On our walk this morning a large slice of red papery Madrone (Arbutus Menziesii) bark lay in the middle of the road. Upon picking it up, the curling piece of the Madrone’s skin felt so fragile in my hands. I was immediately reminded of Eustace in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader when he was being de-dragoned. Aslan tore the skin from him, descaling him and turning him back into a boy. After this, everyone immediately witnessed Eustace’s nature had changed for the better. Transformation - that is what the skin of the Madrone represents to me. The peeling away of my old, dry, flaking skin to reveal a new tender green skin that is more vulnerable, more sensitive to my surroundings. I am like the Madrone - shedding an outer skin and saying “yes” to a new tender skin, ready for new adventures.
Out of the blue, our neighbor invited us to use his cottage, solving our internet challenges and giving us a beautiful "home" for our new adventure. We cleared a path through the woods joining our two properties and surveyed our new commute to work. Instead of getting into our cars and driving twenty minutes to school each morning we will be walking a few paces up the hill through the woods into the clearing where, illuminated by slanted rays of sunlight, the bright blue cottage anxiously awaits us. Now the raw experience of exposing our combined 80 years of teaching experience in this new skin of online technology begins.