Empty

So often, something happens in my classroom that I have no skills to deal with. I feel sick and uncertain and ill-equipped. I think it over, I talk with others -- but I'm still at a loss.

A couple of weeks ago, my students wrote a timed-essay. They understood the stakes, they knew how to perform the task, and they could interpret the prompt. Some of my kids just didn't want to write, and I understood that. Heavens, who wants to write an essay at eight o'clock in the morning when the sun is shining and spring is on the way? What I didn't understand, though, was the mechanism a couple of my kids used to avoid the work. I would have taken a nap, written a note, chewed gum. But not two of my kids in first period.

"Dayna" used her eraser to make a mound of white shavings. Then she took her student ID, which is shaped exactly like a credit card or driver's license, and used it to separate the shavings into neat little piles. "David," her elbow partner, thought this was far more interesting than writing his own essay, so he jumped in on the action. They were extremely quiet -- never laughed or talked, but the mischief on their faces was unmistakable.

What made my stomach turn is the drug reference. I've only seen Hollywood versions of cocaine cutting, but I'm pretty sure that's the task my students were mimicking. I pointed lots of stern looks in their direction and whispered admonitions to get back on task. Nothing. I reminded the kids of the importance of the test. The cocaine cutting continued. Finally, out came the threat to go explain to an administrator why they could not write an essay, which worked. The ID found its way into the backpack, and the pile of erasure shavings was swept onto the floor.

I wish I could say I handled the whole episode well, but I most definitely did not. I talked about it with my colleagues, and we stepped up our drug use talks in our iConnect classes. I thought about relaying the incident to administrators, but honestly, our mental health counselors are already over-tasked.  Plus, I felt sure I was over-reacting. Perhaps this was a little like seeing toddlers take their clothes off at the playground?

I've never used illegal substances, and I'm afraid of most of the legal ones. What I saw in class that day scared me in ways I don't fully understand.

The world is not as full of hope as I'd like.

SRLA

Today was the annual Los Angeles Marathon. That's right, boys and girls, 20,000 atheletes running from Dodger Stadium to the Santa Monica Pier.

Pretty much awesome.

But what's even awesomer is a program called Students Run Los Angeles (SRLA) that offers 3,000 scholarships to teenagers from underprivileged areas of the city. They get their entry fee waived and a superb pair of Nike running shoes, not to mention a poncho in case of rain, gel snacks, and the screaming support of the teachers and coaches from their school (that's where Matt and I came in).

We queued up at mile 10 and spent two hours squinting. We so desperately wanted to see the 50-ish Camino kids who have been training for this run since September. We had Gatoraide, we had pretzels, and we had lungs. Cocyx be damned, whenever I saw one of our munchins I began jumping up and down and yelling stuff like, "WOOHOO, NATALLY! GO, YOU!" and "DALIA! ROBERTO! YOU GUYS ROCK!"

Then back to squinting until we saw the next Camino-ite.

We missed church, which has considerably less jumping and screaming. But no fewer smiles from God, I feel sure. What better way to worship than to say to a young man or woman, "I have faith in you."

Great morning.

Levitated Mass

As we walk around this colossal town, we see odd things. And sometimes our only possible response is a shake of the head and a quietly murmured, "Only in L.A." Here's a recent example ...

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, a world-class institution we are rather addicted to, recently spent $10 million to transport a big rock (ahem, sorry ... "megalith") from a quarry in Riverside to its backlot where some dude named Michael Heizer will watch a crane move it to just the right location over a walk-way, thus deeming him "the artist" and the rock "art."

See? Only in L.A.

For some odd reason I can't quite puzzle out, tens of thousands of people from the four counties the "megalith" rolled through came out at all hours of the night to catch a glimpse of the boulder. I say all hours of the night because massive road closures, tree removals, and traffic signal dismantlings made day-time travel a bad idea. Dozens of area newspapers, that capitalized way too often on the "rock 'n roll" theme in their headlines, reported on rock music festivals and food trucks eager to make a buck off the rock craze.

Every morning, Matt expectantly busted open the newspaper to trace the rock's whereabouts on its 10-day journey. To my everlasting surprise, even national news outlets got in on the hype. On my drive to school every morning, I listened to stories from stations running the gamut from the local Pasadena public radio station to Martketplace, The Morning Report and even both NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

So last weekend, Matt laid out a course for a trip down to LACMA so we could check out the rock for ourselves. We went early, hoping to avoid the crowds and peek at the big boy through the fence behind the museum.

I peeked. And criticized. And shook my self-righteous little head. The thing was wrapped in plastic, for heaven's sake (although my sweet husband informed me that, no indeed, what appears to be plastic is actually imported Egyptian cotton designed to protect the boulder from the elements, to which I sarcastically replied, "Aren't boulders sort of designed to be IN the elements?"). The "megalith" is about the size of one of those gas station kiosks that sell cigarettes and 2-liter bottles of Pepsi, whereas I'd been envisioning something more on the scale of a Walgreen's. Megalith indeed.

Because Matt is always happy and curious, he thought the boulder was pretty much awesome, not to mention the heavy artillery of large-scale trucks, trailers, and cranes surrounding it like a queen's retinue. I pointed out that someone in the marketing department would be getting a bonus since all the trucks, trailers, and cranes were all conveniently painted in the same colors as LACMA's trademark red and white. He grinned. Rather enthusiastically.

We were correct in that the crowds were light at 8:00 a.m. (this city sleeps until noon on the weekends), but the news crews were out in full force. A cameraman from Fox thought our noticeably opposite reactions were funny, so he pointed his camera in our direction and asked us to talk.

We did. I was funny. Matt was funnier. And as we strolled back to the bus stop, we shook our heads and muttered, "Only in L.A."

Because Matt is Matt ...

Two weeks from Sunday marks three years since the first day I saw Matt. He was wearing faded blue jeans and a starched white, button-down shirt with a speck of communion juice on the collar. We met at Panera for a cup of coffee, and when he excused himself to go to the men's room, I noticed two things: he walked like a mellow Tigger, and he patted his back pocket to make sure his wallet was still there.

I fell in love.

(So did he. I wasn't a mile away from our good-bye when my phone buzzed with a text message that said, "When can I see you again?")

He takes my breath away.

Matt is unrelentingly gentlemanly. He turns down the bed at night, and sets my slippers next to it. He puts toothpaste on my toothbrush. When the alarm goes off, he gets out of bed first.  While I sleep a few more minutes, he makes a pot of coffee and gets the tea kettle ready for my to-go mug. I can only convince him to let me carry my back-pack if it's chilly outside (he knows it warms me), and  I honestly can't remember when I last opened a car door or had to figure out directions from point A to point B.

The Tigger walk? I was dead-on. Matt's energy and playfulness astonish me. He loves to make rhyming words. He names plants -- not "daisy," mind you, but rather, "number three white," which is especially funny as he has an encylopedic knowledge of horticulture. Every time we walk past a dog, he asks, "What kind is that?" No matter what I reply, he laughs. Public transporation fascinates him, as do walking, biking, and swimming ... and maps, colored pencils, and high-end tools.  He can fall asleep sitting up. Mint chip ice cream makes him grin like a teenager.

Every night, when we sit down to dinner, Matt holds out his hands to me, and asks, "May I pray?"

I love this man. I love his military-short hair and his low snore and his Wallace-like smile.

Yesterday, we took a walk to 21 Choices, our favorite frozen yogurt joint (they have flavors like carmelized banana, so what's not to like?). On our way there, Matt saw a couple arguing. As the woman walked away from the man, he quite savagely abused her. It was so sudden and ugly, I thought Matt might be sick. When the man saw Matt, he sprinted away. Matt called out to the woman to ask if she was okay. And although she said, "I'm fine," it was clear she meant, "Get away from me."

We walked on. We ate our yogurt. We dipped into the Apple store to look at iPads. We discussed our plans for Scotland. We held hands. But ... Matt's mind was on the woman. He was quiet. He didn't ask me to name any dog breeds.

When we got near the place the woman had been yanked to the ground by her hair, Matt said, "She works there. She was wearing a uniform. I want to ... I want to give her our phone number. I want to tell her we'll help her, we'll testify, we'll ..." He got quiet again.

There are a thousand reasons not to get involved, I thought. She'll be angry we walked into her restaurant. She might be an addict. She won't want to press charges. She'll mutter an explicative and turn away. There are more complications than we could ever guess.

Yet here is front of me stood my guy. What are a thousand reasons stacked next to slump of his shoulders? I took his hand, and we walked in. Our exchange with the woman was brief and private. She may never call us or leave the man who is as different from my Matt as the east is from the west. But when Matt said, "Here is my number and you can call it in an hour or a week or a year or never ...," she looked up into Matt's face. Then she looked at me. And then she looked back up at Matt.

She took the piece of paper with Matt's phone number on it, and she nodded. She said thank-you.  And then she turned away.

But not before I saw a certain look in her eyes.  She knows, I thought. She knows what it feels like to have a man set her slippers next to her bed.

There is such hope in the world. And I love Matt Forbes.