Welcome,
This newsletter invites subscribers to read, breathe, and be present. Each Friday, subscribers are emailed a piece of writing.
Through my stories and essays, I hope to promote empathy and stewardship by drawing attention to the beauty of the everyday.
Below is my reinvention story: teacher turned writer.
Be well, be kind, and find joy in your work.
Peace,
Chris
Writing begins when you compose the first sentence. Then comes the second sentence. Usually, after the third sentence, you begin to have something to say.
I recently left my job under bewildering circumstances. A few days before my departure, I found a note and a box on my desk. A colleague and friend had gifted me the pen I now write with each day.
Interesting thing about writing - the way pushing words from your brain, down your arm, through your hand, into your pen, and onto paper gets you to the heart of your thinking. This pen is made from a piece of scrap wood gathered from the woodshop classroom of the school where I was the principal until a week ago.
My colleague and friend is a music teacher who crafts wooden pens as a hobby. The pens are beautiful. This one has a shape that fits perfectly in my hand with just the right balance to make writing effortless. The wood is dark with a rich black swirling grain, capped at either end by Celtic-inspired metal finishing. The ballpoint is smooth and leaves just the right amount of ink on the page. The end is capped by green glass that captures and reflects the light.
Writing reveals the connecting patterns that form the fabric of our histories: helping us to see our circumstances clearly enough to choose roads yet taken, to blaze our own way, to step away from the safety of following.
I graduated from the high school where I served as a principal for the last four years. The graduation ceremony I presided over one month and four days ago fell on the fortieth anniversary of my own graduation from the school. A few of my friends' children were among the graduates who walked across the stage and shook my hand. I held my last faculty meeting outside in the school courtyard from the spot where I used to sit as a student. Strange how the pieces of your life find each other when framed by reflection.
The launching of this Newsletter is the next step in the new chapter of my life, which began the day I walked out of my corner Principal’s Office for the last time - my favorite surfboard under my arm. As a student at the high school, I surfed before first period. Displaying the deep green board on the wall of my office was my way of encouraging everyone to think of our school as our home away from home. Now I sit each morning in the unfinished bathroom of our home, writing about the everyday with the hope that my work will encourage empathy and stewardship.
Like the pen made from scrap wood and transformed by the hands of my artist friend, I will need to refashion myself. An exciting and frightening prospect. Making pens is my friend’s hobby - work he loves to do. Can I fashion a new life out of something I love to do?
What I have now that I have not enjoyed since the summer I was twelve is open time. I am blessed. I married the love of my life. My twins are my favorite people. I live in a place where the light and the water are like no other. I have close friends I trust without reservation. My parents are healthy and live in the next town over. My brother and sister enjoy loving families of their own. Strong roots for branching out.
It turns out the answer to my current existential question (Now What?) is simple: Write. No sense in worrying about the unknowable future. Replaying the past is exhausting. It seems the thing to do is right in front of me: the pen, the open time, my hobby: essay writing.
I have always dreamed of being a writer. I think I will lean into that, pick up my gifted pen each morning, trust in the art, and see where my words take me.
Be well, be kind, and find joy in your work.
Peace,
Chris
