Busy. That’s how it is these days. And I’m talking Every Minute. I’m talking I have to remind myself to rest here. I’m talking I don’t have time to write in this blog right now but I’m doing it because, honestly, it helps to keep me sane. Really Stinking Busy.
Yes, I’m walking with my head down, doing the next thing, sitting in the van and then sitting at my desk and then teaching my class and then more sitting at my desk, computer in front of me, books splayed across my desk and one in my lap, and then– so frequent, so welcome, so constant– conversations with students. And then I find myself back in the van, and here are the conversations with my children and we are busy together until, you guessed it, bedtime. And then I’m back at it again with the books…. Or I will be, shortly.
I went for a walk on Saturday morning. Walks are among my favorite things. But it wasn’t until halfway through this walk that I began to really see it: the gloss of light on the thinnest of branches; the pale apricot-colored leaves, furled like wings on a newborn butterfly, still clinging to the branches of some of the lower trees; the roar and sigh of the wind in the tops of the empty trees. I stopped walking. I looked at it, and felt the wind, and looked.
Mondays are hard days. I am so Fully Reminded of how much I love being home over the course of the two-day weekend. The sorrow begins on Sunday night; I wake before the alarm goes off; I do not want to get out of bed. And this from someone who loves her job.
Today was harder than most. Nothing truly dreadful, but still. It was a day of reminders of how broken we all are, of how even the best intentions can go completely awry. Tears in the eyes of more than one student, the causes unrelated, or not. Adults flummoxed in mind and heavy in heart. We’re all floundering, I think sometimes. Trying hard, hoping for the best, falling fairly flat.
I taught my class. It went reasonably well. And then I sat at my desk preparing, preparing for the weeks ahead. The upcoming vocabulary list was on the computer screen, and trusty Merriam-Webster was in my hand. I was looking for a strong definition for heretic. And of course I know what it means, but it’s one thing to know what something means, and Another Thing Entirely to be able to explain to others in a clear and concise fashion what a word means. And that, you see, is part of my job.
But the dictionary, as I have said more than once before, is a dangerous thing. I am forever getting snagged on other words, just as, when I’m paying attention, I can get snagged on the pale winter light that glosses the thin bareness of a tree limb.
“hepatic adj: of, relating to, affecting, associated with, supplying, or draining the liver” Ugh. How very unpleasant. And all the words (they are few) that share this root float vaguely into my awareness: Hepatitis, I think. Oh.
But the dictionary wasn’t finished with me yet. Because even the dictionary can do it, can get me out there where the wind is blowing. Yes, the dictionary just ever so gently took hold of my chin today and lifted my head and simply Helped Me To See:
“hepatica n: any of a genus of herbs related to the buttercups that have lobed leaves and delicate white, pink or bluish flowers.”
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.– Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
—William Wordsworth
