Posted on by mgminer · 4 Comments

Expectations

I’ve been taking piano lessons for nearly two years after a long hiatus. It’s been a joy and a challenge that I may have written about before. Since I have a lesson on Monday, it’s on my mind again tonight.

I’ve always struggled to play fast passages. My teacher is so skilled in pedagogy and performance. She has taught me techniques and strategies that have helped me tremendously, but speed is still an obstacle for me. I wish I knew more of the brain science related to fast fingers. What does finger fluency look like? In reading, we called fluency work building to automaticity. How is that the same or different for playing the piano?

For now, I’m sticking with the old adage (attributed to the Navy Seals) that “Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.” Slow practice allows me to attend to accuracy, posture, relaxation, fingering, touch, dynamics, form, and structure. It also lets me try different solutions to problematic passages.

The other principle I’m trying to remember is that “it takes as long as it takes.” If it takes me until I’m 80 to play Chopin’s Prelude No. 3 at tempo or if I don’t ever achieve that goal, the joy is in the effort.

As Mahatma Gandhi said, “Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory”. 

Thank you to all who make this writing space
a place of safety, support, and beauty.

Posted on by mgminer · 10 Comments

Bunny

One of my granddaughters turned four in February. A few days before her birthday, we were talking on the phone. I asked her what she would like for her birthday. Without missing a beat, she said, “I want you to knit me a bunny. And it needs a rainbow on its tummy.”

I replied, “Well, honey. That will take some time. Can you wait?”

She assured me she could wait.

After searching many patterns, I settled on crocheting a bunny instead of knitting. I thought it would go faster.

So most of this past month, I’ve been making the pieces of a bunny. It turned out to be quite a big project and much larger than I expected! And it’s face is quite serious looking. I hope she won’t hate it. It doesn’t have a rainbow on its tummy yet. I decided to make a little dress for it that will have the rainbow. I’ll see her next weekend for the bunny reveal. Wish me luck!

Dress for Bunny, unfinished.

Thank you to all who make this writing space
a place of safety, support, and beauty.

Posted on by mgminer · 2 Comments

Make of it what you will

I’m prone to dreaming awake or asleep. This dream happened in the early morning hours when the lines between awake and asleep blur. My doctor used to say that only the dreamer understands the meaning of dreams, so make of it what you will.

In my dream a lovely class of Kindergarteners was lined up outside under big trees. There were teachers around. There seemed to be no hurry, no emergency, no reason for being lined up outside. It was just a warm, sunny morning. I stood nearby unencumbered.

The Kindergarten class spontaneously broke into song. It began as “You’re a Grand Old Flag” but then morphed into a mash-up with “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” Surprisingly, the songs worked well together. The children smiled with enthusiasm.

One little girl looked at me eagerly and said, “Do you know why we sing it that way?”

“No,” I said.

“Because of ME!”

She was so proud. I think she might be on to something–love of country should feel like Christmas. “Forever in peace may you wave.”

Thank you to all who make this writing space
a place of safety, support, and beauty.

Posted on by mgminer · 7 Comments

Respecting Sentences

Last night I pulled a book off my shelf just for the pleasure of reading about writing. You may know it, Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several Short Sentences About Writing. Right off the bat, I was pulled in by this counsel:

Know what each sentence says,
what it doesn’t say.
And what it implies.
Of these, the hardest is knowing what each sentence actually says.

Knowing what you’re trying to say is always important.
But knowing what you’ve actually said is crucial.

This got me to thinking about sentences. As teachers, we love to teach story. We often begin teaching writers about story hoping that through engagement with narrative they will grasp the idea that sentences tell their story. I don’t know about you, but often, I observed that the concept of sentence remained elusive to many young writers.

I’m not here to criticize or to fix anything, but to share my renewed respect for the sentence.

A book I read recently captivated me with its clarity and beauty of language at the sentence level. This is Happiness by Niall Williams was a book full of gorgeous sentences which I happily underlined. Here are a few examples of sentences that caught my attention:

Chapter 1 was one sentence: It had stopped raining.

p. 4 – Story was a kind of human binding. I can’t explain it any better than that. There was telling everywhere.

p. 19 – As a shield against despair she had decided early on to live with the expectation of doom, an inspired tactic, because, by expecting it, it never fully arrived.

p. 29 – I leaned back into the brown smells of his chest and there I left the world…Ganga [grandfather] understood that the ageless remedy for a boy whose mother was ill was to bring him to see the ocean.

p. 33 – It was where, when darkness fell, it fell absolutely, and when you went outside the wind sometimes drew apart the clouds and you stood in the revelation of so many stars you could not credit the wonder and felt smaller in body as your soul felt enormous.

To me, these are not fancy sentences. Instead, through careful use of everyday language we experience something fresh. Isn’t it such a miracle that our daily words can be arranged over and over in new ways? Someday, I hope to be able to craft a sentence that says just what I want it to say. A truth I know. A beauty I’ve witnessed. A door opening from me to you.

Thank you to all who make this writing space
a place of safety, support, and beauty.

Posted on by mgminer · 4 Comments

Unexplained

Maybe it’s my Welsh ancestry (think fairies and spirits), or maybe not. Maybe there’s a ghost in the family, or maybe not. Sometimes, I’m not sure.

Last fall, I decided to crochet a “granny go round” sweater for my daughter. It was a pretty mix of blue, gold, maroon, dark green, and tan. Usually, I knit rather than crochet so this was a fun change for me. I finished it just after Christmas and blocked it. The last step was to sew on the buttons. I bought just enough buttons for the six buttonholes.

Somewhere in the process, I had five buttons successfully sewn on, but when it came to the sixth? No button. I looked everywhere–in the chair cushions, under the chair, in the sewing basket by the chair, on the endtable, under the footstool, by the fireplace. No button.

Weeks went by. I finally gave the sweater to my daughter missing the last button. She was sweet and wore it anyway.

Then two months had passed. I came home from my exercise class one afternoon and there on the chair cushion where I usually do my handwork was the button. In plain sight. I asked my husband if he had found the button. He said, “What button?” No one else had been in the house.

I told my sister what happened. “It was the ghost,” we said.

Right there on my chair!

Someday, I may share more family “ghost” stories. How does your family explain unexplainable occurrences?

Thank you to all who make this writing space
a place of safety, support, and beauty.

Posted on by mgminer · 11 Comments

Winter Gift

It was bitter cold many days this February, colder than it’s been in many years. With many layers of clothing and a relatively warm house, I didn’t suffer too much for which I’m grateful. But prolonged cold does something to the psyche (at least mine). The dreary weather, the gloomy news reports, and the challenges always present in families left me struggling to feel hope.

One afternoon, I returned home feeling tired and discouraged. I got out of the car, put the windshield wipers up so they wouldn’t freeze to the window, and walked toward the front door. Scanning the sidewalk, as is my habit, I looked and found nature had left a gift on the front porch. I took a quick breath and thanked God. It wasn’t a bird, or even a small animal. It wasn’t a pretty feather, a smooth nut, or a colorful rock. But it was no less a delight to me.

It was fragile, but in tact. I bent to pick it up hoping it would not break apart. It was a beautiful brown cup made from 12 tulip poplar seeds on a 3-inch stem. A perfect tulip shape. We don’t have a tulip poplar tree in our yard which made this little gift brought by the wind even more precious. It cheered me to think of more colorful tulips to come, but that day, a brown one served just fine.

Thank you to all who make this writing space
a place of safety, support, and beauty.

Posted on by mgminer · 5 Comments

Choose Something Like a Star

One of my all-time favorite poems is this one by Robert Frost. I love it because I learned it through music by Randall Thompson as a high school student many years ago. I remember how the conductor took us line-by-line through this poem and brought out meaning that has stayed with me.

In this time of uncertainty and great difficulty, this poem reminds me of the need to have something more “to stay our minds on” for when people are swayed too much by blame or by praise (false or otherwise). We need information (use language we can comprehend), but we also need to listen to what is being asked of us (it asks of us a certain height). There are so many voices of doom, as there have always been, but humans are also so capable of extraordinary courage, kindness, and strength. Perhaps this poem is calling us to look for what will help us rise above the gloom. Choosing something like a star helps me. I hope it helps you.

Frost
Robert Frost
1874-1963″Choose Something
Like a Star”
(1916) 
O Star (the fairest one in sight),
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud –
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.
Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says “I burn.”
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.
It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats’ Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.

https://www.blueridgejournal.com/poems/rf-star.htm

Thank you to all who make this writing space
a place of safety, support, and beauty.

Posted on by mgminer · 4 Comments

Decades

Earlier this month, I had what younger friends called “a milestone” birthday. As far as I knew, there were no plans for celebration other than the usual dinner and a movie (at home) with my husband. I was surprised when opening my front door to a “heart attack!” and humbled by the kind words left on my door.

That was followed by a Zoom call from my 5 children including a delivery of cake, flowers, and acai bowls for breakfast. My husband wrote a poem that rhymed for me, and my son and granddaughter also wrote poems for me. Who could ask for more? It turned out to be a very happy day for this septuagenarian.

Seven decades is a lot to process. As I was looking back and thinking about decades, I came up with this:

  • 1st decade childhood – Starting
  • 2nd decade teens – Surprising
  • 3rd decade twenties – Seeking
  • 4th decade thirties – Struggling
  • 5th decade forties – Striving
  • 6th decade fifties – Succeeding
  • 7th decade sixties – Synthesizing
  • 8th decade seventies – Savoring

I’m not committing to this list yet, but it does give a framework for some of my life experiences. For now, I think I like this season of savoring.

Posted on by mgminer · 4 Comments

Name that Tree

It never ceases to amaze me that learning the name of something suddenly brings awareness of the presence of that thing all around me. It begs the question, why have I never noticed it before I knew its name?

I was visiting my daughter in Harrisonburg, VA and we were at a park with her children. I noticed the lovely shape of a very tall tree and the interesting branching pattern it had. I loved how so many branches broke free from the trunk at close intervals, and how all the branches seemed to be reaching up, raising their arms together. I also noticed how beautifully symmetrical it was, but I didn’t know it’s name. After some research, I learned that it was called a Dawn Redwood. What a lovely name. Redwoods in Virginia! You can learn more about them here. I spent some time just enjoying the tree until grandchildren called, “Grandma, watch me!”

Later, while driving through my home neighborhood, I spotted the same beautiful shape and wondered how I had never noticed it before in the 50+ years I’ve lived here. Then, driving to my piano lesson, there was another, so tall and majestic! And again, driving to my sister’s, I spotted another. They’ve been all around me forever, but I hadn’t been aware. Now, when I see these dawn redwoods, I feel that they are my secret trees. Now they are mine because I know their name. There’s a metaphor here, I’m sure, but I’ll let you ponder that for yourself.

In winter, the silhouette of the dawn redwood is a gently rounded cone that looks soft next to the craggy sycamores, maples, and oaks. Somehow, I find its symmetry soothing on these cold January days.

Dawn Redwood at dusk, Vienna, VA 1/28/25
Posted on by mgminer · 3 Comments

Writing My Stories

When I was a Reading Teacher, I was always looking for ways to improve my instruction and engage students who had not yet discovered the “joys of reading.” Some were uninterested; others tried hard to mask their reading difficulties; others worked hard, but lacked background knowledge or life experiences which would contribute to enjoying books.

One winter, I came across a book by Kylene Beers and Robert E. Probst called NOTICE AND NOTE. They developed a system for teaching reading comprehension using 6 signposts that I found interesting and useful.  I started to test out these signposts in my own reading and decided this could work with my students. And indeed, it worked. Discussions grew deeper and questions more thoughtful as enjoyment of the book, HATCHET, by Gary Paulsen increased. 

Today, I’m no longer teaching reading, but instead, I’m working on writing the stories of my life. As I was walking in the neighborhood and doing a lot of reflecting about my life, my mind went to these signposts once again. I asked myself if the signposts could also be a scaffold for my writing. Would I be able as a writer to zoom out in order to recognize patterns and key understandings using the signposts? I’m interested to find out. 

These are the signposts outlined by Kylene Beers and Robert Probst:

Contrasts and Contradictions: When a character does or says something unexpected, you can stop and ask, “Why is the character doing that?”

Aha Moment:  When a character realizes, understands, or finally figures out something, you can stop and ask, “How might this change things?”

Tough Questions:  When a character struggles with hard questions, you can stop and ask, “What does this question make me wonder about?”

Words of the Wiser: When a character receives advice from someone older and wiser, you can stop and ask, “What is the life lesson and how might it affect the character?”

Again and Again: When a word, phrase, or situation comes up over and over, you can stop and ask, “Why does this keep happening again and again?”

Memory Moment: When the author interrupts the action with a memory from the character’s life, you can stop and ask, “Why might this memory be important?”

As I think about the story of my life, I’m sure there are threads that run through my experiences that could be identified by these signposts. Maybe there are other signposts yet to be named, but I think considering these markers might become useful to me as I write my stories and perhaps to those who read them.

I believe the work is largely the same for the writer and the reader. We are both striving to make meaning from the stories we live. The meaning of our stories can change over time as we grow and test our theories to find or reject what we think is true or not true. For it is truth we desire. Truth that tells who we were, who we are, and all we may become.