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The Gym Lesson

I joined a small local gym in the fall of 2023. It was a really good decision. The weight training sessions are supervised by a certified trainer; up to 8 women can attend; the music is varied (one trainer likes 80s music); the workouts are different each time.

Each week has a theme for exercise: Strength, Sweat, Stamina, and Stability. About every six weeks, they add “Heavy” Week. This week was Heavy Week. In these workouts, each exercise is repeated 4 times. Each repetition you increase the weight you are using. In the first round you aim for 12-15 repetitions; the second, 10-12; the third, 8-10; and the fourth, 4-6. Each round decreases in time. What I’ve learned from Heavy Week is that I can do more than I thought I could, and most of the time, I play it safe and don’t push as hard as I might. Maybe that’s okay since I’m getting older and don’t want injury.

What I’ve learned in the weekly rotations is that Sweat, Stamina, and Strength feel fun and energizing. The time goes really fast. Stability work is not so fun. The challenges sometimes feel scary in this older body, and the hour seems long. During Stability Week, we work on exercises that require balance while challenging one side of the body with weights. It’s surprising to discover how different it can feel to work on only one side of your body. One side usually feels much stronger, flexible, or more coordinated. At least that’s been my experience.

During this writing month, I’ve also experienced strength, sweat, stamina, and stability as a reader and as a writer. Some of my writing days took strength to write; some made me sweat. Other days I faltered and lacked stamina/stability to do the task. But, I know that falter does not mean failure. Maybe this SOLSC is our writing “Heavy Month.” It lets us know we can do more than we thought we could.

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.

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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.

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On Grief

I looked down at the bottom of the Zoom screen. Participants-78. I felt somewhat relieved that with a gathering of this size, I could remain somewhat invisible. The workshop was titled, “The Mystery of Grief, Writing into the Loss,” led by a favorite poet, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.

Rosemerry began by singing the beautiful words of Gregory Orr, a selection from a longer work:

Not to make loss beautiful,
But to make loss the place
Where beauty starts. Where
the heart understands
For the first time
The nature of its journey.

She talked about her own experience and how writing helped her to meet her grief in whatever form it presented itself. It’s everchanging, day by day. “Grief – what do you have to teach me today?” she asks. Rosemerry meets her grief with a daily poem writing process. She begins with this curiosity and writes, “Today grief is….”

As a group, we added our own responses to the prompt in the Chat. The responses were powerful and heartfelt. Some I captured in my notebook.

Today grief is…
tender
a vibration
bone-weary
a tumultuous river
a frozen river
underground
right behind my eyes
an endless knot
muscular
a freefall
beside me

Having lost a dear friend on Tuesday, March 6, my tears were close, but I felt comfort in this group of strangers coming together around loss. We had all experienced it, as every human being must. There was compassion for the experience of being in the grocery store and wanting to shout at strangers, “Can’t you see how sad I am?” Compassion for the woman who is the caregiver for her husband and his cancer after losing a daughter to cancer six months ago. Compassion for the impossibility of understanding suicide. Compassion for the new widow trying to figure out how to be in their shared home of 50 years without his presence.

Rosemerry encouraged us to pay attention and reflect on what happens in our bodies when we write. How does writing open us to know when we are writing what is true?

Isn’t it remarkable what we can carry at times and how we are also carried? Isn’t it a wonder how resilient and adaptive humans can become? Isn’t it a blessing when we gather with others (even strangers) and know we are not alone? How differently we might treat others if we only knew the things they hold in their hearts.

Please go here to read another poem we discussed called, “Made Visible” by poet, James Crews. It just might touch you.

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

In recent years, I have enjoyed exploring poetry. Through the magic of Zoom, I have learned about so many current poets and their poems. Reading poems has led to writing prompts and my own attempts at writing poems. I get a lot of pleasure in playing with words and forms.

One form, however, has intimidated me and I told myself a story that I couldn’t write a pantoum. Until today. I’m taking a 6-class series called “Poetry is Life” taught by Ann Quinn through Yellow Arrow Publishing in Maryland. We usually study three poems each session and practice writing from them. The form we visited today was, for me, the dreaded pantoum. It seemed impossible to think of a topic that could become a pantoum. I didn’t know where to start. I even considered not trying.

Carefully, Ann walked us through Natasha Trethewey’s poem, “Incident” and essentially mapped the lines into a code I could follow as I wrote my own poem. I also learned that pantoums often reveal a narrative with layers of meaning.

Here’s my first pantoum:

Fine

He says he’s fine
after blood drenched his tie
I’m good, he says
bright red spots down his white shirt.

After blood drenched his tie
a friend stopped to help
bright red spots down his white shirt
It will be okay.

A friend stopped to help
He didn’t have to
It will be okay
but she’s not sure she believes

He didn’t have to
speak soothing words and take slow steps
but she’s not sure she believes
and kindness sometimes lies

Speak soothing words and take slow steps
I’m good, he says
and kindness sometimes lies
He says he’s fine.

Isn’t it so interesting that we can change the stories we tell ourselves? Today, I’m happy that some of my fears of new forms were set aside. I learned that a pantoum is actually a fun word puzzle. I am grateful to have teachers and other poets to guide me.

Thank you to all who make this writing space

a place of safety, support, and beauty.

Posted on by mgminer · 15 Comments

Curmudgeon

Lucy Calkins sometimes tells students that they can write like a curmudgeon or write like the words are gold. Today, I had my second tutoring session with a student who is determined to be a curmudgeon. He says that he hates writing because he doesn’t like to share. Well, in a 1:1 setting, would sharing be so bad?

First tutoring session:

Me: So, T—, what did your mom tell you about why we are working together?

T—: (with a sneer) Nothing.

Me: What did she tell you about the work we did together last week?

T—: (with a louder sneer) Nothing.

I proceeded to point out many of the strengths I observed while doing initial assessments. And then, I mentioned that his mom and I felt that perhaps some work on writing would be fun. This student was on a computer for virtual school all year. He hasn’t had a real workshop experience in over a year. He’s an avid reader. He’s a great speller, and he has made it clear that he’s not buying what I’m hoping to sell.

Trying not to be intimidated by an 8-year old, I pressed on. In my teaching, I have often used the 5-minute quick write to build a bank of writing and to build writing stamina. I thought this would be an easy invitation to writing with the open topic, “Summer.” We talked a few minutes to prime the pump and I set the timer. We began and I wrote, too.

My writing took me back to fun summer evenings of my childhood and memories of neighborhood kids gathered for games of Hide-and-Seek, S.P.U.D., and jump rope. I could hear the ringing bells of the “Popsicle Man,” and could feel the stickiness of popsicles dripping down my arm. I remembered the bikes, wagons, and roller skates we shared and being chased by neighborhood dogs. I loved getting to stay outside until dark when it might be cool enough in our un-airconditioned house to sleep. It all came back in just 5 short minutes of writing. “I love writing,” I thought to myself.

T— wrote 38 words in the 5 minutes. He wrote something to the effect that summer should be for fun and other activities and “not this annoying writing thingy my mom is making me do.” I thanked him for his honesty, even though inside, I was wondering, “Am I annoying?”

Second tutoring session:

I hoped our second session would improve. Today, I gave him a choice of prompts for the quick write. (Choice is motivating, right?) He checked the box. Again, I wrote, hoping to model what “write the whole time” looks like. He wrote 9 words, 7 of which were the words of the prompt. My heart sank as I wondered what would help turn this relationship in a more positive direction. One voice tells me to discontinue–it’s been a hard year and this student will be successful when he returns to school. Another voice asks, could some writing support now help him be more confident when he returns to school?

What would you do?