A Saturday Caesura
It is a post-rain grey Saturday morning. On our fence to the south, three fat baby crows sit and preen and pretend to ignore a redwing blackbird who darts in to taunt them. To the east, the sun presses in behind the sheet of grey, adding some tentative texture to the otherwise flat sky. The views to the north and west are predominantly green-on-grey, lightly animated by the breath of a morning breeze.
I am grateful for time to sit and notice these very ordinary things.
The flurry of wrapping up a school year has left me looking wistfully at the apparent leisure afforded those baby crows. I certainly lack the energy of the mischievous redwing. It was an exhausting year, and my mind feels like the sky today, grey and flat and washed out. It was also an encouraging year, and my heart is bursting with the joyful colour my brain lacks. I am humbled by the notes, emails, and conversations with students who said they appreciated my class for all the ways it challenged, stretched, and encouraged them. Teacher-moments to treasure for sure.
But what to do with the grey-brain of fatigue? The brain that has read words and more words, but struggles to craft any of its own into meaningful thought. The brain that can create lists of things that need to be done over the summer, but then fogs in when it sees how long the list quickly becomes. The brain that easily clouds over with the drizzle of doubt and who cares if you feel like you have nothing to say because no one really reads your words anyway. Yes, what to do indeed.
I don’t have a fully defined answer because…well, grey-brain, obviously. But today, I am going to be entertained by baby crows and feel the breeze and listen for yellow warblers and gaze at the miracle of a growing garden and the brilliance of orange poppies and sketch something and maybe read someone else’s beautiful words and simply taste the goodness of the Lord in this oh-so-grey day.
And maybe I’ll do the same again tomorrow and the next day and the next day.
Charis D Crandall 