Repost - Adventures and Misadventures of What?

Pin It Originally posted on August 26, 2008

I wrote this just over a year ago at the commencement of a new school year. I was just starting out at a new school; it was a brand-new adventure...

So, Teachinfourth…the name of your blog is “Adventures & Misadventures of Daily Living” yet you don’t post every day. Why is that? Can it really be daily adventures if you don’t blog about these experiences?

Ah, quite the astute observation my friend.

Whist I admit that I don’t blog every day, I am trying to do something a little bit different…every day I am trying to live my life. There are adventures to be had and I can’t recall how many of these I have let pass me up; usually because of something which seemed so pressing, or because of my very innate nature which causes me to hold back at times.

When I was walking up to my place of work a day or four ago, I caught my eye in the glass entry doors. I gazed back at the young man standing before me, laden down with his laptop, camera case, and a bag full of school books. I stood there for very nearly a minute…it was as if I could see beyond my reflection…into something much deeper.

As I looked back into the eyes of my unmoving reflection, I was taken with this thought, “You only have one life, and you’re only young once. You need to be living that life for all it’s worth.”

I won’t say that it was a voice which spoke, because it wasn’t…however, it was something which struck me with a harsh realization, like a gust of icy-cold wind in the middle of August. That realization was that I have not always been living the adventure known as life.

Maybe these thoughts were the result of my witnessing some of the terrible things to people around me, or maybe it was because of the feeling of my own mortality, but regardless of the reason, it hit me all the same.

You, like me, only have one life…are you living yours?

The Marrow of Life

Pin It It was Henry David Thoreau who once penned the words, “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.”

What does this mean? What is he saying? Why did he say it?

While I cannot speak for Mr. Thoreau, and I guess it really isn’t that important to me, I know how this applies to my own life…

I was with a friend of mine tonight. We went out because of a life-changing event in the pathway she is walking. This event is not necessarily a good thing.

As we talked this evening and enjoyed our dinner—as well as each others’ company—I couldn’t help but think about the simple pleasures I have in this life. The things about me which I often take for granted. I hope you will forgive my indulgence by mentioning a few of these varied bits and pieces…

• Eating spoonful of cookie dough, as the sweetness of it beckons you to fetch a glass of milk.
• Walking on a brisk afternoon as the scent of autumn wafts about on the breeze.
• Watching a sunset as it sets the sky ablaze in an orchestra of color.
• Wearing a brand-new pair of flannel pajamas, and feeling the warmth of a blanket wrapped about you on a frosty night.
• The smell of freshly-baking bread and eating it, fresh off of the loaf, with little wells of melted butter like lakes on its surface.
• Talking to a dear friend for hours on end about nothing in particular—and enjoying each others’ company with so many common experiences we’ve shared.
• Watching the stars above you, as they watch you back on a warm, lazy summer night with an ensemble of crickets lulling you into slumber.
• Listening to that song…you know the one…the one I haven’t heard it in such a long time and then suddenly, there it is again. I love it even more than the first time I’d heard it.
• To shoulder a backpack and head out into the lonely windswept desert hills and not see another soul for days on end. It’s just she and I.

You might say that tonight was yet another reminder to me that life is meant to be lived deeply—and to the fullest.

“Live life so completely that when death comes like a thief in the night, there will be nothing left for him to steal.”

- Unknown

It sounded like a good idea until it meant me

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Recess had ended, and I was walking my class down the hallway back to room 18. One of my students, whom I’ll choose to call ‘Joey,’ lingered behind the others and asked;

“Mr. Z? How many kids are in our class?”

“27.”

“How many are in Mrs. ______’s class?”

“20.”

Joey pondered for a moment and then said, “You know what? If we moved some of the kids in our class to Mrs. ______’s class it would make everything a lot more even and fair. This way, there wouldn’t be so many kids in our class.”

“You know what, Joey, you’re right…why don’t we start by moving you?”

Joey’s eyes got as round as silver dollars, and a tone of shock filled his voice as he put out both hands to indicate a stopping motion. “No! I didn’t mean me me! I meant somebody else!”

It always is, isn’t it?

But I wouldn’t want to give any of them up…not matter how “fair” it would make it.

Adventures and Misadventures of What?

Pin It So, Teachinfourth…the name of your blog is “Adventures & Misadventures of Daily Living” yet you don’t post every day. Why is that? Can it really be daily adventures if you don’t blog about these experiences?

Ah, quite the astute observation my friend.

Whist I admit that I don’t blog every day, I am trying to do something a little bit different…every day I am trying to live my life. There are adventures to be had and I can’t recall how many of these I have let pass me up; usually because of something which seemed so pressing, or because of my very innate nature which causes me to hold back at times.

When I was walking up to my place of work a day or four ago, I caught my eye in the glass entry doors. I gazed back at the young man standing before me, laden down with his laptop, camera case, and a bag full of school books. I stood there for very nearly a minute…it was as if I could see beyond my reflection…into something much deeper.

As I looked back into the eyes of my unmoving reflection, I was taken with this thought, “You only have one life, and you’re only young once. You need to be living that life for all it’s worth.”

I won’t say that it was a voice which spoke, because it wasn’t…however, it was something which struck me with a harsh realization, like a gust of icy-cold wind in the middle of August. That realization was that I have not always been living the adventure known as life.

Maybe these thoughts were the result of my witnessing some of the terrible things to people around me, or maybe it was because of the feeling of my own mortality, but regardless of the reason, it hit me all the same.

You, like me, only have one life…are you living yours?

Room 18

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I went out to my new school today.

I guess it’s official.

After all, when it is engraved in gold, it has to be real.

Right?

Room 26

Pin It I packed up my room.

No, not my bedroom…my classroom.

As the items which made this room their home for the past several years found their way into boxes and were stacked up in the back, I could see nearly a decade of my life being put away with it. I found myself confronted by similar feelings to which I imagine Kathleen Kelly, the character in You’ve Got Mail, must have felt when her bookstore was closing down.

“Soon [I’ll] just be a memory. In fact someone, some foolish person, will probably think it’s a tribute to this [school], the way it keeps changing on you, the way you can never count on it, or something. I know, because that's the sort of thing I’m always saying. But the truth is; I’m heartbroken. I feel as if part of me has died, and no one can ever make it right.”

I know that this decision was mine and mine alone, however, how can one merely leave a place they’ve loved, had so many experiences in, and that has fundamentally changed their life?

You can’t.

I remember a friend of mine once saying, “You never truly leave a place you love. Part of it you take with you, leaving a part of yourself behind.”

It is at times like this that I question that statement. In time I will become nothing more than a faded memory…much like the faces of the past, those who’ve been a part of the school, but have faded into oblivion. Who knows these people now? Does anybody really care?

Such are the facedly-jaded moments of time which inevitably come to an end.

WE remember, but life does go on.

Today was hard and yet easy at the same time. We had graduation, photos were taken with students, and I found myself trying to prolong the inevitable…the closing down of the bookstore. As long as I was conversing with parents, having a photo taken with a student, or one of about a million other things, I was prolonging my time at the school which I’ve worked at for eight years.

However, like it inescapably does, the time came and then it passed. My life has been fundamentally changed and there is no going back. The items were moved, lights were turned off, farewells were spoken, and finally…the name plaque came down.

Room 26.

As I made ready to leave the room I found myself facing some writing left on the chalkboard by my students. It was with this that I felt a new emotion. I was not going to miss a room, but the people who made that room what it was. Like my longtime friend, Val Dixon, it is not her home which I love, but the family which make those four walls come to life.

A room is but a room.

I know that new adventures are waiting in the wings for their cue to take the center stage, but there is also a portion of my soul which dreads the change which the future is so eager to present to me.

“…my store is closing this week. I own a store. Did I ever tell you that? Probably not. It’s a lovely store—and in a week, it will be something really depressing, like a Baby Gap. I am being amazingly brave — ”

It's out of fear

Pin It It seems that nearly always it is the scary thing makes it hard for us to change…you know, that great, big, unknown thing. Why is this? It’s probably because the thing which is the most comfortable is to always stay where and what we are. The scary “unknown” thing could be much better than what we have now, yet, we often cling to that which is known, strictly out of fear.

I believe that this is it that we allow ourselves to remain in a state of “hereness,” too frightened to leave a familiarity for something which could be far greater. The point is, we’ll never know if it will indeed be better lest we try. So, while the safe thing would be to stay the same (maybe not the most comfortable though) but the safest, that which is unknown could offer us countless opportunities.

Such have been my feelings as of late. I don't know how better to say this other than the way Bilbo Baggins did...he had such a way with words:

“It’s a dangerous business, going out your front door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”