"After the Flood, All the Colors Came Back"

Perhaps one of my strangest habits is posting random song lyrics as my Facebook status.  Over the years, Facebook has become almost like a mini-journal to me, and I can chronicle my life by status updates ... and the song lyrics I've posted.

What's interesting, though, is that the song lyrics very rarely have any sort of depth of meaning in my life.  There are exceptions, of course ...

From Alanis Morissette's "Uninvited":

Must be strangely exciting
To watch the stoic squirm
Must be somewhat heartening
To watch shepherd need shepherd

Or, from Phish's "Fee":

You're racing with the wind

You're flirting with death

So have a cup of coffee 

And catch your breath

Most often, though, it's because I'm touched by the beauty of lyrics ("And the four right chords can make me cry"--Third Eye Blind, "After it rains, there's a rainbow and all of the colors are black/It's not that the colors aren't there; it's just imagination we lack"--Simon and Garfunkel, and so on) or else because I'm totally laughing at myself.

Earlier in the week, for example, I was on my way to the beach and found myself singing along with "Hey Jealousy" by the Gin Blossoms.

Tell me, do you think it'd be all right

If I could just crash here tonight

You can see I'm in no shape for driving,

And anyway I've got no place to go.

Now, I happened to be driving along the coast when this loud, windows-down singing transpired ... and Ocean Boulevard was very crowded.  Let's just say that I was the source of laughter for an awful lot of people ;-).  

So I posted the lyrics as my status update, and a lot of my friends were worried about me.  I supposed I could have just put, "I'm stuck in traffic at the beach, and people are laughing at my singing", but to me, posting the lyrics has ensured that I'll never forget the memory.

I'm weird ;-)

But anyway, there really is a point to this ...

On my way to work yesterday, U2's "Beautiful Day" came on, and I was touched by the line "After the flood all the colors came out" as it was capturing almost exactly what I was feeling.

I wasn't referring to the Tropical Storm Irene situation or to anything other than simply this:

No matter what happens, however awful things get, they do end eventually and get better.  Sometimes it takes a long time, but it will happen.  

I was seeing metaphorical colors everywhere yesterday, and they're still shining brightly today (although I have the day off ... four day Labor Day weekend, woohoo :-))

I can't get into details, but suffice it to say that last year was absolutely the low point of my teaching career.  It was a nightmare that had me contemplating leaving the profession altogether (and it had nothing to do with the kids ... the kids were wonderful).

I am back at the grade level that I love working with people who are drama-free and student-focused.  Oh, and of course the kids are wonderful :-).  But seriously, taking adult drama and chaos out of the equation has totally rejuvenated my passion for teaching, and I am incredibly, unspeakably happy :-)

And of course it served as a gentle reminder that this is true in all facets of my life ... I just need to have patience :-)

To celebrate my professional happiness and renewed belief in waiting patiently for other aspects of my life to fall into place (believing that they will, because if whatever higher power you believe in could deliver me from the freaking nightmare that work was last year, anything is possible ...), I got a haircut :-)

Also, I created classroom blogs, which you can look at here and here if you're interested.  I'm pretty excited about it :-)