Paradise...

         As I was spending a beautiful time with family and friends this weekend I began to feel the strange pang of nostalgia. It wasn’t simply yearning to relive certain memories or wanting to go back to a certain time. It was a yearning to back to a time when life appeared simpler and everything/ anything seemed to float in the realm of possible. As we get older sometimes it appears that we become more able, while becoming less able at the same time. How you may ask? When your little you need people to help you do the simplest things from walking to talking, but we never need any one to tell us how to imagine. We can imagine the most beautiful things when we are little; we can believe in anything and it seems that as we get older we lose sight of this. The ability to imagine and believe almost has to be rediscovered and retaught. It is a journey within itself to get past all that we learn as we grow and hold unto our imagination. We have to be careful not to be disillusioned and feed into the urge to see things as impossible. Rather we have to take what, we have learned and move things that seem impossible to the realm of possibility.

     Sometimes I feel like this kind of combination can help us to “be the change we want to see in the world”. I don’t want to sound unrealistic or idealistic, but I’m always thinking about people and what it means to be human? What does it mean to be loved and/or give love?, what does it mean to understand and/or be understood?, what does it mean to make a difference and/or be the difference?, what does it mean to need and/or to be needed?, what does it me to believe and/ or to be believed in? Maybe I think too much but there is so much that good people can do with ingenuity and imagination. The issue is, how do we hold unto the imagination that made us believe everything can be done if we simply try. The song Paradise by Coldplay came out very recently and I can’t get it out of my head. I think it captures some of the sentiments I’m attempting to express in this blog. The most beautiful and sad line in this song is “the wheels break the butterfly”. This is going to sound cheesy, but I honestly think as educators we can all be butterflies and help our student to become butterflies, but we have to navigate so that “wheels” of life may roll over us, move us, change us, but never break us. If you haven’t heard this song, I think you'll enjoy itJ

Paradise by Coldplay lyrics
When she was just a girl
She expected the world
But it flew away from her reach so
She ran away in her sleep
and dreamed of
Para-para-paradise, Para-para-paradise, Para-para-paradise
Every time she closed her eyes

When she was just a girl
She expected the world
But it flew away from her reach
and the bullets catch in her teeth
Life goes on, it gets so heavy
The wheel breaks the butterfly
Every tear a waterfall
In the night the stormy night she'll close her eyes
In the night the stormy night away she'd fly
and dreams of
Para-para-paradise
Para-para-paradise
Para-para-paradise

Oh oh oh oh oh oh-oh-oh
She'd dream of
Para-para-paradise
Para-para-paradise
Para-para-paradise
Oh oh oh oh oh oh-oh-oh-oh
lalalalalalalalalalala
And so lying underneath those stormy skies
She'd say, "oh, ohohohoh I know the sun must set to rise"
This could be
Para-para-paradise
Para-para-paradise
Para-para-paradise
Oh oh oh oh oh oh-oh-oh
This could be
Para-para-paradise
Para-para-paradise
This could be
Para-para-paradise
Oh oh oh oh oh oh-oh-oh-oh