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

  • Hobbies

    At recess on Thursday, one of my students was lingering by the jungle gym where I sat looking out at the group of boys playing soccer.

    “So, _,” I asked, “what do you plan to do over your long weekend?”

    He grabbed onto the bars above him and swayed a bit as he replied.

    “Play basketball, probably.”

    “Basketball? What happened to soccer?” He’d been newly into soccer for the past few months, so I was surprised to hear a new sport take the stage.

    “Yeah, it’s all basketball now,” he said decidedly. “I mean, I’ll probably still play soccer at school and stuff, but my new focus is basketball.”

    It reminded me of my own rotating carousel of hobbies, specifically with sports.

    As a kid, I played soccer from 4 to about 16, when I developed a Haglund’s deformity in my right heel and couldn’t play anymore because of the pain.

    After surgery and physical therapy, I was able to run, and I got into long distance running after graduating college. I ran four half marathons between 2014 and 2019, among a slew of other 5ks, 10ks, and other races. I love running, how it’s like meditation, but the high-impact of road running left me with shin splints and other aches and pains.

    I have always done yoga on and off, but usually only about once or twice a week.

    I love to bike.

    Just before and during the pandemic, I started the Vertue Method, a 12-week, at-home, low-impact strength-training program, and was very committed to this until I’d seen each video enough times that I’d memorized all of Shona’s jokes and wanted something new.

    Moving to Miami, I was inspired to pick up rollerblading again, an activity I hadn’t done since I was a kid. I took classes that helped me to feel more confident on the wheels, and which also incorporated extra fitness like squats. I was obsessed for a while.

    But, some hip pain in the summer kept me from working out for many months this fall.

    Finally, once I was feeling better, a friend introduced me to pilates reformer classes. I took it up with gusto.

    This weekend will be a slow one, without any fast movements, as I recover from vertigo. But I smile thinking about all the sports I’ve done and can do, a variety of options I can choose from to keep my body active.

  • Burbujas

    A veces, no me gusta vivir en Miami.

    La humedad molesta, tener que manejar a todos lados es pesadísimo, y ser residente de la Florida puede ser… complicado.

    Pero una tarde como hoy, después de un día agotador, pasando el atardecer con amigas en el jacuzzi de una de ellas, pienso: “Esto sí me gusta. Esto hace que todo lo demás vale la pena.”

    Mi cuerpo se relaja, y como las burbujas en el agua caliente bajo mis dedos, las preocupaciones del día se van evaporando una tras otra.

    Contenta estoy.

    Una chica de Miami.

    Bubbles

    Sometimes, I don’t like living in Miami.

    The humidity is annoying, driving everywhere is tiresome, and being a Florida resident can be… complicated.

    But on an afternoon like this, after an exhausting day, as I spend the evening with friends in one of their jacuzzis, I think: “This, I like. This makes the rest worth it.”

    My body relaxes, and just like the bubbles in the hot water under my fingertips, the worries of the day evaporate one after the other.

    I’m at ease.

    A Miami girl.

    I’m participating in the March Slice of Life challenge from twowritingteachers.org!

  • Epley Maneuver

    My head at 45 degrees to the right
    I fell back against the cushion
    and watched the classroom spin around me
     
    It’s day 6 of this newly-acquired vertigo
    and I now believe it’s worse
    than any other sickness I’ve encountered
     
    Room    shifting
           tilting
    my hand reaching out against a wall
    to steady me
     
    I laid there with my head back
    imagined the crystals
             falling
    into place
    one    after    another
     
    Wondered
    why we have crystals
    in our damn ears
    at all?

  • Poets

    Today one of my students brought his writer’s notebook with him to our social studies lesson, sneaking poetic lines in between notes taken on his classmates’ presentations. Yesterday, he asked if he could bring it down to music, because he thought he might get distracted, and knew having the notebook there to write in would help him. Later, he asked if he could take it home.

    “Of course,” I replied.

    Because isn’t this what we as writing teachers hope for?

    That a child will want to bring that notebook with them everywhere, to catch thoughts before they disappear from their minds? To capture vivid images and fierce wonderings?

    Today he left his notebook at school, and he won’t be back tomorrow. As I got home, I saw an email from him saying that he left the notebook at school, asking if his sister could get it for him tomorrow morning, because he really wants to share the poems he wrote today with his mother.

    “Of course,” I replied.

    Of course.

    This unexpected enthusiasm for our new poetry unit is magic.

    Students reading their poems out loud at the end of workshop today, smiling as they read, sharing their inner worlds with their peers, receiving snaps at the end.

    Oh! Let me be like my student who can’t wait to bring his notebook home, who can’t wait to put pencil to page, to put mind to words.

    “Can this be a poem?”

    “Can I write this in my poem?”

    Of course.