Fish School

      Things move along. Campus is buzzing with preparation for the big anniversary celebration....I have begun to meet with the group I have been assigned to for PIU days. Another counselor has arrived and there are now three of us juggling office space.  

     Joyce is about to leave the island for a month, but we got a last snorkel in with more of the women from staff and faculty at PIU.    Being in the water -- something that always relaxes and inspires got me thinking and writing.....

      Watching the schools of fish swimming en masse, I try to join them mimicking their subtle movements.  Closing my eyes in my mask and drinking the air from the snorkel, I can feel the water around me, above and below.    I am without weight.  Hovering above the folds of coral and wondering what there is to learn in a school such as this.   There is a strong sensation of being too large, and too rigid to move in their flow.  Perhaps too long in a system of compartments;   having to do it a certain way. 

     Instead, I turn and swim against the flow of fish coming my way.  Hundreds of neon blue lights passing me by.  They seem neither curious or troubled by my hulking presence.  What is there to learn?    What are they teaching in this weightless,  soundless,  timeless moment?  They are a cacophony of color and pattern, moving in an intricate dance never stopping to judge or press their case.

     I think of being part of a school-- this school in this time.   Do I teach to the place where both swimming 'for' and 'against' are possible?  Can I  transmit the necessary information untainted by the distortion that a singular perspective creates.    Swimming for a moment with  eyes closed  behind my mask, I  think of the wider ocean of my own world  where those vying to lead us are currently leaking slimy contaminants over absolutely everything.    Floating free for just a brief moment I wonder how it is that we are unable to swim together ever.  Learning disabled, we have lost the ability to understand differences, and instead we reject the graceful dance of being able to discourse back and forth.