Empress

You'll be given love
You'll be taken care of
You'll be given love
You have to trust it

Maybe not from the sources
You have poured yours
Maybe not from the directions
You are staring at

Twist your head around
It's all around you
All is full of love
All around you

"All is Full of Love," Bjork

I am sitting dazedly on the floor when the activity coordinator calls my name over the gym PA system.

I'm on the floor because the clothes I am wearing--a white sweatband, blue soccer jersey, and white basketball shorts--were not terribly fresh when I put them on an hour ago, having spent much of the last decade in a locker in the basement, and after a brisk ten-minute volleyball game I don't feel fit to be near the other teachers.

I'm dazed because an errant serve collided with most of my face, six minutes into the faculty vs. student volleyball game. I saw stars, like a cartoon character, and the rest of the ridiculous game blended into a hazy swirl of student cheers, exaggerated high-fives from my vintage-clad colleagues. Then, grateful when the fifteenth error led our speedy defeat, I collapsed to the cool wooden floor at the foot of the bleachers, happy to watch the rest of the homecoming pep assembly in quiet anonymity from the floor.

It has been a busy week, full of details and commitments. Along with the festive oddities of Spirit Week, for which I came to school in pajamas and dressed as a black queen chess piece, the regular and irregular routines of the day have worn away most of the luster and excitement that I would ordinarily take to such an assembly. The volleyball knocked away the rest of it, so that now I am watching the bizarre pageantry of the assembly with a detached and disenchanted gaze.

Then there's my name, in the middle of it, and I look up to realize that the activity coordinator is announcing the Homecoming Court. What is this? The kings and queens, right? I remember that at my unique school they not only choose two of these for each class, but the students have voted on two teachers, also. And that they must have chosen me. I'm the 2008 Homecoming Empress. I receive a plastic gold crown, a laminated certificate, and a ride in a shopping cart, pushed by the Emperor, another ninth grade teacher. With ten students we parade around the gym for a strange minute, amid waves and cheers and laughter. It's all so odd, and yet I feel grateful and encouraged in the midst of the strangeness.

I remember marveling with a few other teachers, at the beginning of the year, about those moments when I have experienced grace from my students. Times when I have been clearly in the wrong, and have asked for and received their forgiveness. I can't know this for certain, but I suspect that not all teachers bother with this, with the messy business of confession or apology. There are certainly days and weeks when I would rather not bother, when I would be content to gloss over mistakes and injustices, hoping that we could all forget. Sometimes it's not even pride that holds me back; a simple weariness tempts me to the easier disengagement. And yet I have never regretted these times, the conversations that humble me and bind us back together, conversations of renewal and healing. It is in these times that my students have surprised and blessed me most.

In this wild shopping cart ride in the gym (and for the rest of the day as concerned students make sure I don't lose consciousness in a volleyball-induced concussion), today I am surprised by their love. Calling me up from my place on the floor, flat and tired, to warm me with a reminder that we are in this together, these students and I, transforming day to day with such displays of love as a cup of tea, a crown, or an inquiry into the soundness of a recently-pounded forehead.