Hard to believe fall is almost here.  My thoughts wander to the summer past.  I think, with a growing sense of wistfulness, about a few golden days at the beach, shared with friends.  And about one peculiar evening at the seawall in Narragansett, R.I.  Amazing how an entire season becomes encapsulated in a single significant memory...a main event…   

    It was about eleven that evening, hot and humid,  and after a long leisurely dinner we took a seaside stroll.  Alongside the Coastguard House, lit like a castle alongside the sea, something caught my eye.  Behind the concrete wall a man stood, bent over, intent, focused.  I might not have noticed at all, except for the white cowboy hat and jacket (a la Elvis) he wore.    The ground behind the wall, covered in a field of stones of every imaginable size and shape, slopes down toward the crashing surf.   And Elvis crouches, his hands cradling a stone, gently tipping, turning, fine-tuning it until it stands like a monolith.  I gasp.  The entire field is full of these monoliths – long oval stones standing, in perfect balance, unaided, on the most unlikely pointed end, some stacked double.  This collection of vertical cairns appears as a tribe of stone penguins marching to sea, an army of petrified stone-age weebles.      Seeing my amazement, Elvis comes over. Explains that he’s a dancer and a musician who travels around performing, balancing rocks in his spare time. Says his name is Joe DiPetra. That his grandfather was a stonecutter.  I’m immediately doubtful. (DiPetra meaning, literally, in Italian, “of the rock”) I sense that only half of this is true, the rest, good-natured B.S.  But the fact is, Joe DiPetra is a good story teller.  His yarn has voice and style.  He knows how to entertain.  I become the suspension of disbelief, personified.    “How do you do this?” I asked.      He smiled beneath his white hat.  Up close, un-Elvis-like – short of stature, blond, sharp blue eyes, thick calloused hands.  He shrugs.  “I balance ‘em.  Feel the rock.  Find its center.  Listen to what it’s telling me.  It’s physics.”  He sees something in my eyes and takes it a step further.  “It’s about believing in something that doesn’t seem possible.”    I am stopped in my tracks at this kernel of truth that empowers his tale.  And I savor the fact that “make-believe” can deliver truth, relevance, significance.      So, what does this all mean?      It shows that when we tell a story well, with details that intrique and entertain, the reader will believe it, will embrace it, will allow herself to be captured by it, as long as it is informed by some greater truth.  This is the art of fiction, the heart of story.  And isn’t it the same in teaching?  That we need to look beneath the surface of everything we do to find the kernel of truth?  To discover the “why” that drives behavior?  When that happens we learn.  We grow.  We are inspired.  And we inspire others.    I came home and learned to balance stones.  To pitch them in the most unlikely way, feel their heft and bulk, believing in something that doesn’t seem possible.  Exactly what we do in the classroom, in so many ways.      Good luck with your balancing act this year.  And continually believe in what doesn’t seem possible.