104.

[the brainstorm.]

i teach writing sometimes. not really sometimes, more like every day.

the job demands i yap about thesis statements, structure, sustaining an argument through focused evidence and analyses, blah, blah, blah. i don't hate this, in fact, i like it. but then there are those days where i get to teach writing. i get to talk to my kids about sitting quietly with themselves and listening. i get to talk to my kids about brainstorming (the most important part of the writing process!). about honesty. about difficulty. i talk to my kids about the meaning of the word "process." patience, confidence, and risk-taking weave into our discussions and in these moments, as teacher-lady human being, i thrive.

i make it a rule to write with my students when we are writing personal pieces or more "creative" pieces (although all writing is creative as we are creating it) in the hopes of establishing a more authentic writing community. last week, following our reading of The Stranger I asked my Seniors to craft a "This I Believe" essay. In the end of The Stranger, Mersault, in his singular moment of unrestrained passion, let's the chaplain of the prison have it. His beliefs, which my 18-year-old readers had been not-so-fondly waiting for, filled his cell, blasphemed the chaplain's faith, and this is the moment where he proclaims "there are only privileged people." i like that nod to the privilege of living a life (do not be confused with my thoughts on privilege here, but this, to me, is our protagonists redeeming moment).

thursday i sat with my students and played a little Iron and Wine (kid-friendly writing tunes that never grow old) and we brainstormed. as i sat with myself and considered what i believe i realized i believe in SO MUCH! it's a nice experience for a lady who has a hard time putting all her eggs in one basket that popular imagination has come to know as 'christianity/faith/religion.' i was baffled as i tried to pin down or craft a larger umbrella category to represent what i 'believe.' while i am having to pin one down for my kids and the sake of the assignment, i'm secretly reveling in the recognition of how many unremarkable moments, feelings, and ways of being, have built a solid foundation of faith in goodness in my heart. i recognize that the unremarkable - the time i was late for english class as a college freshman because i sat, watched a squirrel fill her cheeks, and wrote about it - brought with it a feeling that i couldn't deny. i had to submit to it. it's the feeling of these moments, of the lessons, of the songs, of the everything, that weave them all together with the golden thread of rightness for me. i can't name it or write about the one thing i believe in. i believe in them all equally because that squirrel is no more important than my dad's sunday trips to the "marshalville mall" (a gas station where i'd get some candy dots) to reward me for helping on the farm, campfire singing, making breakfast with lovies, song-writing by myself, or any of it. it all counts, and i think that you just got to remember to rub your eyes every now and then and see it all, to remember it all, and to pull it all close. for me, it's the awareness that sustains a belief in myself, the power of the unremarkable, of human kindness, and of promise.