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Flying over Milwaukee on my way back to Nashville, 1/3/14.
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My idea of Heaven is an airplane window seat. It’s one of
the few places that truly puts things into perspective for me. It makes clouds
look close enough to touch and transforms looming cities into specs in the
distance. From the window seat, I am reminded that the world is bigger and more
complex than we often imagine. And isn't that essentially a good lesson? Isn't
it a relief in a way, to know that we could search forever and still not find
all of the answers we think we’re looking for?
In one of my many
methods courses in college, we spent 12 weeks creating art. We drew, we
painted, we made cut-and-paste collages out of glossy magazine photos. Each
week, I would spend the entire class period planning my masterpiece and spend
hours after class trying, usually unsuccessfully, to bring it to life. When my
non-education major friends found out what I was doing, they would often
exclaim, “You’re so lucky! I’d love to make a sculpture out of macaroni!” or
something similar. And I would just nod and toss out a little fake laugh to
hide my neuroticism, as if to say, “Yeah, the fact that I spent 10 hours trying
to glue dry noodles together only to end up with something resembling a dead
sea creature is TOTALLY awesome!” When we shared our finished products in
class, our professor would say, “Don’t worry about what it looks like on the
outside. It’s the process, not the product.” At the time, I filed those words
away for future classroom use, imagining that I’d eventually use them to
comfort a student struggling with long division or writing the first draft of a
book report. I didn't realize that it was the student inside of me who needed
to hear them the most.
