59/365 Peter

No stranger to failure
I have spent my share of days pulling up empty nets
Never afraid to drop them back down
You chose a day like that to step into my boat
Had the nerve to tell me to give it yet another go
And on which side they should be cast.
A carpenter, telling fishermen how to fish
I still don't know why I listened.

You called me with a miracle.
I have never seen a catch burst the nets like that
You gave me the best fishing day of my life
Then asked me to walk away from my boat
And I never looked back
I wandered with you everywhere
Witnessing the miraculous happen so often
It became routine
I grew accustomed to being wrong
To always asking the dumb questions
For which you always had a smart answer.
You never intended for us to get it on the first try.

The day I said you were the Messiah
You called me Peter.
My name means "the rock"
Promised I would be the foundation of your church
Hold the keys to heaven
But the day I said I would never let your life be taken from you
You said, "Get behind me, Satan!"
Because my motives were men's and not God's
I didn't see that coming.

There are things a man swears he will never do.
There are times when our bodies betray our oath.
We were knit so tightly
I could not imagine that I could deny knowing you
On the same night you broke the bread
In the garden, I couldn't even stay awake for you
You had to wake me, twice
And when that traitor came to kiss you
You can bet I wasn't going to break my word a third time
I drew my sword on the first of them to get close enough
Took his ear off.
Nobody was taking you down without a fight.
But you,
Never miss a chance for a miracle.
Had to stick that thing back on him like nothing ever happened
In front of the very men who came to drag you off.
And then you let them take you.

Had you not told me I would deny you three times
Had I not sworn you were wrong
Had the cock not crowed at that moment
As you assured me it would
I could have forgiven myself
But not the third time,
The sound of that crow
The echo of your voice.
The ache of lead in the stomach.
Of "what have I done"

When you came back
And asked, "Peter, do you love me?"
It stung. Of course I did.
And when you asked the second time
It broke my heart.
When you asked me the third time
I told you, "I love you!"
The third time, I understood what you were doing.
That this was not a question.
This was redemption.
This was you, tying off every loose end.
This was you, making everything right.

58/365 First Day of School

Today, we are the best teachers in the world.
Our classrooms are bright and spotless
Our lessons are prepared weeks ahead
Our inbox is empty
The hallways are as silent as we expect them to be
And this time
We are ready for the children
Tomorrow we will greet them
Certain this year will be a hundred times better than last year
Working that vaseline-tooth smile
That overeager look of botox surprise
As we tell them how glad we are to see them
Remark at how quickly they've grown since last we saw their smiling faces
Allow them to pretend they are unhappy to be back here
That they never missed this place for a minute
And just for kicks, when they ask,
We let them guess which Caribbean island we've just come back from
Knowing they'll never guess the suntan we're sporting
Was little more than a backyard lawn chair and a pitcher of sangria
Four days ago,
When we ran out of August
And spent one last afternoon praying the calendar was mistaken.

We are rested and ready
Filled with passion and dedication that we are certain
Will carry us from the first week of September
Right on through to the second week of
September.
And after that we will fake it when we need to
Cobble together the scraps of our time, sanity, and good pedagogy
Knit it together with personality and flair
Patch it quickly with a glue stick two minutes before homeroom
Bedazzle it with last-second glitter as they walk through the door
And shout,
Ta-DAA!
Knowing full well they will insist they are unimpressed
Ask why they have to learn this
Claim they lost the worksheet again
And refuse to work with their partner
Because they did not get to pick their partner today
They just got stuck with them
And their partner is being a stupidhead
And this assignment is stupid
And so are you.

And, being the best teachers in the whole world,
We know better than to be pricked by the words of elementary school children
To let their bitter tongues find the chinks in our armor
To be chafed by unwelcome memos and meetings
The inevitable failure of technology just when we most need it.
These are the thousand little scrapes that will wear us thin.
Send us staggering to the teacher's room for a few deep breaths
A deep swig of coffee
And a receptive ear
Or strong shoulder
We know where to find these things when we need them
We know how to offer them o each other
At just the right time
We know that look
We've all had it at one time or another
And we know what we can do when we see it coming
Today, and every day
We are the best teachers in the world.
Not one of us got this way
On our own.

57/365 Gordie Lachance to Wesley Crusher

Stardate 2359
Authenticated letter
Discovered inside circa 1959 time capsule
Castle Rock, Oregon

To: Wesley Crusher, Starfleet Academy, Outer Space
From: Gordie Lachance, Truman Middle School, Castle Rock, OR

Dear Spaceman,
Dear Great, great, great...
Dear Wesley.
It feels strange to say I have a grandson
When I don't.
To think of being a great, great
(It must be a hundred greats!)
Grandfather.
I'm just a kid.
"Young Wesley" is what Mr. Q called you
The day he gave me your letter
Said it was the first letter you ever wrote to someone with a real pen
That you were my age when you wrote it
Or, maybe, when you will write it someday
That in the future nobody uses pens and pencils anymore
That you can write just by talking.
I wish I could do that.
He told me how your school teacher gave you writing practice
You didn't want to do.
Had you look up the name of one of your ancient relatives
You found my name.
It's funny to be called ancient when you're barely thirteen.
They made you write your relative a letter,
Made you use a regular pen and paper, like they do in my time.
I mostly use pencil, actually
Not a pen, except this time I'm using a pen.
This time it's really important.

It doesn't seem like you tried very hard on your letter.
No offense
I bet you didn't really try
Because you didn't think it would actually get sent to me
That I'd actually read it, hundreds of years before you wrote it.
It's OK, though.
Maybe I wouldn't have tried so hard, either.

Mr. Q said you'd be surprised that I got your letter.
Said that you might get in trouble for it, somehow
If anyone found out you gave it to him.
Or did he just take it from you?
I can't think of a reason they'd ever scold someone
For writing to their own grandpa.
I asked him why
But he just answered with a weird story
About your letter being a butterfly wing
That changes... a hurricane?
It was something like that.
Does everyone in space talk like he does?
Does anyone have manners?
He didn't have manners.
He didn't talk to me like a kid.
More like a grown-up.
More like my friends talk to me, only he wasn't friendly.
And he called me Gordon
Like you did in the letter.
It's Gordie, actually.
Nobody calls me Gordon.
Your letter seemed polite, at least.
I hope it's what you're really like.
That you're you're a good kid, like me.
Not that I'm always good.
I shot a gun, once.
Did you ever shoot a gun?
I just shot at a trash can, on accident.
I didn't even know it was loaded!
The neighbors heard, and man
We ran away so fast.
Did you ever get a goocher?
My friends always flip for cokes,
And Vern says when you get a goocher it's the worst.
And this one time we came up all four tails
Which almost never happens.
That's a goocher.
Vern told us something really bad was going to happen.
It almost did, but
I guess you could say
Things turned out all right.

Did you ever see a dead body?
Not at a funeral or anything.
I mean, a body.
Like someone just died,
And there they are.
I saw a dead body once.
I never told anybody about this before, but I did.
Ray Brower.
He was just a kid, like me.
Like us.
I don't know what he was doing on the railroad tracks.
Do they even have railroad tracks in space?
Do they all have jet packs?
Do you learn to drive a rocket when you're in high school?
We just get cars.
What happens to a rocket ship
When it crashes?

Teddy says maybe Ray was trying to leave Oregon.
I don't know.
I just wish I knew him, you know?
I just wish he wouldn't have died alone.
I might leave Oregon, some day.
Have you ever been to Oregon?
It's nice here.

Vern says there are more trains now because of Eureka.
He says Roosevelt started building a whole city there to make rockets and computers.
He says that's why Jacob Parrish left school in the middle of the school year.
His dad's a computer genius at the U.
Vern says Jacob told him it's top secret.
Told him nobody's supposed to know what goes on there.
That's why they left Castle Rock in the middle of the night.
Vern says a lot of things, though.
And who knows where those new, black trains are really going.

My dad says, "Abraham Parrish is no genius.  He's a nut job."
And my mom, she doesn't really say anything anymore.
Not since my brother Dennie died.

It’s like they blame me for everything

Like they think everything would be better without me around.

Do you know what it’s like to be hated, Wesley?

So I guess Dennie's your uncle.
Your great great great great... great uncle.
He died in a car crash.
After he died, I didn't get to see his body.
It was a really bad crash.
They kept the casket closed.

I don't know if you have a brother.
Or a sister
But I hope you like them if you do.
That you try to get along with them better
That you tell them you love them sometimes

Even if they tell you, "Shut up, Wesley."
Even if they punch you for being a wuss when you say it.

Sometimes they punch you because they love you.
Dad says he wishes I could be more like Dennie.
Maybe some day I will be.
Maybe you are.
I hope so.
I hope I'll be more like Dennie
Than like my dad.

Jacob Parrish used to say he never wanted to be like his father.
Always working at his science lab,
Always on something important.
But never talking about it.
He said his father doesn't want him to become a policeman.
Told his dad soon as he graduates high school
He's moving to Boston.
His dad told him science was in his blood.
That if he didn't chase science, it would find him.
That even his kids would be scientists.
I don't know if that's true.

I'm glad you wrote to me
Even if it's only because you had to.
Don't worry about the mistakes
But next time try writing with a pencil, instead.

Pencils have erasers.
It helps make the mistakes less noticeable.

I hope you don't get in too much trouble
Over the butterfly thing, I mean.
They're burying a time capsule in Eugene.
Miss Summers picked me to write something to put inside it.
She says I don't need to put a stamp on the envelope
But I did.
I want to make sure it gets to you when it's opened.
I'm going to be a writer someday.
I don't know if it's in my blood
Or if I just like it a ton.
If it is in the blood, though
Maybe it just hasn't caught up to you yet.
Maybe somewhere along the way,
You threw a goocher.
Don't worry, though.
Those goochers only happen once in a while.