I was savoring a cup of Tanzanian Peaberry coffee by the koi pond early
this non-walking morning. Images of a chance meeting the other day, a
serendipitous meeting, with a past student I’ll call Bob in Lowes kept dancing
across my mind. I was struggling to recover, retain, and savor every word of
our brief conversation. To say it was an unexpected jolt would be an
understatement.
I had run in to pick up some insecticide I had ordered online to
protect my amaryillis. As I was piling the two bags in the cart, I heard a
“Dr. Schmier” coming from off to the side. I turned. It was Bob. I hadn’t
seen him in a couple of decades. I had thought of him now and then over the
years. wondering what had become of him after he dropped out of school. Maybe
it was because he had been afflicted with the same ADHD as my son, Robby; maybe
it was because I often sadly bemoaned that he became a “one that got away.” At
least, so I thought. How wrong I just discovered I was. “….I’m still around
because you refused to focus on the obnoxious pain in the ass I was because of
my severe ADHD,” he said. “You got past the defenses I had thrown up….You
wouldn’t let me belittle myself as I always did. Instead….you tried to help me
find hope in myself and because, if I can say it, you loved me when no one
else, including me, did.…I know you thought you had failed when I dropped
out…..this is my surprise chance to tell you that you didn’t….You finally did
it….I alway felt I let you down, but I recently admitted that I had been really
letting myself down….All these years I’ve been ignoring you, but something
wouldn’t let me stop hearing you.…’It’s never too late to start dreaming and
always too early to stop dreaming’ and ‘Become master of your own story’
drummed in my ears over and over and over again….I stopped being angry….Now,
I’m finally listening….got myself on meds….I’m breaking the circle of
sabotaging myself.…I’m believing….I’m loving myself, finally….I’m going back to
school.…Thank you”
I smiled as my eyes teared up. All I said as I came around the counter
with outstretched arms was, “Come here.” I gave him a big hug as I whispered
in his ear, “No, thank you!” And, I rushed off to tell Susie, who was waiting
in the car, of this “you don’t ask” moment.
There was a freshness of Spring in the air. We’re between cleansing
storms. The pelting rains have started washing away the gilting pollen—at
least until the next pollen storm. It was dawn, as always a hope-full dawn, a
chance to begin again dawn. Silently watching the eastern skies gray,
accompanied by the songs of the waterfall and the chorus of birds, is a
declaration of certainty that the “this too shall pass” story never ends, that
things do change. Feeling the hopefulness of the dawn, then, is a nonverbal
de-hectic action, a calm savoring, a cherishing of awareness and attentiveness,
a silent reflection. It’s a non-reactive stillness, a spacious looking around,
an energizing pause, an offering of a way to live a nourishing life. It is as
if each appearing leaf, each melodic koi, each fern fond, each pine needle,
each person is an illuminating and revealing verse of Scripture. There is
majesty all around and you begin to notice it, sound by sound, sight by sight,
feel by feel, smell by smell that almost creates a Rumi-esque temptation to
genuflect, kneel, and kiss the ground in gratitude. That makes the koi pond,
for me, as it did the classroom, a holy place where I can celebrate and
experience what I value most deeply, and take it out into both the academic
world and the world at large. The dawn, as every dawn, is a love letter filled
with beautiful images. In it, as the day awakens with its depth, profundity,
and beauty, I am slowly enveloped with a dawning sense of wonder, of
possibility, of opportunity, and of responsibility to live dynamically as a
human being, as a human becoming, and as a human belonging.
Recently first it was Dave, then John, and now Bob who have reminded me
of the words of Rumi: “Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are a
hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” And, like it or not, aware of it
or not, I constantly ask myself in word and deed what does it mean for me to
kneel and kiss the ground this day. It means that for the last 27 years I’m
not angry with others and especially myself; I no longer accept the story of me
written by others that I allowed to make met my own enemy and be my own
obstacle to happiness, meaning, purpose, and joy; I am at peace with a
compassionate and empathetic light of love, hope, faith that has driven out the
darkness. So, I have a hopeful feeling of being a living answer to the
questions, to the ticker tape questions: “Who are you?” “Are you exerting the
power of being your own storyteller?” “Are you fully living a joyful life?”
Wasn’t it Jung who said that we can get an understanding of ourselves by those
who irritate and by those who delight us. So, it is not difficult for me to
answer as I constantly think of my angelic beloved Susie, of my two sons and
their wives, of my three grandmunchkins, of those students such as Bob and John
and Dave whom I’ve knowingly and unknowingly have touched, and of all students
for that matter in whose lives I strioe to matter.
Make it a good day
-Louis-
Louis Schmier
http://www.therandomthoughts.edublogs.org
203 E. Brookwood Pl
Valdosta, Ga 31602
(C) 229-630-0821 /\ /\ /\ /\
/\
/^\\/ \/ \ /\/\__
/ \ / \
/ \/ \_ \/ / \/
/\/ / \ /\ \
//\/\/ /\ \__/__/_/\_\/
\_/__\ \
/\"If you want to climb
mountains,\ /\
_ / \ don't practice on mole
hills" - / \_
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