On the wood floor in Anna's bedroom with my arms and head resting on her low bed, taking up space in her company and listening to her music in the pre-dawn hours while she packed her things- a ruffled shirt, a long string of pearls, a bathroom bag with orange geometric shapes-I felt so much like the kid I was (could it have been?) six, seven, eight years ago, watching my high school best friend get ready: a ruffled shirt, a string of beads, scented oil. Maybe there are some parts of our hearts that maintain their childish honesty and vulnerability. It feels like I have relived this scene a hundred times; I think I have a soft spot for the final hour before departure. I sat on the floor and soaked up the last wisps of her warmth.

So much like Kaitlin used to do, she told me the story of a French novelist and the final great novel, discovered years later by her daughter. I remembered how long it's been since I've really spent much time reading. It reminded me of the parts of myself I've put on hold- as we all do- for teaching. I'm looking forward to their rediscovery. I expect we will each find ourselves, on the other side of this, to be someone new, and always in some way tied to the kids that we (impossibly) cannot bring with us. It really does seem impossible: To leave an entire world behind. To let go. To set down the baby we've been carrying around for two years just as suddenly as we picked it up, and to know, in that part of ourselves that we allow to grieve for this, that it will not be okay. Impossible. That is the part of us that will always be here, furious and sad. Leaving it unappeased feels so much like admission of defeat. I think part of living in the Delta is really understanding, for the first time, that everything will not be okay.

I saw Corderral during tutoring on Wednesday. He was with a few unsmiling tough-guy sorts, who eyed me suspiciously. He was one of my Chemistry II students from last year with a sharp, capable mind and some behavior problems, but opened up to me a bit by the end. (After he had a daughter: "Sometime I be scared of babies, because they cry and you don't what they want.")
When he saw me, he smiled his special ear-to-ear goofy grin and hugged me. His little girl just turned one, and he just got back from Texas where he was "having fun". No college. No ideas.
He said he would work on it. Sometimes I feel like I'm being ignorant or condescending when I insist that they should be in school. I reminded him how smart he is, and felt sheepish. He hugged me goodbye.

And our childish hearts plead.
(I am still that kid.)

Teacher corps is waking up on Friday night the second (and last) weekend of spring break with nightmares about showing up unprepared on Monday, and somehow leaving your Biology II class unattended and coming back to find they've all disappeared. But it is also waking up with nightmares on a living room coach with the voices of friends in the background, and someone tells you to go back to sleep.
It is spending spring break mostly in a panicked daze, making calls about certification and spending hours with four or five kids on the steps of a church with a borrowed easel and not feeling like anything is getting done. But it is also the sweet reprieve of a spring storm, watching from the porch.
And it is also escaping the isolation by spending too much time at other people's house so they feel like you've moved in, but also starting to feel like family, meeting people you admire and wondering about yourself, accepting change, trying everything a thousand different ways, accepting frustration, realizing that this is nothing like you pictured it: It is much, much more.
More than anything, it is the kids, who will keep some of us here, and be the reason for staying, and who some of us will never see again. They will hold the pieces of us that we leave behind.
Everyone's phone number changes, everyone moves, and sometimes it feels like everyone has a baby, like everyone forgets what they used to want. There seems to be no way to keep in touch in the Delta, but also no way to let go.