"A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Think about this quote. When was the last time you felt truly motivated?
Ummm....
I haven't written here for awhile, so it obviously took some motivation to write again. Why is it that the moment something becomes "required," we immediately shut ourselves off to it? I know it happens to me. And I see it happen to my students whenever I say, "read this for..." Their eyes glaze. All excitement and enthusiasm (and think of this: three of my four class occur before 11:oo in the morning!) seems to leak out into the floor--they stare at the puddles, their eyes burn holes into the carpet. I find myself saying shocking things to jar them back to the fluorescent tubes of class...
So maybe I'm motivated to wake my classes up to these verses I love, to this poetry that challenges and wrestles with me. I get up out of bed each morning to do that very thing. To share what someone once shared with me, to invite them in...
I don't know if I've recently felt like the quote above, that feeling of seeing beauty in each thing, to look for possibility. I feel myself lacking there...don't I? I read aloud to my middle school Creative Writing class today. Their words were honest, simple, and gorgeous. They weren't putting on a show, they weren't writing what they couldn't understand, what they thought would sound "deep." They wrote plainly, and it was gorgeous, and they were proud of each other and beaming at their own good work. I am motivated to bring out beauty in all of my classes. To call forth poetry in all things.