Memories are fickle things. Perhaps it’s a liability
of age, but the older I get; the easier it is to remember things that happened
twenty years ago rather than what I ate for lunch yesterday. It fascinates me
how the oddest things can trigger memories.
It happened to me last week. I was sitting at my
desk (I teach high school English). The room was quiet except for the sound of
the heater that hummed one steady note while it blew a continual blast of hot
air. Our school has a coal furnace, and in the classrooms, all of the heat
comes from one register that squats like a giant gray box under a window (I
know, that’s not exactly energy efficient). In my classroom, the old unit has
one control with two choices – on and off. The metallic smell of burning coal comes
from the heater in faint puffs.
This particular morning, it was ten degrees, so the
heater was in the “on” position. My students and I were writing in our
journals, when the hum of the heater unearthed a memory. I closed my eyes and
let it float to the surface.
I am in the first grade at P. V. Dennis Elementary
School, and it is a cold day just like this one. The room is warm and the acrid
scent of coal burning in the furnace permeates the room. I am sitting at my
desk, a little girl in a jumper and thick black tights, laboring over a writing
tablet, lined gray paper with the right amount of space between lines so I can
print my letters. My chubby hand grips a fat red pencil. I look up at the
letters my teacher, Mrs. Yates, has printed on the board. She has a contraption
that holds four pieces of chalk. When she swipes it across the board, it makes
straight lines for her letters to rest upon. I am fascinated by that contraption
and long to try it.
I open my eyes and I’m back at my desk. My students
are still writing and the heat is still pumping into the room. I look down at
my journal; it’s lined pink pages with gold embossed edges invite me to put
words on the page. Today, I am writing with a purple gel pen. I smile and keep
writing.
