esther's journal-3

FRIDAY, September 15: We had time, today, to prep our classrooms for the start of classes on Monday. I’ve been in the same room, now, for about 10 years. Second floor, front, of the academic building. Great view of the campus. I think I’ve taken it for granted. Of course I have. But today, I stopped to look around a bit. The side wall is filled with posters, unchanged for that decade – Jimi Hendrix; Gandhi; Hemingway; Eleanor Roosevelt. Lee Evans and Tommie Smith – that photo from the ’72 Olympics; and Muhammad Ali, the one where he’s standing over Sonny Liston. Not exactly sure why I picked those, initially. To tell the truth, to fill the wall. but they’ve come to define the room, I think. There’s so much so very human in all of the posters. Plus, kids get a kick out of seeing Hendrix.

So, I stood, for moment and took it all in – the room, the view, the feeling. And I allowed my self to wonder how long it will take someone to change it when I’m gone. It would only be right. It would need to be theirs, the room, the feeling. But it did leave me a bit wistful, again, maybe even sorrowful. But only for a moment, because I think that’s what so wonderful about life – change, regeneration. I changed the room; someone later deserves to do the same.

I met up, too, a bit later with the new girls field hockey coach; I’ll be her assistant. She’s young – Julia Tooher. Full of energy. New teacher. Just out of college. She reminds me a bit of the way I was when I first started teaching. I was going to change the world. I was going to do good. I was going to make a difference. She made me smile. Anyway, she seems to think we’ll have a pretty good team. I never care, really. Well, I do, but not that much. It’s being outside, surrounded by all that energy. It’s enough for me. Julia told me to call her JT. I told her that Julia is such a beautiful name and that she should use that. She said she’s always been JT. I relented. But I’ve set my sights on getting her to use Julia. Small thing. But beauty is often a compendium of small things. Julia. Lovely.