ways, my life. It never lasts.