Imagine the Possibilities

The beginning of the school year has a certain feel linked to many memories – new shoes that still feel a little stiff, carefully chosen lunch bags (Hello Kitty for her, plain brown for him, Vera for me), and anxious anticipation. I’ve been through dozens of first weeks of school as a child, a teacher, and a mother. Invariably there were sleepless nights leading up to those beginnings filled with concerns and questions.

Yesterday was the first day back for the teachers in the school district where I spent my last years of teaching, and I found my thoughts wandering to them all day. What were they doing? Hearing about? How were the classroom setups going? Did the books they ordered arrive in time?

It is no wonder that I’ve had trouble sleeping the past few nights. The rhythms of the school year are a part of me. They are in my bones. They influence my actions just as predictably as the rhythms of nature signal to birds and butterflies that it’s time to start their migration, and magically transform the coats of snowshoe hares from chocolate brown to wintry white.

Always a teacher. It’s in my bones.

I know some of you have been back to school for weeks, but I wish everyone a year filled with success and wondrous experiences.

A few years ago Allan and I took a midwinter vacation to the southwest. We wanted mainly to see the red rock area of Sedona, but I also wanted to visit Sante Fe and the Georgia O’Keefe Museum. Since there would be some driving involved, a friend suggested listening to some audio books to pass the time. In particular she recommended the Navajo mysteries by Tony Hillerman that take place in the area we would be visiting. While these stories wouldn’t have been my first choice, it was wonderful to hear the descriptions from the text and look out the window to see nearly the same thing. It was a little like living in a picture book. The characters I met in those books helped me to more deeply understand life in that area.

Something similar happened while I was visiting Kill Devil Hills, NC this past spring. I started reading The Wright Brothers by David McCullough, and immediately I felt an appreciation of that place where so much happened years before and where I now stood.

Last week while visiting Chautauqua Lake in New York, my friend suggested I read Clear Skies, Blue Water, written by her friend and fellow resident, Beth Peyton. This memoir is a celebration of the power of place and community to heal and restore. I’m glad I started the book while I was there and able to see first-hand the lake she loves and read about the people who touched her life in such a special way. It helped me feel so much more as I read.

Sometimes we are drawn to read about places we are preparing to visit, or have visited. But the experience of reading about a place while you are there, perhaps for the first time, is powerful for me. While well shaped characters and an interesting plot are important to any story, an author’s ability to develop that sense of place is equally essential. I think this is something to keep in mind as we work with our young writers.

Last Saturday was the day for the second annual Cappelli girls’ broadway show tradition! Last summer I wrote about starting the tradition because my daughter mentioned that she had never seen a Broadway show. So on Saturday, Ann and I boarded the NJ Transit in Trenton and made our way to 42^nd street for brunch with my son and daughter-in-law. Then Jane, Ann, and I headed over to the Marquis Theater to see On Your Feet!, a musical about Gloria and Emilio Estefan. The show was fantastic and had just about everything you would want to see in a musical – great songs, energetic dancing, and a heartfelt story about the power of perseverance, hard work, and believing in your dreams. It was raining when we exited the theater at the end of the show, but that did little to dampen our spirits. We pretty much did the conga all the way to Penn Station! Thank you, Broadway! We’ll be back next year.

One day last week I took my regular early morning stroll down the driveway to retrieve the newspaper. I was about halfway on my journey when I suddenly stopped and looked around. For one split second I wasn’t sure where I was. Everything (trees, houses, flowers, grass) was familiar, but yet they all looked different. Then I remembered that our neighbors across the street had two large pine trees taken down the day before, so the sunlight filtering through the remaining trees was altered. It created different shadows and illuminated different parts of the flowers and grass. A small change that made a difference in my view of the world, that made me stop and notice.

That experience got me thinking about the power of small changes in other areas of life. For instance, a small change in a classroom environment – providing areas for partnerships or small groups to talk – might result in increased student collaboration. A decision to provide more choice in reading or writing instruction might help a teacher look differently at her students as they reveal unexpected information about themselves.

And it doesn’t stop there. What if we all made just one small change in how we treat each other, or how we learn and play together? It might not change the world, but it might bring us closer together. When we make small changes in the way we have always done things, we get to see things from a different perspective, and that can make all the difference.