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Being back there was weird, in a good way. I went back to the middle school where I student taught and eventually hunted down the woman I student taught under, but in the process of doing so, had lunch at Chile's with four extremely Southern (in a way I'm not entirely comfortable with) young women I did not know. I had about two hours of conversation with Lili Rogers, friend and former employer. I worked for her husband for a year until he was found dead in a nearby state park (heart arrhythmia). She then hired me herself as a kind of personal assistant, one of those "odd" jobs I'd mentioned earlier. Anyway, Lili and I have a hard-to-define-in-words relationship, this coming from a woman who's fairly good at defining things in words, or anyway, would prefer being able to.
I had dinner at The Grit, my fave restaurant, vegetarian w/kitschy sacred heart Jesus print still on the wall, and the coffee print... Food still good as always.
The Clarke Central High graduation ceremony was fairly huge (a class of almost 300) and was held in the UGA Coliseum. The last time I was in the coliseum, I was getting hooded for my M.Ed. and Grandma Mary was there, adjusting my hood for me. It's weird going to a place alone where everyone else is coming in family groups. I was able to squeeze in close to the front that way, though. Four of the eight student speakers that night were among the 55-something kids I student taught in '97. I recognized over a dozen other kids in the long diploma line. I'm pretty sure two of the graduates recognized me, too, but they did not approach me to say hi, and it wasn't about me talking to them, really, just about being there to see it happen and to honor the path I've walked on.
Then I went to the 40 Watt Club, where I was actually carded (even though I don't think I was carded the last time I went there, in '98). Stood/danced/sat through the first band's set, then three songs of the second band. (Gave up and went back to the hotel at 1:20 a.m.) Some young, manic guy approached me on the old, sunken couch where I had eventually sunk down and he kept saying, "Are you really here alone? You aren't meeting anyone?" He wasn't interested in hitting on me, per se, just shocked at the concept of a woman coming to a nightclub all by herself. Was it really that weird? I did it all the time in '94-'98....back in those desert days :-)
Lots of emotions, lots of memories. |
