Albatross

 I'm having trouble escaping the feeling that I have not done enough. I could have done more. I should have done something different. If I had said more or spoken up to the powers that have voted to close the school where I have worked since the late twentieth century. 

Suggesting that Horace Mann Elementary is my second home is not hyperbole. We moved into our house just a few months before I was offered a job to teach there. I ran with my new baby strapped into a jogging stroller to the place where I would spent the next quarter century, five days a week, nine months a year. Some evenings. Some weekends. My waking hours and then some. When things break at my house, I fix them. When things break at my school, I fix them. 

At my house, the thing that I have worked on most often, since we moved in, is the fence out front. I have referred to it as my Magnificent Obsession. At school, the fence is in pretty good shape. That's not my worry. The playground that the fence surrounds, however, is another matter completely. Over the course of my tenure, the asphalt surface has been patched and painted and patched again. While I have been able to purchase and apply hardware and lumber solutions to the fence in front of my house, the equipment and materials necessary to revitalize the blacktop at my school are beyond my scope and capacity. 

But that doesn't mean I have stopped making noise about it. Submitting work orders, pointing out the cracks and holes to any and all visitors who might show up asking "is there anything we can do for your school?" Over the decades there have been plenty of plans and suggestions floated out there about how and when Horace Mann's playground might become less of a threat to the children who play on it. For an entire school year, the yard sat empty and could have been repaved half a dozen times, but maybe there was already something in the air. Maybe there was no need to fix something that wouldn't be around that much longer. 

And now, the weight of all this talk about closing the school lands squarely on that great expanse of asphalt. I am burdened by the reality of there being no reason to repair or replace anything at a school that will be shut down. Even though we are not slated to close our doors for a year, I cannot imagine that a spade of dirt will be turned to make recess more pleasurable experience for a group of kids who will soon be turned out on new playgrounds, somewhere else. 

Away from home.