September Malaise

[judih]

It seems to happen every year. i'm scheduled to take on the role of english teacher, and i show up and look at class lists and organize my daily planner to see when school holidays occur and when classes will be having special seminars and i count the days i have in which to teach.

And i look through the books and i think of ways to teach. And then i zoom off towards the direction of our English Centre and i get into the year's topic (Making a Difference) and i prepare work for students with difficulties, and students with more advanced abilities and i discover about internet history and the invention of the cellphone and the definitions of communism, capitalism and socialism. And i look at Literature - the Monkey's Paw and the Necklace and i worry that all the books i've ordered have arrived.

All this i do, yet i'm far away from the job. What others seem to relish, to me is a distant, parallel requirement. At this time, i am here. At some other time, i might not be.

There's never a feeling that I Am Teacher! never.
i teach when i'm to do so. But it is a role that i wear like a hand-me-down sweater. It's warm, it's tried and true and it's been handed to me.

And so, together with this post-war September and again, being far away from family and roots in the U.S. and Canada, i feel a malaise that just doesn't quit.

i relish long walks as the constant step after step grounds me, anchors me to the desert landscape.
i love the latest Dylan CD Modern Times as i hear his life experience swirl through his music.
i delight in a brilliant poem as i see a friend able to express pure lyrical beauty.

But i'm in a funk and it's a wonder that it happens every year lately.

Together with this, i've received a newsletter that describes others in a bizarre mood, feeling down or out of it, or strangely possessed. The newsletter reminds me that global climate is changing and that world starvation and desperation is driving most of us to the brink. That nuclear weapons will make some able to procure life's needs, while others will be left without.

This newsletter speaks of 2012, the mayan date for the end of the world as we know it (a new era? a non-era?). This newsletter talks of reading about it all, learning exactly what's going on, trying to sift through lies to get to the truth.

This newsletter wants me to step out of the clouds and realize that a mood is simply that - not me, but rather a flavour, a pair of eyelashes, an accoutrement, but not me.

Perhaps this newsletter has said none of the above - perhaps it's my own interpretation and that i'm using this poor newsletter as an excuse to slap myself awake. Snap out of it! Wake up, judih.

i cycle on. Soon an Equinox. A Jewish New Year. Another round on the planet.

September retreat leading to September release.
optimistic? might as well be. pessimism gets me nowhere.

[panta rhei]

a handed garment -
handed down? handed up?

handed.
tried and worn, warm and true.

but underneath, i'm naked.
and in the stitches, i can
feel the wind blow through.

blowing to wail me.
weigh me down? wake me up?

don't even know if
i'm asleep or waking
in my mood dixie cup.