It’s been two years and one month (give or take) since my last blog post. I took a break for a while though I’m not exactly sure why. In retrospect it might have been the silencing effect of button-down shirts, or maybe there just wasn’t much to say. If I wanted to be really self-deprecating I’d tell you I forgot how to talk. The truth is, as always, more mundane than that: I had a bad case of tunnel vision. You know the kind, so bad that even your mind huddles to the front of your head, right behind the eyes, and you feel like you are running all the time? I don’t think I have to remind anyone of the fact that it’s damn hard to write while running, and I’m nobody to buck convention. In the meantime, two years have slipped by with nary a peep, until this spring, when I remembered how to mosey.
Fourth grade was the year of creativity and fibbing. In fourth grade Ms. Morey1 told us, week in and week out, the drinking fountains would shoot cold lemonade in the summer and hot chocolate in the winter. Despite the fact that this never once happened, I believed her every time. She arranged the desks in crazy shapes, lived in a treehouse, liked to ski, and most important of all, Ms. Morey taught us how to mosey.
Not surprisingly (and probably not coincidentally), during my fourth grade year I became a prolific playwright. It was Ms. Morey’s patience and humor that tied everything together, creating the kind of environment in which even shy kids get a bit theatrical2. I became a verbal goof-ball, thrilled with the ability to fill pages upon pages with words. When I painstakingly transposed the first chapter of “The Magicians Nephew” into a script, it was Ms. Morey who allowed me to - and I say this in the most humble meaning of the word - produce the thing, using the storage room as a practice space and my classmates as guinea pigs. She sat through the stilted dialogue and mind-bending scene slaughter wrought upon old C.S. Lewis, as well as plays about golden toilets and fractured renditions of Casey at the Bat. I expanded beyond plays, writing an epic tale chronicling the nine lives of a tree, penning short stories about sibling rivalry, and I even scribbled down a number of haiku about nature. And throughout it all, weaving its way into each day, pervasive enough to create a Pavlovian response, was the mosey.
In order to keep the hallways free of clutter3, classes traveled in single file lines. Most teachers clipped along at a brisk pace while the line of students trailed behind, crumpling and stretching like an accordion. Sudden stops resulted in more blobbish formations, since the kids at the back of the line - the ones either looking out the window or picking their noses - were too preoccupied to know when to stop walking and generally didn’t until they ran into the back of the teacher. Ms. Morey, on the other hand, had us mosey. Moseying was fun because you weren’t running to catch up, you were slowing down to stay balanced.
Moseying is the antidote to tunnel vision, a way of decoupling from the throttle. It counteracts in all the right places and might even be responsible for a good hair day or two. Moseying slows things down in a world that keeps getting faster and reminds you to stop and taste the drinking fountains4 because, in the end, Ms. Morey just might be right.
{ fin }
- I remember Ms. Morey fondly, and she definitely left an indelible mark on me. Years later, on a visit to the States, I unknowingly sat across the aisle from her on a flight to North Carolina. Upon de-boarding I caught a glimpse of her face and was too surprised to say anything. It’s one of the few things I regret to this day; not saying anything, that is. [↩]
- I think this was also my busiest year as a budding thespian. In addition to acting in my own plays, I was a tree in a local fairytale production, and was Doc (yes, the dwarf Doc) in the school play. [↩]
- The clutter of small, squirmy children with runny noses and squeaky voices [↩]
- A modern neologism to substitute for all that Victorian rose-smelling. [↩]
Glad to see you back. I remember those days in school. Walking everywhere in lines. I’ve been doing some moseying too. I’m deployed to Korea and I miss Okinawa; my family.
Thanks for the welcome Fybix :)
How long have you been in Korea and how often do you make it back? The boy and I visited Okinawa this winter, only the main island though. Wish we could have made it to some of the small ones, but the trip has resulted in a goya champuru addiction. MmmMMmmMmmm…
wheeeeeeeeee!
hugs!
@Brian - My thoughts *exactly*. :D
So she had you all mosey in line? That is such a cute image.
She did, she did! Such a good thing to learn. Ms. Morey, along with my middle school art teachers, taught me a lot about life, though I might not have really known it at the time…