Pause

 

I feel so grateful to be in a place, at a time in my life where I can choose to step back and away from the world of education. But, it's not at all an easy thing to do for one who truly loves to teach. One of the things that has crystallized for me is how very empathetic I am by nature. I'm feeling so much for all those I do know, all those I don't, who are struggling with what is happening in and about schools right now. 

For me, experiencing remote learning largely solo was tough... and exciting. It was a time when it seemed like education could change. A time when we could have reevaluated, re-imagined, reworked. Through those difficult days ran threads of hope and promise. Amazing things happened that could have been celebrated and woven into how to move ahead. And, perhaps that will still happen. I tend to be one who hangs on to hope. But, it feels to me as if it's more that educators are being asked to revert to all that was and try to make this totally new and extremely challenging situation fit into the structures that were. It is so very troubling that opportunities are being lost due to that having to try and fit. This is not meant to cast blame. I just feel the need to put voice to what it has been like to be in the trenches from one who just climbed out.

A month or so into it all, my mother died. My story is just one among many of educators who dealt with personal challenges while finding new and creative ways to stay connected or reconnect with our students. That should be celebrated, too.

I wish the world of education could have reaped the benefits of the powerful pause that was thrust upon us. And right now, I just needed to write this as a reminder... to allow comfort with the pause that I chose for my self.

 

Pause 

 

Smooth waters slide
softly along her body
as a morning swim
revitalizes her being.
Genial clouds roll across familiar hills,
reflect in the pristine lake
that holds her body afloat.
She welcomes the enlivening
brought about by
physical momentum
in such a beautiful place.
At the very same time
she notices an underlying fatigue
that wends its way in

without clear patterns.
A sort of fuzziness
within which she can’t seem
to find clarity.
She takes a breath,
settles in once again
to the in-between.
Ah, there it is –
the suspension,
the pause.
Right there, right then
she gets it.
She doesn’t have to know
why or when or how or what.
She can miss their presence,

  feel whatever goes along with that.
She can honor her own courage
and tenacity and accomplishment.
She can allow guilt
 and wrongness and doubt
to let go.
She can and should simply,
at least for now,
 let the pause be.

Sarah Carlson

August 11, 2020