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Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Seeds and Promises

        The nights are chilly, the cicadas sing, and the moon is sharply bright in the crisper air.  Although autumn is my favorite season and I’ve even written about it here, there is a part of me that is mournful as I say goodbye to summer and the joys of easy days and gardening, being outside so many hours, eating and playing and working.  I was so excited this year because I finally had some stalks of hollyhocks mature enough to bloom.  It’s been challenging to get them going, yet they did grow tall this summer and bloomed in all kinds of colors, including the startling black.  I am sad to say goodbye to all those beautiful things, to see them droop and fade. 
However, while contemplating all this, I am looking forward too to the yellows and reds and oranges, that final blaze of autumn before the fire disappears into winter’s ashy colors.  Each season holds something good.  I see my flowers fading, but they also give promises for the spring, their seeds.  I move to the hollyhocks with a small paper bag and pull the tiny baskets of seeds left by each bloom.  Marigolds are next, then zinnias, each seeded bloom placed into the bags, put into the garden basket to store until spring. 
As I worked, I thought of these recent beginning days of school and the promises, as seeds hold, that teachers give students for the year to come.  Teachers work so hard to prepare just the right environment so that each student will be able to grow.  They water with kindness, provide knowledge like fertilizer, and tend the learning from the first day to the last.  Like seeds that flourish, teachers have started planting their classroom gardens with promises of a prolific blooming season.  Perhaps I’m not so mournful after all, because I see promise everywhere I look.

13 comments:

  1. I love your positive view to a new school year even with all the new obstacles in your path.
    I love the way you embrace the Fall with reservations as you remember the best of summer.
    I am with you, it's too bad that Fall doesn't last longer. Those golden leaves come and go way too fast and then we have months and month of very bare trees, but not yet, not yet.
    Here it's sunshine and I'm on my way out to enjoy it,
    Have a great day and a great year,
    Bonnie

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  2. Your gardens must be a blaze of colors with such a variety of flowers! Just as the bright minds that have been tended and nurtured in your school shine with promise. Great analogy!

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  3. Beautiful post. I, too, am mourning the loss of summer warmth and light. But as you say, "Each season holds something good." Fall is beautiful and does provide the seeds for spring and students. Wonderful comparison.

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  4. Autumn is my favorite season too, but this year I was sad to see summer come to a close. I've never been as mournful of summer's end as I was this year. I'm not sure if it's because I spent much of it preparing for the professional development I led or if it's because I have a baby, but Labor Day was not a happy transition day for me this year.
    SAS

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  5. I will think of your seed imagery when I see my kids in the morning. Right now I will go put fertilizer and a watering can in my bag.

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  6. This was lovely - especially the connection to the way our kids learn, and how we can help nurture their growth.

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  7. Love that last night - I seem promise everywhere I look!

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  8. How funny you posted this--I was just looking at seeds and thinking the same thing! Great minds...
    Love this line--it is so wonderful-- They water with kindness, provide knowledge like fertilizer, and tend the learning from the first day to the last. Like seeds that flourish, teachers have started planting their classroom gardens with promises of a prolific blooming season.

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  9. I love the line " . . .that final blaze of autumn before the fire disappears . . ." And I know this sounds weird, but I would love to see your seeds. Such tiny gifts. :)

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  10. @Diana, you can see some of them in the photo. Those are hollyhocks, and each of the little round things (I called them baskets) are full of seeds. I'll see if I can take pics of the others.

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  11. I love how you connected nature to the school year and pointed out such positive actions that teachers do. It's so important to "sew" lots of those positive "seeds" at the very beginning to get a class started off on the right foot!

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  12. I think I must be over watering my "seeds" from all the tears I'm shedding every day. LOL just teasing... this years crop is a challenge but well worth the nurturing and care you've spoken of so beautifully. I can hardly wait to see them bloom.

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  13. The seasons definitely provide a rich metaphor for the work we do as teachers. I love to pay attention to the work of each season because it helps me think about and remember whats important in teaching.

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