Hazy Sunday

It has been over two weeks since I last woke up next to the river, and I feel its magnetic pull on me weakening ever so slightly as I fall back into step with my working life. My inside life. My life of routine and to-do.

This was the first week back at school—although I was there for a few hours each day leading up to the first day with students—organizing book shelves, rearranging furniture, making welcome signs. The river is a packaged memory during the days, but at night, when my thoughts are free to wander, I visit the river in dream.

I am waking up as the sun crests the top of the ridge of the canyon on the opposite shore, painting the sandy hills pastel in the pinking morning, as shockingly beautiful as the first tulip of spring unfurling its bright red petals after a long and colourless winter. A bald eagle traces circles high above, just a fleck of open wing from my grounded vantage point. The bird is like a metronome in the sky, swaying left and right in sweeping search. The air is still, and streaks of thin cloud paint watery brush strokes across the sky.

I stretch off the haze of lingering sleep and crawl from my sleeping bag under the shelter of sky, already fully dressed to ward off the chill of a clear night. I walk the few steps down to the river, its constant path slicing the canyon into two rock faces perpetually staring across a line of separation. Across from where I dip my hands, a clutch of trees scrambles an existence out of a crack in the canyon wall. A log, its roots clumped in a balled fist, is placed high up on a ledge above like an old toy forgotten on a shelf.

This week I have dreamt of the river every night. Sometimes I cannot fully remember the sequences of my dream, but I know in the restful feeling of my waking, in the calm and steady flow of my breath, that I was on the river again.

Sometimes in my dreams I am swimming. One of the greatest memories of my time on the river is being in it, swimming, fully immersed in the sensory experience, life jacket holding my head and shoulders out of the water, listening to the scrape of silt over the river bottom below me. I remember being twirled around in whirlpools, legs trailing behind, being careful not to point them down so I wouldn’t be pulled under, swimming with Fin through rapids.

I have so much to say about the river, but time is limited at the start of a new school year. In the coming weeks I do plan on posting some entries from my journal, as well as the accompanying pictures. I have also been getting back into the activities that I love to participate in here. A few afternoons and evenings on my mountain bike with a good friend, one of my usual skiing and biking companions. A couple of long walks with Sanford. Swimming in Gun Lake and Tyaughton Lake while I can, before the weather cools and it is no longer an option. Horseback riding.

 The glassy surface of Gun Lake after an evening swim.

 Abandoned car on a walk with Sanford.

The first week of school was AMAZING! I have quite a mix: a couple of Kindergarten students, a grade 3 student and a grade 7. The Ks are amazingly enthusiastic and excited about school, and they have so much energy they have not needed an ounce of quiet time throughout the day as I thought they might. They are constantly looking for more things and saying “what’s next” and “that sounds fun” and “this is the best!”.

This past week I tried to show them how to use centres, how to play and then clean up, and then I left exploration time open-ended to see where their little interests seemed to be. Store is a big hit, as well as building with anything—blocks, snap cubes, Lego. They are very hands-on, lots of movement. They are excited, and this unbridled enthusiasm is exciting for me to watch and participate in.

We also talked about S.T.A.R., which will be our classroom agreement—how we agree to behave when we are learning together. S=safety, T=teamwork, A=accountability, R=respect. We made a chart of what all these words mean, and what “being safe”, etc. looks like, and then we cut out stars that I have been handing out when a student demonstrates the behaviours we have focused on. Each day we have focused on one aspect of “STAR”, for instance “safety” on the first day and “teamwork” on the second, and I handed out stars as students displayed behaviours that fit with the theme of the day, writing what they did on the back. It has been a big success with both the younger and older students, and they have each taken home stars to discuss with their families.

Planning for such a range of ages is obviously a challenge, but I tend to focus on thematic units where each student can approach similar topics from their developmental level. For instance our first unit will be on “Ecosystems” for the grade 7, with a focus on plants for the grade 3, and on trees for the Ks.

Another bright star in my week was when a retired teacher, whom I have known since last school year, came in to give me a wonderfully kind card on my first day back at school to wish me well in the upcoming year. She is a wonderful woman, very artistic and into arts education, and it’s awesome to have a mentor out here who is keen to help out with ideas and come into the classroom. She brought her ukulele to school this week, and we sung some great French songs with actions—perfect because we all need to move, and great for the grade 7 who will be studying French this year. Many of my great ideas will be thanks to her!

I have been doing a lot of writing as well, with a short story nearly ready for input from readers. I have always wanted to write about some of my experiences here in a different way than on a “blog”, and I figured out that writing in the third person, using “she” instead of “I”, really allows me the freedom to express myself in different ways. I no longer feel as if I am writing about myself, but instead I am writing about a character, and this character can do and say things that I normally wouldn’t. I encourage you other writers to try it, and post to the comments to let me know how it goes. I’m going to try writing in the third person with my grade 7 next week as well.

The whole novel thing is still happening in my head and in my notes, but I haven’t been doing any daily work on it. I think I’m learning that I have some ADD tendencies, as I suppose many of us do, and that I get bored of an idea pretty quickly. Hence I’m just going with daily writing, free to explore topics of my choosing and if the words want to become a longer project then great!

I’ve spent the morning planning for the week and am now off to go on a little hike with a friend to sketch a landscape scene overlooking Gun Lake. The wind has picked up here, bringing with it the first clouds all week. I suppose fall is on its way, as a few leaves lift easily from the trees in my yard, falling into the arms of the backyard pond as I write these last few lines.