The View

All of my  blogs used to be funny because I love to laugh at myself and make others laugh in the process. However, tonight I was going to write about the  deplorable treatment of my mom in her nursing home, and I stopped. It is far from funny. It would depress me, and you would not want to read it. Besides, I would not have enough time to write about it anyway.

Then I decided to write about my son, there always used to be some funny scenario to share about growing tweens. However as I wracked my brains, I realized that there is nothing funny because he has reached the start of brooding teenaged funks! He mopes past me and grunts barely audible answers to any question I pose.

Lastly, there’s my husband, I am sure that there is a story there however, I am so busy teaching, taking care of mom, going to class, and grading papers or creating lessons that I scarce see him enough to experience anything funny. (Though I will say that my newly retired husband had the audacity to nudge me in an electronic game of scrabble because I had not made time to make my move.)

Which brings me to my final thought on this situation which is quickly becoming the norm and beginning to overtake my weekly submissions.

Last week, I couldn’t find the time to write at all, and the week before that I wrote a poem about… well, not having anything to write about.  The week before that it was a short paragraph about not having time to write… and the week before that I squeezed in a very short paragraph after school and before the parents arrived on Back to School Night.

And now here I sit basically filling this blank space with more banter on not being able to write due to time constraints as I watch the big hand near the 12 on the clock and my grad professor turning on her presentation.

Sadly, as I perch here straddling this window sill called SOL Tuesdays, looking out at all the other wonderful writers running past my house, I feel like Esperanza’s grandmother in House on Mango Street, who “looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow.” Life has a tight grip on my leg pulling me back, so it can board up the opening through which I have been trying my best to escape these past few weeks since finding you

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Breaking a Leg!

The time is 5:45. I am anxious…anxious and tired. Although, this day comes every year for the past ten years, and I know I have made it through alive and unscathed, I am still nervous. What is it you say? Why it’s Back to School Night of course! This is the night when we face all 75 (or 150 if you teach the block schedule) parents.

Why am I anxious, you ask? Well, we teachers fear being cornered for an impromptu parent teacher conference, or questioned as if we will not challenge their student enough. We fear technological glitches that leave us putting on an impromptu dog and pony show without cue cards. We fear our presentation being too short leaving us as vulnerable as a president being pressed at a press conference. However, the night goes on… (and on, I might add), and we make it through somehow. And so, I shall tonight – I hope. Thus, this is a short blog tonight because the time has come; I must end because in six minutes, the show must go on. Wish me luck – or maybe I should say “tell me to break a leg!” B

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