Stopped by school today, with less than a week before teachers head back. It is a bit of a ghost town, maybe due to the crews that come through over the summer to rewax the floors, or the summer program which “borrows” the building for a month but without any reference points on where things belong. It takes me a few extra days to put the furniture and equipment back, repaint the chalkboard (which I may not get to this time) and see what’s what. A good time to get mentally ready.
And then every year, I notice the reality that I may find things out of place like that ghost town, but it still feels pretty desolate once I’ve put them back. Being a school where students catch up on credits means people blow through here in comparison to a regular high school. It is amazing that we can even build the relationships we do with our students, with the shift change tempo of our quarter based school year. But I know the family feel of the school will come back, it does every year, a real tribute to the value of our students. And that means when they are not there, it is pretty empty.
So I went home and immediately got out more seeds to plant. A good cure for desolation. Now that I’ve figured out a useful purpose for those egg cartons, my back deck is starting to look like a nursery. Whatever we can do to keep things lively! The sprouts pictured are sunflowers (thank you Will Allen & his Good Food Revolution). Put 1/4 cup in a quart mason jar and you get almost a quart of sprouts in about a week. To eat. Small satisfactions really count on days like these.
