Monday Morning Musings: Strange Gifts

Principal ponderings...

I continue to struggle during this time with writer's block. I have been writing a blog post for almost 10 years every week. COVID hit and writer's block seemed to settle in. But I am trying to break out of the hold this block has on me and get back to my writing routine that I know and love. This week, when I finished reading Poisoned, one of the last lines inspired me to write a little or at least share the line from the story with you and some thoughts about it.

As I was folding laundry and listening to the last chapter of the book, I had to stop and replay this line to hear it a second time:

"...just another of pain's strange gifts. From sadness, came empathy. From grief, came compassion. From anger, came resolve. From loss, came love. These are the things that make us get up when we fall. Try again when we fail. These are the most valuable jewels."

In the book, Fear and Pain are personified as a brother and sister. And Pain continually says in the book, "sometimes I help." I was thinking throughout the book about that idea...sometimes pain is helpful? And then this line, brought it all together.

As we finally bring 2020 to an end over the next few weeks, I am going to let this line sink in more. This year has certainly brought pain, sadness, grief, anger and a lot of loss...on many different levels. But as a school community, I have witnessed empathy, compassion, resolve, and especially love. Pain can be helpful if we think of it the way the author spelled it out for us.

People who are not in education might say that learning has been limited during 2020. I would argue that I have learned a great deal more this year. Certainly lessons that I would have never learned if it was just another "normal" school year. And I am pretty sure that educators, students, and parents have learned these valuable lessons as well this year.

As we enter into the giving season, I am grateful for the strange gifts that we have received together this year. What other strange gifts will we receive?

Currently reading:

I enjoyed having some time over the break to actually just sit and read. Hasn't happened in a while. Usually I need to schedule some reading time in and then I feel like I should be working on other things instead of reading. I finished Poisoned by Jennifer Donnelly. Loved her other book Stepsister. Definitely two female empowerment books! I have also been enjoying reading Blended by Sharon Draper, the author of Out of My Mind. And as soon as I finished Poisoned, I jumped into listening to Making Bombs for Hitler. Also excited to start a new book club this week with female leaders across the country, reading and discussing the book Leading While Female.