The pair of white cabbage butterflies wheels in
circles, spiraling up toward the cloud-streaked sky, descending to the
green tangle of our emerging butterfly garden, tumbling over new-cut grass
towards the school picnic benches, then veering back to the garden beds.
The wings of the cabbage whites have blurred gray
edges, with black spots at the center. It's a little early for most butterflies,
although I've spotted some tiny spring azures and a couple of yellow sulfurs in
other beds. We don't have much in bloom right now, except the fourth grade's
daffodil bed, and the cabbage whites don't seem interested in those. I wonder
what they're whirling for – whether it's a fight, a mating dance, a frantic
search for food or just a way to pass the time.
I've come to dig out cutleaf coneflowers, who have
taken advantage of our good dirt and started to colonize our beds. The plants
are already a good three feet tall, and if left to their own devices would
overspill the beds in weeks. We have too many other plants to give them that
much space, so out they go.
It's the first day of spring break, so the pathways
around the garden lie largely silent, bereft of their usual parade of children
moving from one place to another. The birds and bugs will have a week of peace
before school starts up again. The work goes faster without constant
interruptions, enthusiastic questions and the customary stream of greetings and hugs,
but I miss them.
As I prepare to sink my shovel once again into the
damp, dark dirt, a flash of movement catches my eye. A tiny shape darts out of a
birdhouse and is gone, too quickly for me to identify.
The birdhouse – a small, wooden box with a sloped
roof – has been in the garden for some time, hanging from a wrought iron hook
that has patiently performed a variety of tasks over the years. I can't
remember who put it there. One thing I like about our garden is the way it
collects inspiration – a turtle box, a birdhouse, mystery plants, all of which
just appear, and make themselves at home.
It's dark inside the house, and I twist my neck
back and forth, trying to catch the light. Then I see gray feathers and, just
barely visible in the darkness, three small, white speckled eggs. A miracle.
Happily, it is a teacher workday, and two of our first-year
science teachers, Robin Tench and Laura Howden, are working in nearby
classrooms. When they emerge, I beckon them to look, and they light up with delight. A little later, when head custodian Grady Houston wheels
a trash can round a corner, I call him over too. He leans down, peers back and
forth, then smiles the biggest smile of all.
This is how we've built our school, one shared
moment at a time. Even as we've piled up data and projects and assessments,
this has been the glue that holds us all together. To create the kind of place Shamrock has been, people have to care about
each other in ways that show, in moments that buoy spirits and cement bonds.
I like working in the garden because it makes so
many of these moments possible – always something new to discover and to share.
I remember the day that students gathered to marvel at our first spicebush
caterpillar, the morning they discovered gulf fritillaries everywhere. I think
back to all the wide eyes and open mouths as students got their first looks at
baby rabbits, blue robin eggs, seed-snacking goldfinches and parsley
caterpillars, bright green and yellow striped creatures which when poked rear
up and shoot out small, orange horns.
And of course our school is filled not only with
the miracle of nature, but that of children, unfolding around us every
day. I love the way our teachers revel in the dozens of individual miracles that
parade through their classrooms, the way I hear them the hallways swapping
stories and laughter and advice, searching for the way to touch each one of their
students, building the bonds that nurture not only children but each other.
The six years I've been engaged in this endeavor
have been among the most rewarding of my life, a day-by-day amassing of
encounters and experience, one after another, much like the way we filled our
butterfly garden beds.
When it came time to fill the beds we couldn't fit a truck into the courtyard, so we
had to dump the dirt out back and bring it in one wheelbarrow at a time. We
called it wheelbarrow day. Parents, teachers and neighbors descended on the
school to dig, wheel, spread and haul. We cooked food, made paper butterflies,
held a raffle and had a great good time. Wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow, the beds
filled up. Moment after moment, we got to know each other better.
Three years later, the foundation laid that day endures,
in the plants now springing up under the March sun, and in the friendships and
connections that have grown as well. It's such a joy to share the results with newcomers
such as Ms. Howden and Ms. Tench, to draw them into the circle of bird eggs and
butterflies, moments and miracles, into the love that nurtures gardens and
children and schools.
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