Dear Volleyball Coach:
Over this past summer, my daughter decided to go out for the volleyball team at the middle school where you're on staff. I guess I assumed middle school sports still operated the way they did when I was a kid: if you wanted to be on the team, you showed up for practice every day.
Clearly, that's not the case. My daughter went to two days of three-hour practices after school, and then she showed up for the 9 a.m. Saturday morning practice session you'd scheduled. At some point along the way, she was told that 15 of the 45 girls who wanted to play volleyball for their school would be cut; there was "space enough" only for 30 girls, 15 each on the A and B teams.
Since she didn't play volleyball last year, my daughter knew she was one of the girls vulnerable to being cut from the roster. And, sure enough, when we went back to the school at noon on Saturday, we saw that her name wasn't on the list.
There are about a million things wrong with this scenario, but let's start with the "obesity epidemic" we hear about so often in the news. Every time this topic comes up, the focus goes straight to food. What are kids eating? What should they be eating instead? Perhaps we should ask why kids who want to be active at school are being denied that opportunity. Is it any wonder that young people develop a negative attitude about exercise when their earliest experiences with team sports lead to outright rejection?
I'm not going to argue that my daughter was the best volleyball player in the group. She wasn't. She knows that, and she admits it freely. But she wanted to get better--that's why she went out for the team. She hasn't participated in club volleyball or skills clinics because her interest in the sport just developed recently. The message you're sending to her is that if you aren't interested in sports from an early age, you might as well forget about getting active later in life. (And the idea that 13 is "later in life"? It's just absurd.)
And what about the girls whose parents can't afford club volleyball and skills clinics? I'm getting a much clearer picture of why obesity and poverty so often go hand in hand.
So when you say there just isn't "space" on the team for my daughter and 14 other girls, I'm guessing what you mean is that strong athletes would lose playing time if they had to accommodate less talented teammates. That, of course, would be a tragedy.
I understand that talented athletes can only improve their skills if they play against athletes at or above their own level. I'm not opposed to the idea of dividing the kids into A and B teams. But what about a C team, or even a D team? The band program provides you with an excellent model: no student is turned away, even if he or she isn't particularly talented. They're sorted into honors band, symphonic band, intermediate band--there's a place for everyone who wants to stay involved with music. Perhaps this is because music teachers understand the benefits to be gained from pursuing their discipline.
I hear many arguments in favor of school sports: they teach teamwork, cooperation, dedication, time management. I don't dispute that any of these things are true. But if you really believe these are important skills, I find it hard to understand why you'd turn away a third of the students interested in developing the very qualities you're so quick to defend.
My tax dollars are subsidizing the giant new high school football stadium that, I now understand, will benefit only a select few high school football players. My tax dollars are subsidizing your volleyball program, too--in spite of the fact that it's not available to my own kid. And while you may argue that this is always the case, that my tax dollars also subsidize the Talented and Gifted education that my daughter enjoys while others are turned away, let's keep in mind that everyone gets to take math. The fact that some students can't learn math at her pace doesn't lead to them being told "Sorry, there's no room for you in Algebra."
Luckily, I've taught my kids to be tough. When they face disappointment, I've taught them to shake it off and plan for the next challenge. Now it's up to me to do the same, to lead by example.
At church this morning, the reading from Romans indicated that I should retaliate with kindness when someone is unfair to me, that I shouldn't retaliate in kind but, instead, fight injustice with goodness--and that by doing so, I'll heap hot coals on the enemy's head. So instead of calling you first thing in the morning and telling you exactly what I think about your sports program--which, let's face it, would do no good anyway--I'm going to encourage my daughter not to give up on fitness. I'm going to encourage her to take care of her physical self as well as her spirit, to welcome and support everyone, no matter their failings. I'm going to teach her to destroy your power by exercising her own.
Game on, coach. This time, you are not going to win.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Out of the Blue
An old college friend found me on Facebook this morning, a person I've thought about more than once in the years since our paths diverged in Idaho. She wanted to apologize for some wrong she thought she'd done me all those years ago, so I quickly wrote back to assure her that the past was the past and long since forgotten. Truth be told, I can't for the life of me remember why I was so angry with her back then. (Though, since we're telling the truth, I do remember being really, really angry.)
I'm glad to know that she went on from college to live a happy life. As I recall, neither of us were particularly happy people at that point--probably for different reasons, but in my case I know the problem began and ended with the feeling that I wasn't a person of any merit. I did a lot of stupid, dangerous things as a result of that feeling, and it's nothing short of a miracle that I'm still here to tell the tale. But I've always believed that things happen for a reason, which means there's a reason why I'm still here and why I took the path that brought me to this moment.
When I was younger, I hated the story of the Prodigal Son--the story of the kid who screws up and comes home to find that he's already been forgiven. I was the good kid in my family, sandwiched in between a rebellious older sister and a younger brother who, as my dad would put it, was "a typical boy." That means he got into some trouble along the way, but no more than expected. (When my kids were little and my son was acting up, my dad would say "Leave him alone--he's just being a boy." If my daughter was doing the same thing, he'd give me the hairy eyeball until I intervened. And now you know why I wound up teaching Women's Studies.)
So I always hated the Prodigal Son, because it seemed to me to be one more example of the good kid being overlooked and the bad kid getting all the attention. We all know that isn't fair.
What I didn't know, as a young person, is how often I would need to be forgiven myself, and how grateful I would be that people have the capacity to forgive each other. And ourselves. After I left home for college, I quickly gave up on being the good kid--so I'm still working on that last item. I have many current shortcomings, but many more memories of times I knowingly made the wrong choice. Giving myself a break is sometimes not an easy job.
But it's easy to forgive the people who hurt me a long time ago, especially if time has proven those hurts to be so inconsequential that they don't even live on in memory.
So welcome back, my old friend. It's wonderful to hear from you.
I'm glad to know that she went on from college to live a happy life. As I recall, neither of us were particularly happy people at that point--probably for different reasons, but in my case I know the problem began and ended with the feeling that I wasn't a person of any merit. I did a lot of stupid, dangerous things as a result of that feeling, and it's nothing short of a miracle that I'm still here to tell the tale. But I've always believed that things happen for a reason, which means there's a reason why I'm still here and why I took the path that brought me to this moment.
When I was younger, I hated the story of the Prodigal Son--the story of the kid who screws up and comes home to find that he's already been forgiven. I was the good kid in my family, sandwiched in between a rebellious older sister and a younger brother who, as my dad would put it, was "a typical boy." That means he got into some trouble along the way, but no more than expected. (When my kids were little and my son was acting up, my dad would say "Leave him alone--he's just being a boy." If my daughter was doing the same thing, he'd give me the hairy eyeball until I intervened. And now you know why I wound up teaching Women's Studies.)
So I always hated the Prodigal Son, because it seemed to me to be one more example of the good kid being overlooked and the bad kid getting all the attention. We all know that isn't fair.
What I didn't know, as a young person, is how often I would need to be forgiven myself, and how grateful I would be that people have the capacity to forgive each other. And ourselves. After I left home for college, I quickly gave up on being the good kid--so I'm still working on that last item. I have many current shortcomings, but many more memories of times I knowingly made the wrong choice. Giving myself a break is sometimes not an easy job.
But it's easy to forgive the people who hurt me a long time ago, especially if time has proven those hurts to be so inconsequential that they don't even live on in memory.
So welcome back, my old friend. It's wonderful to hear from you.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
A Sad Day
I've spent the past two weeks reading and thinking about fire, trying to internalize the language of wildland firefighting so the characters in my second novel will sound authentic--both those who are firefighters themselves and those who have lived with or around them. Growing up in Idaho, I knew a lot of people who worked fire crews in the summer. It's a fast way to make decent money, when you're a college student. But I never knew anyone who planned to fight fires long term, to make it their life's work.
It's a good thing some people do. On Monday evening, a range fire swept up a hillside in Boise and burned nine houses, damaged ten more, near the subdivision where my sister and her family lived for years. News reports are saying firefighters were on the scene in just minutes and had a plan of attack for fighting a fire in this area--the wildland-urban interface is always vulnerable, especially in the West, where rain is scarce and fuel abundant. Everyone who lives there knows fire is a distinct possibility.
But, then, every one of us who lives in a house with electrical wiring knows fire is possible. We don't respond to that threat by living in tents and giving up our wired lives; we take our chances, try to be safe and hope for the best.
One person died in the Boise fire. She was a woman I knew when I taught at Boise State--not a close friend or someone I kept in touch with after we moved away, but a person I liked and admired. I'm sad to know she's no longer in the world, sad that anyone had to die this way. Her husband had noticed smoke rising behind their house, stepped out the back door to see where it was coming from--and then, he says, the fire swept over the top of the ridge and toward their home so quickly, he didn't even have time to get back inside. He ran around to the front, and when he saw that his wife wasn't waiting for him there, he knew she wouldn't have time to make it out.
This is a powerful reminder that the subject I'm taking on in my work has real consequences for real people--it isn't just the dramatic engine of a story. It's a regular part of life in the West, no different than hurricanes for people on the Gulf coast, earthquakes in California or ice storms in New England. None of them can be stopped. The best we can do is decide where we want to take our chances.
It's a good thing some people do. On Monday evening, a range fire swept up a hillside in Boise and burned nine houses, damaged ten more, near the subdivision where my sister and her family lived for years. News reports are saying firefighters were on the scene in just minutes and had a plan of attack for fighting a fire in this area--the wildland-urban interface is always vulnerable, especially in the West, where rain is scarce and fuel abundant. Everyone who lives there knows fire is a distinct possibility.
But, then, every one of us who lives in a house with electrical wiring knows fire is possible. We don't respond to that threat by living in tents and giving up our wired lives; we take our chances, try to be safe and hope for the best.
One person died in the Boise fire. She was a woman I knew when I taught at Boise State--not a close friend or someone I kept in touch with after we moved away, but a person I liked and admired. I'm sad to know she's no longer in the world, sad that anyone had to die this way. Her husband had noticed smoke rising behind their house, stepped out the back door to see where it was coming from--and then, he says, the fire swept over the top of the ridge and toward their home so quickly, he didn't even have time to get back inside. He ran around to the front, and when he saw that his wife wasn't waiting for him there, he knew she wouldn't have time to make it out.
This is a powerful reminder that the subject I'm taking on in my work has real consequences for real people--it isn't just the dramatic engine of a story. It's a regular part of life in the West, no different than hurricanes for people on the Gulf coast, earthquakes in California or ice storms in New England. None of them can be stopped. The best we can do is decide where we want to take our chances.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Taking the Long Way
I started the day with a run. It's a good way to put a positive spin on the day, and I love that I have time this semester to run in the morning. This still cracks me up: I'd never run so much as a city block before I turned 40, and now I actually have to use running as an incentive for completing less desirable activities. As in, "If you grade five papers, then you can go for a run." And it works! No one is more surprised by this than I am.
During a normal semester I have to save my run for an after-work activity, which means it's highly vulnerable to further postponement due to unforeseen complications: missed the bus, need a new binder, need a ride to X's house so we can do homework together, etc. etc. (I know I could plan a 5 a.m. run to escape these complications, but I also know how pointless it is to make plans I have no intention of keeping.) This semester, though, I've promised myself that running will be one of my priorities since, after all, healthy body = healthy brain. So after the kids get on the bus, after I've had a sufficient amount of coffee, I put on my running shoes and plug in my earphones and get busy.
For the last few days I've been kicking off the morning with the Dixie Chicks' "The Long Way Around." It always puts me in a rebellious frame of mind that makes me want to run faster and harder. If I could go back in time and talk to my younger self, maybe give her some advice, the first thing I'd do is slap on the headphones and make her listen to this song. Then maybe she'd know that it's okay not to be getting married at 18--it's not a defect you need to rise above, or a condition you need to justify with excellent grades and turbo-charged career plans. You can just be 18 and figuring things out for yourself and, believe it or not, that's okay. You're okay.
But that's a hard thing to know when all the people who have been your closest friends are making concrete plans for their futures and you have no idea what your future looks like. None of the people I knew back then are still married to the same person, and since my husband and I will be celebrating 20 years in December, I guess I'll count that as the blessing that comes of having been a wallflower at that particlar party.
The love of my high school life died not too long ago. I had no plans to see him again--I hadn't seen him in at least fifteen years--but it was still sad to know I never would, to know there will be no bumping into him sometime while I'm visiting home, no catching up, no moment of seeing that we both ended up in a better place for having not made an earlier mistake. He married young, had kids young--and, as it happens, died young. So maybe we all just live our lives at different speeds. Maybe there's an internal alarm clock going off silently in our brains, letting us know when it's time to do various things. Maybe those of us who start our families when we're 30, not 20, aren't waiting for anything--we just haven't heard the signal that it's time to get going.
There are many mothers my age or older these days. That wasn't the case for my mom, who got married and had two children in her early twenties, lost one of those children in her later twenties, then went on to have a second family, of sorts, when my brother and I were born in her early thirties. My friends always mistook my parents for my grandparents; my father was only in his 40's when I was in grade school, but apparently that was late to be a father and none too soon to be a grandfather in the 1970's.
I'm glad I had more time--I'm glad I took more time--to be single and childless, then married and childless. Taking the long way to marriage and family let me find the one person (and I'm still convinced there is only one person) to whom I could be happily married for the duration, and let me become a mother when I felt ready to take on that role, not when I thought it was expected of me. I only wish there were a way to tell every teenage girl that there's no need to be in such a rush. Just take your time, look around and figure out where you are. Then you'll know where you want to go.
During a normal semester I have to save my run for an after-work activity, which means it's highly vulnerable to further postponement due to unforeseen complications: missed the bus, need a new binder, need a ride to X's house so we can do homework together, etc. etc. (I know I could plan a 5 a.m. run to escape these complications, but I also know how pointless it is to make plans I have no intention of keeping.) This semester, though, I've promised myself that running will be one of my priorities since, after all, healthy body = healthy brain. So after the kids get on the bus, after I've had a sufficient amount of coffee, I put on my running shoes and plug in my earphones and get busy.
For the last few days I've been kicking off the morning with the Dixie Chicks' "The Long Way Around." It always puts me in a rebellious frame of mind that makes me want to run faster and harder. If I could go back in time and talk to my younger self, maybe give her some advice, the first thing I'd do is slap on the headphones and make her listen to this song. Then maybe she'd know that it's okay not to be getting married at 18--it's not a defect you need to rise above, or a condition you need to justify with excellent grades and turbo-charged career plans. You can just be 18 and figuring things out for yourself and, believe it or not, that's okay. You're okay.
But that's a hard thing to know when all the people who have been your closest friends are making concrete plans for their futures and you have no idea what your future looks like. None of the people I knew back then are still married to the same person, and since my husband and I will be celebrating 20 years in December, I guess I'll count that as the blessing that comes of having been a wallflower at that particlar party.
The love of my high school life died not too long ago. I had no plans to see him again--I hadn't seen him in at least fifteen years--but it was still sad to know I never would, to know there will be no bumping into him sometime while I'm visiting home, no catching up, no moment of seeing that we both ended up in a better place for having not made an earlier mistake. He married young, had kids young--and, as it happens, died young. So maybe we all just live our lives at different speeds. Maybe there's an internal alarm clock going off silently in our brains, letting us know when it's time to do various things. Maybe those of us who start our families when we're 30, not 20, aren't waiting for anything--we just haven't heard the signal that it's time to get going.
There are many mothers my age or older these days. That wasn't the case for my mom, who got married and had two children in her early twenties, lost one of those children in her later twenties, then went on to have a second family, of sorts, when my brother and I were born in her early thirties. My friends always mistook my parents for my grandparents; my father was only in his 40's when I was in grade school, but apparently that was late to be a father and none too soon to be a grandfather in the 1970's.
I'm glad I had more time--I'm glad I took more time--to be single and childless, then married and childless. Taking the long way to marriage and family let me find the one person (and I'm still convinced there is only one person) to whom I could be happily married for the duration, and let me become a mother when I felt ready to take on that role, not when I thought it was expected of me. I only wish there were a way to tell every teenage girl that there's no need to be in such a rush. Just take your time, look around and figure out where you are. Then you'll know where you want to go.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Firsts
Today is the first day of middle school for my son, the first day of 8th grade for my daughter. I've spent the whole day trying not to think about the fact that junior high school was the single worst time of my life and 8th grade the single worst year of my educational experience. And I do mean the whole day. I've been awake since 4 a.m.--possibly because I was afraid I wouldn't wake up with my alarm this morning (after three months of sleeping in, it was certainly possible), and possibly because I'd just had one of those terrible my-child-is-missing nightmares that I tend to have whenever I'm stressed out about something.
My son is shy, like me, so I identify with him a little too strongly on days like this. Since he doesn't have a lot of friends, and since the whole eat-with-your-class dynamic disappears when you make the shift from elementary school, last week I tried to give him a little advice about how to navigate the cafeteria situation: just find someone who looks familiar from one of your classes, sit with whoever they're sitting with, say "Hi guys" when you sit down, and then start eating. Probably, I said, they'll be friendly. Most people are. And if they're not, you can pretend you're too busy eating to talk anyway.
"I don't mind saying hi," he said. "I just don't want to get into a whole conversation."
And thus I realized one of the ways in which my son and I are very different: for me, making the first move was always the agonizing endeavor. Once someone had invited me into a conversation, though, I was fine. For my son, it's precisely the opposite problem: he doesn't want to come up with witty repartee. He'd really prefer to eat his lunch and get on with the school day, thank you very much.
Earlier today I was thinking about the guys I knew in high school and junior high, how most of them didn't seem to run in packs the ways girls always did. In fact, some of the guys I knew best had no single close friend; they had friends from football, from basketball, from band, wherever they spent their time. That realization made me feel a little better. My son is not an unhappy kid--just the opposite--and no doubt I worry about him more than I need to. Having said that, though, let me add that I'll be very, very happy when this day is over and I know everyone survived the experience unscathed.
This is also the first official day of my sabbatical, if by sabbatical we mean days during which the kids are in school and I have many hours for doing my own writing and research rather than teaching. In theory, my sabbatical started with the end of the spring semester--but with the kids at home all summer, I think we all know how much work got done. I did start some research last week, and my brain has been spitting out new ideas at random, and I've been very good about keeping track of them so far. I know this is how the process begins; right now I'm walking around, picking up pieces of a puzzle, trying to imagine what picture they might create. Soon enough, it'll be more like I'm running to catch a bus that may well leave without me.
I'm really annoyed that my laptop chose this moment to fry itself, but at least I'll have a new one for my writing residency. I got the old laptop for my previous residency, four years ago, so it's all kind of fitting: new machine, new project, fresh start. We all need those once in awhile.
UPDATE: All present and accounted for. No major emotional or physical trauma. All's right with the world--for the moment, anyway.
My son is shy, like me, so I identify with him a little too strongly on days like this. Since he doesn't have a lot of friends, and since the whole eat-with-your-class dynamic disappears when you make the shift from elementary school, last week I tried to give him a little advice about how to navigate the cafeteria situation: just find someone who looks familiar from one of your classes, sit with whoever they're sitting with, say "Hi guys" when you sit down, and then start eating. Probably, I said, they'll be friendly. Most people are. And if they're not, you can pretend you're too busy eating to talk anyway.
"I don't mind saying hi," he said. "I just don't want to get into a whole conversation."
And thus I realized one of the ways in which my son and I are very different: for me, making the first move was always the agonizing endeavor. Once someone had invited me into a conversation, though, I was fine. For my son, it's precisely the opposite problem: he doesn't want to come up with witty repartee. He'd really prefer to eat his lunch and get on with the school day, thank you very much.
Earlier today I was thinking about the guys I knew in high school and junior high, how most of them didn't seem to run in packs the ways girls always did. In fact, some of the guys I knew best had no single close friend; they had friends from football, from basketball, from band, wherever they spent their time. That realization made me feel a little better. My son is not an unhappy kid--just the opposite--and no doubt I worry about him more than I need to. Having said that, though, let me add that I'll be very, very happy when this day is over and I know everyone survived the experience unscathed.
This is also the first official day of my sabbatical, if by sabbatical we mean days during which the kids are in school and I have many hours for doing my own writing and research rather than teaching. In theory, my sabbatical started with the end of the spring semester--but with the kids at home all summer, I think we all know how much work got done. I did start some research last week, and my brain has been spitting out new ideas at random, and I've been very good about keeping track of them so far. I know this is how the process begins; right now I'm walking around, picking up pieces of a puzzle, trying to imagine what picture they might create. Soon enough, it'll be more like I'm running to catch a bus that may well leave without me.
I'm really annoyed that my laptop chose this moment to fry itself, but at least I'll have a new one for my writing residency. I got the old laptop for my previous residency, four years ago, so it's all kind of fitting: new machine, new project, fresh start. We all need those once in awhile.
UPDATE: All present and accounted for. No major emotional or physical trauma. All's right with the world--for the moment, anyway.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Serendipity
My son had an appointment with the orthodontist this morning. It doesn't normally take very long to have the hardware adjusted, but today it took a bit longer than usual and I found myself getting antsy as I flipped through the random selection of available magazines. If I'd been thinking ahead, I would have brought along a book of my own. But I hadn't expected a long wait, and so I was heavy bored.
And then: I remembered that when my husband brought our kids to the dentist (who is also our orthodontist) a month ago, he'd come across a copy of National Geographic that featured an excellent article about fighting forest fires. Since wildland firefighting is central to the novel I'm just beginning, he'd come home excited to tell me about the article so I could run out and buy a copy of the magazine. (Later, my daughter told me she'd suggested absconding with the dentist's copy, but her father had pointed out that this would be wrong.)
As it turned out, that issue of the magazine was already off the newsstand; it was a month old and nowhere to be found. Except, as it happens, at the orthodontist's office. This morning, after I remembered that earlier conversation, I rummaged through the magazine basket and found National Geographic all the way at the bottom. Then I spent the second half of my son's appointment trying to internalize as much information as I could, since I didn't have any supplies for note-taking.
When it was time to check out, I asked the receptionist if it would be okay for me take the magazine and photocopy the article, then bring it back. The whole office staff knows I'm a writer--they have the photo and interview that appeared in our local newspaper last spring posted on the wall of their break room--so I explained that I was doing research for a new book.
"Oh, just take it," she said. "We have lots of others. I had no idea our famous author was doing research right there in the waiting room!"
Fame is relative, of course, but being famous at the dentist's office clearly has its perks.
I know I could have tracked down a back issue of the magazine online, but I wouldn't have even remembered to do that if it hadn't taken awhile to remove my son's bite blocks. Now he can chew with abandon, and I can get ready to write.
And then: I remembered that when my husband brought our kids to the dentist (who is also our orthodontist) a month ago, he'd come across a copy of National Geographic that featured an excellent article about fighting forest fires. Since wildland firefighting is central to the novel I'm just beginning, he'd come home excited to tell me about the article so I could run out and buy a copy of the magazine. (Later, my daughter told me she'd suggested absconding with the dentist's copy, but her father had pointed out that this would be wrong.)
As it turned out, that issue of the magazine was already off the newsstand; it was a month old and nowhere to be found. Except, as it happens, at the orthodontist's office. This morning, after I remembered that earlier conversation, I rummaged through the magazine basket and found National Geographic all the way at the bottom. Then I spent the second half of my son's appointment trying to internalize as much information as I could, since I didn't have any supplies for note-taking.
When it was time to check out, I asked the receptionist if it would be okay for me take the magazine and photocopy the article, then bring it back. The whole office staff knows I'm a writer--they have the photo and interview that appeared in our local newspaper last spring posted on the wall of their break room--so I explained that I was doing research for a new book.
"Oh, just take it," she said. "We have lots of others. I had no idea our famous author was doing research right there in the waiting room!"
Fame is relative, of course, but being famous at the dentist's office clearly has its perks.
I know I could have tracked down a back issue of the magazine online, but I wouldn't have even remembered to do that if it hadn't taken awhile to remove my son's bite blocks. Now he can chew with abandon, and I can get ready to write.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Begin the Begin
The start of a new school year seems like the right time to start a new project--especially since I'm on sabbatical this semester. My official project for the fall is to get a jump on my second novel; the first, Little Lost River, is selling steadily, and having written one gives me some confidence that I can write another. But a blog seems like a more manageable task, something I can accomplish even on days when the words pile up against each other like typewriter keys and get stuck inside my brain. Which is more often than I'd like to admit.
In one week, my kids will be back in school and my days will be wide open again. This is both an exciting and daunting prospect, since time and space are two of the three basic ingredients of writing. But the third--good ideas--can't be supplied by the local school district. (Not by my local school district, anyway.) As I'm often telling my students, in writing you have to make the clay before you can start to shape it into something beautiful.
I've been thinking about this particular batch of clay for quite awhile, but next week begins the process of making it real.
In one week, my kids will be back in school and my days will be wide open again. This is both an exciting and daunting prospect, since time and space are two of the three basic ingredients of writing. But the third--good ideas--can't be supplied by the local school district. (Not by my local school district, anyway.) As I'm often telling my students, in writing you have to make the clay before you can start to shape it into something beautiful.
I've been thinking about this particular batch of clay for quite awhile, but next week begins the process of making it real.
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