"The visible always hides the invisible." – René Magritte
"Go then. There are other worlds than these." – Stephen King
"Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." – Psalm 90:12
Time no longer feels linear to me. Not in this work. Not in this life. It doesn’t tick forward like a clock. It folds, loops, returns. Some days I feel like I’ve been teaching forever. Other days I’m startled to realize I’m still here.
This year, I begin again—for the nineteenth time. But this time, I enter the classroom as Dr. Armstrong. The name tag will say what the students don't yet know: that I have died and risen many times in this place. That I have endured the climb and chosen to return. That I now carry the weight of titles, of years, of names I still remember and ones I’ve forgotten.
The new title feels strange—not unearned, but surreal. Like it belongs to someone I once imagined. And yet it’s also fitting. Because teaching, for me, has always been a kind of ritual. A vow renewed each fall. A kind of liturgy I perform with my body, my words, my presence.
And in this ritual, I think of each day as a death. I rise, I offer what I can, and I lay myself down again—spent, imperfect, but faithful.
At the beginning of my career, our district launched a theme: Climb Mount Joplin. It was meant to be inspirational. Instead, it became something better—memorable. We laughed at it. We still do. It became an inside joke among those of us who’ve lasted this long.
But somewhere along the way, the mountain became real. And I’ve never stopped climbing.
Each year has its own slope. Some steep, some soft. There were years of wildfire and landslide. There were years when the air was thin. There were years I almost didn’t come back.
But I did. And I do.
Because the climb is not about mastery. It’s about return. The quiet resolve to keep ascending, even when you know the mountain doesn’t end.
René Magritte’s Call of Peaks captures this beautifully. The painting shows a majestic mountain range—quiet, eternal, untouched. But in front of it hovers a broken measuring tool, pieces of a frame that float in midair. A red curtain slips in from the side, reminding you that this is a kind of theater.
The message is clear: the mountain cannot be measured. It exceeds the tools we bring to it.
I see this every August, when I lay out my plans, build my frames, rehearse my script. And every year, the mountain shrugs off my preparation. Students walk in carrying grief, joy, apathy, brilliance—and nothing I planned quite fits.
And yet I build the frame again. Not because it works, but because it helps me look.
Nineteen is a strange number. Not round, not complete. But in The Dark Tower, it means something. It is the number of convergence. The signal that you have entered the deeper story. A story that loops and folds and demands everything.
Stephen King writes,
“Ka is a wheel. Its one purpose is to turn, and in so doing, it carries us forward and back.”
This year, I feel that wheel turning. I feel my past selves close—first-year Mr. Armstrong, naive and overworked; mid-career Mr. Armstrong, searching for meaning in the repetition; and now Dr. Armstrong, weathered, a little quieter, a little more whole.
But this is not a culmination. This is just another turn of the wheel. Another door opening. Another ascent.
I do not count time in hours anymore. I count it in sacrifices. I count it in offerings. Each day, I rise. I try to be present, to be kind, to be just. And each day, I fail in some way. But I offer the day anyway. I lay it down like a body at rest.
This is how I stay sane. This is how I stay grateful.
Remember you must die.
It’s not a threat. It’s a blessing. It means the day matters. The moment matters. The student in front of me—impatient, hurting, alive—matters.
In his journals, Thomas Merton wrote,
“Death is someone you see very clearly with eyes in the center of your heart.”
This practice—of teaching, of climbing, of remembering death—has become my way of seeing.
And so I return, again, to Magritte. The curtain still hangs. The frame still floats. The mountain still calls. I enter the scene like an actor and like a witness.
Year nineteen is not a celebration. It is a continuation. It is the rededication of a vow I never quite made aloud. To do the work. To climb. To teach. To let each day be enough.
There’s a line I return to when the climb feels long:
“The world has moved on.”
And yet here I am. Still in it. Still walking toward the tower. Still answering the call of peaks I’ll never fully understand.
Still dying each day. And still rising.
“Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.” — Arthur Schopenhauer