My feet are up. Propped upon a tub of videos, set on a classroom chair with wires dangling from its back. I am in a state of blissful exhaustion. A long two weeks of the new school year has just ended. I am alone. It is evening. I am in the video studio booth resting my wrinkled attire and worn out of shape body. A head cold and an air conditioner are both on full blast. But I am, for the moment, tranquil. This messy cocoon of a classroom (what a former student once dubbed "a human nest') protects me from the chaos outside.
Tired eyes spy the wreckage from the week: tools strewn on the floor from hanging student work in halls awaiting Parents' Day; chairs dashed this way and that; paper piles on once clear flat surfaces; remains of summer storage bins still line the perimeter of the room. What a mess. But a comforting one.
There's chaos in this production place, but nothing like the chaos out there. A clear and bright evening descends on the muggiest of Princeton September days. News of the day wore me down as much as the usual workplace perambulations--a death in the extended family, continued worries regarding my niece's medical condition, and Angela hitting a deer while picking up Anna. (Everyone's fine, save the hoofed one!) The chaos without...is there order within?
I have to go now. About to meet a friend I haven't seen since May.
Maybe I can prop my feet up there as well!
-IMHOban
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