Unexpected

This summer has not been what I expected.

I thought it'd be preparing for the next school year, for planning lessons and units and professional development.  I thought it'd be certainty of the next step.  And some of it has been: I compiled a first-week-of-school set of lessons--getting-to-know-you activities, a few possible stories to read together, and methods for establishing my expectations and classroom norms.

But it's also been a summer of turning inward, of exploring my own voice and ideas.  So I've been drawing/writing/scribbling/watercoloring.

Seriously, watercolors?  I love them.  I know nothing about art media, mediums, or methods, but I'm having fun with my little bargain watercolor set.  This is all about creating, about creativity for its own sake.  If something turns out pretty?  Awesome.  If something turns out ridiculous?  Fine.  Journaling and art journaling are about expressing, about getting something down, as Julia Cameron says (I think).

And that is how this summer will continue: getting something down, not making something up.  Adventures await, and I plan to savor them and record them and remember.  So when I found this poem by Erin Morgenstern today, I knew I had to write it down and splash a sky and earth and sun around it.