I hate winter. My joints bark. It’s dark before dinner. More deer are attempting suicide by Honda. Fresh produce lies frozen solid in the garden. My bicycle hangs useless on the red hook in my garage. My black leather sandals have been relegated to the far corner of the closet. I love summer: swimming in warm lakes, grilling pizza on the barbecue with fresh tomatoes and basil, walks and bike rides along the Red Cedar River, crispy oven-fried potatoes dug fresh out of the garden, outdoor concerts at the Menomonie Public Library and Phoenix Park, camping at Long Lake with my son – all the best the Chippewa Valley has to offer.

Though I despise the glorious fall colors, crisp sweet air, pumpkins larger than basketballs and the odor of Lake Menomin receding – all tidings of winter – I also yearn for them. Work starts again: bells ring, lockers don’t open, students lose their planners ... and joy begins.

Why do I get depressed in August? An emptiness overshadows the sun heating my bare toes and sending my hop plants shooting 20 feet into the sky. An ornery mood limits connections to my family. I can’t see the colorful zinnias or the fresh corn turning sweet and yellow. Despite all the fish oil and vitamin D my wife pushes down my throat, when August comes around I get cranky, sad, lonely, and blind to the warmth I desire and treasure.

I am an ogre because I haven’t been working for a month and a half, and I can’t return until the end of August. Though I despise the glorious fall colors, crisp sweet air, pumpkins larger than basketballs and the odor of Lake Menomin receding – all tidings of winter – I also yearn for them. Work starts again: bells ring, lockers don’t open, students lose their planners ... and joy begins.

I teach eighth-grade language arts. As soon as I am greeting 120 students at the front door of my classroom and wrestling with poetry, creating stories and furiously doling out available copies of Perks of Being a Wallflower, 13 Reasons Why, or a John Green novel, the gloom is lifted. I am reconnected: I pick tomatoes and corn with glee; my bare toes wiggle in the warm sun.

It is the energy and excitement of middle schoolers that I love. I want our culture to know the beauty, power, and joy that buzzes in the middle school classroom. Kids are becoming young adults. Boys enter as sixth graders needing help finding second hour class and leave for high school splitting and stacking cords of firewood in an hour. They leave with questions about themselves and the world they did not know existed. Girls start middle school walking under the volleyball net and leave acing serves at my feet. They begin singing One Direction and exit writing feminist slam poems. All day I am laughing with students telling stories about their dog pooping out their grandfather’s wedding ring, sitting alongside students crying because their best friend is not talking to them and wondering whether Ponyboy and Johnny will ever get a break as greasers.

This winter when I am cursing under my breath as I pull on my wool socks and long johns, slather another layer of lotion on my bleeding hands, and scrape ice off the windshield, I will remember that I am not depressed; I am not alone; I am not sad. I am teaching.