KEEP THE CHANGE

I've already devoted an entire blog to Miss Fishcher, my English teacher in 11th grade, over a month ago (see THE FISCHER QUEEN) because she was an amazing teacher. Today I was reminded of this letter that she had us all write to ourselves at the end of the school year. Try as I might, I couldn't recall what mine said. I do remember Miss Fischer saying that it could appear in our mailboxes, unexpectedly, at any time in our futures, just to remind us of who we are "right now." As I write this blog, I cannot help but wish that letter would appear in my mailbox today....or tomorrow... or next week. I already know that if I ever receive it, it will make me say things like, "I can't believe I wrote that! What was I thinking?" On the plus side, it will also make me say things like, "I remember that. I miss that. That was THE BEST DAY, THE BEST TIME, THAT WAS SOOOO FUNNY. I had the best friends."

I already know that it won't sound remotely like anything I write today. I have moved enough times and gone through enough boxes of "old stuff" to have discovered that. Each time I come across a box of high school memorobilia (i.e. notes and yearbooks and play/concert programs), I can't bring myself to throw any of it out. Instead, I read it all. That one box takes three hours to go through and I pitch nothing. The notes are the best. They are all about stuff I mostly don't remember. Sometimes there are references to "major" things, but usually there is a lot of talk about clothes/shoes and should I or shouldn't I cut my hair and crushes on this boy or that boy. It all makes me laugh. Those "problems" seemed so big at the time. I would love to have should I or shouldn't I cut my hair be topping my Things To Think About List.

Miss Fischer knew something that we didn't: life was going to get more complicated after high school. Grown ups get perks, but they get matching acccessories (aka problems). I started to wonder if maybe I shouldn't take a time-out today and hand write a letter to me for five, ten, fifteen, or twenty years from now. Maybe there's something about this living thing that I could still learn from Miss Fischer right here in the present.


The more I thought about Miss Fischer, the more I remembered how much she loved Henry David Thoreau. In fact, if my memory was at all accurate, I think she was inspired by him to spend some solitary time in the woods herself, just to see if there was anything to that whole business. I think there was, because she really admired the man. I didn't trot off to the woods this morning, but I did google H.D.T. and all of that time in the woods gave him clarity. I would be happy to have just ONE stellar quote in the history books. He has pages. I went through and picked some of my favorites (okay, I picked more than I planned on, but you wouldn't believe how MUCH there was to choose from!), but this is what spoke to me today. What is amazing is that if I had looked it up tomorrow, you could be looking at an entirely different set of quotes. Isn't that kind of awesome?




I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?



Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.

Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without.

It is usually the imagination that is wounded first, rather than the heart; it being much more sensitive.



Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

There is one consolation in being sick; and that is the possibility that you may recover to a better state than you were ever in before.

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

~Henry David Thoreau



So, I ask you, dear reader, must we go to the woods for clarity? Can we learn from another's trip to the woods? Or, perhaps, maybe ~ just maybe ~ can we set aside enough time daily for introspection within city limits that makes that trek unnecessary? Of course, each person much decide how much time is enough time for them. For some, that ten to twenty minutes in the shower and they are good to go. For others, well that is just the tip of a mighty big iceberg. But as ole HDT said, "The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it." How much is peace of mind going for these days?