I am taking another realtrue vacation. Discounting any artful retreats or little trips with Yellow Dog, it's my second vacation in six years...and also in the past nine months. This time it'll be a bit of research and art and big city: I'm going to New York.
I'll be leaving on April 19th and returning on May 1st. Somewhere in there I'll be heading to Cape Cod and Worcester in an attempt to get either one of my grandparents to tell me the story about The Time Grandma Ran Off with the Mormon Missionary and Lived in New Jersey for Three Months.
Maybe I'll write a grant to cover my expenses...
Ida: Let's start with "There were riots." Places.
Five students are ready. Three students think maybe they should be doing something. Twenty students look off into varying directions while carrying on varying conversations, some actually about their blocking.
Ida: This is the story of The Great Migration, not The Struggle of Fourth and Fifth Graders.
J: We'd be good at that play!
And scene.
...
PS: Thirty-two days and a combined sixty-seven emails, thirteen phone calls, two letters and one postcard later: Yellow Dog is coming home! I'm as squirrelly as a...well, as someone whose boyfriend has been gone for 32 days, 67 emails, 13 phone calls, 2 letters, and 1 postcard.
It is the day before the off-book deadline.
Ida crouches near one of her student actors.
Ida: B, you did an excellent job memorizing your lines. Congratulations.
B nods his head.
B: You smell good.
The end.
A Conversation with 8th Graders:
Ida: Well, what book are you currently reading?
R: I like books with dead bodies in them.
Ida: Okay, like, reading with trepidation or fascination?
R: It's not creepy.
Ida: Any particular book?
R: Just dead bodies.
A: You're a freak!
R smiles eerily as she continues to sit perfectly still with her hands on her knees.
A Letter from a Kindergartener:
Dear Ida,
I miss you. Don't forget us.
We do a lot of thing.
You are nice.
You are my great one and you're good at everything.
from
Chris V.
Ida: What parts of the story are really sticking in your brain?
K: The part where they all want to go to America.
Ida: Okay, so which characters do we need?
Z: The rabbi. I can be the rabbi because I'm Jewish.
A: And the cow; we need a cow.
M: And the little girl.
E: And the brave one.
Ida: Okay. Up, get up actors; audience you've got some lines.
Ida moves to the back of the room as various students set up a tableau of the scene. P raises his hand.
Ida: Yes, blue shirt, a question?
P: Are these the parts we have for real?
Ida: Probably not; you'll know tomorrow.
Ida prepares herself for a flurry of student comment regarding casting possibilities and choices.
J: Guess what?
Ida: What?
J: Chicken butt.
This is the closest that I've ever gotten to extra day. School was canceled; I've been working on six little play adaptations since 7:30 this morning. Additionally, I am figuring on the best role for the hat-wearing student who requested I call him "The Big E." (Which, of course, I am doing.)
In the midst of all that, Yellow Dog emailed me a cheesecake recipe. He's still in Montreal. That's the kind of boyfriend I have: one who knows what's good for him.
PS "Wintry mix" is the dumbest news term for "snow and rain."
Today is great! All sentences must end in exclamation points! It's the first day back to school from Winter Break! I started a month-long residency that I did last year at a school I love! I talked to Yellow Dog! He's in Montreal! My guts are full of love!
I'm so giddy that when I finally go to bed I'm going to feel like a seven-year-old with a well-earned sunburn. I'll be a little cranky and a little nauseated, but I'll know I secretly have superpowers.
(And just what if it snows?)