Miss

Miss was our first teacher of English. We were thirteen. She was twenty three. We called her Miss even when we addressed her in Bulgarian as she was different from all the other teachers. She was of one of us yet she was outstanding. Miss represented a brand-new world of coolness to which we instinctively aspired to belong. We liked Milli Vanilli. She liked The Grateful Dead, Jethro Tull and Carlos Castaneda. She anointed us with stories about hippies and punks, wild university parties, grand exhibitions, crazy trips. Those stories always had substance to them, a substance that ignited our imagination.
We looked up to her and felt privileged to be a part of the Sublime World signified by Miss.

She exuded a perfect mixture of awe, style and humanity. When she came on a mountain holiday with us one summer, we felt ecstatic to have a patron and a guru.

Miss was all-rounded, intelligent and cutting-edge. Like the bulk of the 13-year-old Bulgarian students at the time, we ate sunflower seeds in class. Once, Miss got so worked-up about it, she threatened to turn the tables. And so she did. She ate sunflower seeds in front of the class, at her stately desk. We were so utterly confused that we stopped. We'd been given our own medicine. And cured.
Another time, when we were blatantly reluctant to absorb knowledge, Miss made us practice "sleep therapy". We had to close our eyes and listen to her read. It was a most engaging sleep which caused our teenage reluctance to vanish in thin air.

Everything she did added to the lustre of the big shiny unattainable bubble called Miss.

Now, 20 years later, she is a mother of two and a Facebook friend. Sometimes we chat. About Life and ordinray things. Yet in my heart of hearts, I know that she will always be an embodiment of a Life Less Ordinary. She will be the better, the wittier, the wiser. No matter what. Our paragon. Our gift. Our invention.
Miss.

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