I Want to Be Famous

Teachers head back for the 2014-2015 school year tomorrow. Students won’t come for another week and a half, but even so, it definitely feels like there’s a change in the air. It’s been a big summer- getting married, transforming my house into our house, a couple short road trips, a week of camp, and a lot of reading and cooking. The 50 Books and 50 Hikes are coming along, although I’m taking more long walks, rather than hikes.

At the beginning of each school year, I select a poem and tape it to a space near my table in the classroom. As I enter my eighth year of teaching, I sometimes fight the feeling that I should have done more by now, worked harder, been more focused. The alumni newsletter brings word of classmates tenured, installed, promoted, and honored. While I feel a deep sense of gratitude and joy for what I’ve been able to accomplish, it can be tempting to measure myself against those tidbits of their lives. So this poem from Naomi Shihab Nye feels right for this year.

Naomi Shihab Nye

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.

or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.

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