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When the summer ends...
Today's the first day of classes. I got the first one out of the way, a class of fourteen 10th grades. Everything went according to plan, which is nothing short of amazing. It all timed out just right.
One of the first things we did, after introductions, was to write in journals. They'll be writing in journals several times a week and really writing something every day. It's good for them. With my first class, I decided to journal along with them--it's an easy way to get a blog entry, right? The students are instructed to write for 10 minutes without stopping, so of course I wrote for 6 or 7. Here was the prompt:
"In the summer we believe
That all our dreams can be achieved
In Love and Lady Charity
In endless possibilities
That there is a better way to be
When the summer ends so do we." --Stephen Kellogg, "Summer"For most of us growing up, summer is our time of relative freedom, and thus it’s the time that we dream about all the things that we can do and be and experience. With that in mind, for the next 10 minutes I want you to write about your own dreams for the summer. What did you hope to do/be/experience in the summer that’s just passed and how did the actuality measure up? Conversely, looking ahead to summer (already!) what would you like to do/be/experience next summer?
And I wrote:
I remember one summer in college, I planned to write an opera. An ambitious project, I know. What made it even harder was that I was planning on using a text that wasn’t finished and wasn’t even directly ready to become an opera. It was the poem “Hero and Leander,” I can’t recall the poet now. Renaissance, died young. So I planned not only to write an opera, but to essentially re-write the text to make it a libretto and finish the story.
Do I need to tell you that I never finished it? Never even started it, in fact.
That’s what summer will do to you though: lull you into thinking that the warm days will never cease and that you can do anything, be anything. Summer is a time of possibilities when we’re daydreaming about it, but it’s a time of actualities when we’re living it, and often those things that we dreamed for our summer don’t happen.
The appeal of summer, the reason that we dream so much in the summer, is that it’s so wide open, but that’s the thing that trips us up. There’s always another summer day tomorrow, but we wear out each tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow to the end of August, and we’re suddenly back for another school year, back to work and we’re still substantially the same as we were in the spring, just a little more recharged. We’ve accomplished pretty much what we’d already accomplished in the spring, with just a few things tacked on for good measure, but we somehow haven’t measured up to summer’s promise.
The good news is that summer will come around again for us, just give it a couple months. At least, it will if you’re bright enough to make a career in education. Someone once said “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” I would like to edit that comment just a bit: “those who don’t know how much time is worth spend all their time doing; those who’d like some time to be, those who never want to stop learning, they teach.” It’s not as succinct, I know. Oh well, maybe I’ll take some time to revise it next summer.
The poet, by the way, was Christopher Marlowe.
I liked summer when I was a kid, mainly because I was off a schedule and my
time was largely my own to do as I please. Add to that many days at the
beach, and summer was a winner.
Living in Minnesota doesn’t give you a whole lot of summer, when I am not
donating blood to the mosquitoes; I love to be outside with the dogs.
Sometimes we all just lie in the grass and watch the clouds go by. Perfect
for daydreaming! I’m really going to miss that when the snow starts to fly!
Nice to read your blog again. How did it feel starting a new school year
in a different school? Was it deja vu all over again or did it seem really
different?
Ahh, summer. Everyday was an adventure. Running through the woods.
Swimming in the pond. Riding mini bikes. Fishing. Endless hours of
baseball and kick the can. Camp outs and the misery of poison ivy.
Reading books while tanning. Discovering boys. Discovering fun things to
do with boys. Realizing you were growing up and there wouldn't be long
lazy summers to explore a new boy. (Ok, those last few were the teenage
years.) A girl can still dream. Thanks for the memories.
I love the summers spent by a lake and hiking in the woods. It gives me
time to think and sometimes write. No more long forest hikes now though.
My dog is getting too old and I am just hoping he is with me next year to
lie next to me and watch the sunset over the water.