26. Mrs. Brennan

I love to read. Getting lost in a book is like getting a pedicure, sitting down in a sauna, or laying out on the beach. I can feel the forest breeze pass over me, the salty sea air brush my nostrils, the meadow grasses tickle my ankles, and the welcome of a homecoming embrace. Besides the beautiful scenery and life-giving adventure is the mystery. Any good novel is laced with the mystery of metaphor, allegory, allusion. Mrs. Brennan is the woman who unlocked the door for me to see what I could really suck out of a good book. She showed me that while orange juice is good, sinking your teeth into a pulpy flesh is even more exhilarating.

Mrs. Brennan is a tall, willowy woman with swooping brown hair that was going gray around the edges when I knew her. She had a long and pointing nose and big round eyes that were framed in thick black mascara. When she read passages to us in her gentle yet fervent voice her spectacles sat on the end of her nose and the chain dangled down, curving around her ears and resting gently on her neck. It seemed that everything about her rested gently. She wore long flowy skirts and loose colorful blouses. She had slender feet and a swanlike neck and we all talked about how she must have been a knockout in college. Sometimes we stole glances at the pictures on her desk in the back corner of her room, where we rarely ventured except when we visited after class to check our grades, and a couple of us were pretty sure we saw a photo of a familiar looking blonde beauty with long hippie hair and an eye-catching figure.

The impressions we had in our head of Mrs. Brennan were shadowy at best, she kept her personal life held close like a buried treasure and we hesitated to disrespect her with so much as a question about family or her past. All of us sat around the clustered wooden tables during class and proudly shared our carefully essayed observances and takes on the novels, pausing to look up for her smile of approval. Outside of class, however, we had much more pride in our teacher than in our own literary analysis. She stole the show without so much as an "Ahem" or an "Actually,...". I think she just loved to hear our excitement in discovery and let us have the spotlight. I know she'd read thousands of pages more than we had combined, but she always made me feel like I'd discovered something new, she let me be Columbus and sat back to watch me detail the New World.

I'll never forget holding those paperbacks in my hand, notes splayed out in front of me and next to me my classmates', watching her beckon us further in to the story with rose pink blush sparkling on her cheeks and on her forehead. I always thought it odd that she dabbed that bright pink powder on her prominent forehead, and noticed it especially when her brow furrowed in thought. Now I can't think of her without it. It calls me to remember how I watched her in a sort of mature wonder. Old enough to appreciate that she would stay in my memory, perhaps I was cataloguing her unique oddities and her riveting beauty. Oh, she was riveting. Her eyes were bright and piercing but never accusing. Even when we procrastinated, or just plain failed in our work, she was always encouraging, always pushing us forward like the breeze at our backs. A rudder I suppose, she was like a rudder. She steered our little class ship from the back, gently turning an inch or two to make us steer for a totally different island.

As a teacher and a woman I am so grateful for that year of discovery and opportunity. I love thinking about the work she inspired me to do, the words she taught me to write with the simple and patient urging of her trust. Her gracefulness and wisdom will continue to surface in the pages that I read and treasure for a lifetime. I hope she knows what a wonderful teacher she was for me.