At a recent teacher’s inservice based on Parker Palmer’s The Courage to Teach, I was given time to write a resolution to myself–a resolution to have teaching become a sustainable career. All embarrassment of my sentimental gushiness aside, it was a well-timed, (perhaps career-saving) workshop, where I uncovered some important revelations, which I realize are now within my grasp to attain:
I commit to sustain, better yet, to cultivate my life- to dirty my hands in my yard, to prepare my grass to be played on, run on, camped on- to prepare my little plot of earth for fruit trees- plums, apples and pears- to build a strawberry tower, and fill it with bulbous fruit.
I commit to drinking a good red wine with my wife, while we sit and swoon on our back porch that is strung with paper lanterns and hanging flower baskets.
I will play catch with my sons whenever they ask me to. I will see every inning and cheer at every game. I will write to live, and live to write, reclaiming my body on Misery Ridge. I will remember every ridge that I have balanced myself upon and take the time to be silent.
And in that stillness, I will remember a story worth telling; no, beyond telling. I will hone my craft, and show my students the power of their stories. I will show them how to speak for themselves- show them the power of so many other stories, so that some day, in a time of great need, those stories mingled together with their own will have the power to transform their lives for the better.
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