searching for meaning.

Eyes gulp words like water. Dehydrated and seeking sustenance from the simple syllables. Consonants and vowels slosh down the gullet. Settling in the taut stomach of comprehension. There they digest and absorb into the bloodstream, becoming more and more like ritual.

Belief made real through osmosis.

Consecration not merely through ingestion, but through a more purposeful process.

The membranes are permeable. The content is malleable.

What will stay and what will go.

Exegesis.

Findings excreted or deep-seated.

What will find residence in the pedagogical manifestation that is a belly full of letters.

These letters that make meaning in my mind.

Phonemes. Graphemes. Morphemes.

Semantics. Pragmatics.

Where do your words come from?

Why do you know them and how do you use them?

English is an art and we're all little painters. Wobbling with our brushes as we attempt to splatter meaning on the canvas of another.

What we meant is not what we said and what we heard is not what they meant. What we read was supposed to make sense but didn't and what we wrote said something different than what we thought.

Misconception haunts my every dream. Who am I to claim mastery of this art called English.

I swirl my alphabet soup with gusto as I wiggle words out of my mouth.
These words are everything and yet, they are nothing.
We breathe power and life into them with our convoluted intentions.
Your meaning is not always my meaning.
So how may we ever understand?

Language is akin to religion.
Genuflect and extol the SAT conglomerate of wicked words in the bank.
Neener neener.
You think you know, but you have no idea.
These tests gauge your knowledge.
Stack you up amongst the many.
You are just a benchmark where standards sit to rest.
High ho the dairy-o. The teacher and the pen.

Your six year old brain will jump through hoops, serving standards you know nothing about,
 all the while searching for the water of meaning.
Your mouth runs dry as you sound out words that get stuck in your throat.

Drink up little one.

I am the teacher.

I promise I know what's best.

All the while I stack you up.

Up amongst the rest.

612 Andamar Way.

The smell of corndogs wafts down the hallway, into my niche of a room in the back right corner of the house.

The teal walls and yellow cupboards bellow out happiness.

Birds banter in the bushes just outside the open window.

Monsters Calling Home on the airwaves.

Dirty clothes strewn about, a cacophony of soiled linen coiling in cliques on the carpet.

Trail mix. Sunscreen. A three-hole punch and a printer. Clothespins. Books: John Muir Trail, Skinny Bitch in the Kitch, What's So Amazing About Grace?, Literacy for the 21st Century, The Cross-Cultural Language and Development Handbook. A stapler. Body-Glide. Keys. Clock. Rubiks cube...a blanket of mess slathers the built in desk, spilling over onto the floor.

Earrings jangle as my head turns to listen. What did the dog do this time?

The velcro wallet with the rainbow unicorn sits plump with old receipts and some one-dollar bills. My last-ditch effort at clinging to childhood.

The door is cracked, distant voices float in.

Five people reside. Dwelling together in harmony. Adults spend nights together, laughing over cheap wine and Taco Bell.

A luke warm hot tub in the backyard. Bath water. But fun nonetheless.

One blue, one brown eyed Nova wanders in the body of a Husky, dines on tennis balls and meaty bones, playing dumb amidst the five.

Creating virtual versions of ourselves on game systems, laughing at noses and eyebrows, nick-naming into the wee hours of the morn.

She is the only other female of the five. An emotional connection made on some other dimensional level. Like ropes shooting out of our hips, winding around one another, side hugging into the future. She gets me.

A bathroom shared with two men. Two separate vanities. Thank God. Polite boys that never leave the seat up. They must have good mothers.

Floods of people have lived in this house through the ages. Their fingerprints live on the walls. Their food splatters paint the baseboards. Their hairs woven into the eight shades of carpet. Their garbage, our treasure.

The Andamar Family.

I have been welcomed with open arms. My flashy finger stache won me a ticket to a carnival of contentment.

It is here that I find peace.

It is here that I seek rejuvenation.

For I embody change.

In this new chapter I sit.

Single.

Student.

Teacher.

Yes, it is a filthy mess. But it is my new home, my new chapter, and I adore it.

Just a silly bulletin board I made for the elementary school I'm student teaching at.