Crisp, Cold, Pretty, Always Different

 

For eight weeks before I retired from Sandpoint High School back in 2002, I changed my morning routine eight times. 

With each week closer to retirement, I left the house a minute later than the week before. 

The route to school involved about three miles:  Great Northern Road, Baldy Road and then Division where the high school was located about a mile south of the Baldy Road turn-off.

My motive for these changes allowed me to enjoy some impending retirement rebellion more than anything else. 

It was just plain fun and pleasantly impish to know that I was breaking the strict regimen I had followed as a teacher for 33 years. Everything in teaching, it seems, revolves around disciplined regimentation. 

Bells ring, then ring again. Students must be in their seats on the second ring and, in those days, stay there for 55 minutes before another bell rang. 

I always tried to arrive at the school early and usually at about the same time to allow for classroom prep and for the general morning miscellany of kids coming early or meeting with other teachers, etc. 

So, to come to school a minute later each week felt good, especially knowing that soon I wouldn't come to school at all. Plus, I was slowly turning into a retirement renegade by bending my own rules a bit. 

So, that was one good aspect of pushing back my home departure time by a minute every week. 

This soft rebellion offered another benefit. As the weeks passed by, I became aware of the subtleties of how different roadside scenes that I saw every day could be when I observed them a minute later than usual. 

By the time I was driving to school eight minutes later than usual, I was truly amazed with the activity, some of which I'd never witnessed before while arriving at school the same time every morning. 

I passed different cars and waved at different drivers on my way to work. 

It was late May and shrubs and trees were flowering and new flowers were appearing in people's yards.  

I saw kids walking down sidewalks where eight minutes earlier each day before my experiment the sidewalks had been empty. 

A dramatic scene never observed prior to this experiment involved the arrival of the yellow buses in the school parking lot. 

On my usual arrival time, very few cars were in the parking lot, and I saw no buses. 

But the hustle bustle of students, staff and buses arriving all at the same time made me realize one of the reasons I had always preferred showing up to school a bit early. 

Inside the school, activities were different also---more kids walking the halls or sitting at their lockers and not much quiet time in my classroom before the first bell rang. 

Twas all okay with me cuz I knew I was a short timer and soon, I'd be outa here . . . forever!

So, what does the story above have to do with another batch of winter pictures this morning?

"You never stand in the same water twice."

That thought came in an interview the other day with Best Actress nominee Lily Gladstone.  

Because of my experiment at the end of my teaching career and because out my kitchen window and I see a different Schweitzer with virtually every look, I totally understand the statement. 

We never stand in the same water twice, and we'll never see exactly the same scene twice. Our natural world and our world of peeps is constantly changing, and we are the beneficiaries. 

Meserve's barn has been standing there across the field from us more than 100 years.  Yet, I'm sure everyone familiar with it sees the structure differently almost every time. 

The one constant:  its rustic beauty, but the light of the day, the weather of the day and the angle from which we view it is always different. 

This morning, my eyes focused on the barn with its surrounding trees and open white space from the now crisp snow from yesterday interrupted with zigzag series of dark shapes of what was standing but now iced-over water.

The exquisite scene seemed like nothing I'd ever observed in all my trips down our lane.

Same is true with Schweitzer and with my front yard and with all my other favorite scenes around the Selle countryside. 

I'm really glad we never stand in the same water twice because the earth and its inhabitants always offer a new perspective, if we only take the time to look. 

Often, it is so beautiful.  

Happy Tuesday.  

Even Miss Bridie looks a little different every time.