"Yes, we'll be talking about the aftercare jobs next week, we'll let you know soon about interviews but... Actually, I was hoping you would join us in the nursery. I'll be needing a second assistant next year."
"Wow!" I replied. Such a better job than aftercare. And she wanted me specifically!
I had substituted in this class two rainy Tuesdays in a row. The first time, the moment I entered the room, little faces stared at me in wonder. Someone they didn't usually see was in their space. You could feel the soft silence of the room, as if some other world had just touched earth, and landed tentatively on the taupe carpet. All day I stared back, with equal wonder. When a little scuffle happened, Kerry asked the child who had hit to give a gentle hand to the one she had hit. She showed the girl how to smooth the arm of the hurt child, in one moment correcting the harm done. The action showed what kind of touch is best to give one's neighbors. Children slid down pieces of wood, carried dolls to and from the play kitchen. A toddler who had not been walking long brought a metal cup-measure and spoon, showing me that he, like me, was making soup today.
Ten years ago, when I worked in a mainstream daycare with the same age group (2 and 3 year olds), I only lasted five months. Noise, running, screaming, and attacking were par for the course. Upon every transgression, we instructed the children to say they were sorry, which they didn't necessarily feel, (even if they learned that if they said it, we would be satisfied). Sorry also did not make the other child, for whom words meant little, feel better. There were lots of words, choices, bright colors, hard plastic objects, and every nice toy got destroyed quickly. The rubber tyrannosaurus rex had weathered all the beating, and these children, whose socialization was only receiving lip service, would only survive if they became like him. Scaly and sharp-toothed. The parents of these children were educated and well intentioned. One can hardly blame them for severely misunderstanding the needs of young children. Our culture treats them like an underclass, perhaps spoiled and sentimentalized, but to be turned into adults as quickly as possible.
Kerry and her assistant, Roxanne, are part of a new program at the school, innovative and greatly in demand, as you can imagine. They are extending Waldorf education to the care of the very young, something which in the past was (one hoped) left to at-home mothers, but is in many cases not possible now.
So I have been delighted about the way life will be, starting next September. It doesn't hurt that I'll have some money too. Writing a novel is quite a project. If I'd known it would be as much work as it already has been, I never would have started. And I believe at best it is only half- finished. Today, I have had trouble entering into the work, so I've decided to write this instead.
Here are some haikus I wrote a few weeks ago.
Water flows along
Makes things dark, bright, shiny and
Laughs but never talks
And this one I wrote after a scent triggered a childhood memory:
Ants in peonies
Smell: lemon-honey-metal
Thick Kentucky June
I hope I'll be able to keep writing, with all that working life will bring. I will have to find a way. Perhaps the good gods will give me moments of insight, half-hours of writing time, and a sense of moving forward by baby steps. One thing is sure, children, who can't help growing, will surround me. Perhaps in their environs, adults, who must choose to learn, can pick up some hints.
