TGIF

It’s been five years since those four letters meant anything to me. Yet here I was again, the end of a full week of teaching at the same school I taught for 45 years, driving the same route I drove for the last 37 of them, ending the day the same way I had for the last 7 of them— from playing the banjo while 2^nd graders danced Bow Belinda to playing Bach’s Cello Suites on piano for my friends at the Jewish Home for the Aged. That route to school pretty much unchanged, except for the damned Waymo cars that still make me bristle. The school halls and rooms just about all changed in some way, including the way the kids face at Singing Time in the Music Room, but mostly recognizable. 

 

Of course, the people in the school have changed— about half the kids are brand new to me, another half new by virtue of growing old and taller and more mature. I’d say 60% of the teachers are familiar colleagues, about six of them in the 30 plus-year old-timers club. A new crowd in the Jewish Home, but a core group that has been with me the last four years and one man who was there back when my Mom was. 

 

What’s the point here? Well, there’s the obvious. Change is the only certainty and even if the schedule, the route, the rooms, the people are mostly the same, of course, they’re different. This fellow walking down the same hall he did now 50 (!!) years ago carries the same dreams, values the same things, cares about the same hopes for a better world. But when he first walked to lunch each day, they were all airy possibilities and dreams just breaking in their walking shoes.  Now they’re a closetful of stories memories and testimonies, a detailed map of precisely where and when all the magic and miracles took place. Also the betrayals and disappointments. So walking those steps again, I’m the same and yet not the same.

 

There’s also the extraordinary gift of dancing Bow Belinda with the son of the father who I danced with some 40 years ago. Singing the same songs with the daughter of the mother who I sang the songs with way back then. And the equal pleasure of getting to meet the new kids and receive yet another testimonial gift from the 2^nd grader who walked up to me after class, looked me in the eye and said with such sweet sincerity, “I like the way you teach.” Without missing a beat, I replied, “Thank you! And I like the way you learn!”

 

The last point of this little report. 73 years old, 50 years now of teaching, a full five days of some 4 or 5 classes a day with kids from 3-years-old to 6^th grade (plus the Jewish Home) and the cliched TGIF!! feeling driving home was noticeably absent. I was not in the least tired and didn’t feel the need to “recover” from anything. Could easily have taught another 5-days straight without a break. And in fact, will go to an Orff workshop tomorrow to participate with other music teachers. 

 

My apologies if this sounds like bragging. The deeper point is that when you’ve been lucky enough to find your passion, you live out William Blake’s astute observation: “Energy is eternal delight.” My new mantra is TGFED. (Thank God for every day.) 

 

Happy weekend!