It’s been a rather quiet several months on here, at Leadmewhere.com. It’s not been an accident, really. And truly, there has been much to live. January, February, March brought student teaching in a 4th grade class in the north suburbs; 19 students, one beloved cooperating teacher, and long hours of planning, preparing, and reflecting.
As March faded into April, the pace of life become near-frantic and uncertainty, deadlines and decisions flew past, one after the other with barely a moment to rest. I agonized over writing cover letters for jobs that didn’t seem quite the right fit. I interviewed for a job that would only last two months. A relationship ended. I got the two-month job, becoming a full-time kindergarten teacher only three days after ending my student teaching. I moved out of the home of the pair of professors who taught and mentored me for years, and welcomed me with open arms into their home for the duration of my student teaching.
I remember what I wore on April 20th, my first day teaching kindergarten in the city, but many of the other details of that day- and the ones that followed- have slipped away, melting, blending together to form the eight weeks that I spent eating, sleeping, breathing- even dreaming- the care and education of 13 little children. Their struggles, voices, accomplishments, and futures consumed me, and I didn’t stop until June 10th, when those tiny people graduated from kindergarten.
I breathed, then, and even took a roadtrip to Ohio, in which I listened to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in the car, spent four days with the Jen and her sweet family, and attended a wedding to which I was not invited. Once back, I dived once more, for another year, into the planning, the preparation, the excitement of WOW Camp.
Family trips to Michigan are the order of the day in August, and it was 2am when Stevy and I finally rolled into the garage last night.
Now it’s the middle of August, and I’ve three weeks until school- and my career as a 5th grade teacher- officially begins, but I was at school today, and I know that there is work to be done, lessons to be planned, a room to be set up, even now.
There’s been so much, and there will always be so much, because this is life and it’s not meant to be spent simply willing the hours to pass. I’m doing and I’m going and I’m learning and I’m living, and really, it has been good.
But this page, the hundreds of posts I have written, are here because in the living, in the learning, I also want to remember. I see scenes that sear my heart with their beauty, and capture my imagination with what has happened, what might happen, and I want to remember that. I live moments, experiences, days, that overwhelm me with their significance, even in the mundane, and I want to capture that, record that, write that all down. And this, here, is where I do that. And I never want that to stop.
So yes, I know it’s been sparse. I know the words have been few here. But the moments have been so very many, and I treasure the opportunity to write, even though what I say is so small when compared to what I see, what I hear, what I live. And I know that it will not always happen, I will not always find the time. But when I can, when the lights dim and the hour is late and it’s quiet all around, this is the place I want to be. This writing, this remembering, this celebrating and savoring, is what I want to be doing.
~Natalia
