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.

  • Figgy

    When my husband and I got married, my brother-in-law (a florist), gifted us a beautiful fiddle leaf fig tree. Unfortunately, our third floor apartment didn’t get enough sun (despite its huge windows), and the tree’s leaves started to brown and fall off, until suddenly it was naked — just a couple of branches with some leaf stragglers.

    I never did have a great green thumb, having never been able to keep succulents alive very long (DO they need water? I’ve tried, I’ve really tried, but alas…).

    But when we moved to Miami, to an apartment on the 32nd floor with west-facing windows and a (still unbelievable) amount of sunlight, I decided to change that. I went to Home Depot and bought three small plants: a philodendron, a ZZ plant, and a fiddle leaf fig.

    The fiddle leaf fig, or Figgy, as I like to call her, took just a couple weeks after repotting to get comfortable. I could tell, she really liked her new home.

    First day after repotting
    1 week after repotting

    From then on, she started to sprout new leaves, and she never stopped.

    We had a couple of moments where I feared she was ill — a couple yellowed leaves, some spots, signs of over- or under-watering — but she pulled through. I even propagated a couple of leaves in water and was able to gift my friend Ana a new plant of her own, which I hear is thriving.

    Throughout the last year, Figgy has grown so much.

    Now, Figgy stands as tall as our TV, and she’s gorgeous. I let her know it, too, when I walk past. The ZZ has even gone through many changes (when it outgrew its pot, I discovered there were 4 separate plants inside, and gifted 3 of them to some friends), but Figgy is my pride and joy.

    How are you with plants?

    Day 24 of 31

  • Me and Blogging Go Way Back

    This morning I woke up to an email with the news that on this day in 2006, I joined LiveJournal.

    In my memories, I joined far before then. Perhaps this was one of my many accounts (because I did have many), because I’m fairly sure I remember exactly when I started my first blog. It was just after my first summer at camp, because Alice and Claire also had them. I opened one and made it private just to my followers, and it was a real diary for a while for me.

    I remember that I followed a girl from New Orleans, and that’s how I found out about Hurricane Katrina. She was blogging as her family evacuated in preparation for the disaster, and then continued blogging as they realized they wouldn’t be able to return home.

    I also had a Xanga in 7th grade, both an individual one as well as a joint one that I ran with my friend Tamar as the “Gossip Girl” of our school. Oh boy.

    I guess blogging sort of fell by the wayside as I got into high school, which is when social media started to take over. I got a MySpace, followed by Friendster, was it?, and finally Facebook, when they opened it to high schoolers (remember when it was just for college kids, then just college + HS? I remember when my mom’s company required her to get a Facebook account, and I thought it was so strange that they were opening it to all ages).

    And now, here I am — deleting Instagram and TikTok off my phone because of the time sucks that they are, and completing a 31-day blogging challenge!

    Day 23 of 31

  • Cold Runs

    Yesterday I went on a run for the first time since my vertigo started (which is gone, people! Hallelujah!). The weather was perfect — 70, low humidity. Daylight Savings has the sun setting at 7:30pm now, so it was all blue and pink skies as I left off at 7. I opened up Spotify and chose a playlist I hadn’t listened to in a long time: “cold runs,” the playlist I listened to on repeat as I trained for my first ever half marathon in 2014.

    It’s amazing how songs can transport you to another time and place. Even as I jogged steadily along the beautiful bay, the wind cooling me off, I remembered running along the icy bridle path in Central Park. Freezing toes, cold bursts of visible breath through my thin merino neck gaiter, avoiding puddles of slush and black ice. I remembered singing along to those songs with friends from Mud, the café I worked at the year after college.

    Even now, just sitting at home over break, copywriting and listening to Innerbloom by Rüfüs du Sol, I am transported to the All Day I Dream festival we went to pre-pandemic at the Brooklyn Mirage. Back when we still didn’t feel the pressure of adulthood in the same way we do now. Back when we all seemed to have more free time and more energy to see people after work.

    But then the song ends, and I look around, and we’re not in 2014 or 2019. We’re in March 2023, just trying to figure it all out.

    Day 22 of 31

  • Love Letters

    Today my mom and my sister visited my grandparents’ home in Philadelphia to go through and gather the final things we want to keep before saying goodbye to the apartment.

    Tillie sent me some photos along with this letter my grandfather sent to my grandmother. It’s clearly from before they were married, and it makes my heart full. They married so young and were together for decades. Companions.

    “I’m glad you spoke to your father about us, and I’m very happy that he likes me. I know you have a lot to tell me, and I can’t wait to get home so that I can hear it. I’ll get home to [sic] late on Sunday to speak to you, so I’ll see you on Monday. So long, darling, till then, love me? I love you — Harold”

    It’s a love you can only hope for in this life!

    Day 21 of 31

  • Dream Jobs

    I love teaching, I really do, but it is certainly a draining career. The pandemic really shook things up for me in terms of realizing how the boundary between work and home was nonexistent. The past two years have been much better, but as someone with multiple interests, hobbies, and talents, I still find myself daydreaming sometimes about alternate careers…

    Like copywriting. A side gig I started last spring, which I’m really quite good at and can be very lucrative. A job I could do remotely, allowing me to travel the world or live in a different time zone.

    Or becoming a full-time fiber arts maker. I’ve been a knitter since middle school, and recently took up punch needle, which I love. My family friend, a fellow crafter, texted me yesterday, “We should start an Etsy shop!” And I let myself think about that possibility, too.

    Or maybe I could open a bookshop/café/yarn shop with my best friend down here. Miami certainly needs one, and I loved working as a barista as a 22-year-old.

    Or I could be a writer, if I finally got my act together and wrote every day.

    Maybe I could go back to school and study psychiatry, become a therapist for children or young people.

    What alternate careers do you daydream about?

    Day 20 of 31

  • Early Morning Grocery Haul

    Have you ever gone to a grocery store on a Saturday or Sunday morning, soon after it opens?

    That’s my favorite time to get the weekly shopping done.

    Everyone in the city is in bed still, sleeping the night’s antics away, while I arrive on the scene to encounter fully stocked fridges and shelves, aisles empty of carts, and no line at any register upon checkout.

    I can take my time if I wish or get out quickly, not wasting minutes searching for something that sold out hours ago, or weaving in between other shoppers.

    I follow my list — produce, pantry, fridge — and make it home within the hour.

    The perfect start to a week off.

    Day 19 of 31

  • Rihanna’s “Croch”

    Today I got to see my older sister, Tillie, for the first time since Thanksgiving! She’s here on a “moms getaway” weekend with 3 of her best friends, resting and relaxing by the poolside. We met for breakfast and when she told me a story about my nephew, John Henry, I knew it was perfect for today’s slice.

    Apparently, my niece and nephew are obsessed with Rihanna’s halftime show (I mean, who isn’t?) and have requested for my sister and her husband to play it for them a million times.

    “And he’s been drawing so much lately,” my sister told me. “Every holiday, he makes a new drawing for our front door. On Thanksgiving, it was a turkey. On Christmas, a tree. On Valentine’s Day, we cut up a bunch of hearts. And this weekend he even made a St. Patrick’s Day drawing of a leprechaun with the belt and the pot of gold and everything!”

    Super cute, I know. He’s also been writing a ton, thanks to his amazing kindergarten teacher who teaches him writer’s workshop.

    Recently, they’ve learned that writers label their drawings.

    Here’s where Rihanna comes in.

    “So he drew a picture of Rihanna in her halftime outfit,” Tillie said. “And—wait, I think I have the picture on my phone, hold on.”

    And that’s when she showed me the detailed drawing — with labels! — of Rihanna in her halftime show outfit.

    “He labeled her crotch!” Tillie exclaimed.

    John Henry’s drawing of Rihanna

    And he sure did.

    “What does that say at the top?” I asked.

    “Rihanna,” Tillie laughed. Ah yes — Reeona. Gotta love phonetic, inventive spelling.

    “Wait — is that her baby?” I asked, pointing to the stick figure in a circle inside Rihanna’s tummy.

    “Oh my god, I didn’t even notice that!”

    Man, do I miss my nephew!

    Day 18 of 31

  • Friday Haikus

    HOW-TO HAIKU

    Taught kids to haiku

    They tried traditional ones

    And silly ones too

    *

    FUNNY KID

    Reluctant writer

    Manages to write the best,

    Funniest haikus

    *

    SPRING BREAK

    It’s finally break

    School is out — Quick! Run away!

    Ready to relax

    *

    SOCIAL MEDIA

    Deleted TikTok

    It is a total time suck

    Now screen time is low.

    *

    HYDRATE

    Remember to drink

    It’s important to hydrate

    Gotta love water

    Day 17 of 31

  • A Connection

    I have a student who tends to get sick a lot. Sometimes it’s his immune system, and sometimes it’s psychosomatic (like when I explained to the children a couple weeks ago that I was experiencing vertigo, and after recess he told me, “I think I’m having what you had!” with a hand to his head).

    Today after PE, as we sat down for math, he told me he was feeling nauseous, and I could see how it was making him nervous. Thinking it was a combination of thirst from exerting himself in PE and hunger (lunch was 45 minutes away), I told him to drink some water, try going to the bathroom, and wait to see if he felt better after eating something.

    On the lunch line, though, I could feel his anxiety radiating from him. I suddenly recognized myself in his fear — this weekend, overwhelmed with my own health crisis, I broke down to my therapist. Not only was I run down from the health issue itself, but I was exhausted by the anxiety I was having over it, losing actual sleep and making myself sicker with worry.

    So I leaned into that.

    As he waited for his food, I rubbed his back and told him how when I get sick, I feel just like him. I told him that what helped me was to talk back to my anxiety, to remind myself that yes, I didn’t feel well, but I was going to get past this. This wasn’t forever. I would feel unwell and then I would get better.

    “Tell your brain, ‘I’m going to be okay. I’m safe,’” I told him.

    I felt him sigh under my hand, the tension releasing.

    “Do you feel like you can eat?” I asked.

    “Yes,” he nodded, and made sure to get some pork in addition to the rice I had suggested.

    He still felt sick afterward, and I called his mom to pick him up, but I hope I helped make that fear go away, at least.

    Day 16 of 31

  • An Ode to Public Libraries

    I grew up just a couple blocks away from the St. Agnes Public Library in New York City. I remember my first library card, and all the amazing books I borrowed from there. Scratching mystery crust off of pages, but turning them all the same, eager to finish new stories, experience new worlds. From middle grade books to the dramatic young adult series I read (hello Sarah Dessen and Jodi Picoult!), I devoured them, borrowing stacks at a time.

    When I lived in Madrid, I visited the Pedro Salinas library, found their tiny English fiction section, borrowing British editions of literary novels like Zadie Smith’s On Beauty.

    Back to New York, I lived and worked in Washington Heights. I loved the children’s section in the library closest to my apartment, and took my third graders to the Fort Washington Library for a magical field trip.

    A few years later we lived on East End and 78th, and I had the Webster Library just steps from my front door. I adored the used bookstore in its basement.

    When COVID hit, I couldn’t take books out for a while, so I borrowed them from the NYPL and the Brooklyn Public Library on my Kindle. I continue to borrow books on my Kindle constantly. (The airplane mode trick is the best, if you don’t know it yet.)

    The first week I moved to Miami, I set out walking under the blazing July sun to visit the main branch of the Miami Dade Public Library. I sent my parents a selfie with the three books I found and borrowed that same day.

    Today I returned to that branch with my class. Though they weren’t initially excited, the anticipation grew. Parents emailing us that their children were begging them to get library cards in time, and would the e-card work to take out physical books, otherwise their daughter would “kill them”? Children bouncing on line before going in, as though we were going to Six Flags. And finally, the visit — in awe of all the information the library had to offer, and each of them finding a small (or large!) stack of books to borrow.

    All but 3 of these poetry mentor texts are from the public library.
    Day 15 of 31