Beginning Again

With the end of the school year at hand, it is hard not to reflect on the past and examine it's contents and wonder how I did and how we managed and how we will begin again. But, it is the same at every end...a chance to renew, a moment to reflect, and to start over.

As I listened to the poem of George Johnston this afternoon in my car, I was captured by the first few lines...."Knowing what I now know/would I have consented/to be born? Next question.When it comes time to go/will I go forlorn or/contented? "

I have laughed over this same question with my friends. We wonder if, while waiting in some long line before we were born, we thought we heard "Fun! Fun! Fun!", but really, some other more informed being was yelling, "Run! Run! Run!" I wonder if I had heard this correctly if I would still have chosen to be born?

But, now I am here and as each phase of life ends and a new one begins I do a self check and wonder if I feel "forlorn" or "content". I think it changes. But overall, I believe I am content.

Another part of the poem that strikes me are these lines, "Teaching is a kind of/learning, much like loving,/mutual goings-on,/both doing each to each;/mutual forbearance;/life itself, you might say./Whatever teaching is/did I enjoy it? Yes."

It has been said that we are all teachers of one kind or another. I love teaching because I am in a constant state of mind motion. Adding and subtracting all kinds of moments, people, and messages each day. If my life is teaching, than I do enjoy it.

With summer officially only days away, I realize that a phase is ending again. Time for a new beginning, a chance to start over, to bloom. With each passing season I know that I am glad to be here. Here, in whatever capacity I may stand...mother, teacher, wife, daughter, niece, lover, girlfriend, smart-mouth...here I am waiting to grow.