Dream Day

The morning promised rain by afternoon, though none was in the forecast. I stood on the corner watching for lost students. Our class was going to meet at the Little Chapel, a special place, a sweet setting, one that would put them on stage, in front of an audience, where students would present their community projects; those projects will address some issue related to incarceration. We had read memoirs: A Place to Stand, Writing My Wrongs, Beyond Desert Walls: Essays From Prison, Crossing the Yard, A Case For Freedom, and others. We had written, workshopped, reflected, argued, and laughed. It had been a wild, confusing semester, one in which I did not know sometimes what I was going to do in class until I stood there in front of living, curious, beautiful people. This assignment to write a proposal for a community project had stretched me in new ways. So there I was, standing on a corner, looking for my lost students, waiting for rain, feeling the cool December Arizona breeze, nervous about how it would go -- this new thing. When it was time, I turned and went to our room, the one where I would listen to what these lovely young people had dreamed up, what they imagined as a new possibility. It was time to enjoy. The first drops fell, tentative at first, then steadily, with a smell of water, of creosote.