Take me to the river, and let me see again.

"Fifth grade! Let's get one thing straight before we start our day together. Yes, Miss Davis has a giant sunburn across her forehead. Yes, you can see a clear outline of her headband she wore yesterday in white in the middle of her forehead. It's funny. It's okay to laugh a little bit. She should probably be a little more responsible next time. That being said, we can't talk about it all day. We have way too much to do."

I walked down the rows of experimental corn with a mesh bag hooked to my belt, work sunglasses strapped to my head and dirt softly pelting my face as the wind groaned every few minutes. I thought early in the day about the sun, about what its effects would probably be, but I quickly forgot.

The fifth through eighth graders picked corn all day on Wednesday as a fundraiser for the year. It was fun. It was a lot more work than I expected it to be. And when a fellow teacher showed up to give rides back to school, I could tell by the look in her eyes when she saw me that my prediction about the sun had been right.

Thank God parent-teacher conferences aren't this week. Thank. God.

If there were a prize for looking the most insane at a job, I think I would have won for the remainder of last week. You can even see the faint, white silhouette of where the feather my student stuck in my headband rested against my hair line.

Don't worry though. I've been aloe-ing like a champ. It was worth it. Standing in that field with miles of indigo sky unfolding around me like Muddy Water's guitar seemed like the only thing we should be doing on that warm and windswept day.

I addressed all of my classes like that on Thursday. Immediately after that a student walked into my classroom late.

"Miss Davis, you are so sunburn. Your forehead looks hilarious."

Sigh... "You're right."