The Southeast Corner

In the southeast corner on the third floor of a block of condominiums in Salt Lake, there is a small bedroom. In the southeast corner of that bedroom, there is a twin bed where a fleece throw and a flat sheet intertwine in a crumpled mess. On top of that mess is a neatly folded set of nightclothes. All of these things belong to the young woman who slouches against a few pillows on the southeast corner of the bed. She is typing away at her computer, a movie paused behind her word processing software.

There are four bookcases in the room, and each one houses a variety of books, music CDs, and DVDs. The books outnumber the movies and music by at least three to one, and several more books are hidden in various locations around the room. They wait for their mistress to straighten things up and find them a home with the other books.

Four boxes are stacked near the closet, and two plastic crates. Several more crates sit in the trunk of a car outside. These are full of papers and files, most of which relate to her teaching career. Mixed into all of the articles on multicultural diversity and research based instruction are documents that are almost unnoticeable but are far more valuable than all the rest. They are the workings of a human mind, and show how years of education can expand or restrict the creativity and humanity of a young girl.

She is approaching the culmination of her Master’s degree and contemplating the pursuit of a Doctorate. She is shifting her talents from the field of education to the field of psychology, moving away from the teaching of information and processes to teaching that will help adolescents find self-fulfillment. She also expects that she will find self-fulfillment in this change of careers, for her love of academics has given way to a love of humanity.

She feels hopeless to help individuals find their way through a sea of legislative requirements that flood the curriculum. As a teacher she is continually sinking below the waves. How can she buoy up others when she is scarcely able to draw breath? The stories of her students’ lives are reduced to test scores and arguments about what kids today need to know. So many adults put in their oars that the children are more often pushed away from lifeboats than pulled in close to the ships that sail these waters, for a child’s greatest strengths are not often valued by the adults who try and direct their lives.

This young woman has great faith in the resilience of humankind, and that the indomitable human spirit will thrive even when it is undernourished. It is the children who will not let politics and circumstance keep them down who keep the world afloat; those children always seem to achieve their dreams. In her enthusiasm to encourage all children to develop their talents, however, she has lost sight of her own dreams. Her altruism has squelched her personal ambitions, and she feels empty as she strives to live up to the impossible standards set by parents, principals, communities, and civic leaders. How can she encourage others to develop their talents when hers rust on a shelf while she plans lesson after lesson and grades paper after paper?

To be a teacher takes inhuman ability to plan, prepare, and adapt. Preparation almost always takes place during personal time; teachers are paid to teach but not to plan. It takes time to rejuvenate and to spark creativity, and when personal time is spent performing professional duties, personal talents wither. The spark is going out for this young woman, and she knows that she will drown with her students if she does not find her own life preserver.

She feels trapped. Trapped and drowning. The thing that she really needs, that she really wants, is escape. Not just a weekend off, and not just another summer break full of graduate classes, seminars, workshops, and the inevitable laziness for a few unstructured weeks as she struggles to suppress her sense of adventure for the sake of her credit score. Her teacher’s salary and student loans leave her incapable of traveling far, and she would feel more trapped to rely on her credit excellent credit and sink further into debt. She dreams of travel, and of the possibility that someone might believe in her as much as she believes in her students.

She wants to travel; she wants to write. She wants to grow, live, learn and experience the world beyond the bounds of her childhood home. She wonders if the energy of New York City would drain or stimulate her. She is curious as to how awed she would be by the history and landscape on the British Isles. She wants to taste real French cuisine and walk down the streets of Paris and through the chateaux built in the Loire valley. She speculates at to how much she looks like a German, for it is from Germany that many of her ancestors immigrated. Italy and Greece have influenced her country and her dreams, with their historic democracies, architectural wonders, and polytheistic mythologies.

She longs to feel awkward and out of place in the countries of the Middle East, to listen as the call to prayer echoes through cities full of dust and exotic smells. The stories she has heard from others make her wonder if her American boldness would be too bold for a female in such places. How many myths and stereotypes would be revealed if she lived in such a place? The fighting in Africa is worrisome, but the savannahs and veldts; the rainforests and deserts; the ancient cities and proud people of that continent lure her.

Russia would certainly be a different experience; she wonders what the people there are like. The traditions of China and Japan, their deep respect and reverence for their ancestors, brings her shame as she realizes how little knowledge she has of her own ancestors and lineage. Some of her family lives in Australia, and she would like to know how the different cultures on that continent interact. She’d like to experience the climate and geography there as well; the beauty of nature in all parts of the world is an almost irresistible lure to someone who never tires of the changing light on the mountains in her own home.

To travel takes money. To read and write take time. Such simple pleasures as writing and dreaming are too often denied to this young woman. They are stifled by her own sense of responsibility, her practicality, and a mind that becomes increasingly logical. Her dreams become restricted as she tries to balance them with a reality that is full of both beauty and disappointment. One who dares not dream about her future is often afraid to dream about other worlds or imagine fictional characters into being. Such dreaming stimulates her desires for adventure and romance – desires that cannot be satisfied.

She sits instead, in the corner on the bed in the southeast corner of the southeast condo on the third floor of a complex in Salt Lake City; not daring to dream, not daring to act, not daring to hope, and only for a moment daring to write.