Pause

The pause is underrated. If you have already begun the marathon of a school year, sometimes taking a brief pause is a good thing to do. Catch your breath, reset, reflect on what you have learned in the first week with your fresh students back from their lazy, fun, and chaotic summers. The fractal that is your school, your classroom, your students is unfolding at a breakneck pace already. It is exhilarating and also daunting. Like a universe being born each year anew.

This weekend hurricane Hillary forced us (in the southwest) to pause. Sometimes a pause generates discomfort, antsiness, anxiety. A worry about things you can't control, see coming, or manage. As I sat, unable to do anything productive while the rain pounded away for 24 hours, I became antsy because sitting meant facing what is in front of me. Sitting with all the feelings, all the thoughts.

But if you pause, you realize it will pass (usually sooner than 24 hours). Release the tension; stop holding your breath. There is clarity on the other side of a pause. There is a calm, like a moment stopped in time in a video game, and the main character gets to choose what to do next. And in that choice there is freedom.