Slice of Life 2021 Day 19: Senior Night

Today marks Day 19 of the Slice of Life challenge. Join me as I work to write every day in March – and beyond!

It was my son’s senior night at hockey.

This guy. He’s been skating since he was two.

I mean…LOOK at this kid. Bro’s in the background.

Yes, I’m a hockey mom. I have been for a long time. He started on a house league team in kindergarten. He actually played on the same team as his second-grade brother. Then my husband suggested he play travel hockey in first grade. And I’ll confess: putting my son into travel hockey at the age of six felt like a violation of everything I stood for in regard to the development of kids. I fought it with every fiber of my being, until.

Until I saw how much happiness and fulfillment hockey brought him. When he stepped out onto the ice, he looked – still looks! – joyful. Even from a hundred feet away, I can see him smiling through that cage.

Hockey has also brought him some of his darkest times. He’s fought his way through a lot. I can count at least four or five times where hockey had betrayed him in one way or another. Times any ordinary person would have shrugged their shoulders, cut their losses and moved on to another sport. Times I could have sworn he would hang up his skates and walk away.

He didn’t.

Wow, do I ever admire that guy. This one’s for him.

Sam,
your skates:
they have been
your feet ever
since the age of two
I’ve seen you glide and stride
over the past thirteen years
if anyone were to ask me
what’s your truest expression of self,
where it is that you feel the most like YOU,
I’d point them in the direction of the ice
this slippery surface that serves as solid ground
and I’d tell them this place. This place has always been home.

This is how much we love mom taking our picture

Sandwiched between brother and dad. Hockey family through and through.

Senior night banner (see that smile on the ice? Told you!)

Slice of Life 2021 Day 18: Crowdsourcing

Today marks Day 18 of the Slice of Life challenge. Join me as I work to write every day in March – and beyond!

Oh, WORDS. You are SNEAKY little devils.

You plant yourselves in one place in my life, then hop over into another before I have time to notice there’s a pattern going on.

But I see you now. I see the way you’ve inched into my writing practice, my teaching practice. You can’t fool me.

Maybe I’ll explain myself.

My students have been crafting theme-driven stories over the past weeks, and most of them are in various stages of revision. I noticed that many of my students still don’t have titles, and some of them don’t even have names for their characters.

I thought that it would be good for them to have a session together where they could gather ideas and support.

Enter: CROWDSOURCING.

I started by asking if kids knew the word itself.* No one did. So we talked about an example of crowdsourcing: when zoos have contests to name baby animals. Basically, it’s using the power of the crowd to source good ideas.

I then prompted students to think about, and enter in the chat, things that they wanted to “crowdsource” from classmates. We divided up into breakout rooms. Our procedure:
-Groups would decide order for turn-taking.
-Each author gets 7 minutes for their turn.
-During that time, they crowdsource ideas for whatever they need.
-I broadcast a “switch” message after each 7 minutes.
-Groups that finish early can move on to the next writer or circle back to someone who needs more time.

After that, kids had time to go back into their work and incorporate changes. They had a great time with this! **

That’s when it hit me. I’ve been relying on the very same strategy – crowdsourcing – as well! Just this week, in my “strategies to try” post, I put out a call to my own writing community, asking for links and ideas for cool post formats. I hadn’t even realized that I was doing exactly what I was asking my kiddos to do.

Sure do love me some serendipity.

___

*One of my favorite quick assessments when I introduce a new term. I say and write the new word or phrase, then I ask for kids to give me a 1-2-3 finger response (or a number in the Zoom chat):
1: Wait — that’s a WORD?
2: Ooh – I feel like I’ve heard of that word, or I’ve heard people use it.
3: Out of my way – let me tell people what this means!

____

**Don’t tell my kids this is just a spin on offering feedback.They’re digging the new lingo!

Slice of Life 2021 Day 17: Lucky

Today marks Day 17 of the Slice of Life challenge. Join me as I work to write every day in March – and beyond!

You can keep your corned beef
And your cabbage
And your potatoes
And your soda bread
And your whisky

Never mind about those shamrocks
Or leprechauns
Or parades
Or wearing of the green

The luck I find
Comes to me
In tokens of love:
Reminders from friends
That I am missed
And thought of
And appreciated.

Brought to me by a friend who knows and loves me. Lucky, lucky, LUCKY me.




Slice of Life 2021 Day 16: Harvesting Ideas

Today marks Day 16 of the Slice of Life challenge. Join me as I work to write every day in March – and beyond!

You know, we always tell our young writers to keep track of all the great ideas they have for writing “seeds.” I’ve realized that I’ve seen some amazing ideas for cool Slice structures lately, including:

Fran Haley’s etherees
Ms. Chen’s “My Ten” post (along with her time-bending post, borrowed from Fran McVeigh)
Britt’s and onathough’s “6 words” slices
Vickie and Ravienne’s “Flashback Fridays”

Of course, I’m not going to be able to use ALL of these ideas in March, which is just fine! I just want to give these writing forms a spin whenever I can, and I’m even more excited to see how my kids respond to them.

How about you? What cool writing forms or structures have YOU seen? What are the tricks that you like so much that you’re squirreling away for another post?

Link to a cool blog format in the comments.* I’d love to develop a whole collection of new ideas I can use for future posts.

*(of course, the hipsterish buzzword I’m actually looking for is crowdsourcing, but you didn’t hear that from me)

Slice of Life 2021 Day 15: Out of Sorts

Today marks Day 15 of the Slice of Life challenge. Join me as I work to write every day in March -and beyond!

For the past week and a half, I’ve been feeling…OFF.

My mental magic wheel greedily spun comments, omissions, and small slights into threads – ropes! – of hurt, self-doubt and bruised ego.

I usually feel resilient. I can usually manage the “speed bumps” that life throws my way.

But lately I’ve been crabby. I’ve been overly sensitive. The tiniest nudge sends my mind into fits of perseverating.

What on earth was going on? It wasn’t the time change. It wasn’t hormones. It wasn’t the full moon. I had no way of explaining why I couldn’t get my emotional self together.

Until yesterday. Yesterday, I got myself behind a barbell for the first time in a while.

Between the new puppy, vaccine #2, some back issues and an unexpected home quarantine, I had neglected to get physically active. Other than walking said puppy, my body wasn’t doing ANYTHING.

But after a session moving big and heavy things, It felt GOOD. REALLY good. And all throughout the rest of the day, I felt good. I felt so much better, so much more in control, so much more resilient.

This has happened to me before. I’ve felt terrible about this world and everything in it, only to feel much better once I get myself moving.

I wish this week’s me could go back to last week me mid-mind spin. I wish I could interrupt, could tell myself that all of these terrible thoughts I’m having about me aren’t ME. That I need a physical outlet so I can feel better. Sometimes, all we have to do is to identify what we’re going through, to name the monster that’s taking over. It doesn’t fix the problem, but boy does it make it more manageable.

In the meantime, if you’re one of those people who interact with me in real life, I’ll leave you with this:
1) Thank you for putting up with my being a crabby pants.
2) If I’m being a super crabby pants, you have permission to when I worked out last.
3) It will be better for us all.
4) And thank you.

Sunday Sit-Down #9: Turning Point

Each Sunday, I’m working my way through my experiences with race. I’ll share stories and memories from throughout my life. I know I’ll encounter moments of growth that I wish I could relive. I’ll also have to think back on choices that I wish I could remake. Today also marks Day 14 of the Slice of Life challenge. Join me as I work to write every day in March – and beyond!

Every story has a turning point. There is a moment of truth, a fulcrum on which our seesaw of experience forever rests between “before” and “after.” I’ve had several such moments in my life.

The details are sketchy. There’s a chance I have some of them wrong. There’s also much more complexity to this than I can express in a single blog post, but we all know words have their limitations at times. This is one of those times.

My first moment of racial reckoning occurred in high school. It was my junior or senior year. The high school newspaper just published an issue on slang. In it was an article on Black English.

I remember holding that edition of the paper in my hands, scrolling through the articles, and reading that one with some interest. I remember the article mentioning Black English Vernacular and giving some examples of its structure. I don’t remember much about the content of the article.

I do remember that it wasn’t written by someone Black.
And it didn’t sit well.
And it brought forth a lot of anger.
So much so that the local news covered our news.
LOTS of people were talking about it.

And if you asked me how things eventually turned out, I don’t even think I could tell you.

But I do remember that being a moment of truth for me. This idea I carried in my head, the one that told me racial justice and equality were “done” once Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks took care of things? It was a lie. There was still prejudice and racism and bias and inequality. There were wounds, still seething anger across and within racial groups, and it took a high school newspaper article to puncture that boil.

It was the first time I recognized there was still work to do. That I had work to do. That there was so very much I didn’t know, didn’t understand, hadn’t bothered to see.

That was the truth I had to sit with. That I still sit with. It has shaped me, has driven me. It’s what drove me to seek the experiences I have in college (starting up on that next week!) and beyond.

And…if you’re someone I know who remembers this time, I’d welcome your memories in the comments. I keep trying to put more perspective to these events, and I could use yours.

Slice of Life Day 2021 Day 13: If Only

Today marks Day 13 of the Slice of Life challenge. Join me as I work to write every day in March – and beyond!

If only, last year, as we hastily made copies
and gathered books
and held cramming sessions
on how to use Google meet
we had stopped

and sat on the floor
in a circle
the kind of circle
where sometimes you pass
a rock or a stick or a trinket
and everyone takes turns
and everyone shares
for a moment

If only, last year, as we loaded backpacks
and gave high-fives
and said our “see you soons”
we treated the day
as the last day of school

with hugs
and reflections
and closure
and notes to our future selves

it might have made the missing
not easy
but easier.

Slice of Life 2021 Day 12: Filling Buckets

Today marks Day 12 of the Slice of Life challenge. Join me as I work to write every day in March,

If you’re feeling low,

And you’re wondering whether the next big gust of wind is going to guide you to shore or strand you out at sea,

And you’re wondering what, if anything, you can do to make this world feel and inch and a half better,

Follow Larry Ferlazzo’s advice. *

Have your kiddos write comments in your Zoom chat about grown-ups who’ve made a difference.

Send those comments (without names) to your colleagues.

Watch the fuel tank on your heart gradually shift from E.

.

.

.

*Let me know if you give this a go!

Slice of Life 2021 Day 11: In Awe

I saw the cover of the book
and snorted
and huffed
and rolled my eyes

because

who needs an entire book
to tell them
to look around
in wonder
and awe
at the world around them

who needs 192 pages
on a Kindle
to tell them
to look up at the sky

and then i thought,

uh-oh.

there are people in this world
who need an entire book
to tell them
to watch for signs of spring

so maybe
i should buy them a copy

or better yet

i will find someone
who needs this book
and take their hand
and lead them outside
and grasp their chin

and point it to the stars

Slice of Life 2021 Day 10: In Memoriam

Today marks Day 10 of the Slice of Life challenge. Join me as I work to write every day in March – and beyond!

I was saddened to learn of the death of Norton Juster. Here’s my little tribute.

Dear Mr. Juster,

My name is Lainie. I’m a fan.

I first read “Phantom Tollbooth” when I was a fifth grader. Your book changed my world.

Mr. Juster, I had always been a reader growing up. I worked voraciously through Beverly Cleary, through Judy Blume, through Roald Dahl. And I’d always enjoyed reading, and I’d always imagined the worlds that authors brought me, and I always enjoyed the time I spent with the characters.

But Milo. And the adventures he had in the Lands Beyond.

Mr. Juster, you wrote a book that was CLEVER. And SMART. A book that spoke directly to me. A book that was written just for me. You never made any assumptions about me as a kid. You never shrugged your shoulders and dumbed things down because you were just writing a kids’ book. No, you put all of your wit and energy and wonder between those pages, and you did it in a way that refused to underestimate me, as so many of the adults in my life often did.

You wrote the book I needed. A book I deserved. And in return, I’ve given that book to countless other kids who need that book, kids who need to see cleverness and joy in print. I know they won’t get all the jokes. I know that some of the ideas will be over their heads. I just make my kids promise me they’ll read the book again when they’re grown-ups so they can go back for all the fun stuff they missed the first time.

Mr. Juster, you were the grown-up so many children need in their lives. For that, you will be sorely missed.

With Gratitude,
Lainie
P.S. I also think your book “The Dot and the Line” was way underrated, and I hope people discover it. I just had to put that out into the world. I’m also posting this video of the story in case folks want to follow their curiosity.