I’ve been inexplicably missing Old Silver, the towering silver maple that fell across the quad at Keene State College during Finals Week several years ago. When he was still standing, Old Silver was a sprawling, multi-trunked tree that needed wire braces to hold him together, but even those couldn’t save him from gravity in the end.
Old Silver always cheered me on days when I felt like I was failing as a teacher, as often happens during Finals Week, when your paper-piles are tall and your patience is short. It was always a comfort to have a towering Gray Guy peering over your shoulder on days when you were stuck inside looking out with nothing but your grading to keep you company. There are plenty of trees on the Keene State College campus, but none of them holds the same place in my heart as Old Silver did. Old trees teach us how to stand tall, how to sway in the breeze, and ultimately how to fall. There are worse things you can learn in college.
Today at Keene State, the grounds crew was setting up chairs for graduation: an annual ritual I’ve chronicled multiple times in past years. At the end of another long academic year, it’s a relief to see the clean, tidy lines of countless chairs arranged with meticulous accuracy. Teaching is a messy, inexact endeavor, but graduation ceremonies make a mysterious process seem polished and predictable with all their pomp and circumstance. Although it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when and where Wisdom happens, graduation ceremonies provide a sense of closure by suggesting learning can and does eventually come to a full and finite fruition.
Every year, I’m relieved to see graduation prep progressing because that means we’re close to being done with another semester, and this year, I’m particularly glad to see the term end. This semester has been emotionally draining in the aftermath of being cut to part-time, and I’m not ashamed to admit there have been days when merely commuting to Keene to teach two rather than three classes has driven me to tears. It’s not every semester that you question your career path, watch your dog die, and then reach the end of the term wondering “What’s next?” If Old Silver were still standing, I think he’d lean into the spring breeze and whisper that it’s okay to branch, to stretch, and ultimately, when the time is right, to fail and fall.
Hoarded Ordinaries 
Apr 30, 2012 at 10:40 pm
Thank you for this lovely and poignant reminder of the importance of pausing at the doorway to the future to acknowledge all that is.
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May 1, 2012 at 9:45 am
I like that way of looking at it. I think the sense of failure I often feel at the end of the term comes from feeling like we’re passing through that “doorway” too soon. When you teach (or at least when you care about teaching), there’s always MORE you feel you can do. The end-of-term reminds you that there’s a finite deadline for what you can accomplish: you have to pass through the doorway, ready or not.
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May 1, 2012 at 1:44 am
Times are tough in all of academia, and this has been an especially hard semester for you, as you noted. Plants do have it right — rooted and solid and just taking it all in — even if they are ultimately mortal.
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May 1, 2012 at 9:47 am
This is exactly why I love trees! One bright spot this week was when one of my first-year students remarked in an anonymous bit of feedback that s/he notices trees more after having taken my class. Regardless of what I “should” be teaching, “pay more attention to trees” is a lesson I can wholeheartedly endorse.
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