It’s a quiet, cloudy, Sunday morning. There’s the kind of calm in the air that suggests the strong, green embrace of summer will soon give way to the weaker, multi-hued hug of autumn. The only sounds are the dull hum of insects, the gentle snore of my dog, and the low rumble of cars pulling into the church parking lot across the street.

Also the voice in my head, insisting that I shouldn’t be writing because there is too much other stuff to do.

As I write this, the new school year begins in three days for students. For school staff, the year officially began six days ago with the first day of inservice. For many, it started way before that with classroom preparation, professional development, and a million other things that lay waste to the idea that “educators have summer off.” Ahead of us are 176 student days of school and 186 teacher days (182 now since we had four days of inservice!).

This is my first year teaching as a licensed teacher. Last year I taught with an emergency license while also taking classes to get my license. It was a flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of year. Stressful as heck, but that stress was split between the classroom where I was the teacher and the classroom where I was the student. (Yes, I know and agree that teachers also learn from their students, but let’s not muddy the waters.)

Now I’m at a place where I can focus the full power of my anxiety on my classroom, and I gotta tell you, I’m doing a fantastic job. I’m overthinking stuff like I never have before, and the thought of the year ahead swallows me whole at times. 

One hundred and seventy-six days.

That’s 176 days of five or six lesson plans a day, give or take. Over 1,000 opportunities to either hit an educational home run, bunt, or foul. Or worst of all, strike out. And then there’s all the other stuff that goes with teaching. The behaviors, unexpected schedule changes, staff shortages, the politics of education, cleaning up puke, student and staff drama, and the list goes on …

How in the world am I going to deal with all this at once?

Thank goodness for birds and acorns.

When I was in college, I took a Personal Essay writing class that was taught by one of my teaching heroes, Professor Kelly Thomas. One of the texts she used in her class was Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. It’s an incredible book, like every other book Lamott has written. If you aren’t familiar with her work, do yourself a favor and get to know it. It provides a fantastic approach to writing (and life), and it’s premise and title are based on this short story from her own life:

“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’”

“Just take it bird by bird.”

That idea was my introduction to managing my own anxiety, something I’d suffered from for over a decade at that point. Break whatever it is into smaller pieced. I’d heard the phrase “one day at a time” before, but it’s one of those phrases that gets used to much, to the point of cliche. It just bounces off my brain when I hear it. But “bird by bird” … that was different, and it stuck. It came to mind this morning as I walked my dog, Ziti, and I was spiraling. I heard a bird chirp — a sparrow of some sort, I think — and I remembered the advice Lamott’s father gave. 

This made me remember a song that takes a similar approach to big problems: “Little Acorns” by The White Stripes. It’s on their basically perfect 2003 album, Elephant. 

The song opens with a spoken-word piece by broadcaster Mort Crim. If you don’t know Crim, he’s an old-school broadcast journalist. He was also Will Ferrell’s inspiration for Ron Burgundy in the movie Anchorman. The intro reads: 

“When problems overwhelm us and sadness smothers us, where do we find the will and the courage to continue? Well the answer may come in the caring voice of a friend, a chance encounter with a book, or from a personal faith. For Janet, help came from her faith, but it also came from a squirrel. Shortly after her divorce, Janet lost her father, then she lost her job, she had mounting money problems. But Janet not only survived, she worked her way out of despondency and now she says, life is good again. How could this happen? She told me that late one autumn day when she was at her lowest she watched a squirrel storing up nuts for the winter, one at a time he would take them to the nest. And she thought, if that squirrel can take care of himself with a harsh winter coming on, so can I. Once I broke my problems into small pieces, I was able to carry them, just like those acorns, one at a time.”

Later in the song, Jack White implores the listener to “Be like the squirrel.”

Yeah. 

Take care of those acorns one at a time. 

Deal with those birds one bird at a time.

Approach the new school year one day at a time.

One class at a time.

One whatever at a time. 

Admittedly, sometimes as educators we have a whole bunch of different things we have to deal with at the same time, but such is life. Let’s limit our horizon to just those things, rather than heaping on worry about what will come next or how many more things there will be to deal with. Focus on the here and now, and then move on to another acorn or bird. Or another acorn and another bird. Whatever needs doing. But we can’t try to move all our acorns at once, and we can’t write a report on 20 different birds all at once. We’ll either give up or burn out.

I’ve really been wanting a new tattoo lately. This morning has got me thinking about maybe getting an acorn on one wrist and a bird on the other to serve as reminders as I go through each school year. And more importantly, as I go through life.