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Hand in Hand

To try justifying that post-title, I want you to consider something with me that I've not really delved into. Most of this blog has been about bits and pieces of the teaching experience and I haven't really done much to tell you about the 20 weekend trips we've taken to the 10 different countries we've now visited. That's partly selfish of me (for not telling you) and partly unselfish of me (for not rubbing it in anyone's face). 

I want to make a slight change. I want to tell you about these things, but I want to do it in the right way. A lot of times I make jokes, and a lot of times I downplay important things (hi, I'm a defense mechanism, what are you?), but I want everyone to experience the things that I've been lucky enough to experience. So in order to make that happen, I'm going to make myself vulnerable. 

See, the theme of this entire trip/move/experience has been to grab life by its metaphorical horns and really do something when the chance was presented. Moreover, the chances wasn't so much presented as it was sought-out. It started because we thought it would be really cool to not come back from Paris and London when we went to see my friend Graham (aside: Graham sounds like an incredibly English name, doesn't it? He's not English, he's from Ohio too. And he's of Dutch heritage, so your theories just went out the window). We researched, we planned, we went, and we're still here.

I want everyone to feel the rush, the excitement, the uncertainty of god-knows-what. Whether that means asking out that coworker you've been eyeing for weeks or if it's buying a one-way plane ticket to a different country, I want all of you people to take the chances, because the odds are good that they won't come around again. Everyone reading this matters to me. I don't know if there are five of you or five thousand, but I know that I'm thankful for each person who takes the time to read these silly little thoughts I put on wax.

I wrote a poem with one of my students about not letting these moments pass you by, and I want to include it here as a sort of eloquent way of expressing my opinions concisely. It's a sonnet. And it exists because one of my students had to write a sonnet for a project and I wrote one with him to try proving that it's not so terrifying. So here's the most vulnerable I can be. I hope you don't hate it, but even if you do, oh well. 

We sit and watch as time ticks past, 
We stand and wait in lines for hours,
And yet if each moment could be the last
Could we seize it as if it were truly ours?

When morning light breaks through the window
Or when the flowers grow beneath them,
Can you enjoy these moments before they go?
Or will you do other things and miss them?

We have one chance to live our lives,
So you'd best be wise and live it.
We have one love to give your lives,
So you'd best be wise and give it.

Soak it up, taste each moment of each day.
Long before you're ready, it can all be taken away.


Now go do something that scares you.
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