Magnetic Vocabulary

            My classroom desk is a melting pot of magnetic words. 

            Fueled by my love of all things Star Trek, I bought a set of space words years ago. It contains astronaut, asteroid, accelerate, and android, plus dozens more.

            Fed by my love of all things Jewish, I sprung for the Yiddish words some time later. Klezmer, klug, klutz, and kvell join a multitude of vaguely familiar words.

            I don’t know where the other three sets came from. The pet words showed up like a stray cat. There’s a set of school words, including homework. And a set of generic English words. And some more English words that seem to be geared toward emotional health. Gutt, I could use some.

            And they’re all mixed together on the front of my metal desk because bored madelas and pishers like to create silly sentences combining words from multiple sets. Problem is, the school has closed, not just for summer but forever, so I must pry my words off my desk and take them home, along with everything else that’s been mysteriously multiplying in my classroom for the last fifteen years. Feh!

            But I must sort them into the correct packages first. The space words blessedly are white print on black background, immediately distinguishing them from the other sets. I don’t have to read them, but I end up reading some anyway. Cargo bay. Planet. Meteor. I noticed yesterday that several smaller words have lodged themselves into the seam of the desk. I will have to bring tweezers since I can’t transport them out, and I don’t want them to be Lost in Space.

            The pet words are larger and orange. The set includes a picture of a dog and a cat and a fish skeleton. I suppose the stray cat ate the fish. I think I will send them to a friend, so she and her newly adopted kitten can bond while they play with them on the refrigerator.

            This sorting would have been a good activity for my young fraynds during final exams week; we could have kibitzed while they purged my desk. But I didn’t know the first week of June would be my last final exams week at WCA. Oy vey!

            I’m fairly certain I will not find all the words that settled into the crevices and crannies of the classroom. Even the industrial vacuum cleaner will likely not locate them all. That’s okay. I gladly (and sadly) leave little pieces of myself behind to bless the space that has so blessed me..