Glimmers in the mind, Glimmers in the eye
I remember when Barrie Rodgers, my head of school in Oxfordshire, England, in our parting school assembly read an excerpt from John Masefield’s poem, “On Growing Old,” with me in mind.
Therefore, go forth, companion: when you find
No highway more, no track, all being blind,
The way to go shall glimmer in the mind.
I recall how I came to be in his school. After a year in graduate school, with a “glimmer in my mind,” I impulsively flew with my wife and my two children to England to find a job. Barrie’s words a year later would carry me back home with a glimmer, returning with no contract waiting for me.
A glimmer in the mind opens to possibilities, offering no prescribed path, inviting to follow, to sense its hints, look through the cracks, hover above, and to anticipate what’s around the corner.
A “glimmer in the eye” feels different. Each appears as hope, a possible fulfillment, eye opening seeing a coming goodness, a delight. I saw that in August, 1962, the day I stepped into my first classroom before the opening of school. I saw it in Oxfordshire when walking to my new school the first time, its the church-like spire appearing above the horizon. And I saw it in the Soviet Union when my first class of uniformed primary children stared up at the American on my first day as a US-Soviet exchange teacher. And I saw it when my children were born.
I now have both glimmers alongside me. They are in the wings, inviting me to discover. They take me away from repetitive routines, from being and doing as always, from becoming reluctant to possibilities. Sometimes I fear that they will detour into my monkey mind, jumping from one possibility to the next. When a glimmer, either of the mind or of the eye, brings a momentary stillness, I become open to where it might lead me.
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forward.” (Kierkegaard)
I write to bring ideas and methods from my life as a teacher in the latter half of the 20th century to help teachers and the public to “live forward” in this century. My latest book, Teacher in the Rye: Doing It My Way is available on Amazon. And I welcome comments here on my Substack or by email at frankthoms3@gmail.com.
