I think it was one of my Earthwatch Friends, whom I affectionately call Designer Girl aka Kathy G who teaches second graders in New Jersey (at least for now as she suffers through the Christie budget wars along with other dedicated teachers across the country) who first coined the term for my place between my classroom and greenhouse, oasis.
It is such an apt term.
When my life is dry and desert like, I can go to the oasis where there is water in the pond and drink cool water in my now new handcrafted metal patio chairs at the companion table shaded with a new blue patio umbrella. When the students are hormonally challenged or intrinsically unmotivated, I can retreat to the oasis and get renewed to enter the fray once again to challenge and to motivate and maybe even inspire academic inquiry and excellence in a world that increasingly devalues such things.
And like yesterday I can ride my new recumbent bike 22.6 miles and park it under the green ash tree at the entrance of the oasis and walk up the concrete path lined with rain collection barrels and marigolds and azaleas and two bushes with purple leaves whose name escapes me now on one side and climbing roses (given by the same friends who gave us Hero and Eduardo) and tomatoes and egg plants (started in the green house) and more marigolds and milkweeds (started in the greenhouse by one student and planted by another to provide sustenance for monarch butterflies) and more marigolds on the other.
And when I get to the oasis I heard a splash in the pond right after I spotted a frog resting on the new lily pad in the pond and thought how pleasant it is “for you to greet me here on a Saturday morning.” I sat and drank cool water awhile before going inside and greeting Benita, the bearded dragon, who is going through a no eating spell and Eduardo, who survived the Thursday “flood” in his space shared by the flower press operation in the classroom and greenhouse walkthrough and had to have new quarters in the classroom until the waters receded, and of all things see Mojo, our first hamster who was donated by Quaneckqua in Eighth Block Introduction to Biology, back in his cage (he had been on the lam for two weeks and kids kept inquiring about him and I left his cage on the floor with the door open and the “light” on like Motel 6 and just like that he was back as if nothing happened – now he is back on rodent row with Hero, the gerbil, and Mo, the one eyed hamster donated by Pet smart), and feed the fish who tested by biological tolerance on Thursday when I had to leave the poop filled filter in the sink to be cleaned on Friday morning during my conference period since I had no hot water from the microwave since the storm knocked out our power.
As I wrote initially, everyone needs an oasis.
And after getting the nine weeks test finally completed after letting other things get in its way earlier, I came back to the oasis for lunch (my usual lean cuisine heated in the now functioning microwave) and was greeted with new visitors. One was the green anole lizard caught in the classroom on Thursday by Courtney after another student spotted him in the windowsill. I showed the slide by one of my seniors who had mistakenly put him on his amphibian slide show and followed his internet citation to the specifics of his range and my students added “and in Mr. Banks’ classroom” with great pride. They wanted to keep him but I insisted that we let him go in the oasis
since I had spotted him there with his companion on earlier retreats. And there he was on the brick wall bulging out his bright red throat to impress his mate or ward off predators and skittered behind the now rejuvenating pampas grass. It was not much longer until his mate skittered by as well. And then to my great surprise a hummingbird found his wave over the top of the walkthrough and went to the feeder that had been there for almost three weeks and checked it out and flew off. I despaired that she would not return. Not to worry, hummingbirds along with lizards and frogs and the three new goldfish in the pond and tired biology profs need an oasis. She returned not too long later and sipped from all four stations of the bought feeder and ignored for now the homemade feeder by one of my seniors, Mia.
She made one more visit during my sojourn.
As this school year unwinds and as I go through other transitions, I will call on the oasis not infrequently for connection to the oneness of all, living and non-living, named and unnamed, motivated and to be motivated, dead and alive, hopeful and to be hopeful.
Everyone needs an oasis I pondered on my return trip in the blazing Saturday heat where I forgot sunscreen for my white now red chicken legs. They will need the oasis, too, as well as the rest of me and all things, great and small.
