On Solstice evening, Mark and I went out to Finley Wildlife Refuge for a dinner picnic and our traditional cross quarter day hike. We took all of our local, seasonal food—rhubarb cake, frittata with eggs and mustard greens from the back yard, salad from Sunbow—to eat on the bench overlooking a pond full of ducks, with swallows swooping overhead in a sky that had, just that day, turned summer blue. We were the only people there. After we finished, we walked the Mill Hill loop, singing out to the blooming oocow and checker mallows, slipping through trail mud, rejoicing in the soft warm evening air. As we turned the corner away from the marsh, two young owls moved off the trail, but stayed close, watching us watch them for five minutes before we moved on. We need to do this more often, we thought, climbing into the Ark for the ride home.

                I’ve spent the week, after we finished up some scope and sequence planning in record time (projected time 12 hours, time taken five—and we were not as efficient as we could be), bringing the gardens into summer order, weeding, trimming, mulching. Yesterday, I turned on irrigation at school and at home and nothing blew up anywhere.  The vines are all growing a couple of inches a day. The pea vines are loaded; the favas are bending over and breaking. The rain brought on a lot of vegetation which is now bearing fruit.

                All of the outdoor chairs are out. Books, shoes, and empty water glasses are scattered everywhere. The cat has scoped out all of her dappled shade spots and moves from one to the next on a predictable schedule. The rabbit has dug a cool burrow under the bleeding heart—the chickens are hanging out in the tangle of blackberries in the far back of the yard. The heat we were dreaming of, just a week ago, has arrived. Summer.

Cycles and Seasons

 Graduation was Friday night. The week before, my Honors ninth graders rocked their final presentations and ate an inordinate number of cookies afterwards. We are almost ready to put out projects in American lit. The playing fields are quiet—no one is prepping for districts. Kids are just messing around outside. The school year is winding down.

                In the morning and evening, the light lingers. I wake up early, when the sun leans into my bedroom windows. Because of all of the rain, the sunlight is almost green and the air is rich with the scents of earth and mulch. We are eating later every night because the “start dinner light” is slipping later and later every night. We are reaching for the longest day of the year very soon.

                The garden, too, falls into its familiar cycle. Yes, it is a very rainy June, but still, the peas are reaching for the sky in my backyard and we picked a wooden salad bowl full of peapods from the school garden on Friday, right on schedule. The plum tree branches are loaded with hard green fruit which rattles on the roof of the van when we pull in. The grape vines are knocking on the kitchen window—tying them up is next on the list of chores between the downpours.

                My life, as a teacher and a gardener, follows the seasons of the year, turns around the months. In January, we read Malcolm X; in May, we read Romeo and Juliet. In January, I browse seed catalogs, dream of new varieties; in May, we have the first harvest between mowing and weeding. There is a deep and abiding comfort in these rituals, in these cycles, in the changing light moving through my classroom and my garden. These cycles, these rituals, have been followed by millions of teachers and students, and gardeners and farmers, reaching back centuries in some places on our planet. They ground us, literally, to our place in earth.

                I wonder, looking forward, how many of these grounding cycles and rituals will reach the end of this century. Even now, I can see the impacts of climate change on my gardens and the larger ecosystem around me. Planting and pollination, reliable fruiting and harvest, feel less tied to our skill as farmers and more to the uncontrollable weather patterns. We struggle to adjust, observing closely, choosing crops and seeds carefully, but the seasons are changing.  This change, this constantly shifting ground, impacts my students as well. They know that their future will not look like mine did, and, unlike Henry Adams in the 19^th century, they do not feel like the constant speeding up of the world is a good thing. It is hard to look forward to a world of Climate Chaos.

                And so, here I am. Knowing that a deep connection to the rituals, cycles of the earth will keep us sane in difficult times and also knowing that those cycles and rituals are being destroyed—and that my students are scared, worried, looking for guidance going forward. How do we hope, work for change, not give into fear and despair, going forward?  

 

               

               Graduation was Friday night. The week before, my Honors ninth graders rocked their final presentations and ate an inordinate number of cookies afterwards. We are almost ready to put out projects in American lit. The playing fields are quiet—no one is prepping for districts. Kids are just messing around outside. The school year is winding down.

                In the morning and evening, the light lingers. I wake up early, when the sun leans into my bedroom windows. Because of all of the rain, the sunlight is almost green and the air is rich with the scents of earth and mulch. We are eating later every night because the “start dinner light” is slipping later and later every night. We are reaching for the longest day of the year very soon.

                The garden, too, falls into its familiar cycle. Yes, it is a very rainy June, but still, the peas are reaching for the sky in my backyard and we picked a wooden salad bowl full of peapods from the school garden on Friday, right on schedule. The plum tree branches are loaded with hard green fruit which rattles on the roof of the van when we pull in. The grape vines are knocking on the kitchen window—tying them up is next on the list of chores between the downpours.

                My life, as a teacher and a gardener, follows the seasons of the year, turns around the months. In January, we read Malcolm X; in May, we read Romeo and Juliet. In January, I browse seed catalogs, dream of new varieties; in May, we have the first harvest between mowing and weeding. There is a deep and abiding comfort in these rituals, in these cycles, in the changing light moving through my classroom and my garden. These cycles, these rituals, have been followed by millions of teachers and students, and gardeners and farmers, reaching back centuries in some places on our planet. They ground us, literally, to our place in earth.

                I wonder, looking forward, how many of these grounding cycles and rituals will reach the end of this century. Even now, I can see the impacts of climate change on my gardens and the larger ecosystem around me. Planting and pollination, reliable fruiting and harvest, feel less tied to our skill as farmers and more to the uncontrollable weather patterns. We struggle to adjust, observing closely, choosing crops and seeds carefully, but the seasons are changing.  This change, this constantly shifting ground, impacts my students as well. They know that their future will not look like mine did, and, unlike Henry Adams in the 19^th century, they do not feel like the constant speeding up of the world is a good thing. It is hard to look forward to a world of Climate Chaos.

                And so, here I am. Knowing that a deep connection to the rituals, cycles of the earth will keep us sane in difficult times and also knowing that those cycles and rituals are being destroyed—and that my students are scared, worried, looking for guidance going forward. How do we hope, work for change, not give into fear and despair, going forward?  

 

               

                

Graduation was Friday night. The week before, my Honors ninth graders rocked their final presentations and ate an inordinate number of cookies afterwards. We are almost ready to put out projects in American lit. The playing fields are quiet—no one is prepping for districts. Kids are just messing around outside. The school year is winding down.

                In the morning and evening, the light lingers. I wake up early, when the sun leans into my bedroom windows. Because of all of the rain, the sunlight is almost green and the air is rich with the scents of earth and mulch. We are eating later every night because the “start dinner light” is slipping later and later every night. We are reaching for the longest day of the year very soon.

                The garden, too, falls into its familiar cycle. Yes, it is a very rainy June, but still, the peas are reaching for the sky in my backyard and we picked a wooden salad bowl full of peapods from the school garden on Friday, right on schedule. The plum tree branches are loaded with hard green fruit which rattles on the roof of the van when we pull in. The grape vines are knocking on the kitchen window—tying them up is next on the list of chores between the downpours.

                My life, as a teacher and a gardener, follows the seasons of the year, turns around the months. In January, we read Malcolm X; in May, we read Romeo and Juliet. In January, I browse seed catalogs, dream of new varieties; in May, we have the first harvest between mowing and weeding. There is a deep and abiding comfort in these rituals, in these cycles, in the changing light moving through my classroom and my garden. These cycles, these rituals, have been followed by millions of teachers and students, and gardeners and farmers, reaching back centuries in some places on our planet. They ground us, literally, to our place in earth.

                I wonder, looking forward, how many of these grounding cycles and rituals will reach the end of this century. Even now, I can see the impacts of climate change on my gardens and the larger ecosystem around me. Planting and pollination, reliable fruiting and harvest, feel less tied to our skill as farmers and more to the uncontrollable weather patterns. We struggle to adjust, observing closely, choosing crops and seeds carefully, but the seasons are changing.  This change, this constantly shifting ground, impacts my students as well. They know that their future will not look like mine did, and, unlike Henry Adams in the 19^th century, they do not feel like the constant speeding up of the world is a good thing. It is hard to look forward to a world of Climate Chaos.

                And so, here I am. Knowing that a deep connection to the rituals, cycles of the earth will keep us sane in difficult times and also knowing that those cycles and rituals are being destroyed—and that my students are scared, worried, looking for guidance going forward. How do we hope, work for change, not give into fear and despair, going forward?