Today is my birthday, my twenty-sixth to be exact. As the years have come and gone, I have realized how much of a kinesthetic and tactile learner I truly am. I find that I am an auditory and verbal processor; in fact, I can verbally process by myself. And I have found that learning and processing happen as I "go where I am going." We cannot neglect the process of learning as we are actively moving forward; that learning does not have to be static and solely, in a classroom, but that we learn from situations. That sometimes, we learn when we are in a transition…
I felt that Roethke's poem embodied this point, quite nicely. He was part of the Post-Modernist movement, along with writer like Sylvia Plath, Allan Ginsberg, Tom Wolfe, and of course, Jack Kerouac. He's also from Saginaw, which is where my alma mater is located. Check out the poem and see if you can find something relevant in it.
-Theodore Roethke's "The Walking"-
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
