Still like that Spanish dancer

I'm sitting in my room in blue pj's nibbling a Godiva dark chocolate square and feeling pretty shitty. Like my life has been on halt for a few days. I took a school bus with the children's choir tonight up to Concord where they had an MLK performance for the Concord City Diversity Committee. Again, it was one of those experiences where I kept thinking "I can't believe they're putting me in charge of this. I can't believe I'm the only adult? on this bus. I can't believe they're asking my permission." I sat, like the grown up is supposed to, in the front of the bus with the clip board and the snacks and my sheet music and tuning fork and directions for the bus driver and the sign-out sheets with all the kid's emergency contact information on it, and was thankful that the kids stayed mostly quiet so I could spend the hour and half trafficy ride looking out the window and listening to my little red ipod. Sometimes on the road with my forehead against the glass I could have sworn I was on the 405 on my way into Marlborough. I can't believe I'm the responsible one. Me, with the rest of my life on fire around me (and me with matches in my hand, wondering how the hell this blaze started) and I'm given thirty seven kids to transport up to Concord, feed, warm up, rehearse, and hand off to Michele for their concert.

When I rode into Marlborough I usually sat up front with Shane Lynch and Maile Borthwick (Claire Borthwick was way too cool to play) and Lauren Raab, and the three of us would play this...amazing game. The school bus was a space ship, and we, it's crew, had to guide it through the many dangerous catastrophes we'd encounter on the way into school. This was seventh grade. We had no shame. I was pretty much in charge of the game, that is to say that I directed the action, warned everyone of approaching threats and enemies, and when I was feeling bossy, suggested things I thought other characters would say. Lauren's name was Captain Ramsay, Shane was Miss Isseris and was in charge of weapons, and I don't remember my main character's name but I can tell you that I was a medic...and at one point a spy for the Peons who were always attacking us. I also played the voice of a character named Atrix that we were only able to contact by radio; he was our master commander and he had a cockney accent but he was in a different ship or time zone or something (he was named after a character from the computer game MYST that Peter was really into at the time). Our crew would encounter such terrifying challenges as 'the fog that turns people inside out' (actually from the Simpsons, but they never knew that), gigantic minefields that our fearless (and obedient) Captain Ramsay would have to navigate, and the aforementioned Peons (which I've since learned is a term derived from Spanish that refered to hacienda workers...I think for some reason it was a word I'd heard before and thought was foreign and cool) who would attack us for reasons we never really decided upon. I'd pictured Peons as tiny gnat-like aliens who's ships were impenetrable (and equally tiny) and would swarm upon us and puncture our ship, but thankfully they never penetrated it's walls and every day we arrived safely to our destinations (mine was 26th and Georgina, at the Country Mart) unharmed and usually exhausted. We were so loud on the bus, so completely devoted to our characters with voices and facial expressions and dramatic wails of fear and cries of victory...the rest of the bus couldn't stand us, but we loved it. Our plots would often involve betrayal and mistrust and confusion and great prophecies that may or may not be fulfilled next monday morning. But we were so into this game (which I think had a name, only I can't remember it right now) that I can remember getting chills of excitement, or my heart racing from some plot twist. We all felt it. It was as though we pictured ourselves in a TV show...actually I think we honestly did, hold on, I'm remembering this as I type! I'm remembering a moment when Miss Isseris and I made some huge discovery that changed the course of the episode, and in my memory Shane and I looked at eachother and said "aaaand fade out". Yeaaaah I think that's how we did it. Yes! Yes! That's how we'd run the show because between scenes we'd discuss what was going to happen next! (after the commercial break?) I'm pretty sure that's how I got to be the creative force behind the plot- that I got to interject every three minutes or so with "okay then Miss Isseris finds Captain Ramsay's radio device and hears the voice of the head Peon Exxon (yes, really) over it and that's how she discovers Ramsay has been colluding with them which means he was being mind-controlled! Okay! Go!

So, that's what was happening the last time I was on a bus. And here I was tonight with Dishwalla in my ears looking back over my shoulder to make sure they're not crawling under the seats, and reviewing my rehearsal check-list.

The other interesting thing that happened tonight was that one of the kids lost a tooth. His name is Charles Brown (hehe, get it? Charlie Brown?) and he's a little black boy, about 9, with a great voice but is seriously rambunctious. We were eating pizza before warm-up when he turned to me and said "here, this came out" and he proceeded to hand me this tiny tooth. He pulled down his lip to show me the gap. And then he continued eating his pizza, no huge deal, just a tooth. I took him to the bathroom to rinse out the little hole after he was done eating, and while he rinsed I held his tiny tooth in a napkin. I stared at it and thought to myself I'm holding this boy's tooth. It belongs to him and I'm holding it and it's not attached to him anymore. This is maybe the weirdest and strangely most maternal thing I've ever done. I'm sorry I can't explain why that moment felt so profound to me, but it really did.

After we'd returned home from the concert I drove back to Medford and did a quick grocery run for the weekend- lettuces, string cheese, yogurt, honey, fujis, almonds. Walking through the supermarket alone felt impossibly sad. Despite it usually being a little easier on my ED head, I haven't gone grocery shopping alone in awhile, and walking those aisles tonight I felt very low. I talked to myself through most of it; it's the only way I know to manage getting smacked with that kind of loneliness, prayed out loud a little but not loud enough to turn heads. I'll admit though, anyone who grocery shops at the sketchy Foodmaster! at 9 at night is a total yahoo, myself included, so I certainly wasn't the only one talkin to myself. One saving grace was the thought that I wasn't on the floor, and hopeless. I was low, but I wasn't broken. And that's the difference between medication and none. It's a shadow of hope, a little bit of belief that I can change me. Somehow. I believe that. I know it's a matter of therapy and medication and writing and maybe a Boarderline group, a 12-step group, some kind of peer group. It's probably more than that. Like actually changing my words, or re-organizing my believe system so fears aren't at the forefront. It's living so slowly, so mindfully minute to minute that I'm able to discern the reasons for everything I'm doing- no- everything I want to do and say, and decide whether those reasons are within my integrity, or not. Make sense? Enough Psychobabble. Me too. What do they say, actions first the rest will follow? My action is to eat this other square of Godiva white chocolate and hit the sack. Then pray.