For the past 4 winters, I have jumped in the ocean on a regular basis. Well, more like clambered down a ladder and convinced myself to stay in the water for as long as possible. Jumping, after all, would be dangerous when its dark.
It was one of those things spoken out loud as we moved to Denmark, “I want to be a winterbather,” as they call it. And my husband called my bluff. And so off we went, first just the ocean and us, and now, the luxury of a club where we end in a sauna, regaining all the feeling in our limbs. Slowly defrosting while we sit in the quiet.
We have a running joke, Brandon and I, that I am not good at sitting still. Well I think it is a joke anyway. If you have been with me for a while, maybe you too have wondered how I seemed to get everything done. When your brain refuses to be quiet, and ideas take hold on occasion, it is what happens, I suppose. But it turns out that in a sauna, looking out at an often dark ocean, I am pretty good at sitting still.
And those ideas, they come too.
I had forgotten how much I love not doing much. But simply being. Staying in the moment. The shock of the water. The convincing I do to myself every time, I see the ocean at my toes, biting them. The whispering of “You’re ok” every time a wave hits me.
I forgot that, because in all of the newness, of life’s everpiling to-dos, what I used to know so at my core, was still easily forgotten.
Which is an odd realization to have. After all, what makes us us, should be something that we carry with us no matter the circumstances, no matter lifes tumult. Those thing that we see as unalienable us, should stay through it all.
But they don’t. Because they are replaced by changes in nuances, by shades of difference. By tweaking, and trying, and piloting. We lose our foundation, until we one day find ourselves in a place so far away from where we started, and wondering how we got there. The unmooring happens so slowly that we often don’t see we are adrift until we look up and see a foreign coast.
I see this in my teaching as well. My foundation so rock solid that I have shared freely of it for the past 16 years. And yet, standing in my 1st grade classroom here in Denmark, it hit me how much I have forgotten about the type of teacher I was. And the teacher I want to be.
And I can blame the change of the time. The change in country. The change of role. Or I can skip all of that and just get back to what I used to know.
That movement benefits all kids.
That always having simple choices embedded increases engagement.
That asking “what’s your idea?” is not something you have to earn to be asked.
That structure can still be fun, but so can change.
That creating learning spaces where students voices are heard every day is still the reason I teach.
That I don’t have to have big emotions about everything and that teaching is just a job.
I will continue to look for myself in my practice and go back to what I used to do.
Perhaps you want that opportunity too?
So the next time the ocean calls me, I am going to stay in a little longer, to let the voices quiet, to when my feet hurt just a little bit. I am going to climb up that ladder and remind myself of who I am and who I was and let it all sink in.
The saunas silence will envelop me, and I will let the me of who I was and who I am meet and merge. How about you?
