JOURNAL, Saturday, Nov. 17th

It’s what the people’s heads say,
When they beat them against the wall.
(“Incandescent Blue”, Bruce Cockburn)


What strange weather we’re having. Last week I bought myself some snow boots; the thick snowy rain had launched me, prematurely it would seem, into winter. Today I’m sitting out on the balcony drinking tea, bare feet in my slippers, wearing just a light sweater. It’s so still; not a breeze to ruffle the few leaves that are left on some of the trees.

It’s dark this morning. Seven a.m. looks like twilight with the low blanket of cloud lining the sky. I can hear the spring birds again: chickadees, red-winged black birds. Why do they always remind me of spring even though I hear them at different times of the year?

From my balcony, I look down on many trees – their branches are more exposed each day. Now I can see into other people’s yards, through their windows, into their kitchens, their dining rooms, their lives.

As I look over my tea mug, into the world of my neighbours, I imagine wonderfully ordinary lives: pick the kids up after school, drive to the orthodontist, piano lessons, hockey practice. I imagine quiet hours, curled up together in front of an old movie on video. I watch as armloads of clothes for the cleaners are stuffed into the backseat of the car. So ordinary, so real. Their lives always look perfect from my third floor balcony.

Sometimes, I feel that if I moved down to ground level where they are, things would be equally ordinary, real and perfect for me too.

Although I seem to have moved away from the unpredictable tears recently, I’ve now sunk into lethargy – an emotional numbness that pins me down under its weight.

Later on this morning I’ll try to shake off this inertia and drive downtown to pick up a few groceries: fruit, vegetables, some milk and juice – maybe a frozen pizza for tonight. I don’t need much on the weekends that Danny isn’t here. I’ll leave the car in the parking lot and walk the few blocks to the fancy bakery run by the aging rock star who reminds me so much of Bill that I feel I know all his secrets. (I wonder, has he ever guessed why I chat with him when I go in for my olive bread and éclairs on Saturday mornings.) On the way back, I’ll stop for a cappuccino and I’ll read the paper at the coffee/news bar. Then I’ll come home to Pussywillow, the most faithful cat in the world, and finish writing my first term reports.

When I write it all down and read it back, it sounds like a pleasant way to spend a Saturday, one that I’m sure many people would envy. But when I look at it from my perspective, through my deadened eyes, it feels so empty and so frighteningly free of emotion or commitment.

I look at the sunflowers in my neighbour’s garden: spent, blackened by frost, ravaged by squirrels. I almost envy their mutilation. If I were so abused, at least I would feel something. Even pain would be better than this dull nothingness that has moved in.

I’m actually grateful that Danny wasn’t able to come down this weekend. I’m having difficulty focusing, and if he were here I’d never be able to concentrate on my evaluations for school. I have to write out reports on the progress of the twenty kids that I see regularly. Some of the other teachers cringe at the thought of writing twenty anecdotal reports, especially as the kids that I see represent to them the worst of the crop. I prefer to do it this way; I’ve never felt comfortable quantifying progress with letter grades.

I usually like doing report cards – writing about each student gives me a chance to really think about them, to spend some time remembering our first encounters and feeling some sense of accomplishment about how each one is doing. These kids come to me because they didn’t achieve what was expected in class, so any accomplishment is a huge one. They’re usually happy with the report that I send home.

I know, however, that I’ll be keeping the worst case for last, just because I don’t know what to say about Jenna.

She arrived in September from New Brunswick to join the grade 8 class – such a difficult year anyway. She came with a file three inches thick: a roadmap through her early school years. Jenna reads at a grade 2 level and is defensive to the point of aggression about it. From what I’ve seen, I suspect dyslexia but who could ever get close enough to her to be sure. Being from a military family that moves every few years, Jenna has managed to escape the help that she needs.

I'm supposed to see Jenna one on one, to help her organize her homework and to work out a reasonable set of expectations, so she can have some sense of achievement. Often Jenna doesn’t make it to my office beside the library. She leaves her class then disappears. It’s taken me most of the first term to compile a list of probable hiding places, but each time I make the rounds to look for her in her haunts – the furnace room, the staff bathroom, next to the heating vent outside –our time is up by the time I find her, and she has succeeded in keeping help at bay for another few days.

Jenna lives with a fury that keeps her motivated and separate. She hates the world; she snarls and claws at any hand that reaches out to help her. Her parents fear for the safety of her younger brother and sister.

This afternoon I must take these experiences with Jenna and translate them into jargon that will convey the same story that she’s been living for years. I’ll try to offer suggestions to the parents and classroom teacher, but the reality of Jenna’s academic life is that she has so little chance of learning in this setting, that she may as well stay out in the schoolyard, beside the heating vent.

I try to see the world through Jenna’s eyes and wonder what kind of emotional soil could take a kernel of sadness and have it produce such hatred – to the point of self-destruction. It’s exhausting looking at the world through Jenna’s eyes; it takes too much energy to nurture such a violent passion.

I shake my head to dislodge her anger. I sip from my cold tea. The air is so still. I sit.

Copyright 2003