There’s tired — and then there’s teacher tired. That's me, but it's so worth it

Now walk away from that cube of comfortable air, the cone of light, the cupboards filled with folded likenesses of you. Go out in the darkness of an ordinary forest where nothing has any love for you. The leaves are not the least bit green, encased in a mass of blackness solid as a wall but still minutely subdivided. The ground calls out to your body, asking you to lie down in it and rest, to breathe its familiar smells. This is the place where nothing is untrue. The animals are out there somewhere teetering on their sticklike legs. They’re not going home, tonight, or ever. Behind you is...