Out Cold.

These guys.

I passed out cold while I was teaching on Tuesday morning.  (Turns out I’m anemic!  So that’s fun.)  One second I was saying, “Okay, chicos, close your books and go back to your seats,” and the next moment, I wasn’t.  For the time it took to go from standing to lying on the floor with a desk on top of me, there was no I. 



When I opened my eyes, the sun was streaming through the window, and one darling, bossy little girl was shouting at some of her classmates, “Didn’t you even notice that La Teacher fell down?”   No, no they didn’t.  The teacher was gone and life went on. 

I’ve been doing some work at Matador U recently, and one comment I find myself making over and over on student writing is, “The subject of almost every sentence is ‘I’.  See how the focus changes if you go from ‘I notice a bird flying’ to ‘A bird flies’?” 

Soon I won’t be here.  Soon I’ll be somewhere else.  And here, the shadows will still play over the hills.  Chicks will hatch, and some will die, and some will live to peep and scratch and chase bugs.  The chayotal will send tendrils racing up the adobe wall, if the damn rabbit doesn't chew through them first.  The rain clouds will roll in, and sometimes pour and sometimes leave the hard red soil thirsty.  My little students will dance and trade tazos and tell Pepito jokes and learn the English past tense from someone else.  The good folks in immigration will make some other gringa cry.   

I won’t be here to see or notice or observe, and it won’t really matter.    

See how the focus changes, Teresa?  See how everything important goes on, even when you’re unconscious or far away? 

There’s nothing to be scared of.  (I’m so scared.)