Writing With Abandon

Reflections and ramblings about life as an educator, writer, reader, knitter, and over-thinker. Trying to do the writing only I can do.

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about

I’m Amy. A born and raised New Yorker, currently living in Miami. Here to reflect on my experiences as an educator and learner, working things out as I write.

  • Day 4: Tight Hips

    This evening after my pilates class, per my instructor’s recommendation, I pull out my foam roller and decide to find a video to guide me through rolling out my annoyingly tight hips. Once I find one, I lay out my yoga mat, grab my foam roller, and settle in.

    I’d like you to locate the upper outer hip, and we’re going to go just underneath there.

    I roll onto my hip and take a sharp inhale. Breathe in, breathe out. The pain is all-encompassing.

    Once you feel the tightness, go ahead and stay there. Take some deep breaths.

    We hold onto so much in our bodies. Releasing emotion releases physical tightness, and releasing tightness in our physical body releases emotions you may not know you were holding onto.

    We’re going to hold for 30 seconds. Just imagine that muscle releasing.

    A friend going through a breakup told me the other day that after going to a yoga class with so many twists, she came home and could not stop crying. It was as though all the stretching and twisting finally allowed her (or perhaps, forced her) to let go.

    Go ahead and roll onto the side of the leg and again, roll until you find a spot that’s the tightest. Take some deep breaths and we’re going to hold this for 30 seconds.

    My body tenses as I find another tight spot.

    Imagine releasing.

    I breathe in and out. I think about today. The successful morning lessons. The humid air at recess. The small spoonful of dulce de leche from D’s dad’s presentation on Argentina. The meetings I had that left me wondering about my future. The children dancing and talking nonstop in the afternoon during our show rehearsal. My headache after dismissal. The deep breaths I took for each move during pilates.

    We’re now going to get the inner thigh, or adductor.

    Roll over. Find another tight spot. Tense up. Breathe.

    Just stay there. Keep breathing.

    I’m reminded of a podcast episode I listened to this summer about seeking closure after a breakup. How she recommended surrendering to the emotional waves that would wash over you, letting yourself cry. Facing it. Because if you don’t, she warned, it will show up later, in a different way.

    Congratulations. You’ve completed all four exercises to release tight hips and glutes.

    I’m going to need to do that more often.

  • Day 3: An Apartment of My Own

    This August I moved into my own apartment: a studio on the 28th floor of a building in Brickell, just a 10-minute walk from school.

    This studio has become my little slice of paradise: it’s spacious and bright, with a surprising amount of storage and a big west-facing balcony that gives me a view of the sunset every evening.

    I’ve never lived on my own before now. Never been able to just do whatever I want, whenever I want, because it’s all mine. But now, I can.

    I put every piece of this place together myself. My mom helped stay over for furniture deliveries on moving day, while I drove back and forth from Ikea to a teacher couple’s to pick up some chairs and a dresser and to my old place to get all the last things, sweating profusely and forgetting to eat. Gianna helped me put together my bed frame and design and hang the gallery wall.

    Everything is exactly where and how I want it to be. And when I come home to my apartment at the end of a long day, I look at it with pride and breathe a sigh of relief. It’s a reminder to me that endings make room for new beginnings. That I can do just about anything on my own, with a little help from my community.

  • Day 2: Boy Writers

    I’ve been reading Ralph Fletcher’s Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices and thinking about the different boy writers I’ve had in my classroom over the last three years of teaching writers workshop.

    The ones that frustrate us because they sit there staring at a blank notebook page, or tell you “I don’t know” when you ask them “How’s it going?” during a conference. The ones whose handwriting is sloppy or big or practically cryptic. The ones who only ever want to write about one topic or in one genre. The ones who write stories that don’t make much sense or end with an “and-then-the-world-explodes!”

    But also the ones who bring so much joy. The ones who have such a clear voice they couldn’t hide it if they tried. The ones whose humor comes across no matter the genre. The ones who have a great grasp on spelling and conventions. The ones who write for fun or collaboratively with friends. The ones who engage in a conference and eagerly try out new craft moves.

    Today I’m thinking about all the boy writers I’ve had whose writing has surprised me and floored me. Like T’s final on-demand story about a boy who didn’t have enough words, which has the most beautiful lesson. Or E’s essay about his little sister, inspired by R’s. I’m thinking about the script that L wrote for our showcase last year, and how it brought all these disparate things together in the most hilarious way. About P’s memoir that called out the bullying going on in the classroom, the group of parents who stood reading it together at our celebration. Most recently, I’m thinking about N’s opinion on-demand and his undeniable voice, the way his parents laughed at our parent-teacher conference about how, yup, that kid could definitely be a lawyer.

    My goal for the rest of the year? Not get in their way.

  • Day 1: Growth

    What a difference a year can make.

    That’s what’s going through my mind right now as I write my first slice of the month. Just how much has changed since March 1, 2023: where I lived, who I was with, how I felt about my work and my life and myself.

    This year I chose growth. I chose me. I chose to shed what didn’t serve me and make room for what could. It didn’t seem possible until I said the words, and then suddenly it was.

    It was one of the hardest years of my life and yet it was also a year filled with immense joy and gratitude.

    While I may not have maintained my blogging, I did journal a ton, nurturing my self-reflective nature that is a gift and can also be a great burden.

    So here it goes. A little slice of my life today: stopping mid-walk to sit at a picnic table by the bay, watching walkers and runners and dogs pass me by, listening to music on my headphones, feeling the cool breeze against my arms. A peaceful end to a long week of teaching and a long day of parent teacher conferences. I may not love Miami, but I do love these afternoons and my solo walks.

  • On Thinking Positive

    As teachers, it’s all too easy for us to focus on the negative. Or perhaps that’s just me — after every lesson, every day, I tend to look at what I didn’t do, what I could do better, what the children still need to master.

    Or I go to colleagues to get advice on one thing, and end up feeling overwhelmed about something they’re doing that I’m not (yet).

    Or I start adding to the never-ending to-do list and become paralyzed with all the things I have left to accomplish.

    It’s inevitable, of course, as good teachers always want to be better, and there’s never going to be a point where you think, “This is it! I’ve arrived!” But it’s not the healthiest way to live.

    Our fearless leader from Samara, Danielle, told us one year, “You will always have things left to do. That’s the only thing you know for sure in this career.”

    And I remember Carmen Fariña telling my teaching fellows cohort that first summer to always reflect on one thing you did well that day (along with one thing that didn’t go so well, and one thing you’ll change for tomorrow). But to start with the good.

    So I’m leaving the to-do list up and doing what I can. And I’m forcing myself to choose positive. To see the glimmers amidst the chaos.

    What’s going well?

    • The kids are LOVING Thinking Maps. This morning I’ll introduce the final one, the bridge map, for seeing analogies and relationships. One of the hardest, but I think they can get it!
    • They’re a friggin’ FUN, funny, and loving group. They make me laugh! And they gives lots of hugs.
    • I’m starting to catch sparks of ideas for projects in what the children say, and I’m remembering to note them down.
    • My associate teacher, Kim, is a rainbow in my cloud and helps me to notice the little things that are going well, too.
    • The kids are happy. What more could we hope for?

    Happy Friday, and here’s to a long weekend to rest and reset!

  • The Final Slice (For Now)

    I tell people all the time one of the most beautiful paradoxes to me is writing. And the reason why is because in order to do it one has to live in an extraordinary place of humility, in the process of making something that perhaps might be shared with the world. On the flip side, the mere notion that someone wants to make something that might be shared with the world is rooted in ego.

    Jason Reynolds, from an episode of Unlocking Us with Brené Brown

    I can’t believe March is over. What a month to have documented daily. An exhausting month. A scary month. An emotional month. A month that finally, thankfully, is coming to an end, turning itself over to April and new beginnings.

    I was wary about this challenge, as it’s probably the most disciplined I’ve been writing in years. Maybe even a decade.

    I have always been a writer.

    As a kid, I would write stories and create fake newspapers on AppleWorks on my iMac. In middle school, I started blogging on Xanga and LiveJournal with camp friends. For years in high school and college, I wrote every day, whether journaling or free writing, or writing stories and memoirs. I surrounded myself with other writers and edited Caliper, Stuyvesant’s literary magazine, my senior year. I even went to college for Creative Writing. I started running an open mic with my friend, as well as a one-page flyer-style lit mag, and consistently participated in both. But in my final semester, I dropped the major because of a logistical conflict (and conflict between professors) with my other major.

    After that, I let writing fall by the wayside. I didn’t feel that I could do it, that anyone would want to read what I wrote. I journaled off and on, but could never quite get back into a groove.

    During COVID, I started journaling again more consistently, but I wasn’t producing writing for any audience aside from myself.

    It wasn’t until I started teaching writer’s workshop that I rediscovered the love of writing within me, through teaching kids how to go through the writing process themselves. Their excitement and nervousness inspired me to write mentor texts, and then their feedback to those mentor texts fueled me further. In our memoir unit this year, one student said, “I don’t understand why you’re a teacher. Why aren’t you a writer?”

    Well, I am both. I am a teacher. I am a writer. I write for me, I write for audiences (blog followers, my students, my friends when I write love letters to them). I am a copywriter, using words to advertise and persuade.

    This writing challenge wasn’t easy. It was quite difficult in fact. And not every post was a real “piece,” if you will. But it was something. And I put myself out there. And for that I’m proud. I hope to keep the momentum going — Tuesday slices? SOLC 2024?

    I wrote every day for the 2023 Slice of Life Story Challenge run by Two Writing Teachers.

  • Waiting

    I discovered this poem in my phone’s notes app while sitting in a waiting room at a doctor’s office. I revised it a bit for today’s slice.

    How many hours have I waited on
    Lines
    This year
    2020
    For food, tests, to vote
    That orange horror out of office
    A year of practicing
    Patience

    Thinking of lines
    I’ve waited on before
    The one
    In SDQ airport
    On Christmas Day
    Next to a family from the US who
    “Could not believe it”
    But I practiced patience then
    Too

    Waiting in the
    Examination room
    At the doctor’s
    Just sitting
    Staring
    Rereading the same posters
    Over and over
    Again

    Waiting for an
    Idea
    To come to mind
    Thinking of all the hours
    Now days
    Maybe weeks
    I’ve spent waiting in
    Lines

    Day 30 of 31

  • Walks with Gi

    Most afternoons, Gi and I walk home from school together.

    Underneath I-95, across the construction of a new round-about. Talking.

    Towards Brickell, watching the buildings rise as we get closer. Talking.

    Turning left and walking along the bike path under the Underline, a park beneath Miami’s metro rail. Talking.

    Crossing the street and rounding the corner, then sprinting across the road, avoiding cars. Laughing.

    Over the bridge that crosses the Miami River, sweating by now under the beating sun. Talking.

    Then finally arriving to her apartment building, where we say good bye and I catch the metro mover to my house.

    (Except usually we linger another ten or twenty minutes to continue our conversation.)

    Day 29 of 31

  • Writing Conference with Myself

    If a writing teacher were to come up to me right now, 8:17pm on a Tuesday night, 28th slice of 31, ask me the magic words: “How’s it going?”

    If it were I in the writer’s seat, pen in hand, notebook open before me, I would reply: “Not well.”

    “Not well?”

    “I can’t think of anything to write today. I’m plumb out of ideas.”

    “What tools do you have for generating ideas?”

    “I know, I know. Think of places and people and memories close to your heart. Make a list, choose one, write everything down. Use Ralph Fletcher’s ‘breathing in and breathing out,’ or a photograph, or an observation out my window. But I’m telling you, I’m stuck.”

    “Let’s try. What’s one small moment from today, just an image, that gave you joy?”

    Ugh, I’d think. Fine, I’ll try.

    And close my eyes. And breathe. And think about what moment today was not hectic, not loud, not tiring.

    “I’ve got it!”

    “Great. Now write it down.”

    Tuesday, March 28th

    At recess, my student brought her notebook down to the playground, led me to a bench, and read me her poem about #middleschoolfeelings. Legs crossed on the bench, notebook open in her lap. Voice soft, yet powerful. We workshopped a few possible endings. She borrowed my pen to ink the chosen one. Then went off to share it with a friend.

    Day 28(!!!) of 31

  • His First Sudoku

    Today M picked up sudoku as an early finishers after math, settling in next to me as he worked through it. It was his second time attempting the puzzle, as the first time he didn’t quite understand how it worked. Today, he was ready to try again, determined.

    I could see the gears grinding in his brain as he successfully placed one, two, three digits.

    “I got a whole row!” he cheered.

    “Great work!” I told him as I checked another student’s math journal.

    “I’m gonna write the little numbers in the corners for these next ones,” he said. Then suddenly, he pouted. “No wait, I think I messed it up.”

    I leaned over. “Hmm, let’s see.” I spotted the mistake. “There! You put a 6, but the row already had one.”

    “Do I have to start over?” he asked.

    “Nope! Just erase that one and see what other digit could go there.”

    “Okay,” he said, erasing and taking another determined breath in.

    A few minutes later, he cried out, “I got a whole square, look!”

    “Amazing! See?” I said. “Want me to check the book to see if it’s correct?”

    “You can do that? Yeah!”

    I checked. He was right.

    “Now you can use that square to help you with the rest of the puzzle.” I looked at the clock. “But we have to transition to PE now.”

    I started to gather the other students to transition. M stayed glued to the puzzle.

    “How about you take it on a clipboard to PE? That way, in case you need a break, you have it.”

    “Yes!!” he cheered, and quickly put the rest of his materials away, grabbing a clipboard and lining up.

    The rest of the day, M had the clipboard with him. He used it for a couple moments during PE (“while the girls were arguing,” he said), as we lined up to go to Spanish, at lunch after finishing a Spanish word search, during quiet time, and then finally for music. When everyone returned upstairs to clean up, pack up, and get ready for closing circle, he bounded in excitedly.

    “Ms. Amy, I finished the whole puzzle!” he said, showing it off to me.

    “You did it!” I cheered. “Want to save puzzle #2 for tomorrow?”

    “Nah, I think I’ll bring it home,” he smiled proudly.

    Day 27 of 31