Another autumn... of gale

Autumn or fall, both names trigger that mellow feeling of change. To me this season is about a new start, crisp mornings, morning dew, every day a new sensation of nature’s breathtaking colours.

Rainy afternoons when you slow down and stay indoors to read with a mug of hot chocolate topped with whipped cream in your hand, or the occasional warm and sunny hours to spend in the garden; preparing everything for a healthy, empowering winter sleep. Anticipating the early spring sunny days when everything is brought back to life and bloom.

Pretty laid-back and almost romantic, isn’t it? Well, those are the feelings I get when thinking about this season, and it is puzzles me why it is so.

As I am experiencing this season right now, I both live and remember what it is really like, and it is nothing of the sort I think of it being like.

Working life is hectic and straining. I get to meet new students, and they all have their own history to tell about what school is like for them. We try to give who need it a new start; to give them new possibilities to show what they actually know, instead of proving them wrong. It takes a lot of time and patience. To gain the trust of young people who have experienced failure way too often demand advanced tiptoe dancing between choice of words, choice of reaction and knowing when it is important to listen carefully. Often they disguise their problems in rude language or acting up.

Noone acts up because they are looking for trouble, there is always a reason. Most of the time it happens because this is how they have behaved in the past, and it is the only way they know how to behave. I understand why they do it: to talk about feelings is very hard. To find the right words is sometimes just too hard. As an adult it is important to ask the right questions to find out what is going on in their mind. We can’t perform magic, and we don’t read minds.

At home this is the time of year when the pile of laundry is at its biggest. The warm summer rain is history, now we get cold showers of rain, which often falls in all directions following the moody whims of the wind. Ones again the kids wear disagreeable rainwear and waterproof boots. Being hampered by what they wear, after a summer when shorts gave them freedom to be wild and vast and free.

The wet nature causes wet clothes, muddy boots, grass stained trousers and jumpers, the numerous changes of socks empty the sock drawer in no time.

Soccer season is at its most hectic, and towels pile up in the laundry basket and on the bathroom floor.

Beginning of the school year is an affliction for parents. Everything is to be read thrice with an adult, an adult must sign for homework done in every subject. An adult must check the kid knows the new words added to the vocabulary in foreign languages… it’s like we’re back in school; missing out on the lessons, but doing the homework.

Once again I leave the house every morning, having packed lunches and gym bags and satchels. Carrying five bags and outerwear for every kind of weather. There is no way I can keep up appearance, even though I started out pretty presentable.

This is the season when I never have a good hair day. Using an umbrella is very adult, but pointless. The rain is pouring down horizontally, and the umbrella dances in all directions… unless it turns inside out and point forward, like a satellite dish ready to  receive messages from the weather gods.

We have those crisp, sunny days, when the wind is still. But somehow they are easily forgotten in the overwhelming impact of autumn gale.

 

Some are heroes, some of us never are.

"Every hero becomes a bore at last."  I’m not quite sure whose quote this is, but I think it was Ralph Waldo Emerson...?

So…, I just googled it, and it is, in fact, R. W. Emerson who wrote it. (Heh, “googled it”; a new phrase which entered my vocabulary a couple of years ago. There is a world of meaning to it, and I think it is pretty international too.)

After a rather crappy day it was great to brag about myself, and feel an inch taller. I never remember names, dates or hours; I am one of those who need to write it down, and I have excess consumption of post-it pads… only problem is they grow so rapidly in number they drown in the chaos of notes… and I have to vary the colours, and soon all I see is a colourful clash of semi neon coloured notes, impossible to make sense of. So I tidy up a bit, throw away the outdated ones with messages I never remembered in time, and hang the rest in tidy order. The tidy order lasts for a little while until chaos strikes again. I don’t stick them just anywhere, you see, I stick them where I know I see them on regular basis. I used to use the messages on my computer screen, but that just failed. My screen looked as if I was hoarding messages, and chaos was a matter of fact. My screensaver (a pencil with an eraser and a message) was completely hidden for a while.

I found the quote about heroes today, as I was helping a student looking up the lyrics to a song she is going to write about. It wasn’t the phrase I was looking for, but it caught my eyes, and stuck to my brains.

I am awful like that… especially song lyrics. Catchy songs tend to stick, and I end up walking about humming, with occasional outbursts of loud, not too well (not always in key), right out singing.

Initially the quote "Every hero becomes a bore at last" struck me as a strange, actually rather peculiar, statement to make, but thinking about it, it makes sense.

On my way back home from work today I was thinking about people who stand out, and how much I enjoy their company… and then I thought about people who stand out even more, and how I am not likely to ever get to enjoy their company… and why not.

I think everybody, who face up to the fact they will never be a standing out hero (opposed to an everyday hero, which I think we all are, at some point) would like to be friends with a hero: To be in the position to say: “That guy’s my friend!”

As if the character rubs off, just by being in the same room together. In many settings we tend to try to earn credits through who we include in our circle (they may not include us, but that’s not really important, as long as we include them….)

It is important to us humans to have people to look up to. We need idols, we need someone to compare ourselves and our lives to.

If we can’t find someone compatible to what we strive for, we comfort ourselves with half the truth about famous people who apparently are just bad, at just about anything…  (or so we think, judging by the looks of their handbag or something).

Or we try, real hard, to be as good as, if not better.

The minute we see a chance to get closer to someone who is talked about in a favourable manner, we grab the opportunity with everything in us.

There is an old saying “the grass is always greener on the other side”. Funny how those old sayings seem to have everlasting truth in them.  We want what we haven’t got, even character. I guess that is a big part of being human.

And yet… as much as we admire people who are exceptionally good at something: People who are good at something somehow scare us. I can’t think of any other reason why so many brilliant people are surrounded by followers, but hardly any true friends, let alone confidenciality.

First of all: when people are really good at something, we like them because their qualities and skills make them stand out and be brilliant… which is admirable, and we like.

But to be that good at something, you need to engage, be interested in and put down a lot of hours, days, months and years to achieve the level of ability. To watch anyone that absorbed in a narrow topic is fascinating for a while, but then most people get bored, because they don’t have the same stamina and dedication, and when the hero continues: we drop out.

You may think that I don’t understand what a hero is. I think I do. I think a hero is as a person or a group of people that do something on for others in need, or defend honesty and integrity or a moral cause.

Heroes don’t stand by and watch or wait. They make things happen, they stand up for what they believe in, and through dedication and curiosity they make things better for others.

Doctors, musicians, engineers, gardeners... we find them in every trade, and in every layer of society.

It takes a lot of tenacity and dedication to become so good at something that you make a difference.

I have neither. I am a jack of all trades, but not a specialist of anything. My mind flutters in unexpected directions as I am rather distracted. I am not smart, but some wisdom has rubbed off on me through the years.

It is clear I will never be a hero, of any sort, but I am good at keeping them company. I am an expert at acting as if the deed they did, and do, was nothing less than what I would have expected of them.

(How much I admire their dedication... nah... they don't need to know.)