Change

"Wonder - is not precisely Knowing." Emily Dickinson

(art by Amanda Blake)

I have lived in the same house for over twenty-five years. Clearly I do not care for change. Yet the only constant in life is change. The evolution of our creature hood, of time, of the world - for better or for worse. Yet I am a creature of habit. My routines become a kind of sacred ritual for me: make myself coffee, watch the birds at the feeders, gaze at the sunrise, read poetry, listen to early morning birdsong as I go out the door to work, breathe in the luxurious extravagant scent of the New Dawn Roses. It is a way of focusing myself, of centering myself in something other than myself. Rooting myself more deeply in this wondrous, ever changing world.

The other morning, the sky was mostly overcast, except for a bold swatch of reds and pinks - as if to remind me that beauty will always find a way.

I cling to beauty like a life raft in the constant tides of change.

When I’m in my classroom. I have my morning routine, which includes sharpening pencils. There is something glorious about the scent of newly sharpened pencils.

A large crow flies past my windows.

Wasps continue to make my their nests in the overhang near the back door of my classroom.

There is only the sound of the air conditioner.

I sit at my desk and I take the small copy of Walt Whitman’s poetry from my drawer. I open it up and read this passage from Leaves of Grass

Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know.
Perhaps it is everywhere - on water and land.

The morning sky is beginning to lighten. There are soft pinks tinged on the white clouds.

One of my coworkers goes past with, “Good morning.”

This week began with an email telling me that I was going to be moved to second grade next year; after only being in first grade for one year. After I have settled into my classroom, made it my own, begun to get my feet under me with the first grade curriculum, bonded with those teachers on my grade level.

I sit here, looking out at the morning, and feel a kind of grief. And anxiousness.