Much is made about how teachers relax over the two months of summer. This summer’s been a blast for me, and the momentum is just getting going.
When I was in college, (the BFA time around), I was a waitress at a place called The Deer Park in Newark, Delaware. After a hectic shift, I always found myself wound up, and unable to turn off the switch from my shift, and on more than one occasion staring up at the ceiling well past midnight stewing about an 8AM class. (Yes, even Art/Art Historians have to take an 8AM class once in awhile.) I think a lot of teachers feel that way, too, as they slide into summer. We’ve just been on a 180 day shift, where can’t go to the restroom on our body’s schedule, or eat at a leisurely pace, and the sheer energy of absorbing 130-150 emotional demands takes up mental and emotional space. When the school year ended this year especially I just went around somewhat dazed and bewildered, like seeing a bright light after months of darkness (Note to self: that was the sun.). Now I’ve got the groove of summer, and I’m sure by the time the end of August rolls around the transition may have a little grit involved, like stepping into a sandy flip-flop. It’ll be fine though, I am sure, because I’m doing what I love, including thinking about cool things to do for students. There’s a shiny new calendar, too, beckoning: Write in me! Plan! Prep! I’m Purple!
The Just Write class via Puget Sound Writing Project has brought me around many folks who are not teachers first, but writers first. We have a morning benediction of sorts, reminding us all not to plan or prepare, but to, you guessed it, just write. We’ve enjoyed the ‘life as writer’ insights of Jennifer Bradbury, a real honest-to-goodness working and publishing author. It’s like having an artist-in-residence as a friend/guide. (And she’s dang nice too, as well as incredibly smart and talented.)
And: secret’s out. I am having a summer romance this year. (It’s okay, you can tell my husband.) This year I’ve fallen back in love with cultivating my creative life, my teacher life, and have a somewhat grown-up family: as much as I loved when my sons were small, I am really enjoying this phase, now too: before wives and their children, just enjoying the young men they are. What a good place to be. But it didn’t just begin this summer. Last year I decided to continue a new tradition in our family of actually looking events up, buying tickets, getting in a real car, and driving to see performances and lectures by writers. So far we’ve seen Ira Glass, David Sedaris, Patton Oswalt, Neil Gaiman, the Moth Radio Hour, and have plans to see Sarah Vowell, Anthony Doerr, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and any others we can. Hearing stories live is like being read to again: just as endearing and enchanting. Music to my ears.
So I have a date to continue growing this creative life: it’s the best thing I could do. And it’s relaxing. The planning is like canning fruits and vegetables, the reading of all kinds of novels is like planting wildflower seeds and tenacious daisies and other perennials, and this blog–a Farmer’s Almanac I guess, to guide where the wind changes, and plan for the rains.
Time to go see that big yellow thing again.
