Notes From My Journal: Chapter Forty-Four

Notes From My Journal: Chapter Forty-Four

“Strange isn’t it how you never know how things will turn out. If five years ago some one had told me how I would love teaching sixth graders in the year 1974, I would have laughed in his face. The farthest thing from my mind was teaching in an elementary school.”

“How long do you plan to stay there?” asked Geno raising a cold bottle to his lips.

“Well, I don’t plan more than a year in advance. I wouldn’t even look that far ahead if I didn’t have to sign a teaching contract. I really love it where I’m at right at this moment. I’m growing, and I’m really relating to my students. You know, it’s strange how much our unconscious controls us. When I was a sixth grader myself, I didn’t relate to anything. I missed out on a very important part of my life. Those feeling that weren’t fulfilled stayed with me in my unconscious, and to some extent they are being filled now as I relate to my students.”

“Don’t you ever run into conflict with the administrators?” Geno asks.

“No, that’s the funny thing. I hardly ever get into trouble. And, I really think I do a lot for the kids too. As Long as I continue to grow, I’ll stay right where I’m at. But, if they start restricting me too much, then I’ll have to make adjustments. As yet, the greatest limitation on teaching has been myself. All that may change though. I had a dream last week that told me that I was really a rotten teacher doing just the opposite of what I really feel that I should be doing. If that feeling continues to grow in me, then my teaching might change with it…”

“You’re not interested in teaching Junior College anymore?”

“No, not like I was before… Really what I’m interested in is expanding my awareness… I’ve been really lucky too. There’s several things that I could have been called on if I had a more conservative principal. Like I could have really gotten into trouble over Tommy. I let the whole class chase him to the office a couple weeks ago…

“He was running toward me yelling, ‘Mr. Daley! Mr. Daley!’ A bunch of kids were chasing him. I just yelled, ‘Time to come in!’ and turned my back thinking that the kids would be following me into the classroom. When I got to the door, I saw that only about half the class followed me. The rest chased Tommy all the way to the office.”

“Why was the whole class after him?” Geno asks.

“Because he is a real fink, very aggressive, but only in just the acceptable way. He had only one friend in the class, Bobby, at the beginning of the year. Bobby talks him into joining his boy-scout group. In three months the den leader says there is an opening at the next level. Bobby knows that the long awaited spot is surely his. Tommy using all the aggressive excellence in his motivated body cuts the leadership spot from Bobby. Tommy wears the leadership kerchief around his neck when he goes to bed that night. Bobby spends the whole night crying. You know, Tommy is always doing stuff like that…

“He has a really good vocabulary. The day the kids were chasing him, Tommy got a yard duty lady to look for the kid who hit him with a ball. “There’s the culprit,” he said pointing to his classmate David Coldspot. Tommy’s last name is Coldsput with a u instead of an o.

“Hey, he cold me cold prick,” screamed David. “He knows my last name. If I’m a cold prick so is he…”

“The kid thought he was saying cold prick,” laughs Geno.

“Yea, Tommy is too smart for his own good. He’s always turning in classmates for breaking rules. He’s the one who turned me in for not saying the pledge of allegiance. He even wrote me a note that he would lead the class in the pledge if I didn’t want to do it…”

“So he blew the whistle on you, huh?” Geno asks.

“Yea, and a couple of months I took the class to the cafeteria and had them sit in a big circle. We turned off all the lights, and sat silently holding hands. You know, I wanted to get them use to sitting silently, trying to see into themselves. I instructed them to try and shut out every thought, and just listen to the silence. We sat for about five minutes like that. I was surprised that they could handle it that long.

“Afterwards I asked them what went through their minds. A couple students said they had visions of Bobby Kennedy. Others said that they saw brilliant colors and bright lights. Most of them felt it was a really good experience. Next morning, the principal called me into the office. He told me he had half a dozen calls from parents. They complained that I had been holding séances. I explained that I wanted to get the gets used to holding hands and sitting quietly, that I wanted to introduce them to meditation. He understood what I was trying to do. You know with a lot of principals I would have been in big trouble…”

“Yea, well remember last year when I signed up Cesar Chavez to hold the United Farm Worker first Constitutional Convention at the center? I almost got into big trouble for that…”

“What for bringing in new business?”

“Well, you know Fresno is a big farming community. They hate the farm workers union. Chavez couldn’t find any place to hold meetings. When I negotiated the contract with one of his men, I charged him about five hundred more than we usually get for the center. Still, I got my ass chewed out for the bad feelings it made in the farming community…”

“Yea, I remember you got me in to attend the convention. It was really interesting,” I say as we head inside for another beer.

As I look at my journal from today, July of 2011, I realize that the character that I was creating in 1974 was far different from the real Jack Daley, the Real I that I didn’t have any real contact with. And, yet many of the ‘I’s that people Jack’s psychological mind are depicted in the character that comes out from under my pen and computer keys. I am a really selfish person and so is the Jack in this story, and even though he sometimes gets a glimpse and even mentions his selfishness, it is not a part of the real picture that he has of himself.

In Jack’s mind, and in the writer’s mind, Jack is on his way to a higher level of consciousness. He doesn’t realize that the higher consciousness that he seeks is all feeding his false personality. He is still working from life, still using life as his neutralizing force. He is looking for fulfillment of life goals rather than Work goals. If Jack is a picture of the false personality of the character, then who is the writer. Could the writer be Observing I? I think he could, and if the writer could look at his character objectively he could paint a real picture of the personality that Jack carries around with him. And, who am I commenting on my own writing as I rewrite some thirty plus years later? Can the writer in me serve as an Observing I? And can he use the Work as neutralizing force, and thus write for Work goals rather than for money and fame?