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Let’s Write

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A bit of motivation for the NaNoWriMo writers (sung to the tune of Rawhide)

Writing, writing, writing,
With the page I’m fighting
Keep them pencils writing
Let’s Write!

Through problems and solutions
Ironic resolutions
Pen to page all through the night

The dialogue they’re talkin’
From scene to scene they’re walkin’
Revising will help me get it right.

Think it up, write it down
write it down, think it up
think it up write it down
Let’s Write!

Read it out, editin’
Editin’, read it out
Read it out, editin’
Let’s Write

Julio Papá

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Arguing with the television,
turning it down, loudly,
eating fresh rosquitas and offering them
to everyone.

Wanting to share in the wine
But too methodical to do so.
Keeping life’s rhythms and rhymes.

Patterns that matched his shirt.

Setting his watch by casino,
Punching the clock at the café as if going to work,
Paying without comment.

Community wherever he was.

Welcoming you, as you are,
Who you are,
Supporting your dreams,
Take a nap if you want to, fix the world if you want to…
But how about a sandwich at 8:40,
And could the doctor’s appointment be after breakfast and before the café?

Missing
You
Deeply

Watching the Cubs in Lima

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The last time I watched a baseball game was… never.  The last time I went to a Major League Baseball game was in 1986- a road trip to Wrigley Field in Chicago with Chris, Pete, Baz and Jim.  Tonight I am glued to the TV here in Lima watching the Cubs take game 7 of the World Series.

This has nothing to do with baseball.  This is all about being connected.  After a challenging few months, energy flows strong and I am reconnecting.  Reconnecting with culture and language, life and spirit, hope and future.  And part of that, oddly enough, is baseball.

Part of being bilingual and bicultural is occasionally missing the other language and culture.  If I were in Minnesota I would not be watching the game.  I would wait until morning and find someone like Mr. Sports, Mr. Action, Mr. Jim Ed Poole who “knows all and tells only some.”  Someone who would let me know who won.  That’s all.  But that is not tonight.

Tonight I root for language and culture.  I root for connectedness and feeling at home wherever you are.  I root for hope and life and spirit.

Go Cubs!

Heading Towards…

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A writer who wrote had a dream:
Tell stories to feel, think and scream.
“I’ll motivate reading,
Young minds I’ll be feeding,
With wonders that aren’t what they seem.”

I have known “writers” who don’t write and folks who say they are not writers but who, in fact, write.  Me?  I like to tell stories about kids who are similar to my students, typically 4th through 8th graders with dreams and worries, hopes and inhibitions.  Soon I will join the legion of writers who take up an MFA program in writing.  It is a low residency program at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota that focuses on writing for children- it is a perfect fit for me… and they accepted me.

In order to complete the program I will travel twice a year to Minnesota from my home in Lima to learn, write, reflect and revise.  My previous studies in the last 20 years have been to find or keep work.  I have enjoyed earning each of my teaching licenses and the learning that came with them.  This one, though, is for me and my students… and I am really looking forward to it.

If you know of any sources to assist with funding please send them my way.

In the meantime it is almost November and that means NaNoWriMo.  But who needs an excuse to write?

Weaving Our World

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Africa brought my friend Abdisalam
Pangjua my pal is from Asia
Buddy was born on the East Side, Saint Paul
A quilt, a symphonic fantasia!

Frank is Lakota, a generous man
Angel an awesome amigo
Ela my doctor of Irish descent
Aunt Shirley? She comes from Otsego

The Nations United is more than New York
We world-weave through actions and talking
Together we journey, we wonder, we hope
The road that we make is by walking

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This was my non-winning poetry submission for Impressions.   The end result of Impressions would have more people reading poetry and viewing art on busses and at bus stops in the Twin Cities (Minnesota).  Using easy to read, rhyming poetry I wanted to emphasize the global nature of St. Paul  while alluding to Spanish poet Machado in that we create the world with who we are and what we do.

I look forward to reading all of the poems!

Unfair to Learn?

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Is it unfair to learn?

As I teach my classes, four sections of the same grade level content, I become a better teacher-  I notice the mistakes that the previous class made;  I understand their misunderstandings; I see the gaps in my teaching.  I learn.  That being said, class #4 receives all of my learning from the previous three classes and produces higher quality work.  They may even receive, on average, higher grades (I will check to see if this last item is true).

Is this unfair for class #1?  Is it unfair that the teaching they receive, because they receive it first, will always be a little less complete and polished?  Is this like asking if it is unfair for the first child in a family to have to train the parents?

Now, I return to weave the threads of learning for that first class, perhaps with colors not as bright but beautiful nonetheless.