Recalling...

When I am preparing students for exams it is always so easy to forget what it is like to be on the other side of that preparation and lose patience. I was going through an old diary this morning and I came across this little piece of writing. The voice that spoke to me from these pages seemed so much younger and seemed to have so much less perspective yet it was written only three years ago. The thing that surprised me was how much perspective I seemed to lack. I was rather ashamed at my own self indulgence and self importance. At the same time I remembered all that pressure which you carry when there is a weight of expectation upon you. It is funny now the recollection of my former self begins to teach me lessons. Perhaps I needed a gentle reminder to help me better understand those I am supposed to help and support with patience...even if they do seem to lack a little perspective.

I find myself back at the beginning again with the same mountains to be climbed; a staircase of thick beautiful novels with their own specific scents. A mixture of that fresh, sharp bookshop smell - newly printed ink on clean white paper and the seemingly ancient texts allowed to mature on library shelves like vintage wines until they have a musty aroma. It is in these pages I find both my tranquility and my challenge. Over and over again I will break the spines of young books and dissect their core into the early hours of the morning with no one as my companion but the shadow of dead writers that put pen to paper many years ago when an idea burnt freshly upon the flesh of their young mind and the searing sting of genius carried their words across the paper. Now they are gone and every one of their images is left standing strong as when it was first created awaiting my scalpel to  slice deep in to its heart and find its purpose. If I cannot find one I shall have to force one upon it. The writers have no words with which to argue, their shadows are silent, their words are said but mine are not and I must try to piece them together and make them enough.

Pretentious and self important....a winning combination but also a good reminder for me of what it is like to think that exams and all the blind fury which surrounds them really are the most important thing in your life.