September Resolutions & New School Year

My favorite people!

I have been in school for 42 years.  Is it any wonder then, that I think of September as the true "New Year" and that my mind turns without fail to thoughts of reassessing what I have done, what I have failed to do, and what I want to improve the next time around.

Teachers are a bit like farmers.  Our life revolves in cycles with the seasons.  We plant seeds that may not bear fruit until we are long gone and we sometimes feel like nothing changes, like we are caught in a routine of plodding through the same tired, worn out tracks until we can't hardly lift our heads from the pillow, which we do long before the sun does.  But then things change fast when they do change, from tiny kids to graduates, growing in spurts and blooming when our eyes are turned away for only a moment. Volunteering to grow in untilled soil where only a moment ago there was no sign of life.

 The routines seem unvaried with each season, open a cabinet you closed last year, put up the poser you have already pinned to the wall in the same place 9 years running, greet another room filled so tightly with young bodies that you know you have to go on a diet or you will never be able to squeeze those adult sized hips between the rows to see what the question is there in the middle of the room.

 But the routines can change, and the students are different, though they may have the same faces and last names and stun you by saying, "You used to teach my Dad. (Grandpa)"  Every year, the freshly custodianed classroom waits in pure potential.  This year can be different.  This year you can be all things to all people.  You can be super Mom, wonder teacher, writer for the crowds of adoring fans who will discover you.

 You can save the world, and your sanity and read the classics and get in shape.  And Blog about it as you do it.

You can wake up with a smile and kick the coffee habit and do your yoga and learn to fly a jet.  You can live all the dreams that Dr. Seuss promised you when you were going into the first, first day of school.

You can, again try to be better than you have been at the very same time that you can smile and love yourself, flaws and all.

 So I have been filling out calendar pages with commitments to myself and taking the time to see what I have accomplished this summer.

Goals                                                                   Reality

Repaint the house                          Well, really it hadn't happened in 15 years had it?

Publish my second Novel               YES!  Duffy Barkley:  Seek Well is available from bookstores and Amazon

Get in shape                                    No! moving hurts!  my shoulder is in agony, and there was good food by the computer while I was writing!

Go Camping with my family            Yes!  Not as Much as I wanted, but yes!!  And with friends

Enjoy the summer before my son's senior year          Yes!!  And make sure he knows I love him

Declutter the house                          Flylady helped but only in babysteps. Closet cleaned out, bookshelves done but piles still in sunroom

publicize my books                          some yes, some no  getting the hang of it to the point of boring some friends

 Things have not been perfect.  People have died, friends have needed my time, but that is Life, the part that reminds me that I am alive, for all the pain and laughter come with loving and living and being open to the world

 There is so much beauty in this world, and if I only teach my students one thing, I want to teach them to look beyond the negative news and the scary stories to the beauty and the goodness.

 I was reading an article about 9-11 and how everyone wants to remember, but this one man was saying we should remember, because we can't forget anyway, but what we really need to remember is 9-12, when the world hurried to help each other, and there was caring and support and love offered to the families - and we were all family.  Even when we feel alone and targeted, there is someone willing to come into the rubble and help us out

This September that's what I want to hold on to.