writing about vista: part 2

(These installments were written during my second year as an Americorps VISTA volunteer & family involvement coordinator at an elementary school. Results may vary.)

 4/11/11

The gaggle congregates in the school library each Saturday morning. They trickle in, some as early as 7am (long before the doors open), some running up the walkway at 10:30 (with traces of sleep still crusted to their faces). They sign the sign-in sheet under “Student,” write their names on pilfered mail merge labels. A flurry of jackets tossed toward the couches becomes a rainbowed patchwork mountain.

They’ve almost always had breakfast already, but they always want to eat again: soggy, salty hashbrown triangles, four or five packets of jelly squeezed onto flat biscuits, still warm from the close quarters of their bursting paper bag. Ronald smiles out from the labels on the little bottles of milk. In our common language, smiles mean strength; breakfast means caring; focus means resiliency; laughter means comfort; mutual respect means adoration.

Sitting quietly or not at the substantial tables and chairs, they know the drill: folder, pencil, papers, tutor. It’s Math Time. Simple answers hide just behind flashcards, but more difficult facts are embedded deep in paragraphs to be extracted. They mine the minds of their elders, in search of bigger armaments for their tool belts. There’s no ruler to measure the gifts of the givers, no equation to quantify their effect. Except, perhaps, the intangible luminosity of a light bulb radiating above a head newly filled with incendiary combinations: knowledge, tenacity, self-esteem, endurance, passion, hope.

They say and do everything they can to be noticed, chosen, remembered. They say and do everything they can to get it right, to be good. They fall into the routine of agreement on their academic philosophies, their small promises not to surrender. Knights in shining armor aside, those in the room cooperate in fortifying the ramparts, making them strong enough to hold when tested. Together, they fashion shields that cannot be pierced by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. In their quest for what is nobler, may they need no sleep to dream.

They gobble it all up. They put their heads together and dare to try. They grab our hands and pull us to the gym when it’s time to play. Each weekday, they pull on my clothes and knock on my door and call my name, 

Miss Julia! 

Will you be there on Saturday?