Ms. Plumb

Every Friday, thirty minutes before the end of class, she’d unclasp her tightly wound bun and I swear her silver locks fell in slow motion.  She commanded not a room, but time itself.   It was a careful peek behind the curtain; the woman without the classroom.

I think she spent so much of her life dedicated to art that she became it.  You were to be affected by her.  To feel, to grow, to discover who she knew you would become.  She knew she was a masterpiece on loan to our classroom, and every day was new in her presence.  

Once she yelled at me so loudly, they could hear her outside the theatre.  It scared the other teachers, but strangely not me.  Something about her wasn’t threatening when she yelled.  She didn’t want you to be scared, she wanted you to be more, and she knew that you could.

That performance was my best.  She was tough and it made me bold.  She showed communication as movement.  It was tsunamis and the sound of a feather falling.

I still aim to be who she saw on that stage.

A force, like her, even in letting my hair down.