Home is too hard
and you need to be here
at school where it’s safe.
But you rarely work on academics.
You snarl
or stare blankly.
So many years of missing concepts.
So many holes to dig out of.
They won’t let you stay,
though you need to be here,
and it breaks our heart
when your choices
are your destruction.
Safety is more important
than schooling.
How can you ever
overcome?
You were so very small
pulling your limbs inside yourself
wearing a vacant scowl,
trying to turn yourself inside out
to avoid notice,
when we were all there
for you.
So much trauma to hide from.
so many layers of armour.
Will we ever see you drop the ballast
so you can fly?
.
.
Probably a few too many metaphors here, but the sentiments hold true. May have to work on this one a bit more.
I walk through my
childhood neighbourhood.
Just because,
I lean against the lamp post
I held up every morning
in grade seven
as I waited for the bus.
Different weather
but always too
early in the morning.
More rusty,
it hummed
a greeting
remembering
(or maybe
that was me).
You bring your words to me
an offering
held in your open palms
like a supplicant.
I meet your fearful eyes
and tell you of your strengths,
coach through your weaknesses,
and encourage your improvement,
as gently as I can.
You reward me with your laughter,
a sound so rare that I am still celebrating
hours later,
so thankful
to be your teacher,
and have the chance to watch
your talent turn you into the
accomplished person
you will be.
When my dad went to school
he knew the Brother would beat him.
The ruler would rap down across
his small knuckles
once for every spelling mistake.
He knew he’d always make a mistake.
He knew he’d be beaten.
It didn’t make him study,
it just made him drag his feet
on the way to school,
meant education was painful
meant inadequacy
and brutality
were part of every day.
It didn’t make him speed up
that he’d be whipped
for tardiness
either.
During lessons,
he watched boys fly
across the room
propelled by the fury
of the Christian Brothers
who didn’t understand
much about children,
faith
kindness
or the golden rule.
Dad kept his head down,
nursed sore
knuckles and learned
how not to treat children.
.
.
Happy Birthday to my dad, who celebrates his 99th birthday today!
One more year until the official greeting from the Queen!
PS. Dad attended parochial school in Montreal in the 1920s.
I know. School is over the year. But still, when you come across something this great, you just have to share. 🙂 The referenced poem is at the bottom, just in case you wanted it.
.
SONNET 18. William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
I think, at least, that it was Buddha who said, “When the student is ready, the master appears.” It’s a good observation; however, the master will no doubt have been there all along, but until the student was ready, he had no focus to see him/her. What if the master is ready, but no student appears?
As a kid, I took ballet lessons from the founder of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Dr. Gweneth Lloyd. Not advanced, pointe work ballet, mind you. Twinkle-toe tots kind of of ballet. I think it was a complete waste of talent for her to have been teaching me. Perhaps others in the class went on to become amazing stars, but not me. Mind you, I can still do the 5 positions, but the discipline of mind and body required by ballet was definitely not mine. I am not of the “No pain, no gain” school. (My particular mantra is “No pain! No pain!” ) I remember her walking through the class, with her bright red lipstick on, stick in hand, prowling to poke at us “Move this, tighten that.” I was rather traumatized by the whole affair.
Then there was the recital. I was a swamp fairy. Unlike the cute flower fairies who got to wear pastels and tutus, the swamp fairies wore dyed khaki green waffle weave underwear. Yes. really. Undershirts and undershorts. Dyed pukey green. They made me go on stage in underwear. Did I mention that I had a personal seamstress who’d kept me in adorable little outfits since birth? All that work to learn a choreography only for public humiliation in underwear. I cried. I didn’t want to go on stage. It was not a happy day. I did dance, of course, because it was a stage, but plainly I’ve never gotten over it.
I did not go onto further ballet studies, which was probably for the best.
There was a master, but I was not meant to be her student.
Explain that one, Buddha.
Shawn L. Bird 
home March 27, 2012
Tags: exchange, home, Rotary, student, travel, youth
While we were travelling this Spring Break, my husband had an epiphany: you can live anywhere. This is old news for exchange students who quickly discover a new meaning for home fairly soon in their exchange year.
It doesn’t take long to feel so comfortable in your new life that you can hardly remember the old. When it’s time to return, you are torn between two worlds. Home is two places.
But really, home isn’t about the place, it’s about the people.
“Home is where the heart is”
the old adage says, and it’s true.
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