A wonderful, awesome, empowering, very good day

This kind of day is altogether different from a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. 

And, truth be told, I don't often get them. Between perimenopause and mood disorder, I feel like most days I'm at 40% "meh" and 60% "fuck this."  

For 4.5 years, I've been at a local high school working with credit recovery students and most of the time, I feel like I'm sticking bandaids on carotid hemorrhages. Foster situations, sky-high absentee rates, high-as-a-kite glazed eyes, lack of motivation, non-native English speaking students who are trying to get through chemistry, reading and math levels lower than what I probably scored in third grade--it's not a place where students feel like masters of their destinies. 

At worst, it gives rings of hell. At best, purgatory. 

Yet I like being there because I do form relationships with students, which is vastly different from a normal substitute teacher situation. Some kids I have shephered since freshman year. One boy stops to chat--he is now a senior---and it will be good to see him cross the finish line in a few months. 

And it is only two days a week so I have breathing room in between. 

Still, many days feel Sisyphean. 

But not Thursday of this week. 

Because on Thursday, two sisters---one of whom never shows and the other who has been sleeping in credit recovery class---showed up after I called and left a message with their mom about not wanting them to fall behind. And both girls were ready to talk to me and ask for help. 

And on Thursday, a teacher I spoke to before school asked if I worked with C, and when I said yes, we came up with a plan for me to help C finish some work so she could pass English from last semester. In class, C did the work eagerly, and it felt like VICTORY. 

Then D, who is real hit or miss on feeling motivated, said, after I told him I would work with him on makeup English work for the aforementioned teacher if he wanted to, "I've got my English work" as I started to walk away. So he knocked out that assignment. 

And W, a mid-year graduate whose completion was delayed because he was shot, worked with me all day to wrap up his stuff so that he can get his diploma. 

Thursday felt like 100% springtime ephemerals blooming, limoncello on Capri, and the perfect light nap on my favorite couch all rolled into one. 

Horrified, yet oddly consoled

It is a wave that girds you now,

And its movement, swirling forward and up, then down,

Stirs the back of the throat, 

The excess saliva, the churn of the stomach. 

That is a normal sensation, a normal reaction

To what you witness.

Toting their weapons, the unidentifiables, no badges, no identification. 

The ones who seem to take glee in horror. 

To brandish your papers doesn't matter to them. 

They are convinced of their righteousness.

....

You feel that movement again, don't you?

You feel it now in the -3 degrees of Minneapolis, 

But it has moved before.

In January 1839 when biting cold lashed at legs and arms, armed guards

setting the pace to Oklahoma. 

That movement surged in warmer months, too. 

1921 in Logan County.

A struggle for work, for safety, for dignity, for something other than scrip.

And again in 1791 in Washington County.

In 1831 in Southhampton County.

In 1960 in Sharpville. 

In 1982 in Lubin.

In 2019 in Santiago.

In 1989 in Dongcheng.

And through all of time. 

Mostly unrecorded,

But witnessed by others on the wave,

Who were also sickened to the core. 

.... 

An antidote?

Oh no, I'm sorry; none exists. 

You must witness these things in 

The timeline on which your life rests.