Here it is, Sunday morning, and I’ve got…nuthin’. Or, not the usual kind of something.

It was the first week of school here, and I had to take Daisy to the vet, and I worked far more than my contracted hours. I’ve been so busy doing that I haven’t had much time for thinking (which, for me, means writing).

I’ve had moments of beginning to process this experience of going back to the classroom, but it’s something that feels huge and that I cannot begin to see clearly yet. I don’t think I can really describe what it was, but I will try a little.

It’s a cliche, but it wasn’t unlike riding a bike or skating after a long time of not biking or skating. I felt a little wobbly at first, but then I got my balance back and the wheels flew and it felt so right. Righter than anything has felt for years and years and years. It was hard and fun and exhausting. I have to think so hard when I am teaching–constantly taking in information and processing/assessing it and deciding what my next move needs to be, often in mere seconds. It works my body, too, in a way it hasn’t worked in so long; at one point, I realized sweat was running down my face inside my mask, and I was ravenous by the time I got to lunch. But at the same time, while I was in it, I wasn’t aware that I was thinking hard or that I was sweaty or hungry or thirsty. I was entirely present and engaged and energized and calm.

At the risk of sounding corny or over-wrought, I will say that it felt like my whole being was vibrating, maybe singing. I was very much in the state that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes as flow, one in which you become so involved in what you are doing that you can lose all sense of time and of yourself. Being able to experience flow states is, according to Csikszentmihalyi, essential to happiness. While I certainly had moments of flow in my earlier teaching experiences, I don’t remember it ever feeling quite like it did this past week.

I felt that flow state not only while teaching my classes, but also later in the day while creating lessons for the next time we’d meet. For me, teaching is a highly creative act of problem-solving, and my brain loves the play of figuring out how to effectively connect with other brains by creating sequences of experiences that will engage and support them in strengthening or building neural networks. What was wonderful this week–and what I’ve never before experienced as a classroom teacher–is that I had enough time to fully immerse in planning. I was able to think about and design for nuance in my instruction, those small details that can make understanding happen more quickly and easily. I was able to think deeply about sequence and resources and how to build supports.

Because I am teaching only two block classes (each 90 minutes long) every other day, I can teach at a higher pitch than I ever have before. Although I’m not aware of how hard my body is working while I’m immersed in it, I feel it afterward. I had time to recover between Wednesday and Friday. I am not having to pace myself the way I would if I had to teach 3 block classes (or 6 standard classes) every day, as most of my colleagues do.

Aside from issues of time, I think there are other factors making this feel like something I’ve never quite experienced before. In the article linked to above, there is a TED talk in which Csikszentmihalyi says a person needs about 10 years of training and learning for the kind of deep knowledge that we need to create at high levels. For the last 12 years, I have been immersed in learning about how to teach. I was able to receive in-depth training on instruction, assessment, several different pedagogies, and equity. I have been in countless classrooms, working with many different kinds of teachers, observing and thinking deeply about their practice. I knew I was a competent teacher before I left the classroom (after 19 years of teaching), but the depth of knowledge I had then is so shallow compared to what I know now. And it’s not just knowledge of techniques or pedagogies or frameworks; it’s also knowledge of people. In those 12 years, I had experiences with students in every grade from kindergarten through 12th; with teachers from those just starting to those about to retire; with support staff and administrators and instructional coaches in a variety of roles. I learned so much about what motivates people and opens them up and shuts them down and helps them grow. When I stood before my students this week, I saw them in ways I never could have before all of the experiences I had after leaving my earlier classrooms. I met them in ways I was never able to before.

Can you imagine what education might be, if every teacher had opportunities to learn deeply, plan completely, and adequately rest between classes?

I don’t know what I will be able to do with the understandings that are only just starting to develop. I’m seeing things about teaching, learning, creativity, struggle, work, and rest that I haven’t really understood before. But I’m grateful to be having them, even as they raise some difficult feelings. As I have experienced so much more joy in the past week at work than I had in all of last year, it’s been hard not to also feel anger and regret. Part of me is furious about how much suffering there is in our schools for both students and staff. In our world. We don’t have to do things the way we do them; our systems are a result of our priorities and our choices. If we truly valued our children the way we like to say we do, schools would look and function in radically different ways than they currently do.

At any rate, I hope to get back to the kind of writing I am more used to doing soon. But not today. Today I hope to stave off a headache that’s been toying with me for two days by getting off screens and heading to the garden. On Thursday, my day off, I had high hopes for spending time there, but our old Daisy refused her food (something I cannot ever remember her doing), and she could not be comforted, even when I held her. I called the vet, something that (if I’m being honest) I’ve avoided doing ever since we had to let Rocky go. Realistically, I know our options are quite limited at this stage.

She is still with us and doing better, but the vet and I had to have The Talk, and I know in a new way that our remaining time is short. A next visit will likely have a different outcome. All of our remaining time is short, if you think about it. I doubt any of us will feel, at the end of our lives, that we had quite enough. Off to savor some of mine, and I hope that you are able to do that today, too.