October 12, 2006. Two months since I got off a plane from Australia, and four months (!) since I drove from Rolling Fork, MS, to Leland, MS, said goodbye, and kept driving North, as I'd imagined it for months. It lacked the glamor and poignancy with which I'd imagined it. It was just goodbye. There some crying, and some driving. As we often do when leaving, I brought the whole place and all of it's contents- people included, as we were then- from outside to inside, and left it there.

Many of my students called or e-mailed. There are one or two with whom I've maintained more frequent contact. Lots more I wonder about, think about, worry about uselessly- what happened to them, what will happen to them, and what's next for them. I can't wait to see them again (hopefully this summer), but I'm more than a bit afraid of what I'll find. There seems to be a degree of grim certainty that I've yet to truly accept.

In the past months I've visited friends for whom I would go anywhere and do anything, spent some time with my family, and taken on a new job working for a Boston-based non-profit that works with community building and youth education.

I've realized how fortunate we were to have the group of people we had in MS. I was inspired and supported by the people in teacher corps, and felt honored to be counted among them. Outside of that sheltered group, there's been a level of separation, probably self-perpetuated. No one's been there.

New York is so strange after Mississippi, especially the Delta. Everything feels landscaped and artificial, too perfect, unreal. People are curt and formal, distant, and it feels harsh after the casual comfort among strangers in the south.

It's good to be home; it's good to see these walls- my childhood home- and these mountains.
I don't belong to them anymore, though. While there are certain people for whom I will always bend, I feel rather distant from old friends, sometimes even my family- everyone who has not been there for the past two years. I understand how unfair that is, but I'm not sure how to bridge the gap between the people who were closest two years ago, and who I am after knowing my students, and their families, and their culture. I don't know how to disengage from the concerns that have dominated my life for months and months, and I don't know what to say when conversation and even lifestyle seems dominated by things that don't seem to matter. I'm hoping that I will get a job in service and education that will provide an outlet.

Leaving behind yet another life, another set of people who were everything, and contending with the holes that remain lead me to give new attention to an old question, which is "What do we build our lives around?" Most people want marriage, children, a family, and I've never wanted that before, but longing for people who are out of reach, again, helps me to understand the appeal of family and commitment and a home that lasts. Like most people, I'd guess, I really worry if I could ever find that. I am less concerned than I've ever been before that I would feel suffocated by that lifestyle. At least teaching has made it clear to me that I want to pursue service through my career. I can't imagine enjoying a corporate job after this- not that I ever could.

And it goes on.

One of my very, very special kids- the most talented dancer (save for his brother) and one of the most talented artists I've ever seen, emotionally aware and very sensitive- is also a special education student. He struggles academically, but I think he is classified as special ed mostly for financial reasons.

Everyone from the head special education teacher (who happens to be a warm and wonderful person) to his other teachers to he, himself, believes that art school would be the best place for him. He is, however, still under his mother's thumb. His brother, who has similar talents, is at Morehead. The special ed teacher says his mother has told her about "a training program in Greenville" that she has in mind for him. "That check" she says "pays a bill in my house". Those checks are a curse more than a gift.

It is enough to make me want to hit someone; it's too bad that there is no productive physical reaction to anger. It is difficult for me to imagine anything more evil than seeing him waste himself in a menial job.

I don't know what to do for him. He will graduate tomorrow with a "certificate" and will pursue his GED until January, but there are doubts about whether or not he will be able to pass. It is said that the GED exam is perhaps more difficult than standard graduation.

He gave me an invitation to graduation, with his named en scripted inside. I gave him my phone number and e-mail address.

I'm looking forward, but I'm not sure to what. Nothing will be the same, and everyone will soon go disappearing. I haven't been able to write. I don't know what to say. I miss people that are right next to me. I have yet to find a way to deal with this. I want to ask people to stay with me, to stay in touch, to stay near. As departure creeps closer, my tendency is to want to bring people closer, and theirs is to begin to pull away. I'm always left watching the shadows grow longer, until finally the sun sets- that beautiful Delta sunset, like no other- and this is no longer home.

To the people who have been here, who have sat in a silent room, listening to the heaviness of evening, who have watched spring storms from the porch, who have told stories about problems with no solutions and asked questions with no answers, who have noticed how the honeysuckle complements the stars, who have watched me cry and cried themselves, in small moments of something true...

Well, if I knew what to say, I would have said it already.

"Ms. Shaffren, you leavin'? I thought you was gonna be one of the one's who stayed."

Ow.

Just a few little things I don't want to forget...

The language differences; when they say "why" they don't really want to know why, necessarily. This makes more sense in the context of the phrase "how come it's not" or "how come it ain't". Often "why" is not a request for more depth, but, rather, another way to say "I don't get it".
And fittin', "shut up talking to me", "uh-uh boo-boo", "get your weight up", fittin' ta get whopped", "get you a lick", "you crazy ain't it?" and so many more. Learning a bit of the language has been a huge part of learning the culture...and a little more about the kids.

The way they see, know, notice everything about you; bits of yourself about which you are ashamed, insecurities- many a time I've been amazed at how well the kids pick up on them. It's great, actually. It helps me laugh at it, and work on it.

Hair with gold-painted flecks.

There's so much that seems so commonplace at this point that I wouldn't even think to write it...

Three weeks before the end of the two years, I step out of the house in Leland into the night, and it's all lavender and lightning. The combination cuts beautifully through my haze of questions and doubts. Near the end of a personal era, for lack of better terminology- it feels so wrong to call this a phase because it has had such impact on my character and my plans- every sensation is stronger, and living is somehow ultra-nuanced. Maybe I just hold on.

If there was one sweet moment this year, it was this:

Before the Biology I state test, I invited all of my students to my room for sugary breakfast foods and last minute tutoring, from 7:00 am until testing began. I did not have the turn-out I would have liked. About 25 of my best students came, but I am told that others were turned away by administration before they made it to my room. (Despite arrangements to prevent this situation.) I fired questions at them for a while, and answered their last minute queries. When the bell rang for them to go to testing, the room erupted into applause, and I don't think they were kidding. I didn't really feel much joy or relief the day of testing, or even much afterwards- we don't, after all, have the results. But if there was a moment of slight release, that was it.

After the last weekend, thinking as always about the next step, I hope that without the hours spent in (sometimes deep) discussion with a group of inspiring people, good people, solid and capable and intelligent people together to share issues and battles and dreams, I will still maintain my drive and ambition to work hard toward something that makes a difference, that I will find in myself what I see in them. (What is living and what is good? What is a good heart?)