What's the point?

After completing the first week of the UPWP (and really, I feel like we've just started scraping the surface), I've come to several conclusions:

1) This blog has not focus or purpose. Sometimes I write about my personal life, sometimes vague descriptions of an event that has happened to me professionally, or sometimes I just write random things. I must not really have much of an audience if this is the case. When I go to my dashboard, I have 3 blogs that I have started, not to mention the other 2 that are on my newer address with my married name. I've got to figure that out.

2) I hate writing in a notebook. Enough said.

So until I get this whole focus thing figured out, I may take a brief hiatus instead of having posting diarrhea. I need to make this work.

Because digital writing matters...

http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/2790

The Gift- Draft 1

When she walked through the doors of the cookie cutter Wal-mart, she is inundated by many senses. The smell of the bakery, the ozone emitted by the coolers, the grease of the far-off automotive section. Blinking away the darkness created by leaving the sun so quickly for a fluorescent fueled world, her vision finally clears to reaveal the bustling of old, wirey-bearded men, child-laden single mothers, and bustling workers in their Smurf colored vests. When her seneses finally settle, though, it is the thoughts of all the people that continue to batter her own inner self. Some days, Pam is able to handle the worry-speak of the people around her, but it is places like this that make the gift hard to bear.
She turned her cart and handed it back to the quiet, glad-eyed greeter. She couldn’t leave, the items she needed to buy were vital to the celebrations planned at school the following day, and in such a small town, this was the only place to buy them at a reasonable price. She took a deep breath and wove her way through crowd to the less crowded McDonald’s in the story. Surely, this would be a safe place with meals that are “Happy” and a ketchup haired clown. There weren’t as many people in there and a majority of them were children anyways.
She pulled up a chair and sat at the purple and blue speckled Formica table. Clutching her head in her hands, fingers tangled in hair, she tried to erase what she had heard in the last 2 minutes. As she drowned out the noises with deep breathing exercises, she heard a frail voice cut through the muddy mess churning in the background. “Roger,” it sighed, “remember when we used to walk to the corner store for sugar and flour on Saturdays. I can still feel you sneak up behind me in the kitchen later in the afternoons in order to wrap your arms around my apron-covered waist. Oh, how I hated the interruption to my baking routing, but in fact, that was part of the routine. I miss our routine.” After hearing this conversation, Pam slowly raised her head up and let the sandy strands of hair fall from her fingertips. She glanced around, so as to not be too obvious to the crowd. Again, she saw the single mom with children hanging off of her spaghetti straps. “No,” she thought, “The only place she walks to is to the bus stop.” She saw a middle aged woman in Cherokee jeans staring up at the menu board, avoiding eye contact, but for some other reason. There wasn’t a couple in this place, mostly women, and one man in a trucker hat sitting by himself in a corner. Finally, her eyes settled on the woman cradling her cup of coffee, her salt and pepper hair pulled back into a bun. This Strega Nona look-alike looked oddly out of place in a Wal-Mart. Surely she was the type to walk to the store. She was the one with the once in a lifetime, fairy tale love who would cradle her in the kitchen. Pam got up from the table, grabbing a straw wrapper that had been left by some milkshake toting teen before her. As she walked towards Strega Nona, she inhaled deeply and was ready to sidle up beside her. At the last second, she made a slight turn to the right, slammed the wrapper in the trash, and hurried out the sliding glass doors, being sucked out of the airconditioned 21st century biome back into the sunlight. “Nope,” she said shaking her head and walking, no running away in the hopes of erasing the noise once again, “not ready.”

Deadman's Hill- Rough Draft

I am an activist. Definition: Someone who is passionate about being active. Don’t get me wrong, I love sitting down on a rainy day with a favorite movie or catching up with my favorite shows on Hulu, but if I take the time to do that, I often wonder if I could’ve spent my time in a more productive manner. If I take the time to wander through my memories past familiar faces and down old streets, I can usually find where that passion came from.
Early on in my journey, I think that it came from being so involved with high school and college athletics. I was competitive on a team that, at the time, was nationally ranked. But when I reflect on my more recent athletic endeavors, I feel like my collegiate involvement is simply the root for my feelings of failure. I must not do it for the thrill of competition, because that is not the driving force behind my desires for activity. It must go further back than that…
Humidity is at the source of my desires for activity. On Saturday mornings, the August air hung over our subdivision like a tarp shading us from the pure air in the atmosphere. I would be eagerly waiting on my lavender Huffy, rolling the wheels back and forth to make the spoke do-dads as noisy as possible in order to show my impatience. You can’t rush the master of routine though. Dad went through his routine at his own pace. It’s as if any deviation might create chaos in the universe. Dad would put on his calf-length white cotton socks (he still wears them today, unless there’s rain) and lace up his Reebok Aztreks (God forbid he wear any other type of shoe). After that he would sit in the basement and run through his stretching routine (never mind that he never warmed up prior to this). Butterfly, hurdlers, quads, hip flexors, repeat. Later on, his back and ab stretches also were integrated, but this was only a necessity out of old age. Finally, he would hand me the bottle of orange flavored Gatorade with it’s green and carroty colored top to stick in my water-bottle holder and we would pull out of the driveway. As we turned the corner, Dad would start his watch, always double-checking to make sure it started on the first hit. We would wind through our subdivision, which was mostly my world and head out to another dimension, crossing the Grand River, a majestic river to a child who had not yet been inundated with messages of pollution and filth that Lower Michigan’s industries contributed to it. We headed up the hill with a quick left on Delta River drive that, at the time, was a dirt road with an enormous hill that I could fly down. I let myself coast past my dad, enjoying this part of the ride to its fullest since I knew he could easily catch up as I waited at the bottom.
On this particular day, our journey was past our usual yellow caution sign turning point. This time we turned left onto Eaton Highway and I had to give my dad a swig of his Gatorade at the bridge over I-96. The amount of sweat under my helmet was a drop compared to the rainstorm of beads over the bulging vein in his forehead. Somehow though, even after we turned around, my dad was able to keep that same steady pace. The dirt road became rough terrain for me as I tired, and as we rounded the curve on Delta River Drive, I saw that fun downhill taunting me and I realized, “Shoot, I have to go up this, don’t I?” I was tough though, I didn’t dare let my dad know that this intimidated me, even though I’ve had to walk up it many times before. I pushed harder at the bottom and as we started slowing on the ascent, I could hear my dad singing softly. “Hmmm, hmm, hm. Hmmm, hmm hm.” I made the assumption that he was pushing himself along with a tune until it got louder. “Deadman’s hill, deadman’s hill, we’re going up deadman’s hill.” He repeated it until I joined in and suddenly, I forgot about the hill and focused more on our song. When we crested the top, the last little part where you think you’re done, but somehow the flat is still so hard to ride, he changed the verse to “Deadman’s hill, deadman’s hill, we made it up deadman’s hill.” I was so excited that I finally was able to do it and even more excited that the song made it a breeze. “Dad,” I asked, “What makes you want to do this everyday, in 90 degrees, in snow, and in rain?”
“Kara,” he replied, “Someday, when you love something, nothing makes you do it. You do it because you need to. It’s like breathing. When I don’t do it, it just doesn’t feel right.”
**How the heck to I end this piece without sounding cliche??

If I walk through the years with my memory to my adult self, I realize that its not about the coach getting in your face for skimping on a workout, its not about your teammates, your parents, your tuition; it’s about yourself and breathing.

another end.

I stand at the doorway with hands on hips. As I look around, I notice less about the room than I do about myself. My hair hangs like cobwebs in my face. The white t-shirt commemorating some 5k I don't even remember is riddled with smudges of dust, sharpie marker, and God-knows-what. It seems like just yesterday (cliche?) that I was standing in this same position, staring at and empty room. The only difference is that it was only the beginning. My hair was cleanly pulled back, the t-shirt was still clean (and I think it was gray). I too was different. It seems that each year I seem to grow and streeeetch myself, as do my students. I am just a little bit older, a little bit wiser, and the smile lines on my face are just a little bit deeper. I have big plans for next year...but they will have to wait, as I spin on my heels...take a deep breath, and close the door on yet another adventure.

hidden

I guess one of the things I hope to accomplish this summer with the UPWP is to be less self-conscious about my writing. In order to become a better writer, it is important to share it and get critiques from other writers, as well as non-writers and casual readers. I think this is my key to improving my writing and writing instruction.

The Old Wagon

Rusty wheels, once a well oiled machine.
Paint peels off of the body like a sunburnt tourist; flaky and sporadic.
The handle is broken in baby doll fashion.
It just doesn't roll like it used to.