Big old textbooks

I am reading a textbook. It has been years since I read one. I am studying adult education and poring my way through a dense textbook, taking notes and learning, as I prepare to teach people how to teach.

Learning. New things. New ideas. 

Learning. Review. Understanding. Old ideas brought back to life.

What I am coming to understand is that there are core ideas that underscore learning. And I want to impart these to people who want to teach rug hooking. And I am inspired. I am excited. And yes, I am unsure of this new thing I am creating.

And so a textbook. To help me form and shape my ideas and bring them to life.

I read it by the sea with birds landing on the bushes in front of me. The bees are humming their little song and the wind is softly moving the branches around me.

Branches. Every time I begin a new project I see there are branches that lead out from the core idea. And I follow those branches to their tips while I stay connected to the main source, and the roots.

Learning for me is more like a vine than a tree. It is circuitous. There are all kinds of branches but they intersect and wind around each other. And I like that. I like how knowing one thing applies to so many other things. They are at the court, but they also wind through the vine endlessly.  

I know that when I teach someone to hook rugs sometimes I am doing just that, a simple skill. One stitch but so often it leads them to so much more. To their own branches, their own vine. It winds in and around their lives once it is planted within them. And so I learn about learning because it is important to think about what I am doing and make sure I do it with love, intention and honesty.

So I learn. By the seashore, or in the car on the way to town listening to a podcast, or sitting in my office with a book, or talking to a friend who has taught for years. I learn because I am a learner. Lifelong, every day, whenever I can.

Sometimes I learn beautiful things from a poem (thank you Alden Nowlan, Mary Oliver, Naomi Shabib Nye), from a song, from a man in a parking lot, or a woman in the studio. Sometimes I learn when I swim and the sun is a red circle above the sea. Sometimes I learn the same things over and over again because I need to. Sometimes I don't catch on as quickly as I should. But I learn. I am grateful for it. I am grateful for a brain that brings new synapses together and surprises me with a new thought or idea. For books and libraries, and teachers, and precious moments. For conversations on road trips, at kitchen tables, and walks down dirt roads.

Learning renews me. I am glad it does not all come in big old textbooks that I underline and scratch up. I am glad it also comes from relationships and community. From friends and stories. And that it comes from teaching and from life itself.