On the west coast we don’t get hurricanes. I grew up in Oregonwhere the weather is so predictable that it is almost boring. It rains. The rain begins in September and ends in June. It rains slow, drizzly drops that come and come and come, gradually and with persistence.  The weather never bursts or surprises.  It is not intense. The climate moves like a snail, like a banana slug, and I am pretty sure no one has ever been frightened by a banana slug.  So, when I signed my contract to teach at The Island School last summer, it honestly never occurred to me that something like a hurricane could happen here. Though, yes I knew intellectually—factually—that hurricanes hit this part of the world, but I never really connected that fact to my own reality until, well, about a week ago. Continue reading →

This last week the literature department assigned students to write and perform their second round of punctuated personal reflective speeches.  This week’s topic: a 60-second speeches using a location on or near campus to tell a story about a pivotal, profound, or meaningful moment in their Island School semesters.  These speeches were an opportunity to ground their growth in their sense of place here: A Place of Meaning Speech.

Everyday: during lunch, after breakfast, in exploration time, during study hours (with a headlamp spotlight illuminating the performance) I met students in the locations they chose and learned about every emotional inch of this campus.  There was not a single speech that did not make me choke with pride, well-up with gratitude, or grow big eyed in awe of the momentous moments that these students are experiencing each day. And I thought to myself this morning, about to embark on my first Parent’s Weekend as a member of the Island School faculty, that there are a few things you should know about this place, before your arrival:

On girls dorm deck, someone talks to God, to the piercing bright glory of each twinkle looking down on her from the starry night skies. On the boathouse dock someone talks to her father, deceased. She heard him there, and realized there, that if he was there, then he will always be everywhere. A young man led me to a little sprouting palm, humble and barely a foot high.  Continue reading →

When I am reading for enjoyment, not for study, I have precarious and inefficient shorthand for my experience as a reader.  I draw smiley faces next to things that make me smile.  I underline things that I think my future self will want to go back and find.  I draw stars next to other things, though I have yet to figure out just why I do this; stars are pure impulse.  I draw stars out of whimsy. I am just imagining how shocked my students would be if they only knew the woman responsible for allocating their annotation grades, marked her own texts like this. As I rummage through pages of amateurish annotation, looking for inspiration, I come upon this line, glad that I underlined for my future self, me now, to stumble back upon:

“You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment,” –Annie Dillard

And I begin to think about my own astonishment and I begin to think that this might be an incredible way to explain what it is like to teach and live here.  And I begin to think about recent moments where I found myself completely immersed in awe, big eyed, and astounded…

As a teacher at The Island School, I was made and set here to give voice to this: Continue reading →

“Why do things that are hard?”

A simple question.

Chris Maxey posed this question to our visiting guest, Chris Irwin, tonight.  Chris was invited to speak to our young leaders this evening, addressing the topic of his choice.  Irwin chose leadership.  Irwin has led a distinguished career in the military, as an Navy Seal, cultivating the qualities of a leader.  After briefly addressing his past and experience leading Continue reading →

At sunrise exercise this morning I had dipped my head down into the bright underwater sky.  Little Jellyfish everywhere.  New to the island, I perked my head up, alarmed.  Treading water slightly quicker, I asked David whether the little creatures dotting the water below us were of any concern.

“They just sting a little,” he replied.

“They’re like the mosquitoes of the sea.”

They have a mosquito for everywhere here, I think to myself.

Later that day, I can chart the mosquito bites, from ankle to knee: from “Orion’s Belt of Irritation” to “The Southern Cross of Misery”  There is “Scratchy Major” and also “Scratchy Minor.” I sit at my new desk, in my new office, in my new home, at Continue reading →