Tis the season for school visits. I love them. Middle schoolers are tough. I enjoy the challenge. It’s a delicate time with layered social dynamics that I can’t know when I enter the school. I’m in and out in an hour but I try to make space for quiet kids, the ones that raise their hand halfway, the kids who aren’t the loudest in the room.
I only experience that hour but the day and weeks after matter. That long tail of a school visit isn’t part of my view.
A lot of my job functions in the dark. I witness launches, school visits, posts online but there’s so much I don’t see. I don’t know. In that way, I realize that making books and art relies on belief. It’s an invisible truth - I need to believe my stories make an impact to keep going. Before it’s bound paper, before sketches, when it’s a beautiful blob of an idea. I need to believe.
Once in awhile, I witness the impact in person. Like yesterday when a student brought the most tattered and loved copy of Pashmina I’d ever seen. Those are the moments when the belief is a reality. The belief has a shape, a voice, and it looks to me with love.
And asks me to sign the book.
So I do. And return to the dark with more belief than before.
Thank you for sharing. You just checked my writer and my teacher boxes all in one post! You're actually coming to visit my middle schoolers in several weeks. Looking forward to the visit!
Lovely heart warming story, thanks for sharing. The ripples!