Goodbye Libertad!

Harry and I went to Libertad today bringing some materials we found at home we thought would be useful in the English Lab when suddenly the whole secondary school turned out to say goodbye. There were lots of hugs, kisses, tears and smiles. I have had many wonderful teaching experiences over the years but this one had to be the high of all the highs. It was so hard and it was so rewarding. I had to use everything I knew and had learned over 34 years of teaching just to stay afloat each day. Harry and I were a team and we fell in love with these kids. It may well be time to say goodbye to teaching. I always admired Johnny Carson, who shares my birthday. He had the sense to go out on a high note. This was probably my high note. I told my friend Linda the other night that it may well be time to re-invent myself. Teaching is a very demanding career, not that other careers are not demanding, but as I near the big 60 perhaps I could try new things to do. Hopefully new things as meaningful as I have always found teaching to be but a little less exhausting. I have been focusing on the gifts that were bestowed upon us here in Mexico this past week as our life suddenly changed. And it is Mexico, so they were not all wonderful gifts by any stretch of the imagination. The culture here is about teaching you things and pain is part of that bargain. Mexicans know pain, but they also believe that personal relationships are the most important things in life. Good personal relationships can buffer all the pain life will undoubtedly hand out. Mexicans are somehow able to hold the good and evil of this world in their psyches without dissonance. Over the past nearly two years I have been bullied, humiliated, made to feel like I was an idiot, loved, appreciated and made to feel like I had much to offer. Mexico: got to love it, and not being a native found their acceptance of cognitive dissonance a real pain in the neck. I also know now that sometimes it is just plain ok not to accomplish everything on your to-do list. It may be more important to laugh, listen to a friend, or just be in the moment, excepting whatever that moment has to offer. So what if you did not get everything done, there is always tomorrow. I remember being home for two wonderful weeks last summer and toward the end of the two weeks something deep inside me began to yearn to be back in Mexico. Maybe I should try to keep Mexico and all I have learned here always in my mind and in my heart. One thing is for sure: dissonance is ok. It is everywhere so get used to it. Mexicans love noise and lots of it, all kinds of noise, noise all the time. Maybe in this world we will never be able to resolve the noisy dissonance that good and evil create. We just have to live with it, love each other, enjoy each other and accept the world for what it is: dissonant.



And speaking of dissonance: Our friend Anna brought over homemade rice pudding tonight, arroz con leche. And yes folks, it was covered and laced through and through with canela, or cinnamon as we English speakers say. As we all know Harry hates cinnamon. Just ask him and he will give you a noisy talk about the evils of cinnamon. (is that spelled cin or sin ?) but he had two helpings of the rice pudding. Go figure!