word collector

I was walking out of my sister’s office this morning past several quotes printed in bright ink and mounted on matching cardstock. My nieces, who work there also, have scattered inspirational words all over the office and I thought, “We are a family of quoters”. And for the first time, and it’s weird that this was the first time (is it really the first time?), I thought of how it all started with our Dad.

I was at my parents’ house about once a week throughout my adult life, and more often as they got older. Several times a month there would be a clipping of a social commentary cartoon from the newspaper or some inspirational words from the church bulletin posted on the refrigerator or laid out on the table. He cut out things that made him laugh or seemed especially relevant to something going on in the family. A lot of times his clippings were personal, cut out specifically for me or one of my siblings. Given that there were so many of us, it was always amazing that he knew which words would speak to which child. When it came time to create photo boards for his funeral several of us naturally, without even talking about it, collected quotes that made us think of him and helped us to show our love and gratitude for his life.

I’ve been writing words I collect from my reading on the White Board outside my house for 5 years now and today was the first time I really connected that work to my Dad. He was the reason I started the board in the first place (the first word was simply “Hope” after his cancer diagnosis) but I didn’t give him the credit he really deserves. My Dad wasn’t a big reader (well, he did read 2 newspapers every day) but his word collection showed me the value, the power, of words strung thoughtfully together and shared.

And now that I’ve thought about it, I realize the tradition in strong all over my family. My sister has words to inspire relaxation posted around her beach house. My brother peppers his conversation with  poignant quotes remembered from his reading. 

And here is the wall of my daughter’s bedroom. Her grandfather would be proud.

So, here’s a clipping for you, Dad. I don’t need scissors to collect my words, but I’ll share them just like you.

moving on

At the end of this school year there were suddenly two high school students in my house. Anya finished middle school and in September will be a freshman in high school.

Middle school can be tough. Kids do a lot of growing up and changing and that can mean that friendships that were once important become, well, less so. As they mature and explore new interests and begin to lose passion for others, friends in 8^th grade can suddenly find that they have little in common. And that doesn’t have to mean the end of a friendship but sometimes it is anyway. Trouble is, your average 14 year old does not approach this situation with calm reflection. (Really, do we at any age?) Friendship is emotion, and so is adolescence.

When I went to high school I held on to my middle school friends for a little while, but I was quickly preoccupied with new people and new interests. I never had a fight with my friends, never called them names or passed them “break-up” notes, but one day looked up and they weren’t there and it didn’t upset me. When I ran into them later it was always pleasant, and I even enjoy catching up with them now on Facebook. I grew in different ways than they did.

This phenomenon has happened a few times in my life. When I went to graduate school I lost touch with a few of my working friends. When I became a Mom I felt some of my single friends fall away. Even my relationship with my siblings has morphed over time, depending on where we each were in our pursuit of happiness.

So, my 8^th grader, now 9^th grader, is exploring new friendships, strengthening the bond with some, loosening the bond with others. And though there have been some painful moments and some mis-steps, I think its all good.

I was thinking of this change in her life as we held our annual school work burning last night. We mark the end of the year with hope for the next. This year’s fire burned off some hard feelings and sadness and hopefully cleared the way for a joyous high school experience.

burning stories

Burning Stories - Two Writing Teachers blog

I saw the above headline in the email newsfeed and my mind went immediately to the annual bonfire . . . not the image the writer here had intended.

A few years ago, my girls and I decided to burn the school year. I can’t now remember the inspiration. Did we all have a difficult year? Was it the year Thea had that horrible teacher who tore her homework up in front of her because it had no name on it? Was it the year I was laid off? I don’t know exactly why we started it, but we continue it because it has felt like the right thing to do. We gather all the notebooks and folders and scattered papers from the year and slowly add them to the fire. And as we do, stories are passed around. “Oh, I loved this project. I got to work with my friends and we laughed all through Science class. Best week of science all year.” trailing into a series of silly anecdotes. “I HATE Skill Drills. I’m going to save these for when the flames are really big so it kills off all the yuck.” followed by a recount of the painful evenings spent completing this dread weekly homework. The girls and I slowly rehash the year, laughing at ourselves and at the absurdity of homework. Thea remembers when she completed the same assignments as her sister and they compare notes on how it went. And as she shares the work of her year she prepares Anya for what is to come.

As they go through the pile, the girls inevitably find some pieces they want to keep – the short story written in response to reading about the Holocaust, the poem that earned high praise from her peers, the history paper that took hours of research and writing, the doodles on the edge of the agenda book that are now turning into a scene in her latest story.  

There are two reasons I love the annual Burning.

First, the ritual feels like clearing out the old and preparing for the new. It’s the Ash Wednesday to our Lenten summer; the ceremonial start of the season of cleansing and renewal.

But also, I love this ritual for the stories released by the flames. Instead of just stamping “The End” on the school year, we write an epilogue that wraps up the storylines and brings meaning to the chaotic action, connecting the otherwise random work.

Family stories - Cement mixer injury

Pain in my arm woke me last night. It was the cumulative effect of the accident that broke my arm when I was 18, last year's surgery that left a metal plate in my forearm, just above my wrist, and the spring yard work of the past few days. But what I thought of when I woke up was the first big injury to that arm, when I crushed my thumb in my father’s cement mixer when I was in the fourth grade. My dad was a bricklayer and he kept one of those small (well, huge to me at the time) mixers that he could load up on his pick up truck and bring along to jobs. By then he was a weekend bricklayer, working as a job safety inspector for the state during the week. So the mixer was left idle in the yard Monday through Friday. But not idle, we used to love to just spin that bowl around on the gear wheel to see how fast it could go. I had it going pretty fast that afternoon. I’d done it a million times before, there was no real danger in it. Except this time I decided I should make it stop before I went into the house so I grabbed the big gear to slow it down. Nine year old hands are no match for a spinning gear and my fingers just stayed on the edge and followed it until my thumb forced a full stop, wedged between the gear and the metal bar that supported the side of the contraption. It can’t be right, but I have this strange memory of the cousins who were with my brothers and sister and me running home at the sound of my first scream. They perhaps thought we were breaking the rules by playing with the mixer and did not want to get caught. I don’t remember what happened next but I know I didn’t go to a doctor right away. By the time my dad got home to look at my thumb the odd blue color inspired a trip to the emergency room. The doctor used a small drill to release the pressure buildup under my thumbnail and then put a brace on my thumb that kept my whole hand at an odd angle. It took a few days for the thumbnail to fall off, as the doctor warned me it would. It was sort of creepy looking, my nail-less thumb. I was in the brace for long enough to have to complete some school assignments left handed. I wrote a prize-winning story during that time, earning a butterfly sticker and praise from Sister Mary Someone or Other.

That day’s stupidity left no lasting mark or pain in my hand but when I woke last night wanting to cry with my throbbing forearm and stiff elbow, a picture of the cement mixer flashed in my head. I’m 45 years old now. That injury, barely thought about in 39 years, apparently left more of a scare than I’d imagined.

A few years before he died, my Dad’s sister gave him a coffee mug that says “Proud to be a scaffold erecting, cement mixing, brick laying Construction Worker” and on the inside of the mug is a little drawing of a cement mixer that looks exactly (in my imagination) like the one that smushed my thumb. I pulled that mug out of the cupboard this morning and started typing.