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.

  • 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

  • Notes from an “Ask the Expert” Session

    Every month or so, on professional development Tuesdays, we have an “Ask the Expert” session with Lina Acosta Sandaal, a psychotherapist, child & adolescent development expert, and creator of Stop Parenting Alone. She is amazing and I always feel that I learn so much from a session with her.

    Here are some notes I took from today’s session that really stuck with me, and which I want to keep in mind:

    • We all have a confirmation bias that makes us see what we want/expect to see. Especially at this point in the year, we are struggling and are allowing our confirmation bias to take over. It’s automatic. So we have to take an extra step to reset every day until the end of the year.
    • Our brains are the best virtual reality equipment ever.
    • Guilt is a horrible feeling to feel, but it shows you have love and caring and compassion within you.
    • If you model resetting, you give kids the opportunity to reset.
    • Remember, it’s not messing up the day, it’s just messing up a moment.
    • Two ways to calm your body and your nervous system when you’re especially overstimulated or stressed:
      • ONE – Find your feet. Find 3 tight spots to loosen. Take a breath. Speak.
      • TWO – Find your feet. Expand your eyesight — widen out.
    • Three musts of caregiving: consistency, routine, teamwork amongst caregivers.
    • When we give kids a crutch, we need to give them a crutch with a plan. “That is there because we are working towards __.”
    • Around age 8, children move from caregiver-motivated to self– and peer–motivated. This is why it’s especially important in the early years to motivate with responsibility, integrity, and perseverance — not pleasure.
    • After a big event or project culmination, kids will disengage. Plan accordingly: make time to process, reassess, and get excited about what’s next.

  • Life Questions with “The Last of Us”

    Note: Spoilers ahead! Do not read if you haven’t finished the season finale of “The Last of Us” or have never read Watchmen.

    Tonight, my husband and I caught up with the final episode of the first season of “The Last of Us,” the excellent HBO series based on the post-apocalyptic video game of the same name. Joel and Ellie have finally reached their destination: a Fireflies-controlled hospital where doctors will attempt to create a vaccine using Ellie’s immunity. The problem? Ellie will have to be killed in order for them to attempt to produce this cure.

    So Joel has a choice: potentially save all of humanity, or save Ellie, a girl he’s fallen in love with over the course of the season?

    For Joel, it’s an easy choice: save Ellie, escape, lie to her about it later, even though she knows he’s lying and her heart will break for it. (Bringing us back to that moment in episode 6 when Ellie’s told it’s only the people we trust who can truly hurt us.)

    But this question had me wondering. And it also reminded me of the end of the famous comic, Watchmen — Veidt plans to save humanity from nuclear war by faking an alien invasion in New York, which kills almost half of the city’s population. His plan works, but he ends up wondering if he did the right thing in the end.

    I don’t have the answers, but it’s got me wondering on this Monday eve.

    Day 13 of the 2023 Slice of Life Challenge

  • Ice Cream

    Today after going to a farmer’s market in a botanical garden, we stopped at an old school ice cream parlor for scoops of cookies n’ creme and coffee with rainbow sprinkles. The shop had black and white checkered linoleum flooring, silver shiny tables, and red and white striped decor. Collages of tiny photos of patrons covered the walls in huge frames, relics of the 90s and early 00s.

    It reminded me of my favorite ice cream shop as a girl, Emack and Bolio’s on 79th and Amsterdam.

    As a kid, the cones and scoops seemed enormous, and I always got the same order: grasshopper pie (mint chocolate oreo) in a cone with rainbow sprinkles. As a teen, I’d meet friends there after school or on weekend evenings, and we’d gossip about classes or boys as we walked around the block with our cones. As an adult, whenever I visit, I walk by and watch as families make a line to get their ice cream, and occasionally join in if it’s summertime and I get the craving.

    Because there’s nothing quite like an ice cream on a hot day.

  • A Note for You, Anxiety

    Dear anxiety,

    sometimes you trick me

    make me think

    you’ve got the best of me

    make me paralyzed

    and dizzy

    with fear of what you’ll

    take next from me.

    But anxiety,

    I’ve got tricks up my sleeve, too.

    I’ve got words

    and breaths

    and movements

    that will help me shake free of you.

    And anxiety,

    I’ve always

    always

    survived your schemes.

    So you can keep trying,

    but you won’t catch me.

  • Cansadete

    When I lived in Spain and started to really become fluent in Spanish, I loved learning the augmentative forms of words. I knew about the diminutives (perrito, cajita). But the augmentative — intensifying, indicating greatness in size, exaggerating — was new to me.

    Ojos súper bonitos became ojazos.

    Muy cansada was cansadete.

    Today I feel eso — un cansancio tan grande que me siento cansadete. Agotada.

    It was an events-filled week, where there’s a lot of fun, but the routine gets thrown off.

    Entonces, esta noche, solo pienso en mi cama, y lo rico que será dormir esta noche sin alarma.

  • An Excerpt

    For today’s slice (day 9! wow!), an excerpt from my writer’s notebook entry yesterday.

    ***

    The sun dapples differently in the morning, the humidity still thick. The brown vines hang and sway from the branches of the trees, almost like they’re dancing in the wind. I can hear birds chirping and roosters clucking. Car engines as they drop children off at school.

    What if you could mute the sounds one at a time?

    Take away the white noise of the whooshing air on the highway. Take away the rumbling car engines. Take away the whistles from the rooftop.

    Leave the air rustling the leaves on their branches. Leave the birds tweeting in the trees. Leave the rustle of pen and paper, children’s voices.

    Blankets of pollen coat the benches, allergy culprits. Like fairy dust, causing sneezing and watery eyes.

    M found a worm, inching along his leg. We gave him a post-it pack home.

    “He has good abs,” M said. “I’m gonna call him squiggly.”

  • Taking Workshop Outside

    This morning, I told the students to gather quickly with their writer’s notebooks and a pen or pencil, because we were taking our workshop outside to the park.

    “No way!” They shouted. “Yessss!”

    We headed downstairs and out to the park that faces our school, congregating around one of the picnic tables so I could tell them the teaching point.

    “Writers, today I want to teach you another strategy for generating ideas for poems,” I said. “Poets see the world with eyes that are alert to the smallest details.”

    I pointed to the vines hanging from the tree branch above us.

    “Look at how the sun is glinting off of the vines, making them look golden. Notice how they’re waving in the wind, swaying.”

    “Almost like they’re dancing!” T chimed in.

    “Exactly!” I smiled back. “I think I’ll write that down. I might be able to use it in a poem later.”

    I pulled out a mini-anchor chart with steps for the teaching point.

    “Poets, today you’ll look at the park with new eyes. You’ll write long in your notebooks about what you observe, what you notice, and what you think about what you see. All of this can be used as inspiration for later poems! Now, spread out and find a spot where you can really fine tune your poet’s eyes. Off you go!”

    And they all dispersed.

    For the next thirty minutes, pens scribbled in notebooks, eyes gazed around in wonder, and when we gathered again, almost everyone shared an excerpt from their writing.

    On our way back to the school building, we brought back plenty of new ideas, as well as a moth and a tiny inchworm.

    As the door closed behind us, one student asked, “Can we have writer’s workshop outside every day?”

    If only!

  • A Reading Spot

    “Netscape” by Konstantin Grcic, photographed by Larry Speck

    Yesterday, I forced myself out of the apartment for an evening stroll. I walked past the construction of the new bridge and highway towards Maurice A. Ferré Park, taking in the greenery.

    I made my way towards the Perez Art Museum and climbed up to their back deck, overlooking Biscayne Bay. There, I saw a set of netted swings that I’d never noticed before. I tentatively sat on one, worried it might trigger my vertigo.

    It didn’t.

    In fact, it felt wonderful.

    With one leg down and the other hiked up, I rocked myself back and forth, pulled out my Kindle, and enjoyed my new favorite reading spot in Miami.

    Current read – Follow me on The Storygraph!

  • Sick Day

    As a teacher, I don’t like to take days off from work.

    Whether it’s for self care or a true sick day (like today), the thought of not coming in and showing up for your kids makes you feel even more ill.

    Because teachers can’t just take a day when they’re not feeling well. We have to find subs and create sub plans, knowing all too well that most likely, we’ll need to reteach it anyway.

    Luckily at my current school and at my last school, I’ve had co-teachers. That’s a game changer.

    Still, there’s always a sense of guilt as you let them know they’ll be managing on their own for the day.

    The only thing that makes it better is when you return the next day and the kids brighten and say, “Ms. Amy’s back!”