House on the Rock

 We're finishing up year 5 of January 2023, a marathon of a month marked by perpetual grayness, coldness, darkness, sadness. It's been a seemingly unending saga of sunlessness and the ramifications are evident. Students are on edge, irritable, quick to anger, sad. Teachers aren't all that different.  The few infrequent bursts of blue sky summon us to stop and soak in its seldom-seen splendor. On one particularly bitter (both air and people) afternoon last week, a cerulean canopy enveloped the world outside my window for a brief but magical moment. Participial phrases had suddenly lost their luster as the class seemed captivated, desperate to savor the sunlight that had for so long gone unseen.  I walked to the window and took in a breath. Thank you God, I whispered. I soon felt the presence of five, ten, then twenty students surrounding me. Silent. Staring. Savoring the blueness. One characteristically football-minded freshman even lifted his hands to the sky and said, ...

It's Martin Luther King Day. I opened the blinds in our bedroom window, which I don't normally do because the window provides a direct view to our master bath toilet, which, if occupied, could bring potential for demoralizing eye contact. But today, the window was open, the sky a sort of velvety purple-blue with streaks of pink and yellow that made rooves and siding sparkle.  The morning looked uniquely hopeful. The all-too-common January grayness seemed to have evaporated, if only for the few moments surrounding that sunrise. Despite being 33 degrees with rain on the horizon, I could have been convinced that spring was right around the corner. The promised resurrection of life - flowers blooming, grass re-greening, birds returning with their song - brought a beautiful lessening of the winter doldrums. "We're going to make it," I thought, knowing it is the very promise of that spring that makes winter endurable. From the despair - the coldness, the grayness, the p...