Silence is something that I have seldom experienced in Cofradia. Living with four roommates and next to the town square makes for a constant barrage of noise be it from trucks rolling through the square, Reggeaton blaring from the billiards hall of ill-repute that catty-corners our apartment or the shrill “Yoooo hooo!” that comes from a man who walks by with a cart of novelty goods that no one wants. (This yoohoo is less like a hello from a creepy man and more like a cry from a 16th century courtesan soliciting services. “Yooooo hoooo!”
On Friday morning, however, we all reached a breaking point with the noise. At 5 am we were awoken by a man ‘s voice booming from two large speakers in the park advertising $1 toothbrushes and $3 cell phone chargers. 5 in the morning!!!!! He kept at it for 15 minute stretches, until his voice got tired, I presume, and then they played some obnoxious reggaeton at a level that was worthy of making my bedroom a club. Then the ads started again.
After an hour and a half of our tossing and turning, cursing this man into the pillows over our heads, our alarms went off. We peeled ourselves off our mattresses and with stinging eyes, planned our sabatoge for this man’s operations. Our scheming wasn’t quite as productive as we hoped, though, and the final product ended with my trouncing over and telling the man behind the mic. “This is absolutely ridiculous. There is a community that lives here and you think it’s okay to blast this bullshit about toothbrushes at 5 in the morning?” To which he replied, “Public property.” Somehow it didn’t make me feel better.
I got to school and prepped my room for my 8th and 9th grade music class, which was to start at 7:10. I waited and waited, and 7:18 rolled around and my students were still not lined up at my door. I looked over the balcony and they were all standing beneath me chatting away. I caught one of their eyes with the piercing teacher stare and he queued the others to rush up to the classroom. Very calmly, I asked, “what were you all doing?” One of my students sneered at me and said, “Mister, we thought you were going to come get us.” I reamed into them about my expectations for them to be lined up after the first bell, expectations that have never changed from day one and told them to sit down, get out their materials and turn this day around.
Frustrated, and feeling let down, I started my lesson on transferring what we knew about the keys of a piano over to the notes of a musical score. I asked them all to raise a hand and help me fill out the piano chart that I put on the board (something that they all knew and had a quiz on the day before). Silence. In the morning in which I was barraged by noise, I now had silence in the only moment that I had asked for noise. I waited, and waited… still no hands. Boiling inside, I then sat down in my chair, crossed my hands in my lap and stared back at them for what must have been a minute. They all started looking at one another in confusion, and I said, “Oh I’m sorry, were you all expecting something to happen? That must be really frustrating to be sitting around waiting for something to happen.” Embarrassed at myself for resorting to such intense passive aggressiveness, I tried to spin it, and looked them in the eye and said, “lets change this right now.”
I got through that painful lesson with mild improvement from the students ending it thinking, “I never want to teach again.” I then went out to the pouring rainy lunchyard for my recess duty, sitting with my raincoat over my head and hoping that no kids would come over and bother me.
A group of 5th graders came running out onto the blacktop with hands raised in the air and mouth gaping open to catch raindrops. Squealing with delight, they stomped in puddles and sang, “Who let the dogs out!” Omar ran over to me, drenched and covered with mud, and with a wide grin he cried, “Mister, this is glorious.” Zabdi, an elven creature who is the ringleader of the 5th grade dumped a puddle out of her shoes, ringed out her socks and said “Mister, I am going to have to tirar these calcetines in the basura!” Bessie then came over and put her hand on my shoulder and said “Mister Greene, you need to stomp in puddles, be kid again!”
The bell rang, these creatures ran to class and I was left sitting on a chair by the blacktop, sopping wet. Silence for the second time today. I smiled, had a chuckle and felt a ping of ouch. This was the first time in my life that someone has told me to be child again. I never knew I had stopped being one. I would like to be more child. And a little more silence would be nice. Most of the time.
