So here I am in my babe’s office hoping he’d drop by from his class so I can ask where the computer center is.
Waiting and listening to the goddess Tori, I decided to look inside the boxes of books I sent him from home. Some of them were mine and I was pleased to see my Neil Gaiman collection safe and intact. Among the random tomes, I found, to giddy pleasure, a book given to me by my Glee Club. It was actually a bunch of letters and miscellaneous comic strips and drawings sturdily bound and covered in plastic. It’s title: Pumpkin Patch. The cover was done by the budding artist, Meggy, who drew a Tim Burtonesque jack-o-lantern watering little pumpkins in his patch. I guess the long-legged Jack is supposed to be me and my girls, the pumpkins. It was charmingly creepy (or creepily charming) done in black and white because for some reason they thought I was into goth.
Digression: On one of my birthdays, my club officers asked the girls not to wear anything colorful (a.k.a. only black) because “Ms. Cabel won’t like it. She’s into goth.” The truth is, I didn’t NOT like goth but I wasn’t into it as much as they assumed. I wore mostly black because 1) it was sort of a UP College of Music performers’ uniform. 2) black was easy to mix with … black. And when you’re a full-time teacher, you don’t have time to mix and match pieces from your closet when dressing up. But me in black in ICA, it became my thing. It was a piece of the Ms. Cabel puzzle along with my toy cactus, Pablo, and my ability to swing from one mood to another.
Alright, enough of that.
It’s been a couple of years since I read Pumpkin Patch. I read it only twice since I got it because, even in my own company, I get very embarrassed when people say nice things about me. I just go all squirmy and shy, wishing to just explode — poof! — into a cloud so I could hover away. I know how to react to nastiness but niceness, not always.
I miss my Glee Club. Those two years of moderating were the most exhausting, most emotionally-draining, and most gratifying of my time as a teacher. I get teary-eyed just thinking about it.
You see, I’m no longer a teacher.
Here in Georgia, USA, I am not a teacher. I am not a musician. Not a writer. Not an actress. I’m not despairing, though, because I like where I am now. I’m finally with my best friend and love and there’s no place I’d rather be. But everything I was back in the Philippines is a memory for now. I’m waiting to be who I was meant to be in this new and strange place.
I am in a cocoon and I’m waiting for wings.
