There are certain books in my life I call “Benchmark” books. I read them once in a blue moon, and not just because I like them. There are certain books that change in the reading because I’ve changed as a human. I might catch a new joke I missed in an earlier reading, feel new or resonating sadness in a character’s grief, or reflect on how my world view has evolved. A few examples:
–Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White –Native Son by Richard Wright –The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
For me, the March Slice of Life Story Challenge is a benchmark. It’s simple: write every day during the month of March. The challenge is always the same.
But I am not.
Each March I come to the Slice of Life the same, and different. Each March serves as a record of who I am, where I’m coming from, and what life brings me. There’s my first year, full of bright and early explorations in my writing. There’s the COVID year, with its anxiety and uncertainty. There’s my unfinished year, where supporting my mother through her health challenges became too much to balance with writing every day.
Where will this month take me? What will it teach me? That, my friends, is what I’m here to find out.
Today, I decided to make my Slice of Life through a different strategy. Stacey Shubitz had sent me this gift article about journaling on the phone. I was intrigued! So intrigued, that I shared the link on today’s post, and decided to give this strategy a go.
I was going through my living room, and I just saw this again, on the mantel. It felt like the first time I was looking at it. I couldn’t remember at first who gave it to me, or when I got it. It took me a few days to remember that this framed paper cutting sat in my mother’s office, and I took it with me as a memento when we cleaned out her apartment. She had an affinity for Winnie-ther-Pooh, and so do I. I think my students would enjoy seeing this, as we’re reading Winnie the Pooh right now…
I just got this oh-so-sincere “thank you” magazine in the mail. As someone whose name is chronically misspelled, I can quickly see the irony. I could probably fill a whole post with times and places folks have gotten my name wrong. Here’s a hint: travel down to Champaign, Illinois and visit University of Illinois’s College of Education. There’s a strong chance there’s a still plaque with my name on it, spelled incorrectly. I think my gravestone might have the same fate…
Speaking of giving things a go, I recently started this strategy with my students. We’re identifying strong uses of craft, then giving it a spin to see where it leads us. With one group, I worked on word choice to create imagery. And with the next, I was looking to create a mood. It was more an experiment in sentence length, but I was pretty pleased.
I was not pleased, however, with the way I introduced the activity to my second group. Many of them, instead of giving a particular skill a try, just listed the things they wanted to try. And that, my friends, is entirely mine. Maybe I didn’t explain it well enough. Maybe I didn’t model it the way I should have. But when most kids miss the mark, it’s almost always because there’s a place my teaching fell short.
Luckily, my students are highly forgiving creatures. Luckily, we’ll have lots of chances to do it again.
So…how did I enjoy journaling on my phone? Honestly, the jury is still out. I used the “notes” app on my phone because I didn’t want to have to download yet another app. Unfortunately, “Notes” was clunky to use. I may try to download a better app to see if it’s easier or more enjoyable to use. I’ll keep you posted!
Before I can share my One Little Word, I have to tell a story that seems unrelated. I promise it connects, though, because if anyone knows anything about me, it’s that I can take literally (!) anything and turn it into a metaphor. If you’re lucky, I might also make you giggle here and there.
You’re welcome.
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There I sat in my chiropractor’s office. I hadn’t been in forever, but it was long overdue. Here’s a general run-down of how it went:
Me: Hey, it’s been a minute!
Doc: Yes, it has. What brings you in?
Me: Well, that’s the thing. There are a few things niggling at me – knees, hips, ankles, back -, but if you’ve taught me anything, it’s that everything’s all connected. I’m hoping for a general assessment so I know what to work on first.
Doc: Wow, that’s great! I have taught you something! (OK, so I’m exercising artistic license here. Sue me.)
Doc: (proceeds to flip me like a pancake and flop my limbs like a puppet)
Me: Well?
Doc: Well, there are exercises you can do, but there’s an elephant in the room.
(The suspenseful music doesn’t actually start playing here, but you’re welcome to fill in your own if that helps you through the narrative.)
Doc: You’re not breathing right, and your body has compensated by twisting itself all around. I’m going to give you some breath work to do. (His explanation was much more sciencey-sounding, but you get the idea).
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Yes, my friends, you’ve read that right. I. Haven’t. Been. Breathing.
I mean, my lungs have been working and all, just not…well. Not deeply. Not fully.
It’s not a surprise; I even told the chiropractor that. So often in the last six months, I’ve caught myself holding my breath, bracing, steeling myself for traumas large and small, real or imagined. More often than not, I’ve held myself in suspended animation to get through each hour, each day, each week. I’ve caught myself holding my breath four times just in the writing of this post.
So. My One Little Word? It’s BREATHE. I’ll be working on it – literally – in the coming days. I’ve got my exercises to do, and like the B+ student I plan to be, I’ll complete them daily.
And as for that metaphor as promised, my One Little Word serves as a reminder throughout my life. I need to fully take things in. I need to provide myself with what I need physically, emotionally, spiritually. I need to create space for my thoughts and feelings.
Hopefully, that figurative exercise will look cooler on me than the literal one:
The crookedy-ish legs?That’s part of the set-up. Remember the whole twisty-turny part above? Yeah.
And you? Do you have an intention you’re setting for yourself? I’d love to hear.
Thanks to the Slice of Life community over at Two Writing Teachers. Check ‘em out!
Once in a blue moon, I glance through my drafts to see what’s cookin’, and I ask myself: is this ready to finish? is this going to go anywhere? is it worth saving?
And I came upon this poem, written last October, almost to the day. I remember how I felt when I wrote it. I was frustrated, tired, wishing people would understand how all-consuming it is to be a primary caregiver to an elder parent. How omnipresent the artifacts are. How difficult it is to go anywhere, do anything, without some kind of tether. The original poem was an inventory of resentment, a reminder of the obligation I felt dozens of time a day.
Now, with my mom two months gone, these words read differently. It’s an accounting of ways I miss her. It’s not lost on me that everything is still a reminder – not of her presence, but of her absence.
There’s a term called anticipatory grief. For lack of better words, it’s mourning someone well before they’re gone. Had I known this time last year where I’d currently be, I wonder what form these words would have taken on the page.
My guess is there’s another poem coming, one that enumerates those small moments of missing, but I don’t know if it’s ready for me yet. In the meantime, here’s my time capsule from October 2023.
My mom is in my home. She’s everywhere, right here on my laptop in the notes I made when I was calling and calling and calling for her long-term health care,
in the tub of frozen bananas on the counter that i’ve promised myself I’d make into banana bread because my nieces are coming to visit her
in the bag of meds I keep in the front closet so that every week I can sit at the dining room table and partition them into their waiting compartments of the pillbox i bring her every weekend,
in the cookie I set aside for dessert from the collection she ordered to spend down her dining tab
in the paperwork laying out that i’ve scanned in and still need to send though i don’t think it’s going to do what it needs
in the hand cream i keep on my dresser, the same hand cream i tell her will work for her itchy skin, if only she would use it,
in the picture of her and my dad that i keep on the dresser, that picture from the southernmost point from before we could ever detect his own drift southward
Here I am, back in Slice of Life space. It has been, so to speak, a BUGGER of a last several months. I suppose it’s a good sign that my head is far enough above water that I’m able to take in some air. I suppose there are stories to be told about it all, but for now I have another plan.
I thought I’d share some of my experiments, along with some reflections.
I brainstormed different cars from my childhood, and then picked one:
Ohhh do I have MEMORIES about this car! It was tricky to answer some of the questions, because a few images have faded over time:
The seven minutes for writing went by way faster than I was expecting them to. I probably could have written more – and yet, I actually kind of like where I left off. The last line came to me at the very end of my time, and I found myself wishing I had started with that thought. It’s definitely an idea I’ll be exploring more deeply:
I followed Lynda Barry’s advice and waited a week to go back and reread my work. It’s strange – I don’t know if the waiting changed how I reviewed my work. But I’m sure it changed how I thought about my work once I put it down. I was able to put the writing out of my mind – which is not something I’m often able to do after a creative session.
I’ll keep noodling with the exercises, and who knows? Maybe it will take me somewhere fun.
I’ve been racking my brain trying to come up with a good sum-it-up post for the March Slice of Life Writing Challenge. And in true slice-of-life fashion, I had one idea when I stepped in front of my keyboard, but my brain and fingers went another route. It’s one of my favorite things about this month – the power that writing has to surprise me, even as I create it. And so, in David Letterman (yep, dating myself there) fashion, I give you my Top Ten Reasons I Love Doing the Slice of Life Challenge.
10. I get to visit friends’ blogs, squirreling away ideas and mentor texts for kids. 9. And for me. 8. I get to shove my perfectionism in my back pocket, if only for a month. 7. I get reminded of how simple and joyful the habit of writing can be. 6. And how hard. 5. Which deepens the respect and admiration I have for my students. 4. With each passing year, I’m reminded of how deeply I love this community. 3. Which makes me want this community for my students. 2. For all students, actually, and for teachers. 1. Which means that no matter how tricky it feels to do it, you bet I’ll be signing myself up for next year.
Some of you writer friends…I’ll see on Tuesdays throughout the year, others as each of us post whenever. And I can’t wait. =)
Today’s Slice muses on the difference between my husband and me when it comes to watching TV and movies. He just sits and likes to watch. I, on the other hand, am a classic overthinker. I’m analyzing camera angles, picking apart the holes in the script, looking for patterns, symbolism and the like. I’m the one putting myself in the fictional writer’s room at the ad agency figuring out how – and why – they blocked their shots and chose their images. I’m also increasingly aware that I’m kind a pain in the patoot to watch a movie with. Let’s just chalk it up to my life as a reader and writer.
“You ruin everything,” said my husband, half (or maybe not-half) kidding, as we watched the hokey feel-good basketball movie.
To be fair, I wasn’t really trying to ruin anything. But I mean… tropes are tropes
ammirite?
Like, this movie’s been made before.
We know which one is the love interest, and we know the NBA is going to call the coach back, and we know he’s going to need a reluctant sidekick, and we know the team is going to give up on him, or he’s going to give up on the team, and we know they’re going to patch it up, and we know he’s going to LEARN a THING about himself, and life maybe, and we know that crazy farfetched basketball shot from that early scene will be what decides the championship game we know they’re going to play
So I gathered my predictions and quietly tucked them away so a man could finish the hokey feel-good basketball movie in peace.
But for the RECORD, I was right about the love interest, and the NBA, and the sidekick, and the giving-up on, and the redemption arc, and the championship game, and the crazy farfetched shot which (for the record) the kid missed…
Today seems like it’s the perfect time to play with nines and their nine-ness: perfect groups of threes, bundled in three more groups besides: three by three by three two and seven tidily summed up there.
Maybe it’s because I love numbers just as much as I cherish my words that I sit and ponder the poetry of the nines, their looping back on one another all back to number nine,
that I see number twenty-seven and my mind begins to deconstruct one number, then two, then three (it’s all about the threes) calculating awe, counting wonder, in every magic sum.
Today’s post is a golden shovel, inspired by a quotation from Sylvia Plath. I heard someone say it in a podcast, and the words stuck with me all day. It’s a keen observation on what words can – and cannot – do in times of grief and struggle. Mix in the grief that keeps popping up as a theme in my world – both mine and those I care about, and this poem came out:
I ask myself, what does standing on ceremony mean, if really we are just speaking of the way words shatter, or the way they can work to patch the shards, all of the ways they bring peace, comfort, havoc
Soapbox: The Way I see Things 