Dust and Shades of Peach

Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.

You've Got Mail

Room 120 is holding its breath.

In a way, this is almost literal, as they are glued shut. The thin, half-century-old windows on the south side of the school building were condemned in June, after another spring in which classroom temperatures topped 90 degrees. Apparently, my library annex was not the only warm place last year. A few weeks ago, I stepped into the empty room that has become my new home, and marveled to discover that a few of the windows had no panes in them at all. I tiptoed across the room and pushed my head way out into the courtyard between the main building and the one next door. The following day, the hole was replaced by a board.

With new key in hand, I struggle with a bundle of Ikea merchandise and plastic letter trays, trying to push my way into the door without dropping all of my parcels. This would be a good time for a useful colleague or construction worker to offer help, but no such person arrives, and I stumble into the room.

Though all of the windows have been replaced, today it is still in the upper 80s inside. The windows, never opened, are caulked shut. It smells faintly of chemicals and a thin layer of old window dust covers floor and desk tops. There are only 25 desks in the room (I have 34 students in my largest class) and no desk at all for me. The walls are exactly the shade of my legs in the dead of winter, while the beams are painted to match the worst sunburn I got this summer.

I couldn't be happier with Room 120.

I set down the packages, which I will unpack tomorrow, struggle with a window until it opens stickily, and sit down in a student desk. The desks will have to be rearranged, and pictures hung on the walls. I will write my name on the board and, if I'm allowed, repaint at least the sunburned beams. When we can, we will paste up projects and dance photos. Maps and assignments, grammar reminders and expectations. I will become familiar with the view from these tall, sticky windows. I will sit on that table and stand in that doorway, drinking tea and learning.

I am happy with this new place, and eager to make it my own. How easy it is to believe, now, that I can create a microcosm of safety in this little room, where I will protect myself and my students from the dangers we face outside, in the halls and the streets. How deeply I desire, as I enter a second year in the whirlwind of high school education, to be a person of peace, and to reflect that in an oasis of a classroom.

Another voice, the tired and nervous one, scoffs, "Oh, that won't last long. They'll mess up your clean desks, break the new windows, shout while you're trying to drink tea. There is no peace in teaching." There will be arguing and crying. There will be doodles on the desks and crumbs on the floor. The inevitable pain of the world outside will come in with all of us, like the November mud on our shoes.

Of course it will never be perfect, never the ideal of a summer dream, I tell myself, bracing against disappointment. And yet, here in this student desk that will fill five times with a still-unknown teenager, I pray for peace. For them. For me. For Room 120 and the school around us.