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First, Last, Only — Tired

Saturday 8 August 2015

The real challenge in trying to live each day as if it were the one day you chose to return to and relive — in other words, to live each day as if it were your first, last, and only day on Earth — is how utterly tiring it is. If you wake up and say to yourself, “I’m going to live today like it’s the only day of my existence,” you’re going to want to try to squeeze every drop of life out of every single moment. You’re not going to want to waste time sitting around, doing nothing.

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When you go to the pool with your family, for example, you’re not going to sit in a deck chair, slowly drifting into near-sleep, with the only thing really stopping you being the fact that you have contact lenses in. You’re not going to sit on the side of the pool watching your family have a good time.

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You’re going to get in and swim, like E did today. Even though he was exhausted. Even though he’d had no nap and so was incredibly exhausted.

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It’s not that you’d live that day always on the go, but it seems like quiet moments of the day would be at the very least contemplative and not sleepy.

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And you certainly wouldn’t waste any part of precious final evening watching some silly show from the History Channel about the supposed evidence that ancient civilizations created all their glorious monuments with the aid of extraterrestrial assistance. Sure, you might have the thought when you see the show on Netflix, “Hum, I wonder if they’ve tightened up that little theory since von Daniken popularized the theory in the early seventies with books like Chariots of the Gods?,” and you might be tempted to watch it to see if von Daniken himself makes an appearance (he doesn’t). But you wouldn’t actually watch it

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But since it’s not my first, last, and only day on Earth, I do get another shot at it tomorrow.

Plans, Rain, and Barszcz

Thursday 6 August 2015

It’s usually not until the end of the day, when it’s too late, that I realize I haven’t been living my life that day as if I had chosen, out of all days, to relive that one day. It’s not until I’m with L, working through our examen (which we have re-initiated with our reunion after a summer break) that I see that I’ve been going through the day relatively blindly. I look back on the day at that point and realize I wasted time and energy wallowing about in this or that negative emotion, letting this or that frustration take control. I look back, I see these things, I promise to do better the next day, and I promptly forget.

During tonight’s, though, it occurred to me that I’d been constantly aware of how lovely the day was as it unfolded. I rode my bike to school and was pleasantly surprised at my average speed. I had a long productive meeting with the other teachers on our instructional team, planning a multi-disciplinary unit that might not only teach some academic skills but also affect change in the kids’ lives. Despite the afternoon rain, I made it back to the house relatively dry. I had a lovely dinner with my family, marveling at how the kids both devour beet-root soup, which seems unimaginable given the pickiness of L. We had a pleasant walk after dinner, with the kids scooting ahead and returning on their various vehicles.

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And then, during our examen, I looked down at our wiry, energetic (often frustratingly so), intelligent daughter, and I realized that simply being around all the wonderful people in my life should be enough to make me aware of the marvelously blessed life I have. I have incredible colleagues at work; I always work with a great group of students; I have children that make me beam; I married a woman that constantly astounds me; I have parents that give to our own family unconditionally. I am lacking nothing. We are lacking nothing. Nothing of any importance. Simply being aware of this is the trick to having a great day, day after day.

Tuesday

Tuesday 4 August 2015

I always maintained that Tuesdays had nothing going for them. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not about to suggest that Mondays have a lot going for them, I would continue. Mondays, though, have the force of the weekend behind them and the sheer necessity to get going. You push through Monday like you push through a two-kilometer, 5% grade climb at the beginning of a long bike ride: it’s not pleasant, but you still have the energy to do it, so you just do it.

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Wednesday carries the advantage of being the mid-way marker of the week: make it through Wednesday, and it’s all downhill from there. Thursday is almost Friday, and Friday is Friday. Only Tuesday has nothing going for it.

This all carries the assumption that the only enjoyable part of the week, the only part of the week really worth enjoying, is the weekend. In the summer, for a teacher, that just isn’t true: every day is the weekend in a sense. Every day can be a day of exploration, a day of getting stamped with anti-bug, anti-wild-attack-cat antidotes. Every day can include some discovery and rediscovery with one’s children.

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That’s the easy part. The challenge is getting that to carry over into the school year, to think, “‘Tuesday has nothing going for it’ is nonsense because all days have something going for them.”

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To live each day as if, given a choice of any day in your life to relive, you chose today.

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At this point in the year, less than two weeks before the kids head back into the classroom, I’m always confident that I’ll succeed. Last year, that confidence didn’t even make it through the first week of school, so challenging were a couple of classes. But in the end, that too is a choice.

Return

Saturday 1 August 2015

Routines, it turns out, are easily formed. It only takes a few mornings of waking alone, eating breakfast alone while glancing through the news on the Internet and sipping coffee, and enjoying the peace of a quiet morning. Only a few mornings of this and it becomes a new routine, replacing the old. On the other hand, it only takes one morning of noisy breakfast preparation, of kids laughing, fussing, and playing—only one morning and everything returns back to normal. The Saturday morning ritual conversation with Babcia through Skype, with the kids downstairs while I sit upstairs reading the news and sipping coffee, falls back into place as if we’d been doing it all summer.