Last night, a friend called me. She lives in another state but has many friends near me. In the course of the conversation, I asked how the weather was where she lived. She responded by telling me her friend near me said we had had some lovely weather this week. It caught me and I laughed. She was serious. It became clear in this exchange how important perspective is and the influence our perspective has on our lives. Let me explain.
Last week, the rains poured and poured and poured. The winds blew. The temperature was warmer than average so the snow in the mountains began to melt, raising the river levels. We had downed power lines, downed trees, crushed cars, and crushed houses. The amount of rain combined with scarred land from the forest fires this fall led to landslides, devastating landslides. On Thursday, the sun appeared. It was glorious.
When my friend told me she heard we were having beautiful weather, I laughed because I was stuck on the events of the early days of the week. Yet, her other friend had shared the story of the beautiful day with her just hours before we spoke. After my initial response, I realized we had had a beautiful day and was thankful to be reminded of it.
I feel like there is a lesson for the classroom in here somewhere. Maybe something to help shift perspective as we head back into the building after having been distance learning all school year. Maybe a lesson to carry as we finish up the semester and head into the next one. Maybe the lesson is some days are rotten and some days are beautiful. How blessed are we to be able to decide which one we choose to remember and speak about. Maybe. I think I will ponder this one a while. 🙂
Talking and Teaching Science 