Anticipation - Vacation

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

     The Merriam Webster Learner’s Dictionary online says that the word anticipation can be used in two ways:  1) a feeling of excitement about something that is going to happen and 2) the act of preparing for something.  I am picking up my grandson today at our airport so that he can fly again tomorrow with my husband and me to Sanibel Island, on the gulf side of Florida.  This is the grandson who moved away this year; he’s ten and we’ve taken him on a trip every year since he was four, although only this far away last year and this trip.  We are anticipating the week with such excitement, have planned what we want to see and do with multiple lists, although we certainly are flexible enough that if something else better comes along, we’ll go there!  We have also planned lists of what we need to bring with us, like plenty of sunscreen and insect repellent, comfortable clothes for beach combing and bird watching, and the pertinent paperwork in order to fly and take care of ourselves in medical emergencies, plus journals, pens, pencils for writing, and books to read at our leisure.  We have planned big! 

     So, as I have been anticipating this trip with such excitement, as definition 1 says, and I have been anticipating each of our needs according to definition number 2, I am again making connections to work, and wondering where this all fits into how I teach?   There is so much whirling around in my head because of my own anticipation, but it seems to narrow to only a few things:

§            Trust within the group so that everyone feels fully open to a new experience.

§            Allow everyone to anticipate what is needed and participate in the planning.

§            Build in time for flexible thinking, in case something wonderful presents itself that supplants other plans.

         I’ve had such fun with the building of this trip, and know I’ll have fun in the next week, hoping to find new ideas for writing too!  And actually, I believe that later I might write more fully about the three points above, and how they really look in the classroom.

My Writing LIfe - then & now

Monday, June 13, 2011

     I was inspired by Ruth’s posts both yesterday and today to get writing, and stop all the voices in my head that say things like “no, you need to do the wash” or “the weeds are back again” or “it’s time to plan the grocery shopping”.   In the late Saturday post with things from Etsy, two of the pictures featured old typewriters, of which I own two, my grandmother’s Royal and my college typewriter, an Olivetti.  My grandmother wrote many things during her life, some stories for me growing up, to which she added music because she was a pianist, too.  Later in life she wrote one of those town life columns in the local newspaper that included who visited whom, announcements of births, glowing descriptions of weddings as well as obituaries.  She wrote these on the old Royal, sitting in a small office-type room in her old two-story house, papers surrounding her like the nest that Kim of Goldilocks And The Perfect Desk described. 

 My mother wrote poetry often and one of her happiest moments late in her life was a little book of her poems published, and given as gifts to family and friends on one of her last Christmases.  She used journals for her writing, and my brother helped her by putting them into his computer so the poems could be published.

     Just now, I sat at my college typewriter and typed a couple of lines.  It took much finger strength!  I marveled at the hours I’ve spent at that machine, clacking out pages and pages of reports, stories, poems, mostly for professors, but sometimes for me.  I have taken the typewriter in to let my students see how they work, to try out a bit of writing on it, and have also told them how lucky they are to have missed out on re-typing pages when grave errors had been made or having to estimate just the place to stop in order to add footnotes.  They too noticed their lack of finger strength.  However, that machine was certainly a friend, all through my undergrad years, and needed only new ribbons to be renewed.

      As for my own current writing life:  It seems to ebb and flow like the tide.  I have always written in journals and with my students, but lately, have been more active because of this blog, and the inspiration of the Two Writing Teachers and the Tuesday Slice People. I am determined to write every day, and mostly sit at the sofa in the picture, writing on my trusty MacBook Pro, loving every minute.   I still make lists in journals, but more and more am using sticky notes on the desktop for idea posting.  The tech world is taking me on new paths.  Happy Writing!

Present In The Moment

June 12, 2011

       Having a two year old visit means being right there, in the moment!  Perhaps I should take a lesson from this in the classroom, not worrying so much about the next plans.

new things to draw - crayon or chalk

taking care of baby

just enjoying the swinging

doesn't know if she wants to go in

But-here she comes!

Keeping Cool At Grandma's

June 10, 2011


        Keeping Cool

My grandmother had beds put out

on her summer porch, where we’d lie

on cool sheets

those summer afternoons with our books.

We’d fan ourselves with church pictures,

And Grandmother would shake her hankie at her face,

saying “Pshaw!  It’s not as hot as last summer,

just a bit close is all.  Have some more lemonade.”

She’d send my uncle down to buy a nickel’s worth of ice chips

at the ice house.  He’d stay there long as he could,

in that  coldest spot in town,

filling his body with smells of sawdust and ice blocks. 

By the time he’d returned, we’d tired of turning pages, and

started on the games. 

The sun had begun that downturn and we could feel

the thermometer slide too. 

Time to start supper,

lay the table,

And wait for Grandpa to come in from the fields.

The Promise of Summer

June 9, 2011

       I set the goal of writing with each sense lately, and I've come to the visual this day.  I'm finally on vacation and have been working all over the yard, weeding mostly the grass out of the beds.  It brings me to the memories of one of my grandfathers, stooping over in the evenings, pulling weeds and grass, grumbling a little about the work being never done.  As I lean over, I remember him so well, and here I am, doing what he did years ago.  I see the perennials already in bloom and thought I'd take some photos.  Since they are up so much faster than the annual seeds I plant, it seems they give the promise of summer to me, saying 'here we are again, we said we'd return!'  Many of these perennials have come from family members-my mother and mother-in-law, an aunt;  and some from friends, brought in from Missouri on visits.  I am grateful for the blooms, and what they represent from loved ones, as well as that promise of good things to come all summer.  The one pic of the squirrel and the swing is another promise, of fun observations of our little friends that live around our backyard, and the granddaughter who comes to visit.