Missing things

This year our school decided to hold its very first Creative Arts night - great idea. I, personally, am all for creative arts, of course, the fact that I had just dished all the students art work back to them and sent it home, which meant I had zilch amount of art readily available to contribute to said creative arts night was no slight challenge for me to overcome in a very short space of time when the next term commenced.

However, for this art night, my class created a fabulous art piece, a corporate melding of images and words to represent time, space, relationship, religion and society. (It was really cool - I will try and find a photo) but one thing we put on the art work was a scripture, Genesis 1:1 - I'm not really sure, but beyond the shortest verse in the Bible, 'Jesus wept.' This is the kids favourite verse, and it worked with what I wanted, so I used it.

We painted the background black and then I very carefully scribed the verse with the wrong end of a paint brush. The result being a very faint etching. Exactly what I wanted. The kids had a number of concerns about this. We had a very lively discussion about whether it should be etched, painted over or scribed with larger print. All in all, it was brilliant. Exactly what every teacher wants to see - students discussing, listening, analysing and determining their point of view - and all with very little direction needed from myself.

In the end, their concern was that people were not going to see it (remember it was very faint). I pointed out to them that in reality it was right in the centre of the art work - it was there, it was obvious, what was there wasn't the problem...

What I then lead the conversation toward was a life lesson for the students. In that, just like the artwork, often there is something right before our eyes: directions, information, facts or impressions but because we are so distracted by other issues or we are not paying enough attention to detail, we miss what is right before our eyes, and we are the poorer for it. In fact, it probably wouldn't be too much of an overstatement to say that you couldn't even see it for looking.

And now, a couple of months down the track, my little life lesson for my darling students has come full circle and bit me in the butt. Many thanks to Mel for dropping in and leaving me some extremely helpful information about a publisher who was looking for a line I love writing for. But due to my inattention, my distraction by everything else around me, I missed a timely opportunity. I say timely, because darn it all, I have still bitten the bullet for the very first time and subbed my very first query letter and first five pages, even though it is two months past when they were looking for new authors.

Sigh.

But there you go, as Ned Kelly and Ben Cousin's abs (you gotta live in Western Australia to understand that bit) say, 'Such is life...'

Lesson for myself: don't miss what is right in front of your face.