30/365 Two stones

It was my last act of defiance at my last teaching job. Not really much defiance. But a bit. I'd been working on two large projects for over a year--the first was rebuilding a library, and the second was creating an art project for a retaining wall in our garden. Actually, the wall that supported (retained) our garden. A mosaic done in concrete squares. The first project was never finished; the school closed two years after I left and they never got their act together. And the second project wasn't completed for a long time--by a boy scout who has since died, his eagle scout project. I remember being really stunned and impressed when he got it all together. And now I think about him every time I go down that street.

But anyway.

My act of defiance? I called my friend Mary and we drove to the school the night before my last day. I was shaking, so angry at everything that had transpired. We pulled my van up right to the back door and went in to the little room right inside. There on shelves and tables were all those concrete squares, like thin stepping stones, waiting to be cemented to the wall. Student-made for the most part, with glass, ceramic, metal, all sorts of things to create the images. We had an amazing number completed, but we needed about 100 more. I had planned to get them together over the summer. Yeah right. I was 8 months pregnant the last week of school. I didn't have a plan.

But I stepped into that little room with a two word thought that started with the letter F and ended with the letter M and included the letters uck the. I put on a pair of garden gloves, looked at Mary, and she knew what I was going to do.

I took about 25 squares/stepping stones. Thick ones, almost all of them ones she and I had made to intersperse with the student-made ones. We loaded them up in the back of my van with the remainder of my supplies and a few scant classroom materials I owned that, again, that two word phrase I was not going to leave behind. And we drove away.

Now they live in my yard. A few in back, a few lost under mulch around this or that tree. A few under the porch. And the rest are a half-hidden path across my front yard where the mailman walks.