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.

Tag: slice of life

  • Day 12: Pupusas

    My first two years of teaching, I worked at a public school in Washington Heights. Most days I packed a lunch, but when I was feeling lazy or had run out of groceries, I’d pick up pupusas from La Cabaña Salvadoreña just down the block. Two chicken and cheese pupusas for just $2 each, stacked one on top of the other in a styrofoam box with curtido (a spicy cabbage slaw) and some tomato salsa. Mmm.

    I’m thinking of those pupusas today as I’m home early from work after going to a doctor’s appointment. Trader Joe’s started selling frozen ones, and I heated one up for lunch. It’s not the same, of course, but it triggers my memory and reminds me of those days eating pupusas in the classroom with my first coworkers. It also reminds me of the 5-meal days when we’d have night classes: breakfast at 6, lunch at 10:23 (so random), snack (empanadas, smoothies, wraps) between 2:30 and 4:30, dinner (empanadas, smoothies, wraps?) on break at 6, and another snack after class before bed.

    Sometimes I wonder how I survived those two years in the NYC Teaching Fellows, teaching full time every day and taking classes 2-4 nights a week. But I know it was a combination of my friends and coworkers who were right there doing it with me, pure adrenaline, and tasty, cheap food like those pupusas.

  • 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.

  • 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

  • A New Community

    I had different plans for this slice (or did I? It’s 5:40pm on a Sunday and I am tired and ready to get out of the house for a walk or a run before I settle in for the evening), but then I read Elisabeth’s wonderful slice about commenting!

    As a first time slicer, the comments were a totally unexpected and welcome surprise. Yes, yes, I knew that commenting on 3 other slicers’ posts each day was part of the challenge, but I didn’t realize that meant other slicers would comment on MY posts.

    And so each day I was pleasantly surprised as a couple of comments would come trickling in, or likes, or even follows! It filled my cup, especially during a month that has been such a mental, physical, and emotional challenge for me.

    So, I dedicate this slice to the new community, and offer a little introduction about myself, inviting you to comment with the same so that I can get to know my fellow slicers/bloggers/writers better!

    My name is Amy. I’m originally from New York City (Upper West Side!), lived in Madrid for two years, and now currently reside in Miami. I love reading, knitting & crafting, singing loudly to music, cooking, and moving my body (yoga, running, pilates, rollerblading). I taught for 5 years in NYC public schools as a Spanish dual language teacher, and currently am in my second year at a private school as a monolingual teacher (though with many students who are bilingual, porque claro — estamos en Miami). I studied creative writing in college but then let go of it for a little while, only to rediscover my love of it as a teacher of writer’s workshop last year. My friend and mentor, Ana, encouraged me to start this blog. My cousin and literacy consultant, Nawal, inspired me to join the slice of life challenge. And here I am!

    Now, tell me a little about you!

    Day 26 of 31

  • Saturday Morning Poem, or, Slice of Life Day 25

    Waking up before the city

    on a weekend morning,

    the only light coming from

    the glow of the TV,

    aerial view left on

    hovering over bridges

    cars, mountains.

    Outside,

    dark, sun still sleeps,

    car headlights glow

    as they take workers

    to weekend jobs,

    partiers

    home from a long

    night out.

    You tossed and

    turned in bed,

    hoping to fall back to sleep,

    but thoughts swirled

    neck sore (from the pillow?

    from the first workout

    you did in a while?)

    and eventually at 6:37am

    you rose up,

    ready to greet the day.

    Day 25 of 31

  • 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