Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Living Among The Great Brains

































Long ago I said I didn't care what I did, just so long as I got to spend my time around great brains. I didn't know exactly what that meant other than that I was aware of the tendency for people in their second half-century of life to calcify, to become blind to the magic, and I didn't want that to be me.

I did land here among the great brains without which, I assure you, I'd be by now some sort of curmudgeon-ly ideologue yelling at you children to get off my metaphorical lawn. 

Ah, but from where I am, among the great brains, I always know when magic is happening and am reminded to simply be delighted.


We have this mirror at school, arranged in a grid of reflective concavities that make us upside down like looking at ourselves into a spoon. We've been enjoying a short run of sunny winter days here in Seattle, a kind of Indian spring, and yesterday it threaded its way quite impossibly to our mirror where it currently resides under our loft.


Normally this is a darker, quieter part of the classroom, but yesterday the sun, bouncing off this mirror, turned it for a brief time into a place of wonder. We played shadow puppets on the wall, curious about how this was happening, looking from the window, to the mirror to the wall, but mostly just playing with the shadows we could suddenly make in a place that normally lives in complete shadow.


There but passingly: Magic!

I shared it with those great brains, those creative brains, those genius brains, those brains that know it's worthy of awe, while I might have otherwise just squinted and shielded my eyes. 


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2 comments:

MOM #1 said...

I love accidental magic!

stephanieleah said...

Great post, Tom. I am so overcome with admiration for children and the magic they bring at least once a day. The discovery, the insightful comment, the connections, the love. And because we aren't a co-op, I always wonder if parents know what truly magical days we have at our preschool. Thanks for bringing it to the forefront in this post.