In The Woods
I opened my eyes to realize the sun had won the race of rising first on this day. My mind was still in the unclouded and empty state that one finds upon waking on a cold December morning while the warmth of the bed made the idea of getting up and starting the day seem very low on my to do list.
I stretched, yawned and swung my feet to gently test the floor to see just how cold the bare floor had become in the night. I quickly drew my feet back up and under the covers which I tossed back over my head. I was not ready to face the day at this very moment. Wrapped up like a swaddled infant, I felt safe, but adulting reared it’s ugly head.
Class!
I jumped out of bed knowing there was no way I could miss standing in front of those students with the stares of what I had hoped was the “yearning for learning” as I often joked to my professor friends over cups of coffee in the faculty lounge. After many years of teaching, the probability of that coming into fruition did not seem to be a concept on the horizon, but one could hope. Maybe I was the one that flipped the switch to make economics exciting to learn.
I had held the title of Professor Smitherman for many years thanks to the connections I had been awarded from having an affluent family with friends in places that could assist my parents only child with a position at the university. Although I had to earn the other professor’s respect by working harder and not giving in when all I really wanted to do was to toss the towel and run for the hills. But no, I had a responcsbility. A responsibility not only to the students but to myself.
Showered, shaved and dressed, I proceeded to the kitchen where I had my normal oatmeal, juice and read the morning paper. With a frown on my face, I tossed it in the trash marked “recycle paper”thinking to myself what a cruel world in which we live. Teeth brushed, I grabbed my lunch bucket from the icebox, turned off the lights and ascended the flat’s steps after making sure I had locked the door. I stopped, almost forgetting my morning ritual of giving my shoes a little buff shine as I gently rubbed one shoe on the back of my pant’s leg before doing the other. Now, I could be on my way to check the neighborhood as I proceeded to the university.
The morning was crisp and clean with the sun shinning beautifully in the sky. I saw the trail of a jet when I looked up. I saw what was left of the leaves float from the trees waiting for the snow to fall later in the day. I saw children on their way to school, hand in hand with their parents if they were young enough and for those that were too old to hold a parent’s hand, they walked behind and sulked. These were my mornings. These things made me happy. The world working around us, not what I had read in the papers that I had gladly tossed earlier.
The coffee shoppe could be smelled even before I had turned the corner and I could almost feel the warmth and that wonderful taste of a good dark roast coffee on my tongue. I walked up to the counter where Marcus already had my cup waiting with a smile. Marcus knew my order because that is what a good barista does, plus Marcus was a good friend. We smiled, I paid, I left. My students could not be kept waiting. Well, the few freshmen that actually did take an early morning class. These were the students I liked. They were more than the frat parties and the beer pong. They reminded me of myself at an earlier age. The me that wanted to take the teaching profession to the next level because I was different? No. Because I had something to prove.
The campus was quite barren on this cold morning. Nothing stirred as I walked towards my classroom building. The stone walls of the exterior made me shiver as I pushed open the door and walked inside not expecting to be immediately welcomed by the warmth of the radiant heat that enveloped me into a warm hug. I walked down the hall towards my classroom thinking about how wonderful my life was as I removed my gloves to take the keys and unlocked my door. Even the janitors had not been by to open up the building this early. As I walked in and flipped on the fluorescent overhead lights, the room was transformed from a dark cavern to a place where learning lived. I smiled. I laughed at myself when these crazy little pictures popped into my mind as if I were writing a book. Sometimes it was a game I played to sensationalize events to make them more than they were. But it did make my memories more picturesque and I was entitled to such games, wasn’t I?
A movement caught my attention, students began to trickle in. Let’s get this day started so I could return home. I signed a joke to my students. People may have walked by my classroom never hearing the laughter from my students, but I had. Laughter was something I loved to see. Those sideways “L”’s always made me smile. Almost as much as the smile on Marcus’s face as I returned home and to him, and yes he did have the coffee going, always.
Such was my morning. Nothing new, nothing changed, just the routine of a small university professor. The professor that everyone had deemed boring and dull if taken at face value. And maybe I was boring and dull, but I was happy.
A View From Bogaville 