Mountains

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I just read a blog post called “Climbing Mountains” on infertility which spoke to me. Even as I sit here, growing larger with my second bun in the oven, it was written in a way that A) helped me to find empathy on a deeper level than I had before B) felt so universal, and C) opened my eyes to new gratitude.

The writer is Suzy Krause of Suzy Krause and the Skyscrapers and Coffee + Crumbs.

Some of the piece hit a very personal note with me – seemingly articulating my own challenges, though of a very different variety:

If I could tell myself one thing…[i]t would be that no matter how this all turns out, this time of wanting and waiting and hoping is so valuable. That’s all. It’s a life lesson for all stages, no matter if what you’re waiting for is a baby or a partner, or a job, or a train. This is an opportunity to grow, to learn, to experience joy that’s not dependent on life’s circumstances…

I hadn’t known when I started this climb how long it would take, or how hard it would be. Or I how much I would learn and grow and stretch and be changed. Or how beautiful the view would be from up here. But as I sat there, I decided this moment was well worth the journey. That’s the thing about mountains, I guess. People wouldn’t go through all the work to climb them if there wasn’t something amazing at the end.

Transitions

My student teacher started today. I am so grateful.

I was talking with him yesterday about his plans for the week, and he was so full of energy, life, creativity, and ideas. My first reaction was to beat myself up for not bringing that kind of passion lately. Though I don’t think I have been slack or doing a poor job, he is just so full-to-the-brim with vitality and verve.

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Then I realized that I am so grateful that he is here right now to bring that idealism and that creativity to our classroom. I am here to help funnel that energy into productive lessons. He is bringing the newness; I am bringing the experience. It’s a good balance. And one that I need so badly right now.

Maya comes with me to work on the weekends
Maya comes with me to work on the weekends

This is a time for major transition for me, and that’s okay. Spending my outside “free” time working on new ideas for school is just not my truth today. It has been, and maybe it will be again, but it’s not right now. This experience with hosting a student teacher has granted me time: time to take care of all of the necessary, logistical, and professional things that are required of me. The gift of not having to use my outside time to take care of nuts and bolts, which must come before creativity, but often does not!

And if I get those things taken care of, then maybe I can use some of these gifted days to find my creative thought again, though they may be less of the teaching variety and more geared toward the new version of my life. One with two kids, no day job, new ventures, a possible new home.

It’s time to put my creative energy toward this new portrait, and also toward my own writing – in a journal, on the blog, in some stories. Our story is changing and I am so ready and so excited.

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I would like to remember how I built some of my favorite lessons and apply those habits and skills to my new writing life. I have felt proud, energized, and successful in those moments of inspired teaching and planning, and I would like to continue to experience the joy of that kind of satisfaction and productivity.

Inspired by Khaled Hosseini - I wrote a lesson plan on the back of my book mark for "And the Mountains Echoed"
Inspired by Khaled Hosseini – I wrote a lesson plan on the back of my book mark for “And the Mountains Echoed”

I will have about a month of teaching left after my student teacher wraps up his tenure here, and I have no doubt that in these meantime weeks, I will find my most favorite, most cared for, most loved, most thoughtful lessons to share with my classes before I officially exit this building.

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View when I leave work in the winter
My view when I leave work
View when I leave work in the spring

 

Who knows exactly what’s next, but I embrace this changing chapter.

 

T.S. Eliot’s take on change and reflection, appropriate for the new year

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From “Little Gidding” by T.S. Eliot

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
But as the passage now presents no hinderance
To the spirit unappeased and peregrine
Between two worlds become much like each other,
So I find words I never thought to speak…

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem is an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea’s throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.

2015, Welcome.

Earlier this year, I posted this brief tidbit about recognizing the balance of “good” years and more trying ones. I don’t think any entire years are throwaway ones – good things happen in the more trying years, and hard things occur in the most prosperous ones.

I am grateful for all of the growth that has come from this challenging year, but I must admit that I am breathing a sigh of relief to bid adieu to 2014, and I am welcoming this symbolic/calendar fresh start with open arms.

And though this has been a tough year, so many good things have happened, and there have been so many joyful moments. Here are my favorite photos from 2014 – a reminder that every day is an occasion to make something great happen, and a dark and cloudy time has beauty as well.

New Years 2014
New Years 2014
My sister and Sam, New Years 2014
My sister and Sam, New Years 2014

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She turned 2!
She turned 2!

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4th of July
4th of July

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