Begin Again

When you are retiring, everyone asks, "So what are your plans?" After much thought, I realized that my best answer to them and to myself, is that I simply plan to "Begin Again."

“Begin Again.” That’s what the coach on my morning meditation app consistently advises. My recent retirement has me feeling that it’s time to walk that talk, to apply it, and to write about it.

A week ago, on June 9th, I turned in a single key to my principal. The key that opened the door to 1070 Tolman Creek Road - my teaching career at Bellview elementary school for the last thirty years. Three decades! My entire adult life so far. I started teaching in the late 90’s. That’s when Bill Clinton was president. The movie Titanic came out in the theaters. The final season of Seinfeld was airing, a dozen eggs cost just over a dollar, and Princess Diana died in a car crash. It was then that I first learned what email was. I taught through pregnancy and raising my two sons. I taught through love, divorce, relationships and break ups. I taught through losing homes and changing homes. I learned how to thrive as a single working mom. I taught through back surgery and breast cancer, and the Covid Pandemic. I taught through 6 presidencies, four principals, four grade level changes, and at least ten different curriculums. On a shoestring budget I planned and executed my own adventures during my time off - solo hiking/backpack trips in the mountains around my home, exploring Costa Rica, Hawaii and Mexico, river rafting, sea kayaking and paddleboarding, spontaneous road trips, and lots of on & off-grid camping. I taught through the deaths of colleagues very close to me. I taught through the “empty nest syndrome,” and marveled at my boys growing into men. I taught as I committed to Hospice care, and lovingly supporting the death of my beloved mom. I taught through the rise of social media, smart phones, and screens - and witnessed firsthand, in my classroom, the devastation it’s now having on society.

At my recent school retirement reception, I was humbled and filled with joy at how many of my students, now grown up, came back to tell me that I was their favorite teacher, and that I had a profound impact on their life. I felt the love and support of too many families to count.

Now, the teaching career that defined a huge part of me is done. My classroom is empty not only of kids, but of all the posters, toys, books, pencils and crayons it housed for all those years. It’s a “ghost classroom,” waiting for the next teacher to move in.

Now, I begin again. I will decompress, get rest, and finally stay that way for longer than a 2-month summer break. It’s going to take time to unwind the old me and accept this “new me.” My thoughts, memories and future plans feel like a tangled-up rope that is securing an old boat to a wooden dock. Through writing, I hope to slowly untangle that rope, the loops and twists methodically getting undone, one by one, and the knots getting looser. Perhaps someday the rope will be smooth, even untied, so that the boat, and my mind, will be set free.

In my blog, through writing and photography, I hope to build a community of folks who are curious and inspired. I will collect the bits and pieces of my life, however big or small, and contain them, here, in this virtual space. At the older age of fifty-eight I’m still a keen observer and a deep feeler. I’m extremely sensitive. I notice and overthink everything! In this space I will not compartmentalize my writing. I will simply enjoy the process and share it with others - with you! I will write about things that have relevance to me - everything from my experiences in nature to the wisdom of children, to the curse of cancer and the angels of Hospice, to the details each day that I notice and feel grateful for. I will capture here how I got through the shitty things, and how I’ve managed to open up my mistakes as though they were gifts - receiving the lessons, growing my wisdom, integrating. I want to write about things like the reverence I feel each time I spot a bald eagle perched on a snag, or a heron fishing on a lake shore. I want to write to share the elation I have when I see another morning sunrise from my paddle board. It’s new, it’s different, it will never be again! In my writing I want to describe my delightful friends, my bumpy and fulfilling relationships, my incredible sons, and my beloved mom and dad.

So…. Bring on the time for an extra cup of coffee and the use of this laptop for something other than lesson planning. Bring on endless wanderings in the woods and paddling on lakes, with my camera instead of a clock. Bring on the glorious and tattered vignettes of my life that will finally have the space to be honored and reflected on through written words. Bring on the peaceful piano background music and the blinking cursor, ready and waiting for my art.

I hope you’ll join me; it’s time to begin again.

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