Image courtesy of Good Reads.
I just finished Elizabeth Hay's Alone in the Classroom and just love love loved its prairie-inspired rustic language. The story revolves around the classroom; around teaching and there really is something to be said about education-themed stories. Loves them.
When I read through it, I felt as though it truly depicted a lifetime of thoughts; a lifetime of adventures; a lifetime of what-comes-next's. We all tell the same story in our own little way, don't we? Here are some quotes I found rather memorable...
How it lulls a person, the sight of work done so easily and well and without conscious thought.
Page 26
On the perils of winter...
We are frail at this time of year, she would say to me years later. February. March...we are vulnerable and exposed and given to sudden ferocities. Something terrible had happened to her when she strapped that boy. The pleasure she had felt, whamming his powerless, insubordinate hand, shamed her. The savage satisfaction. No wonder punishment ruled the world.
Page 90-1
A child lies like a gray pebble on a shore until a certain teacher picks him up and dips him in water, and suddenly you see all the colours and patterns in the dull stone, and it's marvelous for the stone and marvelous for the teacher.
Page 94
I'm in love with this quote. As you know, I thank my lucky stars every chance I get for everything that's happened in my life. It's brought me here and here is pretty amazing.
And none of this us stuck or alone,
because coursing through us
is everything
that brought us to where we are.
Page 99
This is what I miss the most about the physicality of home. It's written so well I can nearly smell it:
What she had missed in Europe was what she had missed out west, a landscape full of swimming lakes and pine needles baking in the sun and rock you could walk across like banquet tables.
Page 172
On Algonquin Park (oh, so true. What gorgeous, honest land.)...
Here is the country not on its Sunday best, but in its old clothes, unpaved, unfenced, full of character, ungroomed, unvisited, barely penetrable.
Page 180
Lastly, though it pains me to think at times, coming home is going to be really hard for me. It's going to be amazing, but I think we can all agree that after a long trip, a long lifetime, coming home is a challenge. After all, they don't say, 'you can never go home again' for no reason. I'm sure it won't be like this entirely, but everything is on a spectrum, don't you think? There's probably going to be a bit of feeling like this. Anyway...
So much of coming home is wondering why. You make a long journey for something and what is it once you have it in your hands? It's a series of second thoughts. A bundle of doubts. A nest with no eggs.
Page 268
I'm taking it easy tonight, just watching Sex and the City and marking some papers. Shocking right? I hope your day was fantastic ;)
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