The steps forward can seem like itty-bitty ones, taken in moccasins, over clean dirt. Unless, of course, you happen to be me. Which I know you're not, because *I'm* me, but none the less..... I got my little form from the state of Michigan the other day, requesting that I send in my money to be a licensed (not certified, mind you, that's another kettle of fish entirely, and further on down the line,) Substitute teacher. And so it begins. Sonsaengnim; Rabbi; teacher. That's MY pride, damn you. Hard fought-for, and hard-won. But there, such as it is. And subject, of course, to further development. I thought some about all the moments I have known thus far as a teacher; spontaneous hugs, not to be confused with the sneak-attacks, as though I had wandered into the wrong neighborhood after midnight..... chocolate.....I admit, I probably ate as much as my kids in Korea did. And the things I've heard. "I don't want a new teacher, I like YOU!" "Sonsaengnim imnida!"(shouted by one of my Korean students, to one of her friends when she spotted me on the escalator at Lotte Mart. She basically said "that's my teacher!" The tiny, little self-absorbed rock star in me was very pleased at such attention.) And the latest? the sign, I suppose, of a job-well-done from the standpoint of the kids in class; "are you gonna be here tomorrow?" This goes beyond love and respect from these kids, near as I can tell. This is them, more importantly, getting it. Which is also pretty damned stunning in light of the latest wrinkle, which is that I was teaching 7th and 8th grade MATH. Yeah, I thought that'd get your attention, it did mine, too, trust me. Still and all, I managed pretty well. I shall not delve deeply into some of the minor pratfalls of some of the kids I work with, but suffice to say there's only a certain group of mothers in this world who would name their children Genesis and Aiyana. Nuff said. But the bigger thing, I guess, is that I can be confident in myself that more is to come. Perhaps, as Sinatra might say, the best is yet to come. Believe it with me, won't you?
And then there's that portion of me that still remembers Pete, the mechanic. The non-stop, devil-may-care, let-it-all-fly guy from what seems like all those years ago. As you might imagine, of course, my resume doesn't look anywhere near the same, and I look in my own eyes sometimes, just to make certain it's still me, I think. And horror of horrors, I'm not as totally absorbed in cars as I once was. Mind you, that blood still runs mighty deep, but when *I* feel like there's more to me than that, when I don't really feel like going to the North American International Auto Show because it's just too much of a pain to do that sh*t in Detroit in January, well, that, first of all, would be yet another instance where my oldest daughter looks at me (again,) and says, "who are you, and what have you done with my father?" It's gettin to be par for the course. I think it comes down to a life in balance; at last.