Dear Brandeis community,

 

On the first morning of the first day of school this year, we gathered on the sunny bluetop, the late summer air still fresh with the possibility long days offer. We sang together as a community, shared a shehecheyanu, and used Ross Gay’s poem “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude” to set some intentions for the year. That poem is a long and vibrant one, and full of the summer, especially its flora and fruits; I read only the first stanza that morning, but found myself returning to its entirety over the weekend’s sunny reprieve from the recent rains. The poem ends with the connection between concern for the world and gratitude:

 

Soon it will be over,

which is precisely what the child in my dream said,

holding my hand, pointing at the roiling sea and the sky

hurtling our way like so many buffalo,

who said it’s much worse than we think,

and sooner; to whom I said

no duh child in my dreams, what do you think

this singing and shuddering is,

what this screaming and reaching and dancing

and crying is, other than loving

what every second goes away?

Goodbye, I mean to say.

And thank you. Every day.

The phrase “loving / what every second goes away” is striking—the poem is largely an earthly one, and it is easy to imagine that Ross Gay speaks of global warming and its environmental impact there. But I also hear in it the work of raising children—that uniquely rending heartache of watching your children grow older, and trying desperately to hold on to a moment. So in that spirit, in the spirit of the everyday gratitude for and of our children, I thought I would dig into the Sparks box that sits outside my office this week, and share what some of our students and community members have shared in response to the question “What are you grateful for?”

 

Tigger

Gymnastics

One World / One Humanity

Candy and chocolate!

In PE we got games two days in a row.

I am grateful for being alive.

Aidan is grateful for his family.

Ittai is grateful for scribble scrabbles.

Sonia is grateful for her teachers.

A wonderful musical performance! Grateful for Ms. Brown and Ms. Lostetter.

Simone is grateful for her family.

Spirit week!

Peace to the world.

Max is grateful that his best friend Eleanor is in his class, and he can’t wait to go on new adventures with her.

A life!

Tamar is grateful for Gigi.

Talya is grateful for her best friend Julia, and food and water, and thankful to live, and for candy and teeth and dentists!

Sparks.

Helping!

Romaro

Loving

Sister

Maddie is grateful for school.

Shoshanna is grateful for planting seeds so that we can get oxygen to breathe.

Gilana is grateful for her family, friends, and trees.

 

To all of which I can only say amen, and that I am grateful to live in and work in a community like this one, and with young people such as these.

 

Wishing you all weekends full of such gratitude, my friends.

 

Warmly,

 

Dan