Don't touch the glockenspiel.

Hello! Congratulations-- you and I have made it through the existential crisis. The vocational tailspin. The recreational bankruptcy. We crawled through a tunnel of confusion and came out with clarity on the other side. Through no achievement of my own, I snagged a dream job.

Since August of 2012, I've been employed as an after-school art instructor for Young Rembrandts drawing class. I roll in with my box of awesome stuff, teach K-5 how to draw something cool, sanitize my hands, and roll back out to do it another day. I'm only with the kids for an hour a day-- sometimes longer if the parents think I am a good candidate for spontaneous adoption-- but, it's definitely the most exciting, fulfilling, hilarious hour of the day.

Some of these kids have been with me through every session since I started. I can freely admit that I have my favorites. I have a crew of little co-veterans who keep coming back to color with me, of course I have favorites. These are the kids whose parents give me Christmas cards with pictures of them, insist I keep their 100th School Day pencils as a present, and tell me all about their grandmothers who draw, their moms who speak Spanish, their computer games, their favorite color, their favorite class, their favorite bug...

Because I'm an extracurricular teacher, I'm a guest in these schools. I teach where they put me, so this comes with interesting challenges. At one school, I hold class in the teacher's lounge. Here, I am a scorned woman, forced to envy the bountiful contents of the vending machine. I lay awake at night wondering, why won't the kids stare lovingly at the board like that? Why don't they covet my markers the way they covet M&Ms? They give their unwavering attention and fierce competition to the potato chips while my Bob Ross teaching style goes unappreciated... My only saving grace on Monday and Thursday is that they always forget to bring money and the vending machine makes a very, very offended noise when you press its buttons in vain. The vending machine is obviously on my side, but the kids still prefer the cranky snack box to me.

At my other school, I teach in the art classroom (yay!) which doubles as the music classroom (*drysob*.) My kids are pretty good about not touching the instruments, but every now and then I still have to say, "Patrick, get away from the gong. Sam, that kazoo doesn't belong to me. LILLY! Don't touch the glockenspiel!"

NO, LET ME LEARN.  I <3 HARP.

I teach a lot of kids who are barely-not-preschoolers, so I do a lot of reminding and commanding. I try to be cool about it, though. They've been sitting still in school all day and now they're in another classroom, for another hour, looking at another board, with another pencil in their hands. So, I try not to be too hard on them. I speak kindly, raise my voice only when necessary, and God's usually looking out for me when I'm about to lose my cool. One time, the Holy Spirit totally t-boned my temper as it was about to get away from me. I was in the middle of an empty threat, making something up as I went along as usual, when the grace of humor took over midway. It came out as, "If you guys don't settle down, I'm going to turn into a DRAGON!" Anger crisis averted. We all had a good laugh and, fortunately for me, they still got the point. It was probably my commitment to the act that sold it... unfurling wings, bulging eyes, Gandalf-is-angry voice. It was a good moment.

The biggest challenge is utilizing the Montessori method. How do you teach a classroom of eight kindergartners, three 2nd graders, two 3rd graders, and two 4th graders how to draw the Mona Lisa? More importantly, how do you teach that group at a pace which won't bore the older kids, but also won't make the barely-not-preschoolers burst into tears when they feel like they're being left behind? The answer is one part bribery, one part cheating, and one part intrigue. Lure them in with the promise of balloons, let the older kids work 1 step ahead, and shock them all with a magic trick-- making waist-length hair appear from a tiny bun. (I am my own prop when drawing Italian women. Cha-ching.)

But, the best part of this job outweighs everything. Disappearing tables, filthy post-party teacher's lounges, children getting on the bus, crotchety janitors who turn out the lights while I'm hanging the drawings, vending machines, glockenspiels, Sharpie wielding kindergartners-- none of these things could scare or frustrate me out of loving these kids to death. Even the kids who are only there because their parents don't know the difference between art class and after school care, I love. I love hearing their rambling stories while I'm in the middle of explaining how to draw an ear from the side. I love the panic on their faces when asking to go to the bathroom, as if I'd ever say no. I love it when they write random words at the top of their drawings like "GAVIN ESPN ART FOOTBALL GAME." I love it when they get angry on my behalf when we discover that the front table is absolutely covered in teal ink. I love listening to their crazy theories on how the teal ink got there-- yes, someone put a marker in the pencil sharpener. That must be it.

I love that I can be real with them when they're being ridiculous. When they can't find something, they like to ask me where it is. They say, "Mrs. M'reah, where's my eraser?!" I tell them, "I don't walk around stealing your erasers-- if you can't find it, look for it!" (That's not true at all, I regularly walk off with their stuff. I'm worse than my mom at the dinner table, surrounded by ill-gotten forks once everyone has been served from the big dish you can't move.)

Most of all, I love that I'm finally tapping into the best gifts God gave me. I can't list all the ways in which this job has been healing for me. It was the perfect job, coming at the perfect time. Even though it's only two hours out of my day, four days a week, I finally feel like I'm not just along for the ride while I'm in Tuscaloosa. I'm not just a footnote in someone else's epic adventure, waiting patiently while all the cool plot points happen to them. Sure, I followed my husband here-- this is his deal, his journey, but I think I finally found a good reason to be here for myself, not just as a placeholder or something to take up my time while I wait for Mark to graduate. My kids give me purpose.

So, I'll leave you on a poetic note. Several months ago, as I was settling into this job, coming to terms with how blessed I am, and I began musing on the Bible verse that first urged me to do more with my talents. Luke 12:48 says, "Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more." I couldn't justify sitting on what I'd been given, I had to push myself harder and develop those skills because they weren't given to me for nothing. I feel like I did that faithfully, in different ways, throughout high school and college. (Of course, it's hard not to develop your talents in a testing, scoring, grading environment.)

Then, I graduated and nothing became of graduate school. Nothing became of my terrible first job. It felt I wasn't becoming anything. I was using many of my basic talents; including, but not limited to, typing skills learned during my ten-year deployment in the war zone known as the Internet, organizational skills learned from living in dorms the size of refrigerator boxes, and the ability to navigate all manner of office tools-- specifically Xerox whispering, fax charming, and advanced Microsoft-speak. But, what was going to become of everything else? The stuff I actually cared about? It felt like my light was being hidden under a bushel basket. I could feel the lamp going out. Just a few more chapters in this series of unfortunate events and I was going to give up on it entirely.

My spirit animal during that difficult time in my life.

But, everyone who has ever been called to do something outside their comfort zone knows that God has no patience for that nonsense. I was musing on this bushel basket idea-- Mark 5:15-16, "Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father." So, I thought to myself, "Bushel basket, bushel basket... why does that sound so familiar?" And I remembered I've seen bushel baskets before. They're made of wood or wicker and are used to gather produce like apples.

They're made of wood or wicker. Bushel baskets are flammable. If you put a basket too short on a candle too tall, it could catch fire before the candle was extinguished. My circumstances weren't hard enough to make me give up on making myself useful while in Tuscaloosa! (At least, not after that epic revelation.) I just had to set fire to my self-pity and resentment and all the stupid scars I'd accumulated since moving here.

To celebrate that and finding my new job, I drew this. (Very quickly and without much planning, or I'd lose my nerve and spiral down into "I CAN'T DO ANYTHING" again.) Mixed media, pen and colored pencil.

  Maybe one day, I'll free-style it and teach my kids how to draw this instead of another snow/ice fishing/winter/I-don't-understand-Alabama picture from the lesson planner in Chicago. Just kidding, I can't do that. But, I'll always look at this and remember my kids. Thanks for the chance to stretch my dragon wings, Young Rembrandts. Now, put the cap back on that Sharpie-- if it goes back into the box like that, it'll look like I struck oil and smell twice as bad.