Going into work Monday morning, preparing to teach elementary school students, I felt a sickening weight inside me. After the massacre in Connecticut I dreaded feeling the terror and sorrow, seeing how the children looked, and walking through the corridors that, no doubt, were similar to the school in Newtown with loads of bright artwork and miniature water fountains.
When I got there, the doors were all locked. A new policy. Now you had to call a number to be let in.
I decided I would begin each class by playing Express Yourself, by Lettuce. It's a spirit lifter if ever there was one. This year it's been my anthem.
I cranked up the iPod and started singing and dancing with the funky music and pretty soon the kids, who had looked frozen and down, started smiling and moving a little. Three teachers came into the room to dance a little too. We got super silly and the kids watched like, maaan, what is this? Together, we experienced a little fun, possibly even a small moment of transcendence. The song says, whatever you do, do it good.
When we turned back to our projects, we got to work, expressing ourselves and trying to do it good.
Later, on the way home, I finally stopped to make some photographs of a ruined farmhouse I'd been eyeing for four weeks as I rode into Walkertown to begin my day.
There's a visual artist who talks about the salvation of art. I listened to his lecture before the unimaginable slaughter. He said, what do you do when your sister gets cancer - you make good art. What do you do when your man walks out on you, you make good art. What do you do when you lose your job - you make good art.
I felt the redemption in that when I found my way to this dusty, forgotten car. It seemed the perfect metaphor for the difficulty I feel, trying to see how our country is going to pull out of the latest repulsive event.
This twosome, the pair of rusted wipers, seems to have been out of commission for a very long time. Look closely and you'll see paw prints in the dust.
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