A New Year

One of the great things about being a teacher is that there are definite beginnings and endings.  Summer ended when we flew home from our island back to Wyoming to start a new school year.  While I didn’t feel ready to be back to school, the process of unpacking my room,putting up bulletin boards, making name tags  and starting a new lesson planning book got me in the mood.  Now it is Labor Day weekend.  We’ve completed four days of the new school year (only 172 days left!) and we’re off to a good start.  Wyoming weather is cooperating, too.  The temperature when we left the house on Thursday was 48 degrees!  That’s a far cry from the balmy and wonderful 85 we’d enjoyed all summer.  There is already a bite in the air that hints at winter snows, and I expect leaves will be turning sooner rather than later.  Just like I wasn’t ready for school to start, I am not ready for the cold or the bitterness that winter brings.  Honestly, I am dreading it.  I hate the wind and I despise being cold.  My mom hated the cold, too.  One winter she told me that she was planning to ’embrace and welcome’ it.  She set her mind on finding the beauty and the positive of the winter.  She loved to be outside, so nearly every day of that winter, she bundled up and took a walk, even through the snow and slush and ice.  When spring finally did come, she admitted that the winter hadn’t been quite as disagreeable as when she just let herself hate it.  OK, Mom, I’ll try that this winter.  Knowing that I have a house sitting empty in the tropics, I am going to embrace the place I find myself.  I’m sure I am not going to love this winter, but I am going to look for the small, pretty moments and cherish those.