Oh, hey. It’s been a long time, I know. Now that I’ve had some time this summer to do normal things — like, breath in pure oxygen for many days in a row, for example — I’m feeling clear-minded and ready to re-up to my email notes.
I’ve written before about my (very rudimentary) gardening experience (see “Baby Jalapeños”). We’ve gotten a little more aggressive over here, adding one or two planters to our patio garden each year. Knowing we’d be out of town much of the summer, we opted for a plant that required minimal maintenance: tomatoes. We loaded the little tomato babies into their new homes, positioned them to receive water from our underground sprinkling system, and off we went. In my haste, I put wire tomato cages in only three of the seven pots. Well, my mistake turned out to be a learning experience, and a terrific reminder on the importance of togetherness.
We returned home after many weeks away, only to find that a meager three of the seven pots housed flourishing tomato plants. In these planters, our babies were now fully grown, cuddled together in their pots, beaming with nearly-ripe fruit and green vegetation in and around their thin wire cages. The other four pots, however, were in disarray. Their foliage was already turning yellow, they lopped sideways and hardly a tomato ripened on their vines. They weren’t growing together at all, and consequently, they were suffering. Lesson learned: don’t forget the plant holders next year.
The tale of the tomato plants also serves as a good reminder that we flourish, stand tall, and produce bountiful fruit, only when we stick together.
I’ve never been more excited to return to school — a crazy thing to say after the year we just had. Nonetheless, I feel strong and capable, ready and eager. But I have to remind myself that none of us, not a single soul, made it through the COVID Year on his or her own. We need to remember this and weave togetherness into the fabric of our work at school each day. Growing together happens little by little and with intentionality: when we write an encouraging note to a colleague, choose to pop over to the social hour instead of home to the couch, linger for a chit-chat in the staff lounge even when the to-do list awaits. I’ve worked on a team for the last several years that has had some serious fun. But it didn’t just happen to be that way. We made it happen that way. The daily work of standing together happens in the small moments, the little things we do each day to hold each other up. We are just like those tomatoes: prone to drift apart and maybe even falter on our own. I suggest we nestle in together, ready and eager to carry each others’ joys and each others’ sorrows. It’s tough work, educating humans, but together we can make it the best kind of work.
Standing with you,
Lindsay