To Every Season

I found myself counting days, still.

The strike point midway between the first half of summer vacation and the back half jabbed me as if I had been stuck in the ribs with the end of a wooden kitchen spoon. Too many seasons, as either student or teacher, defined by the rhythm of the school year for my bio-calendar not to know how the days pace along.

Then, my ego, flushed from the sanctuary of my little garden retreat. Who am I, again? Last week a former student said she and another former—well, now they are all former students—were trading Mr. Kaple stories, and I retorted, only half-jokingly, that I used to know him. Clever that response, to a degree, but also a sharp pluck on the gut-string attached to my self-identity. Fretting, my mind played with the notion of me not being he, or the I as the case may be

Next came the fear that spawned the notion that I may never attend to matters that would matter as much, the better part of me left behind. This doubt would be an apprehension in my mind as my mother would say, so do not fear. Even the Bible—someone counted apparently—says not to be afraid 365 times. Oh, in my mind I know I have nothing to fear, but for one tumultuous evening I wrangled mightily with my own self.

Heck, even Odysseus had to take his oar and travel inland and leave his beloved sea far behind. The oar is identified by a stranger as a winnowing tool—waves of grain?—but in that recasting he returns home to peace and quiet. And the sea, again, at last.

A red pen, then, may no longer be a defining marker for who I am. The message I hear: A new season is come round. The school’s bells no longer toll for me. Be still.

Just, yours, once again, srk