Today I saw a girl, maybe 7 or 8 years old, with braids in her hair and a poster board bigger than her younger brother. I felt her excitement-the excitement of standing up in front of the class with my braids, the excitement of the summer and running around barefoot, even the excitement to go to school that day. It made me sad to be a grown up with all of our doleful grown up troubles and worries. In that moment I considered being a teacher, if only to stay young at heart. I have contemplated teaching many times, as I'm sure all English majors do, but I especially find teaching enchanting because I see first hand how much my sister loves her kids and how they love her in return and what a simple joy that brings her.
When I was young, very young, I wanted to be a marine biologist. I wanted to be a marine biologist for two primary reasons. The first was because my best friend Beth wanted to be an astronaut and had found an astronaut school in Florida. I was sure that was the perfect place to be a marine biologist, even if it was a little far from Disney World. We planned to live together and eat pop tarts for breakfast and salisbury steak for lunch and dinner every day, or whatever kids imagine adults to do. The second reason was that I was excellent at drawing dolphins and it's important to be able to doodle what you love all over your notebooks.
Since then I've wanted to be an actor, journalist, children's book writer and professional reader and if anyone knows if professional reader is an actual job, please let me know. My point is that I've never had any sort of path that bellows and squawks for me to take it. The tone of jealousy I set in my last post about Lauren's graduation runs much deeper than an iPad. But jealousy isn't quite the right word. Jealousy implies I want what she has and for her not to have it, but that is hardly the case.
Recently I read a graduation speech that defines what Lauren has and what you have and what I have, but what I have (and maybe you have) yet to find out.
"There’s a line by the Italian writer Carlo Levi that I think is apt here: 'The future has an ancient heart.' I love it because it expresses with such grace and economy what is certainly true—that who we become is born of who we most primitively are; that we both know and cannot possibly know what it is we’ve yet to make manifest in our lives."
When Lauren was young, very young, she set up a blackboard and desk in the corner of our room. She would mostly teach Teddy but I believe a few neighbors got roped into taking tests at that desk. There's been no ambiguity about Lauren growing up to teach young kids. Even on the longest days of student teaching and babysitting and school and work, she'd come home exhausted and a little pink in the cheeks, but also with a cache of adorable stories about her kids. I'm very happy for Lauren, the kids deserve her. I hope everyone finds what they knew they'd always do, if only so y'all wouldn't be so grumpy on Mondays.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment