spring fever...

today in new york was absolutely gorgeous... i wore a hoodie with my puffy vest on top(just to be safe) and found out in the first 30 seconds outside that i didn't need either one...

i went to tutoring and met with one of my students, gary, who had an amazingly successful day and at the end of it all, told the program director (with a slight smile on his face that i had never seen before) that he was "learning a lot from this lady here."

i cannot tell you what that meant to my heart. every night i sit down to the yankee game with a pile of paperwork in front of me and start to plan my lesson for the next day... gary is my shining star... he is doing so well- he read from a book with me for the first time (in his recollection) the other day, and to hear him say that today made me feel so good... he is not a very "emotive" person; when i ask him how he is doing with the material we study he usually says "good." nothing more, nothing less. he came to our adult literacy center with no reading skills, and when i asked him his goals, he told me he wanted to pass his GED and become a basketball coach. when i see where he is at, and what it will entail to get him there, i certainly feel overwhelmed. but i know it can happen... someday.

to hear that he felt as if we were making progress made me feel like a superhero- i walked out of that building on top of the world. i went into work, my silly job where i bring margaritas and americanized mexican food to a bunch of i-phone-wielding elitist trendite brooklyn-heads, feeling like i could handle ANYTHING, and i did; we were so slammed, and i managed it all with the greatest of composure (one woman told me i was the best waitress she ever had! another table told me that they didn't know how i had kept so calm...) i was, truly, on top of the world.

how can you panic about not getting someone a margarita when, earlier, a man who has struggled with drug addiction his entire adult(? and more...) life and currently lives in a drug rehab facility where his main form of self-improvement is to come meet with you three times a week so he can LEARN HOW TO READ tells you that he feels he is learning a lot from being your student?

you can't. and i didn't. i was cool. i was calm. i was composed. i made those people fucking WAIT for me, dammit.

and it felt good.

on top of all that, i have made an amazing friend in my teacher, Jane Maher, who you should all immediately head to Amazon and search for as an author because she is amazing and she has written amazing books about wonderful, important people. she is one of those people that you meet and know immediately that you were meant to. i know that i will know her forever, and that she will have (and is already having) an amazing impact on me as a person, as a student, as a teacher, as a writer...

i feel so lucky to have come to this place that i am at right now. i love my life: i have an amazing love, an amazing life, and i am discovering myself and others in a way that constantly gives to me and (i hope) everyone again and again...

spring fever, y'all..