A Wrinkle in Time

“I am still every age that I have ever been. ” — Madeline L’Engle

My perpetual lament is that time is fleeting. And at this time of year when summer is slipping away and the new planner is laid out before me and the days are getting scheduled up quickly, the feelings are acute.

The invite for my 40th high school reunion arrived. Yikes. Yesterday, I was 12. Next week my baby will be 31. How can this be?

I don’t really mind being close to sixty. Posted on the reunion site was a query about what you wish you knew then. Someone replied that life is very different at 18 than it is now. But how real all those feelings were at that time and how the trials and tribulations may still be with us and most importantly how they formed us and inform us now. I wouldn’t change a thing. 

My school experience is so formative and profound to me that it is actually part of my artist bio:

As a child I struggled to read, and math was even more of a challenge for me. The teacher expected us to believe that there were places between the numbers on the ruler. But I only saw the concrete one and two… However, when the art teacher said that red and yellow made orange and in between there were lots and lots of variations, I saw them! Color was vivid and real, and I could relate. I found a place where I fit. In the art room I gained confidence with this brave woman who let very young children experiment with hot wax and sharp tools. She formed a theater group and encouraged us to speak out loud and try improvisation way before it was trendy.

Eventually, I would learn to read and of course go on to be an art teacher. My Master’s Degree is in Integrating the Arts into the Curriculum, which is an academic title for teaching kids to learn in the way they learn best: art, poetry, storytelling, dance, and music. It is about the experiences, muscle memory and brain function, and the relationships and connectivity.

I found I could say things

with color and shapes

that I couldn't say any other way –

things I had no words for.

Georgia O’Keeffe

I taught in a high poverty school with no supplies, no money, and lots of apathy. There were rules that benefited no one, unrealistic expectations, a school to prison pipeline you read about in the bad news.

So, I painted TRY from floor to ceiling. I said it was my only rule. Try again, try harder, try something else, were favorite directives of my high school art teacher. I hear him in my head as I paint to this day. 40 plus years. 

One day a student got mad with me and asked why I always say what else can you do .  Pitching my answer to where he was at, I asked this budding young track star what his coach says when he crosses the finish line. He wrinkled up his face and said, “He asks me to go faster the next time”.  He got quiet, then it dawned on him, “You are like a coach!” he exclaimed.

I don’t know if this was beneficial to this young man after school or where he is now. But his classmate was Raven Saunders who just won Silver Medal in the shot put for the USA. And I know she got it because she told me so after class that day. I am in no way implying I had anything to do with her success. She is a unique and spirited person on her own path with a tremendous personal drive despite many roadblocks.

 Her story airing as I read recounts from classmates and reflect on my own school experiences generated nostalgia for my art teachers.  I am grateful for the coaching and attention I received from them. When I say that they made me and saved me and inspired me, I wear no lens of romance or nostalgia. 

 I am also very fortunate to have a stack of letters I received from students and parents.  When I reread them, as I often do, I see the evidence of my teachers exponentially reflected in my students. I see me then and now. Every age I have ever been.