I’ve written about fishing at the harbor before. There’s a reason it’s called fishing and not catching, especially how I do it. Recently, I found myself standing there, hoping for a bite and watching the tide come in.
It doesn’t make for an especially exciting time, but readers of these Morrissey Minutes should realize by now that I actively seek less excitement and more quiet reflection. Anyway, it’s hard to see the tide coming in as it happens. But look away for a few minutes, and suddenly the boats are floating higher. Rocks that were exposed have disappeared beneath the water.
What I started to think about that day wasn’t simply that the water was rising. It was where that water had been.
Hours earlier, it had been miles out in the Atlantic. It had traveled over sandbars, collecting oxygen and nutrients before making its way back into the harbor. The harbor itself hadn’t changed much, but the water had.
As quiet times usually do, this made me think about the start of a school year.
We’ve just finished our first week at school, and already, the campus looks remarkably familiar. The classrooms are where they’ve always been. The library still smells like books. The playground is once again filled with children inventing games whose rules seem to change like the tide. Teachers are settling into routines, bulletin boards are taking shape, and everyone is wondering how summer could have gone by so quickly.
The harbor is still the harbor.
But the water…
The water is new.
Every child who walked through our doors last week has been somewhere.
Some climbed mountains. Some visited grandparents. Some learned to ride a bike. Some spent afternoons catching frogs or reading books under a tree. Some had difficult summers. Some had joyful ones. Every one of them arrived carrying experiences we can’t yet see.
Our teachers did the same.
So did our parents.
That’s one of the things I love most about schools. They are wonderfully predictable and wonderfully unpredictable all at once.
We know we’ll sing the Rome Song again. We’ll build water cycle diagrams. Shakespeare will once again come alive in our classrooms. Robin Hood will steal from the rich, Odysseus will find his way home, and somewhere, someone will proudly recite a poem they were convinced they could never memorize.
The traditions remain.
But the people experiencing them are new.
That’s the really cool part.
At Crossroads, we don’t just repeat experiences—we revisit them as different people. Every year, our community is refreshed by new students, renewed by returning students, strengthened by dedicated teachers, and enriched by families who choose to travel this journey with us.
Like the tide, we come back carrying things we didn’t have before.
New ideas.
New friendships.
New confidence.
New questions.
New courage.
And because we practice our Core Virtues—respect, responsibility, compassion, perseverance, honesty, and courage—we have the opportunity to leave one another better than we found one another.
I eventually reeled in my line and simply sat and watched the water rise. It reminded me that the tide isn’t just filling the harbor.
It’s renewing it.
And after this first week of school, I think that’s exactly what I’m seeing at Crossroads Academy.
The campus is familiar.
The traditions are familiar.
But the people—and all they’ve brought with them—are new.
The tide has come in.
And I can’t wait to see what it carries to us this year.
