Tomorrow will be my first day back as a teacher, and so it seems appropriate and necessary to close with my final thoughts sifted through the lens of my days back in Texas. My first impulses are of gratitude to Fund for Teachers for making this trip possible. They provided the entire ticket, which left me free to experience and record what was wholly unforgettable. They knew it would put me back on the map to be charted by my students in the years to come.
I dance with perspective as I look back to Cumbria. I can see it through the eyes of poets and peasants, sheep and cattle, mice and dung beetles. I know it from those moments when I was lost, from the crooked rings on the map, and from the compass. I can feel it in the stillness of the mountain tarn, in the thick mist at the top of a pass, under the arms of a footpath sign, through a gate, and despite the stubborn rubble beneath my boots. I can hear it in the silence of the moors, the howling of the wind, the bleating of the lambs, the lowing of the cows and the constant song of water somewhere deeply underfoot. Only feet away from finding a lamb that had lost its way, I found mine. The difference between me and the mountains became negligible. I know why the poets came here.
To walk the Lake District requires enormous energy, faith, and tenacity. Although it shows no favors with the mist, the rain, and the wind, its beauty belongs in books and dreams. The writers who walked here may have arrived world-weary, but left, like me, full-hearted. There is a part of me I left behind above Stony Tarn. It was in a moment when I forgot where the landscape ended and I began.
O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell,
Let it not be among – whence the dell,
Its flowery slopes, its river’s crystal swell,
May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep
‘ Mongst boughs pavillion’d, where the deer’s swift leap
Startles the wild bee from the fox-glove bell.
But though I’ll gladly trace these scenes with thee,
Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind,
Whose words are images of thoughts refin’d,
Is my soul’s pleasure; and it sure must be
Almost the highest bliss of human-kind,
When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.
John Keats, 1815 or 1816
Hope your 1st days with students have been fun! My son Eric’s been inspired by Keats for his most recent art project—so once again, you two have merging interests. You look so rested and happy in the recent photo that I must congratulate you. I too am rested and happy, spending days thus far however I wish to celebrate my retirement, often ending up in Galveston in pursuit of birds or dolphins—not a bad life!
By: Marji on August 27, 2008
at 4:08 pm