Sometimes I feel like I can only see the world through smudged glasses, details obscured or invented to serve someone’s agenda rather than the greater good. Like walking in dense fog, you can only see what is immediately in front of you rather than any insights the big picture offers.

The classroom can be like that too. Vision blurred by the marine layer created by the chemistry in the room. It’s too easy to lose focus and only see the largest obstacles rather than picking out the beauty in the diversity of details that appear when you are able to shine light on them.

It’s report card time in my school district, a time that forces me to see past the marine layer as I consider the strengths and growth of each child in the room. It’s a reminder to look and listen carefully, to find the spaces and places where the sun turns the sky from gray and colorless to vibrant and so blue that possibilities are endless.

Today we decided to drive north to walk a beach we love, but don’t get to too often. We braved some crazy traffic (a parade was taking place a block off the main road, causing gridlock) as we hoped the heavy fog would burn off by the time we arrived at the beach.

It was noon when we arrived, later than we planned for. The sky was blue and bright with sun at the parking area. As we walked toward the beach, we walked into the fog. It was warmish (high 60s) and the tide was low. As we walked south along the shore, we explored the tide pools exposed by the low tide. Sea anemones were abundant. I watched hermit crabs in their adopted shells skitter in the shallows. We could feel the damp on our faces as we walked, and the beach ahead of us disappeared. Landmarks that tell us how far we’ve gone and how much farther we have to go disappear, changing the landscape, making the familiar unfamiliar.

Near the end of the stretch of beach we walked, the sun prevailed and we stopped to watch surfers, seemingly too close to the cliffs, ride waves and duck into the brilliant translucent tubes of water. We headed back, finding the fog again…a little less dense this time. At one point I noticed the beach split between the fog and sun.

Can I read the sky like others read the palms of hands or the remains of tea leaves? Does this mean that clarity is right in front of me? Or does it mean that I need to keep wading through the fog, wiping away those smudges, shining light into dark spaces until it becomes second nature and I know clarity when I see it?