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.