Like Water

I don’t recognize myself in photos anymore.  My hair is gray and white.  My eyebrows need coloring in and my face needs makeup and even with these attentions my face washes out in a pale oval that could be pretty or could be ugly.

People never recognize me when we meet again after time has passed between us. Their eyes go muddy when I say hello. I’m always fatter or skinnier or have different hair or different style.  I’m a shape shifter.  If I ever had to go on the lam, no one would ever find me.

Today the parent of a student sent a photo of me that she took while I announced names for the junior ring ceremony.  My shirt is starched. I wear a peach blazer made of Irish linen.  My heels are high, my lipstick dark, but none of it matters as I am the color of a water glass. 

The older I get the more amorphous I become. A while ago a colleague of mine had a conversation with two of our students about our school's Black Student Union, of which I am the moderator. It's interesting that the moderator of our BSU is white, my colleague noted.

“Oh no that’s Mrs. Wanket,” the students said.  “She’s black.”

That’s happened to me before, especially with young people. I’ve also been Mexican.  Filipino.  White. It depends on who is looking at me.  Maybe I’m the color of a mirror.

My age switches around as well. Once a young woman with eyes for my husband asked if he and my daughter were brother and sister. She thought I was my husband’s mother. Last year a student said that I have a young soul. But just yesterday someone else asked if I would pretend to be his sick grandmother to get him out of rugby practice.

People always think I’ve gained weight.  People always think I’ve lost it.  Then they blink and look again.  No.  I’ve definitely gained it. But those wrists.  Maybe I should eat some pie.

It’s difficult to take a flattering picture of me. I look good only from certain angles.  I used to be best from the left, but these days it’s more the right. Take a photo and flattering or not, I’ll look different in a week anyway.

Maybe I’m wasted as a high school teacher.  Maybe I should try my hand at investigations. Stakeouts would be a cinch. Blending in with the surroundings would be no problem.

 Shape shifting is great for my writing. Two of my best novels are in the voices of teenage boys.  Disappearing is a powerful tool towards understanding another person's point of view.

In teaching I think about the water of the Tao that lies low and does not assert itself but seeks instead the lowest place. Lying low I can serve student learning needs to the individual boy and girl without asserting my own notions into a student's experience of the material. Students can then write their own thesis statements, fill journals with their own original creative ideas and when they are ready, tell the truest truth they can find within and through that story set themselves free.

Meanwhile I am on a quest for stronger lipstick.