"...the sight of the stars makes me dream." - Vincent Van Gogh
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What didn't make sense today...or at least wasn't normal? Waking up and eating 3 Mr. Freezies for breakfast. Drying my hair with the air conditioner on the way to a meeting. (I was late because I got lost. This is normal.) It continues from there with a mix of necessary, yet unexpected and unplanned things. Sleeping at weird times in the day. Talking about ceiling fans with strangers? Just weird stuff.
None of this is terrible or even that jarring, but you unlock new patterns and ways of thinking when you don't wake up and brew coffee and wonder how you're going to talk to students about samurai culture in Japan or the impact of Manifest Destiny on our culture. And today I didn't have to do lunch duty either, which is important to note every once in a while because that is a pattern you are locked into. For sure. 300 kids in a cafeteria need to know that you are watching them eat their lunch every once in a while. That's the sort of thing I do in February. But in July, I eat Mr. Freezies for breakfast.
The friend I sat with is moving to Hungary in a few short weeks. We gazed at stars together last year, in a different season, on the lawn of the courthouse in Stillwater and we did this again tonight. I was glad she was feeling sentimental and that I live in a beautiful place.
It's very freeing to lay flat on your back and marvel at being only 5'6" tall in a great big world that is much bigger than we always make it seem. People always talk about that when they see stars, but in addition to that I think that they also mean that they like the space. Everything is so lateral in the busy world we are a part of. When you lay flat on your back though and concentrate on stars, things that are faraway in life but good can be paramount again. I had a very present moment tonight when summer felt here on all levels. And I knew I was enjoying it in the best way that I could.
I did some thinking about my colleagues tonight too because the first year I was a teacher the courthouse was the location for a school dance. In the first year of teaching, all little things are all consuming, and everything is a very big deal. So much comes to you, so fast. But I remember knowing then with certainty that I had been brought to very good people.
Of course it was while seeing most of the entire school on the dance floor with the backdrop of a perfect Stillwater night behind them that I felt this way. But it was also washing out empty fruit bowls at the end of the night in the kitchen with them and Student Council too. And this is a classic example of the whole 'life lived' idea that you don't dream about when you are happily and narrowly planning your adult life in college. You don't imagine the empty fruit bowl moments. But good and happy realizations can find you there too.
It was after college that I realized that God has way more of a sense of humor than people give Him credit for.
I had a similar feeling of gratitude for current colleagues earlier today when I realized that I have been spending long periods of time with my friends from school this summer. I have spent entire days with some of these friends, talking about things not related to school (such a lovely thing) and laughing a lot. They are interesting and hilarious and I usually learn a ton about the world when we talk.
I don't think that we even knew we were capable of that much conversation, but we all are. What interrupts it in the school year is the reality that we leave our conversations in the hall to go talk to students about the world. In the spring, I knew that I was going to see a diverse mix of them and invest and extend these conversations. These are the very good portions of my summer.
Go look at the stars tonight! You will be glad you did.
I'm so glad it worked out last night. It was very therapeutic for the soul.
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