I Wish I Could Talk to Dead People

Yes, it is true. There are too many people who I really could still use in my life. Their years of experience would certainly come in handy, (never mind their love). Personally, I want to ask them for guidance as I navigate the new terrain I find myself walking on. Not that I listened too much while my elders were alive, but their pearls found their way into my major decisions and guided me when my direction was clouded. Beyond my own need for their shepherding, I often pause when I hear something outlandish and wonder what my grandfather would say about the destruction of the Republican party, and their tearing down long-held principles. I know how sick my mother would be over the continued lies bantered about immigrants. My father, an esteemed surgeon, would be appalled by those who turned down a vaccine and instead believed the misinformation spread like a careless wildfire. Daily I wish my elders still sat around our dinner tables so that we could debate and analyze facts derived from reality instead of the lies that now filter our social media feeds and bias our conversations. I do wish I could talk to dead people because I could use lucidity instead of the smoke and mirrors offered.

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An Irish Goodbye

After 31 years of walking into this almost hundred year-old regal school building greeting all those doing the same, and spending a day discussing excellent texts and fostering student responses I find myself driving away one final time on this hot June day. The waterfall of complicated emotions I’ve felt since I turned in my resignation is Niagara Falls in proportion. Finding myself unable to say a lengthy farewell to students or colleagues, instead overcome by the whole convergence of my living and breathing within this mighty vocation, I slipped away, opting for an Irish goodbye.

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AP English Lit exam, a failed School Budget and Teacher Appreciation Week

Irony interests and excites every AP English Literature teacher I know. The defying of expectation in character or plot, the twists of deception, the nuance of regret, the way shadows fall against the backdrop of romance, each singular thread pulled to create the tapestry within a novel, play or poem is what we feed upon from August to May, what we present to those hopeful students who plod through Dostoevsky and gasp over Miller, who acknowledge the majesty of Woolf and Ellison alike irregardless of their divergent settings. This week I ushered my students, those brave souls willing to sit for three hours of an exam to sift through metaphor and imagery and opposition and unlock both literal and emotional meaning and then craft their own response to texts. It is a lot to ask of anyone. I tell them I love them as I leave them under their proctor’s watch, and in that moment, I am so proud of their resolve to crack open this test and shine onward, for they are readers, now a rarity residing in our republic.

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