Proem
Sing Muse, of Susan, a woman of many wiles, tamer of horses and men and teacher of children and mistress of fashion and money and world traveler … and how one Thursday night she realized she was actually not as great as she always thought and just now as a result was about to die of boredom. Miss Lonelyhearts, in other words.
Call me Miss Lonelyhearts.
It has been a long time since I thought about the story of Miss Lonelyhearts, a novella by Nathaniel West set in Los Angeles in which an advice columnist spirals into out of control depression because of the tragic stories he receives in the letters to his advice column.
Having sworn off Match.com and having accepted that nothing much is happening in my love life (although perhaps healing is happening in my life overall) there is an opportunity now, an opportunity for despair which being on Match prevented because of its constant smorgasbord of new people who just might be *It*.
I now believe that on some level this aspect of Match is the reason why it has such a bad reputation. As Gary from hiking group said “You never want to settle for one person because you always think there’s someone better out there…”
As for me, Miss Lonelyhearts is now denied the opportunity to pretend there’s someone better out there because I don’t go out there anymore. I just go to work at the school.
School Hasn’t Been Calm This Week
At school it’s rather depressing this week, due to the tragic and difficult stories I see occurring in classrooms, stories of angry and frustrated children and teachers….an ongoing situation which later contributed to the blog post Freedom and Responsibility at School.
But am I really bored and lonely or just overworked? A phone call with a friend from my support group suggested that, since the school I work in is full of trauma at the moment, and it is true my work day is full of kindergartners rolling on the floor and screaming, refusing to listen to the teachers instructions breaking, and running… there is an opportunity for all this to trigger memories of my fights with Leo.
I watch all the craziness and stifle an impulse to jump up, push the (young) teacher aside. I would say “Now listen kids you cannot act that way anymore. Mrs Brand is here and she does not tolerate what you are doing. If you don’t stop, Mrs. Brand will do some things to stop you. And you don’t want to know what those things are.”
This is where you exercise the fact that threatening someone with something they don’t know what it is is 5 to 10 times scarier than threatening them with something concrete. I learned this technique in Texas.
Hello Young Teachers Everywhere
But because the assigned teachers are young and they don’t know how to do threats. Which are the only thing that work when the kids get to a certain level of being off the chain. The kids are getting away with behavior that probably would make good watching on daytime TV.
A Latter-Day iteration of Cops! “Students!”
My imagination of the show: As an angry first grader with a gel Mohawk jumps on a chair, smashes a bag of pineapple all over the teacher’s desk, slaps another student, and then tries to run for it and leave the building, a camera crew is there, and after panning over the scene of destruction he has left behind, pursues him and the behavior specialist who is now following him down the hall… The student eludes the behavior specialist. He’s somewhere in the hallway but no one knows where. XD Everyone is walking quietly now, the radio comes out … “Behavior specialist to office … Does anyone have eyes on Code Name for Child. Cameras roll silently. Faces are worried. But then someone sees him … He was hiding behind the cabinet. He runs for it… The cameras follow, bobbing drunkenly….
And I can’t stop it all from happening. It is not my class that is struggling. I don’t have a class. I have reading groups. These are designated groups of kids who didn’t get the reading lessons down the first time. (Or in some cases, it wasn’t given to them correctly the first time). And so I have to do the lessons with them again. If this is done, if reading is taught with finesse and fidelity, many of them will read well. Though another group will not get it no matter what you do. No one knows why this is. Some people would like to pretend that if you just taught them properly they would all get it. But the fact is teaching is an art not a science and it’s also a mystery.
Life Just Throws You Some Curveballs
“Life. Don’t talk to me about life.” This is a quote from Marvin the paranoid Android of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Fame. Marvin’s excessive negativity is supposed to be humorous but believe me there’s nothing humorous about it if you’re experiencing a high level of negativity first hand.
And yet this evening something has changed I suddenly feel that it will all be okay somehow. Why?
Here’s a Kind of Off-Kilter Gratitude List in Which Miss Lonelyheats Goes to the Woods
- I write this ridiculous vaudevillian blog post.
- I tell the dogs “I’m getting my raincoat and going to Walmart and you can’t stop me.”
- I buy food for Andrew over the weekend.
- He will be alone because I’m going on the woman’s retreat from a friend’s church. It’s an event at which we will hike, talk, do crafts, pray, listen to meditations and sermons. We might possibly dance around a bonfire and generally hang out being real women alone in the woods. It’s not unlike the women of ancient Greece who performed the Elutherian mysteries.
- Back then in Ancient Greece, if any man came within 50 yards of the Elutherian mysteries, which were secret women’s religious forest rites, the women attacked and possibly even killed him for sacrilege. For daring to even come to *observe.*
- A woman’s retreat is Serious Business folks. There will be no men, and no children there.
- This thought encourages me. And no, I don’t very much think any man would be foolish enough as to DARE death itself to observe a bunch of 50 plus women fellowshipping in the woods. With a mainline Protestant denomination (woman) pastor.
- But it’s safe to say, at least for the weekend, I’ve lost absolutely nothing for giving up on Match. Since I’ll be in the woods with the other ladies. Nevertheless there’s something inherently funny about it all … the crazy children, the school unhinged. My Miss LonelyHearts solo status, and the Women’s Bible Retreat. A throwback to Ancient Greek Pagan Rites. I smile and I’m pleased with myself for getting everything ready in advance. And for being sure I’ll have a better weekend than I’ve had week.