A New Year

What did you do this summer?

I took time to get into better shape and to think deeply about our school and how we can become the best school we can be. Throughout the blistering days of July and August, I sweated and struggled with weights, I did sit-ups and leg curls, I became familiar with medicine balls and purple stretchy oval things, and I paid attention to what and how much I eat.

The results weren’t immediate and I have a ways to go, but I can tell you that being able to fit comfortably into my pants and belts sure feels good. In hopes that I don’t lose the momentum, I have asked Mr. Pena to ask me relentlessly if I’ve done what I said I would do. If I haven’t, I’ve given him the permission to ridicule me. Having another person to whom you’re accountable is helpful, and I believe that Mr. Pena has just the right kind of personality to get the job done.

As the summer progressed and the workouts became routine, I decided to invest in new shoes. Being a bit unaware and clueless about things from time to time, however, I thought that my lack of proper athletic shorts would go unnoticed. I didn’t think that sock color and khakis mattered since the critical work was about health and wellness.  

I cared more about how they fit, not what they looked like. I did, from time to time, however, think that a pair of athletic shorts might complement my shiny new Nikes and athletic socks (brown socks are apparently a no-no) so I made one lame attempt to secure appropriate shortwear at the Half of Half store, but emerged unsuccessful.

Only recently did I become aware that my choice in attire had, in fact, been noticed by others. My wife, after the faculty dinner on Friday night, told me that Mr. Pena had some fairly strong opinions about my lack of appropriate athletic gear. She shared his concerns about my appearance, but out of respect for my feelings she hadn’t said anything.

Now I’m faced with a choice – do I cave in to peer pressure and put on the uniform others expect me to wear or do I stride confidently with my own clothes toward my own unique destiny?

What would you do?

Despite the way I look and how I dress, my body strengthened and my mind cleared. I even started a blog to document my thinking and hopes for my health. Through that I have found that the journey I’m on parallels the journey I’d like our school to be on. Obviously, physical health and wellness is important for each of us, but it’s also important that our curriculum and our programs strive to achieve similar aims.

Although it can be difficult to look at ourselves when we’re not doing what we need to do, it’s of critical importance that we confront the brutal facts and find a way to deal with them. Institutions are like individuals – they have identities, hopes, and dreams. They also have warts, scars, and scratches. Until we know ourselves, good and bad, the work we will commit to will only take us part way toward our goals.

It’s our job, together, to decide what to do. Your teachers are here for you and it’s their job to help you build the tools you’ll need to follow your passions and to become the best you you can be.

No matter what you’re wearing, make sure you wear it with confidence and the knowledge that your choices are yours and they make you who you will become.

Here’s to an excellent start to the school year – May your minds be enlightened, your bodies strengthened, and your spirits in harmony with one another.

The Odyssey

Having driven over 3,800 miles in the past couple of weeks with my family and Joel, the dog, I can, with confidence, report that there's nothing like a road trip to put things back together.

As the miles ticked by, hours passed like minutes, and as each day wore on, the chaos that became the inside of the Honda slowly overtook us. The rising tide of granola bar wrappers, Pringles cans, pillows, blankets, and books (7-11's don't stock Lotus flowers) signaled the inevitability of the approaching dusk and we began our nightly search for accommodation and renewal. 

Must Eat. 

Must Sleep. 

Must Reorganize.

Each morning we'd put things back in order and head on down the road toward another adventure. Over time, as we climbed hills and crested mountains, the winding roads that crept up steep grades finally gave way to the interminably, impossibly straight interstate that is I-40. Along the way, we remembered how to be together again. Having no choice but to interact with one another and to figure things out, we communicated; we "made common" our ideas and our hopes. 

In normal life, we're saddled with distractions that make it difficult to remember where and why we go where we go. But when all the doors are shut and we're moving down the road together, we have no choice but to cohere and deal with each other. We came together as a family during (and in) our Odyssey as we traversed the northern plains and mountains; our trajectories, at least for awhile, were in alignment.

To sustain this as a family and in our work at Casady, we have to keep putting things in order. Our community is incredibly complex and diverse. When we take time to address this complexity and converge on the big questions that frame us, we learn how to be a place where we do good work and serve our students well. 

We must pay attention to each other and take time to reshuffle and find a place for our things, otherwise our true destination gets obscured and overshadowed by various and disconnected endpoints. Although it's trite, the destination isn't where you stop, it's how you get there.

Summer is always a time to recharge and rebalance priorities, and while schedules tend to become less structured and busy, our capacity for divergence remains. This summer has reminded me that divergence without convergence leads to chaos, and that we must strive to find the right balance - to commit to the process of living in order that we might live with and for one another in the best ways possible.

So, as we packed our belongings and headed out for the final stretch home, and just as I was basking in the warm glow of family and togetherness, a troublesome blinking light flashed on and off indicating 'a potential issue with your transmission'. The next seven hours were an exercise in trust - not blind trust, but a hopefulness associated with the understanding that difficulty and chaos may lurk just beyond the next mile-post.

We made it home without incident, but it certainly doesn't mean we shouldn't take a look under the hood...

Goes with the territory, don't you think?

Time on the Road

Today we drove a few hundred miles across Wyoming. Heading to Yellowstone tomorrow.

We spent a couple days in Boulder - hiked to a waterfall and drove over the Continental Divide. Last time I did that I was seven. There's a picture of me bawling like a baby next to the stone marker.

I must have hated that sign.

35 or so years later, I liked it.

I've never seen so much beautiful and expansive land in my life. There are endless hills, dotted by sparse and infrequent trees. Shadows of clouds blacken hills, valleys and roads alike and the emptiness of the highway begs intrusion and definition.

Alternating between greys and a burnt orange tarmac, the road shoots straight toward more open space; more hope and opportunity. The hours pass quickly and I feel subsumed into the wholeness of the sky.

Now we're in Sheridan, WY. I'm charging my camera's battery for tomorrow's sojourn into the great wilderness with hundreds of other like-minded tourists.

No matter. We will put up our tent, start a fire and eat over the earth.

It's important to be in places you've not been before. It makes one remember those core values that sustain while immersed in another set of things to do. The minutiae of daily life and work can impede us as we strive to make meaning in our lives, which is why it's so important to check yourself against the unfamiliar, the foreign.

Looking forward to starting the new school year with a renewed and refreshed view of the landscape of school life. Embodied in each of our students is a similar landscape - beautiful, open, optimistic.

Alive with possibility.