2005-01-29

Tempus Fugit

It's so early in the morning, and I've only gotten up to get an earlier start to my day, and am laborously chewing on a large, red Washington Apple in order to maintain the diet I imposed on myself a few weeks back after realizing that I had gained five pounds. I no longer inform Alastair of my intentions to diet--he despises my diets, my weight loss, and worries far too much. Though, he'll notice if and when he sees me naked.

It was completely gray yesterday--the only breeze accompanying my ride home was chilly, yet, not oppressive. And I began to remember when I was younger and in first, or second, or third, or fourth, or fifth grade...and afternoons smelled like this.

I remember Mr. Workinger, my fourth grade teacher, always telling me to clean up my essays. One can form a parallel between now and then when Mrs. Bryan peers up at me through her clear, rose-rimmed glasses and asks, "Do you know what you are doing? Because you did it again..."

And she's referring to the fact that I can never get to the point when writing an essay--a tendency to go off on tangents.

And Mr. Workinger had thin-rimmed, black reading glasses, and his dusty-blue eyes would look at me, and I was just a little girl of about ten at that time, and so, I'd hold my head down and cower and know that the teacher found something wrong with my essay.

But like Mrs. Bryan, Mr. Workinger enjoyed my imaginative, detailed-filled short-stories and poems.

He'd take us to the Van Wezel very often, standing up in front of the room with his deep voice and flowing erudite words:

"...I do this, simply because I want all of you to become exposed to the arts--you should all become cultured citizens..."

And oftentimes, Chad with the black hair and nasal voice in my class, had to hold it in because he never used the word "may" when asking to go to the bathroom--we always had to use the word "may".

I always say that something extraordinary ocurred between the third and the fourth grade. The former made me a mathematician and a logican thinker. Mrs. Frankling--I could still smell the strong peppermint of her chewing gum mixed with a faint scent of Arden perfume--would firmly grab me by the chin and ask: "Are you listening?"

Fear is the great educator. Though she was an amazing teacher--strict...but I enjoyed her class. And when she retired I hugged her and said I'd miss her and...she cried.

And at times I wonder how it would be if I'd just run into either Mrs. Franklin or Mr. Workinger...and I'd show Mrs. Franklin my math homework, and she'd laugh and tell me to pay attention.

Or, if I were to show Mr. Workinger a history essay I've written, and he'd laugh and tell me that in all these years...my writing has not changed.

And, one cannot help but wonder at these people, who in their time help us become adults...because, buried somewhere inside there is a small part--the essential--that only comes out when it wants to.

It's one of the things one doesn't notice right away...it's when I looked into Al's glacier-blue eyes when he lay naked beside me, and something inside me fell in love, though I was not conscious of it.

Thus, a distant part of me--distant like the willow within the tempest--knows that everything I learned within those two years is carried deep within me--still.

Tempus fugit...and we wonder, on a pale dusk, where all of these memories went...and why our sweet recollections are so important.

aeka at 6:38 a.m.