My boss, the one that I love, not the one I loath, is pulling out the big guns.

She doesn't want me to leave.

She has offered to make me my grade level Science specialist, which means that each teacher in my grade level would rotate there kids into me for science, and AND my very own state of the art Teched out science lab.

It's so very exciting and so the kind of position I've been fantasizing about, but it's also still 12-14 hours from the border of New Mexico.

And HELLO, it's not Santa Fe!

*I swear I get a chill and a mischievious little grin on my face when I think about the city different.*

So, I'll be taking at least a 6,000 dollar pay cut, footing moving costs and be under TREMENDOUS pressure in New Mexico to get a minority population to do well on the ITBS a test designed for upper middle class white kids, that is culturally biased in oh so many ways, and only measures about 2-3 modalities of intelligence, and if your kids don't do well the state of New Mexico is allowing cooperate teacher programs to come in and take over your school to raise scores. *I"m rambling but it makes since to me damn it* And I'd most likely be back to teaching all subject areas in a traditional self contained class room, perhaps not even in my grade level of choice.

So, yes, even after all that, and really it is all quiet daunting; I want to be back in my homeland. I want to see my black and white days, a phenomenon of refracted light through low alto cumulus clouds, usually in the late fall, that seems to desaturate the color from the landscape, and lend a stark, yet hauntingly beautiful contrast to the landscape of the llanos, arroyos, y las Montanas. .

*cut to daydream sequence*

I think usually I like to exit out quietly. Not this time. I want a GRAND bon voyage party, followed by mas bailar, y tequila. And I want a weekend job at the Inn of the Anasazi in Santa Fe. And, I want to bump into my favorite Diva, Carroll Burnett, on the plaza and instantly become best friends. Eating our hagan daz where that cute little Woolworth's was for so very many years. And I'll volunteer to be a docent at the Georgia O'keefe museum, and I'll drive out into the western wilderness and press my face to the very walls of the arroyos that are the subjects of my favorite paintings of hers, and let their and her spirit flood into my soul as the soil of my homeland recharges my batteries. And *wink to Mal* Britland's father, the post hippie generation, amateur pop psychologist, metaphysical healer/self-proclaimed crystal shaman will focus the healing light of my first New Mexico dawn through a quartz crystal into my third eye (pituitary gland) in a grand welcoming home ceremony to the land of my birth. While I"m standing at the apex of a grand Energy spiral on the summit of Florida mountain (flor-ee-dtha, not florida), outside my hometown. And in the Fall I'll volunteer my time at the Shadonee Bronze Foundry, and witness the magic as molten bronze becomes solid in the form of it's mold crafted by the hands of a New Mexico Master. And, I'll wander through The Andrew Wyeth/Peter Herd gallery at least every time I'm down at the plaza, where I'll be scribbling away on my little hand held, that will be mine before the end of the summer even if I have to go sell blood *HAH! Although I'm feeling more in control of the whole needle phobia thing, after reading some very helpful things on the web.*

Hey Mal, I think it sooooo sounds like I'm going to thrust my roots into the ground and THRIVE.

No seriously, this is all going to happen.

:)

*llano: a broad flat expanse, sometimes grassy, and usually ringed by mountains.

*my computer recently stopped letting me add a tilde ~ over my �n' in certain Spanish words. Darn.