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Why Teachers Who Teach Writing Should Write

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1.) Writing Is Hard

Writing has always been my favorite form of expression.  Some people paint, draw, sculpt, sew, do crafts, take pictures but I write.  I’m honest about my skills, which means I’m a hair above average.  However, writing every day or even three times a week is challenging.  At times it is down right hard. The pain felt when staring at a blank page or the anxiety of not knowing what to write about is a feeling that a composition teacher should always be familiar.

2.) Writing Is A Skill

Like any other hobby writing requires constant practice.  The less you do the worse you get. I used to be able to rattle off a thirty second radio ad in twenty minutes but now my creative writing skills have grown rusty as I have spent more time writing academically and professionally. If I’m going to preach practice then I had better be practicing myself.

3.) Know Thyself

Part of the skill of writing is understanding where you struggle.  I’m not a grammarian. I’m okay with this. The basic rules of grammar are tedious and boring to me. I couldn’t quote the rule for semi-colon usage or dangling modifiers if my life depended on it. Yuck. I love books. I love words. I love writing. I don’t love grammar. However, knowing my weakness allows me to compensate for it. It is important to know where your strengths and weakness lie and therefore also important that my students gain that same self-awareness.

4.) Don’t Lose The Wonder

I love to write. I truly do love it. I’ve written in some form or fashion everyday of my life since I was in fifth grade and started my first journal. I still love it. I love how writing forces me to be introspective. I love how writing challenges me to accurately communicate my thoughts and feelings. I love that sometimes when I write things it affects people and they tell me. If I ever lose sight of that love I’m going to quit teaching.

The act of writing is a craft and it is impossible to teach and inspire somebody to pursue the same craft if you yourself do not practice.  When I tell my students about the importance of having a writing process or why organization is important it is coming from the voice of experience and not from a textbook. A lecture rings hollow when it is presented with no passion and little context.

Books

Summer Reading? No, Summer Lovin’

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As part of my strategy to regain some peace in my life I have made a conscious decision to spend less time online (shocking, I know) and more time reading (even more scandalous).  Realizing that I’m also teaching over the summer I’ve kept my summer reading goals modest this year.  I haven’t purchased stacks and stacks of books but instead picked only a couple that I felt I could get through pretty quick.  I wanted to LOVE  what I was reading and not feel like I was back in school with a self-imposed assignment.  So, here is what I’ve got on my nightstand:

“The Bottoms” by Joe Lansdale

This was a recommendation from a fellow professor and I have to say I LOVED this book.  It was a complete page turner and I blew through it in three days.  Set in East Texas during the 1930’s it tells the story of a young boy who stumbles across the murdered body of a black woman.  The family and city turmoil that ensues is reminiscent of “To Kill A Mockingbird”.   Lansdale does a great job of capturing the feel of East Texas and the naked atrocities of racism during the 30’s.  I will be using this book in my class this summer and I cannot wait to lead class discussion – so many rich themes, so many great characters.  I highly recommend it.

“Eat, Pray, Love” by Michelle Gilbert

Okay, I admit I’m late on this one.  I know this book has been around for years and is now being made into a motion picture starring Julia Roberts.  However, I think books come to you when you need them most and right now I needed a book that reminded me of the importance of doing things that I love and relying on faith.  I’ve just started reading it and so far it has struck a real chord with me.  I’m eager to devour it.

“It Starts At Home” by Kurt Brooner and Steve Stroope

Finally, not a novel but a book to make me a better parent and wife.  David and I made the decision to pull Lucy out of private school and put her into public.  We have a great public school here in Texas and I can’t really say I’m necessarily concerned about the quality of her education.  However, I don’t want her to lose the faith-based foundation she was building in private school.  As a result, I picked this book up to help give us some ideas and direction on how to incorporate our faith into our daily lives.

“Blue Like Jazz” by Donald Miller

This was a recommendation from David’s cousin Emily (thanks Em!).  This was also a rather fast read.  I read the entire book in about a week.  Written in a free-flowing journal style Miller recounts his personal journey of faith touching on both his doubts and his sources for inspiration.  It is a rather different look at Christian faith since Miller is both a proud Democrat and liberal and summarily rejects the traditional “Christian Conservative” movement.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

This is my heavy hitter for the summer. I’ve tried reading this before and failed miserably.  However, my sister-in-law has also taken up the mantle and so I’m feeling empowered to get through it with a reading partner by my side.  I’ll let you know if we succeed.

I have a second stack of books if I somehow complete all these and still have time. That second stack includes “A Good Earth”, and another Lansdale novel.

I’m open to suggestions though and if you have something sitting on your nightstand that you think I would enjoy please leave me a note. (Please do not recommend ANY book in the Twilight series. Unless you are interested in hearing my well rehearsed lecture regarding the quality of Stephanie Meyer’s writing)

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Choices

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David quit his job.

Just like that.

No new job lined up.  No security blanket of independent financing.

He quit.

He quit because after a year of 50+ hours a week and an hour long commute and a job that was stressful and never ending in its demands it was time.

Nothing can force you to clarify your values and your life like a new baby.  A new baby is all encompassing in its demands and there is no ignoring the impact.  And so David found himself with a new baby, a wife crippled with postpartum depression and a job that was demanding his heart and soul.  Something had to give.

I wish I could say that the decision seemed clear to us but it didn’t.  We struggled with the overwhelming aspect of our lives and felt lost and trapped. What were we to do? We just bought a house, had a baby, how could we survive without an income? And yet, it was a simple phone call from my mother that put us straight.  She simply said, “Stop playing scared”.

Life gets like that when you start having kids – when you grow up.  The consequences of your decisions have far-reaching impact and you start to drive through your life white-knuckled and scared of the “what-ifs”.  However, life should never be lived from behind a rock – from the point of safety and when my mother so clearly told us that we were being cowards we knew what we needed to do.  You can either own life or life can own you but either way it is a choice.  So David and I chose.

The truth is that I’m not that worried. David is very talented and well liked. I’m sure he will land a job soon and indeed he’s been rather busy interviewing and fielding a variety of opportunities.  That isn’t the best part of this story though – the best part has been seeing him smile again. The best part has been waking up everyday with a husband who is present, relaxed and excited about his own life again.  We’ve gone to the lake, seen movies in the middle of the day, had family dinners EVERY night and generally enjoyed being a family again.

At the end of the day it is the choices we make everyday that determines what is important to us – where our values sit.  I’m proud of the fact that my husband had the courage to stand up and choose his family above all other obligations.  Now then, anybody looking for a great creative director?

Food

Feed The Soul

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Food is like a cooling balm on an agitated soul. Nothing brings me back to center, back to peace like cooking.  There is something rhythmic and elegant about gliding through one’s kitchen adding this and chopping that.  My number one go to comfort food during times of stress is spaghetti.  For many this may be a jar of sauce and some noodles but for me this is a meal that touches my most inner spirit.

Although my mother is Jewish she has always made her spaghetti sauce from scratch.  To this day I have no idea where she learned to make spaghetti sauce. I don’t know if she found the recipe in a book or if some strange Italian woman bestowed her secrets.  My mother has just always known how to make it and she has never used a written recipe.  One of the first things my mother ever taught me to make was spaghetti sauce.  I have spent countless hours in my mother’s kitchen talking about school, work, life all while stirring a pot of tomatoes and herbs.  The strong smell of basil and oregano permeating the house.  The silent dance as we gathered boiling water, toasted French bread and tossed salad.  My mother and I have made this meal so many times together that instructions are no longer required. We quietly fall into our roles and the meal is produced as if by magic.

David and I face an ocean of uncertainty at the moment.  We both are pretending like we’re not worried.  We say encouraging things to each other, smile, hug, give each other big pep talks but the undercurrent in our lives right now is one of “what if”.  I plated the spaghetti and sat it on the table.  Little green piles of salad tossed in a simple vinaigrette snuggled up against the circle of pasta.  The kids told knock-knock jokes and David obliged them with smiles and giggles.  As I filled my stomach with my mother’s spaghetti sauce I was transported back to her kitchen and the feeling that my mother was hugging me from thousands of miles away.   Everything will be fine.

Life is always going to surprise you with riotous change but it is the simple foundational pieces of your life that will carry you along – like knowing how to make a good spaghetti sauce from scratch.

MaMa Callaway’s Spaghetti Sauce

1lb ground beef

1 small onion

3 garlic cloves

1 large can diced tomatoes

2 large cans of tomato sauce

1 can of tomato paste

3 Tbs Oregano

1 Tbs Basil

1 Tbs Garlic Salt

1 Tbs Sugar

Dice the onion, and mince the garlic. Sauté both in the bottom of a large stock pot with a Tbs of olive oil.  Add ground beef and brown while breaking up the meat.  Once the meat is cooked drain the fat off.  Return the meat to the pot and add the cans of tomatoes, sauce and paste (play with the sauce/paste combination until you get the consistency you like. I prefer mine thicker but it is personal).  Add spices – the quantities here are estimates and again you should flavor to your taste preferences.  Turn the heat to low and let simmer for 10 minutes.   If desired you can also add mushrooms or diced zucchini.  Add them with the tomatoes and just make sure you simmer the pot long enough to cook the veggies.

Depression, Family Life

The Clouds Start To Part

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You wake up one morning and it feels like somebody has rearranged your bedroom while you slept.  Something is different but you aren’t quite sure what has been moved.  You feel different. A good different.  Suddenly getting out of bed seems possible. That pile of dishes in the sink? Not really that big of a deal.  And you realize, for the first time, the clouds are parting.  The anti-depressant medication is working. You can breathe again and I do.  I breathe deep and long. I tentatively step back into my life like a skittish cat escaping from a box.  The depression this time around has been dark, very, very dark. The hopelessness and sadness smothered me and I wasn’t sure I would find my way out, but I am making my way.

It has been hard enough dealing with the sadness but David and I have had so much more on our plate.  The new house, the new baby, work problems, and all that stress has stretched our marriage as far as it can go.  At some point when so much is piled on, you can’t help but eventually turn on each other. At times it has felt like David and I have been hanging off a cliff and the only thing preventing us from falling off is that God and family have a firm hold of our heels.

We’re not out of the woods – not yet. We haven’t quite made it over the top of the mountain but we can see the top. In the meantime our family has run ahead of us and reached a hand down to help us along.  That is what family does.  I find myself repeating again, again from Lucy’s ABC Bible Verses “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding” – Proverbs 3:5  I don’t know why so much change and turmoil has come upon us at the same time but it has.  What I do know is that all this conflict has forced David and I to take a hard look at our life and path.  Sometimes in order for you to make a dramatic change in your life you need dramatic conflict.  I will not and cannot lean on my own understanding and so faith is all I have left.

Depression, Family Life, Pregnancy

PostPartum

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It would be so much easier if I woke up and my body was covered in a rash.  Perhaps I could have a small cough or drippy nose. I would then know. It would be obvious that something was wrong with me, but that isn’t how it happens.  At first you attribute the mood swings to the stress happening in your life. I mean who wouldn’t be a bit frazzled after moving and having a new baby? Of course it is stress.  And the constant stream of tears? Well, I did just have a baby my hormones are just normalizing.  Everybody has bad days.  The loss of patience and irritability? I haven’t slept well in weeks and any normal person would be a bit annoyed.  At some point it becomes harder and harder to explain and justify. And then it happens.  After Max was born it was uncontrollable anger at David for leaving his coffee cup in the sink after I had just finished the dishes.  This time it was being so frustrated at Lucy I gently pushed her out of my bedroom and locked the door.  I didn’t throw her to the ground, or hurt her, or violently push her – but push her I did, and the underlying anger that was bubbling inside of me was scary.

Depression. Postpartum depression.

Depression isn’t like any other kind of illness. You can’t go to the doctor and point to a physical ailment and say “fix this”.  It is like a toxic gas that slowly creeps into your life. You know that something doesn’t smell quite right but you can’t figure out where it is coming from until you are doubled-over sick with toxicity.  And once you are sick it taints everything around it. 

I spend most of my days feeling overwhelmed and on the verge of tears.  All I can think about is wanting to sleep. If I could just sleep. And yet, even when the baby is asleep I can’t sleep. Insomnia plagues me at night.  Every obstacle and daily frustration feels like an insurmountable problem that needs to be faced. My mind restlessly wanders from one thought to the next never settling.  I’m incapable of decision making.  Just getting dressed or deciding what I’ll cook for dinner paralyzes me.  I spend hours aimlessly knocking around my house unable to focus my mind on any one task.  My inner voice obssessively chants; “So sad. I’m so sad.”

My only comfort is David.  His presence seems to settle the demons and lets me be at ease – even for an hour. I know what I need to do. I’ll make the necessary calls to doctors to get medicine prescribed and people to help and people to talk to about it.  In the meantime I feel a bit like Eeyore waiting for the rain cloud to blow away.

Family Life

Oy! 2009!

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Editor’s Note:  I wrote this in January with the intention of it being my end of year wrap up. It obviously never got finished and I never published.  However, in hindsight I realize how 2009 really was only the precursor for the down right misery of 2010. Soon I will share with you the challenges we’ve been facing here at the Morley household but it really all started in 2009.

2009 was one of those years that came in like a lamb and left like a lion.  Since it seems like the thing to do, here is my 2009 recap:

January: My little boy turned 3 years old which was shortly followed by him giving up his pacifier and then potty trained. It seems as if almost over night he went from baby to boy. This has made me realize that there isn’t a girl alive that will ever be worthy of enough to be with Max. He might as well resign himself to a lifetime of bachelorhood now because I can’t imagine anybody loving and adoring my son like I do.

February: Lucy turns 5 years old and we enrolled her in Kindergarten.  Had I known then the amount of extra effort and commitment it was going to entail having my child enrolled in school I don’t think I would have signed her up. (I kid, I kid, don’t send hate mail).  David and I also decide that since WE can’t decide whether to have a third a child or not we are going to give God six months to make the decision for us.

March: The beginning of March was marked by Max having a small visit to the hospital.  A severe case of rotavirus left him dehydrated, weak and sick.  If you’ve ever had a child so sick that hospitalization was required then you know about the parental torture you experience. Those were four of the worst days of my life. The good news is that I doubt Max will remember any of it. The bad news, I won’t ever forget. I don’t know how parents, who have chronically ill children, find the emotional strength required to face that torture day after day.

April/May: We took a short trip back to Michigan to visit the parents where my kids were once again reminded that going to my parent’s house is similar to visiting Disney World only without the crowds.  Our visit included an “unbirthday” party that had a 200+ balloon drop, wind-up toy games, prizes, cake, hotdogs roasted on a carnival style roaster and candy.  Seriously, how do you compete with that?

June: After purging our house of a baby crib, car seats, baby clothes, rattles, changing table, and all other baby accouterments we discovered that I was pregnant.  You see God thinks the ironies of life are HI-LARIOUS. It is a whole “God joke” thing. Having suffered through a miscarriage almost a year to date from this pregnancy test coming back positive David and I were a bit hesitant.  My doctor spent the first twelve weeks taking ultra-sound pictures every two weeks and indeed this is the most heavily photographed baby we have had.

You know how when riding a roller coaster the beginning of the ride is usually a slow steady climb before you garner enough inertia to whiz through the remainder of the ride?  Well, the first six months of 2009 was the steady, slow climb.

July/August: The summer seemed to fly by.  The kids went to “nana camp” and we spent multiple weekends at the lake house. I was trying to revel in the joy of Lucy’s last summer before her school year adventures began. I also tried to not throw up while teaching.  I was a success on both counts.

September: I have to admit that this past semester of teaching was one of my most challenging.  It felt like I was facing every possible obstacle and/or challenge imaginable.  I was teaching with a new textbook that was awkward and clumsy. I had students who were uninspired and uninterested in being in class.  Then, in contrast, I had students who were so excited to be there I seemed to have an endless flow of questions and demands outside of the class. I also met some AMAZING students who I hope will not fade off into the distance but continue to let me peek in on their progress and their lives. Granted, most semesters are like this, but this semester seemed to have large amounts of all of these things. I spent all semester feeling like I was behind and scrambling to catch up.

October/November: David and I bought our first house in 2001.  The house was small, and inexpensive.  Our plan was to stay here for five years.  It has been nine.  By November we purchased a new house – on a whim.   We did not spend months looking at models or neighborhoods or touring with a real estate agent.  We had been watching this particular neighborhood for awhile.  And when a house came available that was unusually under priced for the area we bought it.  We took a deep breath, looked at each other and took the plunge, knowing the hell that we were starting.

December: I wish I could just forget about December.  The stress of final exam week, being seven months pregnant, trying to sell our house, and prepare for the holidays all during the same three weeks was more than my emotional state could handle.  Everybody felt the ramifications of my breakdown.  David and I spent most of December fighting and I spent most of the month crying.  I cried all the time. I cried because of the kids. I cried because of school. I cried because of my students. I cried because of David. I cried because I was pregnant.  I didn’t want to talk to anybody because just telling people what I was thinking or feeling made me cry.

Every storm reaches the end.  The holidays found David and I basking in the warmth of family love and support. We left behind school and work and our house and spent time as a family and as a couple. We stopped fighting, started apologizing and realized that we weren’t mad at each other only stressed out. We dreamed about our new house and recommitted ourselves to the purchase of the new house. We’ve returned and let’s hope 2010 will find our family a bit more calm.

Family Life, Personal, Uncategorized

Sacred Space

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During a world religion class in college my professor talked about the difference between sacred and profane space, sacred and profane time, and how we as a society mark certain things, times, dates and locations as being sacred.  I loved this concept and I remember becoming acutely aware of my own sacred space.  Recently this idea has found its way back into my consciousness.

This past week our wireless internet connection got corrupted and I lost my internet access at home.  At first this seemed dire, frustrating and desperate.  However, by the end of the day I realized how much I had gotten done because I wasn’t distracted by the insignificant minutia that seems to constantly be demanding my attention on the internet.  This led me to consider the idea of consciously disconnecting during certain times of the day or week. What would happen?

My first experiment came Saturday night.  David and I were attending a “grown-up” party with alcohol and music and no children or even people who also had kids so there would be no swapping of kid stories. I turned my iPhone off and left it at home.  Think about that people. I TURNED MY PHONE OFF AND LEFT IT AT HOME. I WENT SOMEWHERE WITHOUT MY PHONE. MY PHONE WAS NOT NEAR MY BODY. Do you recognize the enormity of this ? Do you recognize the sheer craziness of me making that decision? Well, I did it. I went a total of four hours without access to the internet, facebook, email or text messaging.  And you know what happened? The world did not end and for once I wasn’t distracted by things that were peripheral to my activity but I was actually able to exist in the “now”. I made eye-contact, I talked with people, my mind settled and I focused on what I was doing.

This first experiment went so well that the next morning I decided to not bring my phone with me to church. Although at times I felt a small tug of disappointment that I couldn’t “check-in” with the world I overall was pleased at my ability to keep my attention on the people and things around me versus the “others”.

I like this idea of sacred space and have decided to start consciously marking sacred times in my life when I disconnect.  I don’t want to be checking my email while I’m trying to spend time with my husband, or playing a board game with my kids. I don’t want to hear the chime of a text message while I’m trying to have a conversation with a good friend.  Don’t get me wrong, I still am madly in love with my iPhone and I will not be giving it up any time soon.  But I’ve decided to reclaim my sacred space. I’ve decided to try harder at living in the now and not the later.