Too Cool for School

What's Important?

I want you to know that I'm never doing all of the things that I'm supposed to be doing, or that I know I need to do. I may never organize my bookbag or balance my checkbook until it's absolutely necessary. I don't clean house until the dirt becomes visible to the naked, nearsighted eye. My play is still not written, my lesson plans are a couple of days behind. And I wonder why I write here. Is it right for me to write to an audience like this, when I have so many other things to do? Which is most important--that's what I find myself asking so much of the time because as a teacher, I can never do it all. I have to choose, so which choice is the right choice, barring that somebody in my life needs something, which would always be the right decision. I've always asked myself if I'm a Mary or a Martha.
Last night I had to go to Wal-Mart. (Why does anybody go to Wal-Mart? Honestly. Honestly!) It was chilly, about 7:00. I bought my single-girl-food and pushed my cart all the way to the back of the parking lot where my car was parked. Right next to my car were two empty grocery baskets, just sitting there. I always see these sad-faced teenagers pushing carts in the rain, sleet, and snow, and I knew that I had to take at least these two carts to the cart collection spot. This made three carts, because I had one of my own to take. Have you ever tried to push three grocery carts at once? It's really hard unless you have a running start. One of the carts always wiggles around and it's like the carts are magnetically attracted to parked SUV's. Of course, the nearest cart collection bin was nowhere near my car, so I just kept pushing the carts, trying to stay out of the way of traffic, trying to keep the carts from crashing into people and cars. I smiled at people who walked by and waved a lot to pretend that I wasn't at all bothered by the cold wind, the wiggly carts, or the distance to the cart bin. No one waved back. Finally, I got the carts put away and I walked the mile or so back to my car. Everywhere I looked, there were more grocery carts. It felt like I had done nothing. I had to console myself by saying, "Well, that's three fewer carts to pick up." But I knew that no one would know about it and maybe the person who has to pick up all those carts would get discouraged, thinking that no one cares about them. I wanted to go back into Wal-Mart and scream, "Hey guys! I put my cart back!...Merry Christmas!"
I don't know how this all ties together; maybe it doesn't. I'm just reminded of my dear teacher Donna Hester at ACU. She shared lots of lovely quotes in our educational theatre class. One of them was by Mother Teresa, "We cannot do great things, only small things with great love." If we can't do everything, let's at least do the things that count. The tough thing sometimes is deciding what is important and what isn't.

p.s. I had a lovely day at school.

posted by Heather at 12/06/2005