Not this water tower
Can't have a camera at work

The benefit of still wearing a mask at work is that in leaving my facility for the last time -- not for the week or summer, but forever -- my colleagues cannot see my bottom lip wibble as I give in to the pout that will, the moment I get into my car, become a wail.

I hugged one of the teachers goodbye, though we have never hugged before. We never had the occasion. She is not assigned to be transferred to the same facility as I am and is trying her damnedest to get a job outside the Office of Children and Family Services anyhow. I do not know when we would see one another again.

I look sidelong at my newer coworker -- new to working at this facility because his old one was shut down, necessitating his transfer. A hug would be too strange between us. I do not as much as imply a handshake, which I realize after may have been rude. By the time I have reconsidered this, and I began to think of something to say, the moment had passed.

I know that I will cry too soon.

I make it to my car and put my head on the steering wheel. A wail escapes my chest. After the first volley in this onslaught -- I will not get away with a solitary lamentation -- I am aware that I ought to have turned my stereo on first to disguise the sound better. I took in my rearview mirror, seeing my supervisor walking out to say something to my other coworkers. Should I say something too? I cannot think of what, so I back out of the facility for the last time and, weeping, start home. It is a span of five miles and, halfway into it, I am calm again. Too much had built in me while I sat in my room, unable to find a more satisfying way of saying goodbye to it than recycling a hundred pounds and twenty years of papers. I could not feel the impulse to write, so I watched videos, feeling that there was something more I should be doing.

Earlier in the day, the coworker who I would not hug led us to four boats in the weeds behind a disused building. It had been years since our students were allowed on the adjoining lake (a few fell in, couldn't swim, and the guards ineffectually lied about it). He half-joked about wanting to take one. We all looked with a hollowness. No one will take them. No one will sit in them again. On the other side of the building is a rusted dumpster that will be their fate.

I walked to the water tower -- which I had taken to thinking of as mine -- a final time. There, I laid my hands on its chipped metal and recited Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art," which did not fit the facts, but I hoped it would suit the mood. It brought no relief, so I looked at the charming woods along the path and committed the idea of them to memory. I believe that to come here after this day might constitute trespassing.

I considered touching the stream, but I couldn't see the good it would do.

When I get back, the coworker I will hug asked if I were coming back from a walk because she was about to go on one and could do with the company. I assured her that I was always up for a walk.

We trod the path through the curiously mowed woods, talking of little we hadn't before: where we would go next, interview experiences, the foibles of students and staff. We didn't overtly reflect on this being our last walk through these woods, our last of our tenure here. It was, but it did not insist upon it.

The leaving was gradual, then all at once. I felt like it deserved some hokey ritual, the last day of camp powwow, and promising one another with empty sincerity that we will always stay in contact. I won't even allow coworkers to add me on Facebook (some other social media is acceptable, as those are inherently more public, and I mainly ignore them.)

I offered no such pathos for my students, whom I hope never to see again. It would mean they had committed a serious felon. The facility had an annual barbecue and small report card ceremony, but we glided over the finality.

A student came up and said he would miss me, but he says things with little meaning behind them and does not care to listen to responses. I assured him that he would have forgotten by July that we had ever met.

My coworkers, both teacher and other staff, will miss me -- at least until we see one another at the new facility. I was likable and tended to let them know that I enjoyed their company. (Some more than others, but that is the nature of these things. If I had to hush you while teaching astronomy because you wanted to assure my students that the moon isn't real and white people aren't human, I have enjoyed you slightly less.)

When I arrive home, my cat waits for me only so I will let him out. Amber will not return from work for another hour. Of course, most things will not change -- certainly not before September -- but it might have been welcomed to mark this transition more concretely.

Soon in Xenology: A new job.

last watched: Fruits Basket
reading: Liber Null and Psychonaut