Thursday, March 29, 2012

CHANGING MINDS

"Toward the Light", oil, by Thaw Malin
     I have often “changed my mind” about something, but this morning that phrase made extra-special sense. The words brought to mind someone changing a tire – replacing a road-worn, useless wheel with one that wears the look of newness and strength – or the way the weather sometimes changes in a flash, from the best sunshine to a blustery storm in what seems like seconds. Changing my mind might be a process as all-embracing as darkness changing to daylight. Perhaps when I say “I changed my mind” I really mean my life was somehow made absolutely new.  My students and I, in this sense, are made new in a non-stop sort of way during English class. We are always “changing our minds”. As we sit together in the classroom, fresh thoughts are continuously refurbishing our lives, although in the most private of ways.  Whether we wish to be or not, we are the recipients, second by second, of ideas that didn’t exist one second before – ideas that are as new as any night is when it arrives. We literally change our minds – get new minds -- moment by moment the way every new breath brings newness to our bodies. Our blood is born again and again as we work with each other to understand Shakespeare, and so are our minds and lives.
 

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