Pushing forward
Of all the school years of past, present, and future, this was the school year destined for developing resilience. And maybe, here at the end, a summer of hope.
Cameron Scott holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Arizona, is a fly-fishing guide and teaches 7th-12th grade English Language Arts.
For schools across Eastern Oregon, the 2021-2022 school year is drawing to a close. We’ve celebrated our graduating seniors, and the final days of school have wrapped or are wrapping up. Now there is haying to be done, pipes to move, fields to cultivate and harvest, ungulates to tend to, rivers to run. The ground crunches beneath footsteps and dust rises on low ridges that haven’t seen enough rain. Visitors are arriving in droves with trailers and toppers and racks of all kinds. The world out here is changing faster than I can put a finger on; there is no pause, stop or re-wind button for life, but if there were, I would press it.
Let me rephrase that: I would full-court press, 46-Bear, Cy-Young pitcher-catcher, rotational, rover, 5-1 smack-down, will-skill, nature-nurture, social-emotional, diversity-equity-inclusion-access, most important part of a good offense is an even better defense, button punch the 2021-2022 school year back into oblivion. There I’d be, as March rolled around last school year, with the first hints and hollers of Covid-19 coming down the corridors, and I’d have all these experiences under my belt, ready to better serve my students and school.
But the reality is, of all the buttons in life, there has been just one inglorious button to push, and I’ve pushed it so many times this past school year it is impossible not to be callous, and that is the button marked ‘push forward.’ Pushing forward through on-line/in-person/hybrid learning. Pushing forward through three quarantines. Pushing forward through vaccinations. Pushing forward through ever-changing mask mandates. The list of pushing forward is endless, the deeper it goes, the harder the stories are to share, and the more personal they become.
I wish, like the ending of Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses,” this school year could be described as one long process of striving, seeking, finding, and not yielding. But it has been more a process of failure and learning to deal. And while I know pushing forward is an important part of resiliency; when we fail, we keep going, aka ‘learn and move on,’ I also know what it feels like to thrive; to be part of and support a wholistic and well-tended flock.
With the final pushing forward through the 2020-2021 school year, two poems come to mind that reflect Tennyson’s searching and striving in “Ulysses.” These modern takes are less romantic, though still propel us forward. There are no baths beyond all the western stars to sail through. Telemachus has long been put to rest. However, at their very centers, is a movement toward hope.
They are Ross Gay’s “Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude.”
“Friends, will you bear with me today/ for I have awakened/ from a dream… .”
and ‘Shake the Dust” by our current Oregon Poet-laureate Anis Mojgani.
“This is for the nighttime cereal eaters and for the retired, elderly Wal-Mart front door greeters./ Shake the dust.// This is for the benches and the people sitting upon them,// for the bus drivers driving a million broken hymns,// for the men who have to hold down three jobs simply to hold up their children… .”
The message in both? Welcome to pushing forward.
And so, along with other educators, administrators, students, staff, parents, and intangible butterfly flappings, I’m hitting the push forward button one last time before heading into the summer. To walk the dusty ridges and float the freshets of local rivers while they last. To cross my fingers against forest fires. To look back across the swath of Covid-19, to pick up pieces of the school year, take the most important lessons with me, and spring back into shape. Of all the school years of past, present, and future, this was the school year destined for developing resilience. And maybe, here at the end, a summer of hope.
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