in the quiet

Lately, it's been quiet here. Last spring, when I was folding and unfolding this thought (do I or don't I) and now, as I begin to work toward it (setting up the file for letters of recommendation, signing up for the GRE exam), I feel I've fallen into myself, become a little more quiet.

I was telling Emily I'm tantrumish, and I meant more along the lines of: there are frustrations that I can no longer tolerate, even if I should. The dogs anxious for constant attention, students whooshing garumphing noises from just above-audible, the meowling for food every night, the constant build up of junk mail. Mundanities. Nothing particularly jolting, but we all have these moments: extreme elation, to quiet and agitation. I wonder if manic depression can have a long arc? Can it swing one way, and two seasons later, meet the other end of the push?

In some ways, I think it is simply my brain going into a contemplative mode: here I am, in charge of a corralling a classroom full of wiggling students, some eager, some happy to express quite the opposite, and my own life is still changing. I told my school mentor that I felt a bit like an impostor: here I am in a classroom with another teacher's things still on the walls and they are using a last name to call me over, ask questions, and I cannot always answer. They call out to me like they call out to Husband's brother sometimes--in a joking way: "Hey, Keef!" Deep sound, like I'm one of the boys. A sign of comfort in the classroom, of settling in.

I spend my study hall hours browsing the web, reading articles about poetry, finding obvious spots. I feel like I am learning all over again; how could I have allowed myself to fall out of poetry for so long? (Have you ever felt like you've wasted a great chunk of your life?) (Am I wasting my life?) I feel rubbed raw.

And Husband is so kind; he is helping me build a web page I'd like to use, to keep tabs on myself, to focus myself. And the other blog, some people are thinking, Stop with the blogs already, but I wanted to have something I could link to on that page that wasn't quite so personal, advertising my confusion, my sorrows, my awful ramblings. I wanted it to thematically fit, if the website ever has a chance to matter.

But for now, I will read in the hallway as my students filter in (today I finished Tryfon Tolides' An Almost Pure Empty Walking--beautiful cover, beautiful, beautiful) and writing in the corners of my notebooks.