Patterns 10/31 #SOL2021

Media Studies has heavily influenced my thinking of reading and writing; in fact, so much so that when teaching the schools of literary criticism yesterday, I found my lens in my lessons.

In my grade 12 University English class, half in person and half at home on a Google Meet, I was moving through the usual slideshow, a combination of text and image, talking through the information adding details when I had a momentary “oops” thought; I’ve been teaching them as a Structuralist. I forged ahead letting the intrusion scurry into some crevice of the mind, but it prodded me for much of the day forcing revisions to my lessons, and my thinking.

When I arrived at school this morning, on the tenth day of the March Challenge, turned on my computer, began setting myself up for the day, then preparing to write here, I thought, “I can’t do this.” And then it really hit me. This is a pattern and I’ve been here before. Last year, in fact. The evidence is on 10/31 #SOL2020. It was precisely this time last year, one third of the way into the challenge that I had given up on myself.

Not today, I thought. Not today.

Observing the patterns in poetry and nature generate a sense of the profound beauty of art and life. The patterns of action and habit are useful for survival and the rhythm of routine can be reassuring, calming. And, I think the patterns of life are worthy of examination, especially when those patterns cause harm or prevent us from flourishing.

My focus this year in bringing about equity is the work of bringing equanimity, a dismantling of inward and outward, so instead of falling for a pattern in my thinking, I’m clinging to a practice of hopeful noticing and not allowing the pattern to become action. Not today.