Unexplained

 The unexplainable has always fascinated me.  Mostly because I tend to be a skeptical person.  I want my history based on evidence and facts, just like it's a necessity in my writing.  When I was grading entrance exams for the University of California, I recall one of the rubric points... Abundant use of specific examples.  That's a no-brainer for effective prose,  

But every now and then, something comes along that defies explanation.  One of life's mysteries that is essentially un effable.  My favorite kind is the mystical variety.  Like a good Zen koan, it must be pondered for a lifetime, with no guarantee of understanding.  

We've all had these experiences.  Unexplainable coincidences? Are there coincidences?  Synchronicity?  Perhaps.  Sometimes the only alternative is to just enjoy such experiences and sit back and let life happen.

I recall one such powerful experience right before I graduated college.  It was mid-June of 1969 and I had been accepted as a VISTA Volunteer. With a plane ticket to Texas in hand, and just one more final exam to go, I was closing a meaningful chapter in my life.  I had a girlfriend that was only a Freshman at the time and we both knew there would be no guarantee we'd ever re-connect again.  In fact, she was dating someone else at the time, but I sensed he was a jerk and placed no faith in the fact that it was a serious relationship.  So, like I had done so many times before, I wrote her a poem.  A farewell kind of piece that was probably much too sentimental but nonetheless made me feel good about our parting.  I needed to get some sort of closure on this relationship and a poem was my chosen method.  Besides, she liked my poetry and always enjoyed receiving it in the past.

As was popular in the 60s, I wrote my draft on some extra special paper with a matching envelope and sealed it with some red sealing wax.  What can I say, I was listening to a lot of Donovan at the time!

With the poem posted, I forgot about all things interpersonal and prepared for my exam and then my first flight out of California. A real adventure.  Two days later, I arrived on the UCLA campus about an hour early before the 8 am final. It was an overcast, windy day as is often the case in LA in June. I went to a favorite spot and sat beneath a tree to review my notes.  A gust of wind broke my attention and while following the path of some blowing leaves, I chanced to see a small patch of red hiding underneath a leaf pile.  Walking slowly over to that red spot, I knelt down only to retrieve the envelope with the red seal I'd sent a few days earlier.  Immediately I wondered about the whys and wherefores.  How could this be.  Was my girlfriend so unimpressed with my poem that she tossed it in the garbage?  

Breaking my promise to myself not to call her, I did just that.  
She told me she'd been on campus near that tree just the day before.  She was reading the poem and had it in a book she was studying when she fell asleep.  The wind must have blown it out of her open book as it fell from her lap.  She was genuinely overjoyed that I would meet her that afternoon to return the poem.  There is an interesting postscript to this that I'll write about on another occasion.

Yet, what remains unknown to this day, how, on a campus of over 30,000 was I the one to recover my poem?

Anticipation

 It has a name. It’s called anticipation and it’s the first phase of the teaching cycle. This special time of the year for teachers of all levels is one of the most enjoyable.  That manic time before the school year actually starts when teachers have the luxury of thinking ahead and getting excited about the coming year. 

All those things you are planning to do differently. The new ideas that you’ll try for the first time. A roll book and a grade book that’s empty and pristine. And those classes you are anxious to meet. The first few weeks in a school year are all about anticipation. 

Even though the last couple of years, with virtual teaching and the COVID restrictions calling the shots have taken their toll, this is the time of year that teachers feel the pull of starting over. It’s a good pull. It’s fun to set up a classroom, prepare for those first few days, and meet new people. That includes new colleagues and students. Right now a first year teacher will soon experience live bodies in the same room for the first time. A 30 year veteran will be thankful to get back to what they know best. Both will relish the fact that they will be able to talk to real people and not screen images. Their outlook will change because a measure of consistency might emerge.

Of course, the fight over mask mandates or the lack of them will soon complicate matters. This anticipation will come to include being able to stay in the classroom, plan activities for rooms full of young voices, young energy and curiosity. Will it last? How long? 

I feel for these teachers. I can only imagine how my preparations for beginning another school year would be going we’re I still in the classroom. Either way I certainly hope the new year offers civil conversations about how complicated all this has become. Excellent teachers everywhere of every subject and level will incorporate all this into their lessons. Let the anticipation begin. Let it last a little longer this year. There is plenty of time for the disillusionment to follow.