Sunday Sunnyside Up

Yesterday at church, in a wonderful twist of fate slash a gigantic blessing from above, I got to sit next to my high school English teacher. In a congregation full of visiting family and friends, I chose to sit by Suzan. Anyone who knows her would have done exactly the same. She has this uncanny ability to see directly into you, past all the bull, and into your soul. You can't help but spill your guts when you're talking to her, and if you don't offer it up, she'll get it out of you no matter where you are -- at the grocery store, in line at the post office, in between the lines of the opening hymn. We started singing all good intentions and in tune, but ended up talking instead. About life. About the future.

She started out slow, asking what's new in my life and before I knew it the little thread she tugged at was pile of yarn on the floor beneath the pew. It may sound like the worst thing that to ever encounter (and if you haven't finished an English paper because you and your best friend were up late talking on the phone, it most definitely is). However, when you pack up your bags after a session with Suzan, you've got oodles of inspiration and a new Life Plan. You've got a mound of confidence three times the size of the pile of yarn she unraveled when you weren't looking, a reservoir of compliments, and enough oil in your lamp to climb the highest of mountains on the darkest of nights.

So yesterday when I told her my first math class in like forever and a day times infinity was looming large and I felt like I was going to fall and get stuck in the "U" of a parabola for eternity, she cupped my cheeks in her hands, told me I was wonderful beyond measure, and gave me the phone number of my high school math teacher.

This morning, the morn of the eve of my first math class in eleven years (which, if you do the math equals forever), I called my former math teacher. In total paranoia, I told Rose about my predicament. I guess I've been out of her classroom long enough that her contagious chuckle and New Yorker sarcasm came out the end of the phone and bit me on the ear. "This is going to be hard for you." Um. Yeah. Duh. I wanted to say it, but then I remembered how she used to deal with those kind of students. (Once she made a sign for boy who's sarcastic remarks were as endless as the number pi. She was so sick of telling him to shut up, she wrote it on a sign. I'm pretty sure she stuck it on a stick and laminated it, too. I wish I could say it worked. So does she.) Instead of complaining (or staying scared forever and a day) I'm going to take her advice, which is to take math one day at a time, one problem at a time, one number at a time. I promise not to moan incessantly. I told Rose she can keep her laminator high on its shelf.