Category Archives: Family

A Book Club Slice

Family, Slice of Life

Part of Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life

I’m looking across the circle at family book club. Moms and dads and their kids are sitting together, and we are sharing out to the whole group.

The kids are quiet, shy in the way kids get when it’s evening and they are with their parents and teachers and principal, all in the school library.

A third-grader seems to want to say something, but she puts her head down, shoulders up, not sure if she wants to speak. Her mom smiles at her, encouraging.

There’s something about the exchange that takes me briefly back in time.

My daughter and I went to a book club together – a Mothers and daughters book club. We met at the library every so often. We talked about a book we had read, did a craft.

We didn’t always finish the book we were supposed to read, but we went, we did the craft, we talked.

I don’t remember the books, I have a sliver of memory of one or two of the crafts.

But, I can picture the photograph of us laughing during one of those book clubs – it hangs in my parent’s house. And, I remember the feeling: sitting next to my young daughter, encouraging her to speak.

Loud Music

Family, Slice of Life

Part of Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life

Loud Music. I blast it in the car. I’ve always loved loud music, wanted the sound to fill the space.

Of course, this tracked at 16. Picking up friends on the way to school, I must have slipped a cassette in. Tori Amos filled the ol’ Hyundai, but also The Doors, Nirvana, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez. I had the best mixed tapes. I’m wondering if I turned the music up or down when I pulled into the school parking lot.

Once, freshman year, I blasted Jewel in my dorm room. I don’t know why this memory pops in my head so often. Was I getting ready for something? Was my roommate there? Did the entire building hear Who Will Save Your Soul?

On my way to work these days, I choose a playlist to turn all the way up. My team started a “Hype” playlist, so that’s a good way to start a day with positivity.

Playlist poetry should be as popular as book spine poetry, don’t you think? What’s your current Playlist Poetry?

Hype!

Make Way
Good Morning
Rise Up
Rise
Be Cool
High Hopes
Glitter & Gold

Not that I am always strong enough to choose the “Hype” playlist. It takes a certain strength to set intentions like that every morning.

Sometimes my morning playlist is just a shuffle. I skip through songs until I land on the one I need. But, I don’t know the one I need until it starts. I say, “No.” to my van as I skip through, sometimes listening to a few seconds, sometimes going backwards giving a song another chance, always annoyed that the shuffle doesn’t know me better.

Morning Shuffle

I am -
no
What I am -
no
Therefore I am -
no
Unstoppable -
no

Truckin’-
no
Invincible -
no
I Will Survive -
no

Run the World (Girls) -
no
Don’t Give Up -
no

I’m the Best - 
no
Mad Woman -
no
Mad Woman - 
no

Exactly How I Feel - 
no
Players - 
no
Touch the Sky - 
no
Kings & Queens- 
no

Rap God

I turn the music down when I pull into the school parking lot.

I mean, not all the way down.

My son just got his license, and right before his test, the driving teacher went through an amazing list of things to know about having and using a car. She reminded him that cell phones and friends are the leading causes of accidents. She went over what emergency supplies to keep in the trunk, when to check the oil (every fourth or fifth time you get gas) and how he needs to watch a YouTube of how to change a tire and jump start a car before he’s stuck on a country road with no signal needing to do those things.

It was a great list, and I wondered how many other things have I forgotten to teach him? He’s 17. I am running out of time! Later I told him that even though I love listening to loud music in the car, as a new driver, he should not be blasting music. He needs to concentrate.

“Oh, no. I will be very focused.” He said this very seriously. He does blast music in his room some, but he also turns my car music down a lot. He might be embarrassed by my music. He is a teenager.

I’m not a teenager or in college still so I don’t know how to feel about my propensity for loud music. Is it embarrassing? I’m not sure how I’m judged for it, but I know I’ve been judged.

“Turn it down!”
”Can you turn it down?”

A few years ago I found out I had a 30% hearing loss.

Check yourself reader – did you have a moment of assumption?

“Duh. You shouldn’t have been playing all that loud music!”

But actually the hearing loss was something I was born with, they say.

So maybe my loud music is how I hear. 

Maybe my loud music is
HOW
I hear

People might judge my loud music, tell me to turn it down. They may sigh with exasperation when I need them to repeat themselves.

I try to remember this feeling, remind myself that you can’t always notice other people’s struggles. I try to remember it when I sigh with exasperation at others.

I try. But I’m a work in progress. So sometimes I just turn up my music.

Another One?

Family

I was thinking about my daughter
while I poured the hot water into my mug
smelled the peppermint tea

My dad drinks tea
But I never got into the habit really
until these past holidays
maybe it’s because I bought myself a lovely pink electric teapot
but I think
more likely
It’s because of my daughter
home from school
how we made tea at night
and if I was lucky
we’d sit together to watch ER

After an episode, I’d ask her
hopefully
”Are we watching another one?”
knowing it was already past her bedtime

In my mind I’d laugh
It was just the other day when
her preschool self would look at me
with her bright eyes
and long curly hair
as the end credits ran for Little House on the Prairie
and sing with the theme song,
”Another one?”

Confession time
I’d almost always let her have
another one

I sometimes tried to remind her
of all those times I let her watch
another one
she owes me a lot of episodes, I think

She’d look at me
with her bright eyes
and her long curly hair
as the end credits ran for ER
and tell me that we could watch
another one
tomorrow

Dog Park Sage

Family, Pets, Slice of Life
Part of Slice of Life on Two Writing Teachers

I’m still thinking about the
pregnant woman at the dog park

She’s due in 2 months
Her dog has 2 months
to live

She had been expecting adorable
Golden and baby days
And now she will be saying goodbye
to her fur baby and hello to her new baby

“We don’t know,”
she says,
“Would we be crazy
to get a new puppy?”

I paused
I’m too young to be the old woman looking back like this—
advising

“Well,
people do it,”
I landed on
and then quickly added,
“but I don’t recommend it”

A father and a toddler brought their husky
and he leaned down with his daughter
who said,
“Dog!”
“Dog!”
“Dog!”
as dogs ran and jumped and played
and came by her to say hello
“Kiss!”
she said when my dog sniffed her cheek
I apologized of course
”It’s okay,” her dad said,
”I’m here and we’re just setting our own boundaries
We’re okay”

Later he let his daughter roam a few steps ahead of him
she pointed at each dog
”Friend!”
and wanted to share their toys

“Do you miss that age?”
The pregnant mom asked me

My mind imploded with that thing movies try to show you —
flashbacks through your whole life

It’s really an unanswerable question –
Do I miss that age?

Yes
there is nothing like it
I would go back in time if I could to get another
snuggle filled day
middle of the night feeding
walk with my two-year old’s hand in mine
a baby in my lap talking to me, nose to nose

Of course it was exhausting
a decade of sleep deprivation
touched out days
so much taking care
of
all the little people

And
now there’s magic in
older kids —
hilarious
smart
independent
older kids

Do I miss that age?

I finally answered
“Yes.
It is the cutest time
with all the words”

“So cute,” she said

“And hard!” I added
and we talk about the middle of the night feedings
all the rocking
I tell her about how after I read something about moms all over the world up feeding and rocking in the middle of the night, I never felt quite as stressed about it
I wasn’t alone

I laughed to this soon-to-be-mom,
“Now I’m the old woman with advice again…
It will go so fast
Enjoy those baby snuggles
Sleep when the baby sleeps!”

I wonder if she was sad
I think she must have been
as she watched the the toddler point at the dogs

Her dog will be
gone
long before
her baby has a chance to say
“Dog!”
”Kiss!”
“Friend!”

The Heart of my Story

Family

A couple years ago I started using the log flume story when teaching small moments in fifth grade. We asked the kids, “What’s the smallest moment that makes a story?” And then we helped them zoom in to a moment, choose a small piece of it and make it into a flip book.

My big story takes place on an evening at an amusement park.

My small moment is the time my son wanted to ride the log flume.

There are flashbacks too. There’s a short mention of the time I loved to ride the log flume as a child, and a small narrative about forcing my kids to ride the log flume at Hershey Park, not remembering how very scary it could be at the top if the ride. The way the boat tips forward and back, the way you feel like you are certainly going to fall off the side, the way the boat feels like it is about to tip all the way forward. Traumatic.

The story itself is pretty simple. With only a few tickets left at the amusement park, and my memory of how scary the top of the log flume is, I turn to my dad. The kids call him Bop. Bop doesn’t like water. He almost never swims in the pool in the summer, and when I was a kid, you just knew not to involve him in any water play.

Bop wants to make sure there he won’t get too wet.

I don’t remember. I don’t think you get too wet.

He and my son get on the ride, and the rest of us watch them go up.

It’s not until the boat starts tipping back and forth on the top, that I start remembering that actually you do get pretty wet.

We watch the boat go down. We watch the giant wave splash over the boat. We watch my son and my dad step out of the boat, soaking wet, walking down the steps. There’s a look, a frown, and then thankfully, there’s laughter.

This is the moment I zoom in on.

The students help me plan my flip book sequence, and then they begin planning their own.

This year I also used the log flume example when I was teaching about the heart of the story.

“What’s important in here that I want my reader to hold on to?” I asked a class, thinking aloud. “Maybe it’s this idea that my dad did the log flume for my son, even though it wasn’t his favorite thing. Maybe it’s that sometimes in life, you do things for others?”

I wasn’t sold on the heart of my story though. I wondered if maybe I needed to think of another story to use.

And then my cat, Theodore, died on a Sunday night.

It was an awful night. I didn’t know how I was going to go back to the vet to pick up Theodore’s body by myself. Of course my mom offered to drive over to help me.

“I’m on my way,” she said over FaceTime and less than a half an hour later she was at my door.

Next to her was my dad, shovel in hand. He thought he may as well help.

I showed my dad where to dig the grave on the edge of the wooded area of my yard. I held the flashlight, he dug through the rocky, sandy, root filled dirt.

“Well,” I told him, “I didn’t think I’d ever be digging a grave by flashlight with you. I hope we don’t have to do this again.”

But while I watched him dig, I started to understand the heart of my story.

My mom and I drove to pick up Theodore, and when we got back, my parents watched me and the boys cry and give Theodore one last scritch.

My mom swaddled Theo’s body, and my dad helped her lower him into the grave.

After they left, the boys and I cried some more. I told them that I hoped when they remembered this terrible day, they would also remember that Granny and Bop dropped everything and came over. It’s a big deal, I pointed out, and the boys agreed.

Thats what it means to show up for people.

The next day in fifth grade writing, we were talking more about the heart of the story. I couldn’t talk about Theodore yet without crying, but I wanted to tell the class that I figured out the heart of my story:

Sometimes in life we are lucky enough to have people show up for us.

September 26

Family, Slice of Life
Part of Slice of Life Writing by Two Writing Teachers


I might have a cold coming on,
or is it allergies?
my son made me hot cocoa
he wasn’t even making it for himself
just for me
with maple mini marshmallows
was it the smooth hot drink
or the kindness that made my throat
forget to be scratchy?

these rainy September days
the coziest
stay inside days
I love sweater weather!
but also
note to self
find the therapy lamp
because the sun is not around so much

I’m exhausted
are you?

March 22 Today Was A Day

Family, poetry, Reflections on coaching, Reflections on teaching, Slice of Life
I’m writing every day of March for the Slice of Life Challenge at Two Writing Teachers

Today was a learning day
a long day
a listening day

Today was a win-a-raffle day
a wonder-what-the-doctor-will-say day
a wait, what? day

Today was a travel day
a talk-to-college-daughter day
a tell-me-more-about-it day

Today was a a sit-all-day-long day
a surprise dinner with my boys day
a special-day-we-don’t-celebrate-any-more day

Today was a hump day Wednesday
a heavy day
a hello-glass-of-wine day

Today was
as they say,
a day