The Weight of a Pencil

I was digging through an old shoebox this morning, looking for a spare key, when I found a wooden pencil worn down to a tiny nub. It still had the faint indentations of teeth marks near the eraser. Holding it, I was suddenly back in a wooden desk, the room smelling of dust and chalk, waiting for the teacher to tell us what came next. We spent so much of our childhoods waiting for permission to speak, to write, or to move. We were just small bodies in rows, trying to make sense of a world that felt much larger than our classroom walls. It is strange how we spend our early years learning how to fit into those rigid lines, only to spend the rest of our lives trying to color outside of them. Does the memory of those quiet, crowded rooms still pull at you, or does it feel like a life lived by someone else entirely?

Lothar Seifert has captured this feeling perfectly in his image titled School Class in Kathmandu. It reminds me that no matter where we are born, the act of learning is a universal bridge. What do you see when you look at these faces?