Monday, October 04, 2010

Winds and Thoughts

Today the wind is working hard among the trees outside my classroom, as though it’s performing some special deeds out there, but the ideas passing through my life seem soft and easygoing. No great ideas have been stirring today -- no inspiring brainstorms about teaching, no unused and rousing ways to present lessons, no refreshing wisdom. All day I have been living with thoroughly unruffled mental weather – a wonderful situation for daydreams and castles in the sky, but not so good for a teacher who waits for ideas the way sailors wait for the wind. As I watch the trees tumbling in the wind outside, I wish a little of that rough and ready liveliness would let itself loose in my mind, but I know, at the same time, that weathers in the mind, like weathers among trees, must constantly change and rejuvenate themselves. Tomorrow the trees might be stock-still and soundless, and a great idea about teaching might break open and blow through my mind. Next week, no winds whatsoever might make their way among the trees, while inside my life good gusts of ideas for class might constantly start up. It takes patience, I guess – watching the weather and thoughts. I have to wait and watch and, before long, I’ll see that both winds and thoughts work the way they must, moment by moment and day by day.

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