meditation

I enjoy a daily meditation practice, and this morning's silence was pierced by our resident pileated woodpecker's drumming. He/she must have been excavating carpenter ants from a dead tree for breakfast. The woods are quiet since the summer birds migrated to their winter camps, and the woodpecker's bold presence startled, then pleased me. "I am here," anounces the woodpecker. "I am hungry." Let us eat. Amen.

A chorus of chirping crickets outside my window kept me company this afternoon while I prepared a public speaking exam for tomorrow's class. My exams are tough:  definitions, true/false statements, multiple choice, fill-in-the-blanks, and brief essay questions. I do not want students to simply memorize a batch of material, spit it out onto an exam, and promptly forget what they memorized within the hour. I craft the exam so that students must apply what they read in their textbook to their lives and future career. In class we can discuss, chart, and debate communication theory until we turn blue, but discussion is pointless unless students have opportunities to practice communication tools in their private and professional lives.

   

My fall semester has gotten off to a positive start. I teach public speaking as well as writing courses, but in all courses I uncover voices - student voices. Through assigned readings, classroom discussions and activities, students' essay drafts and revisions, speeches, and presentations most students will learn the value of their own unique perspective and voice. They discover that they do have something important to say amid our culture's chorus of conformity. One of my goals as a facilitator of learning is for students to discern what THEY think about an issue outside their comfort zone of family, friends, and place of worship. Heady stuff.

On August 12, I completed a 65,000 word memoir titled, Sing Me a Lullaby. It was a six year journey that saw many false starts - and successes. SMAL is the story of my journey through high school as a single mother living alone with my infant daughter in rural Maine in the 70s. During the writing I accumulated three 3-ring binders crammed with lists, timelines, research notes, drafts, copies of legal documents, obituary notices, maps, photographs, newspaper clippings, and copies of medical records. I read diaries and love letters. I filled 4 composition notebooks with rough drafts, brimming with poor sentences that thankfully will never see the light of day, and rich sentences that hopefully will. I wore out a dictionary. I created 20 file folders - one for each chapter - and filled them with more notes and drafts, which I eventually shared with my writing group. Typing "The End" was bittersweet. Now I am querying literary agents to represent the work. In the meantime there's a space within me waiting to be filled. I am filling it with writing.  

The male cricket's chirp is the song of September as he sings to attract a mate. Our days and nights here in Maine are currently filled with his hopeful exuberance.  Ditto for the katydids, grasshoppers, and cicadas. It is the insects' time for romance, and they court without cash or cards or wine and flowers. They are simply themselves, wings and all. They remind me that all I need to be is who I am, no more, no less, and authenticity is more attractive than any expensive dress or perfume.

Summer is slipping away. Daily temperatures have been in the mid-70s, and soon they will dip into the 60s. A few years ago we allowed one stalk of goldenrod to flourish in our backyard; now it grows everywhere and threatens to take over the place. We have cleared dead lupine stalks from the gardens. Bee balm lingers like a long good-bye. We are already enjoying the first Jersey Macs from our local orchard; soon cider will follow. Apple crisp. Sweaters and long johns and warm socks.

I want to hold Summer's hand a little longer and savor the sun's warmth against my back. A little longer, please, before the first frost creeps in while I sleep and I awaken to Autumn's crystalline hello.       

The semester has begun, and it's an exciting time for students as they leave their friends, homes, families, and summer pursuits. It's exciting for me too. Who will my students be?  What hopes and dreams are they bringing into the classroom along with their cups of coffee and textbooks? Do they enjoy writing or do they hate it?  What book did they read last? Do they read at all? Have they had positive or negative writing experiences in high school? Or have they been homeschooled? Are they, like me, the first member of their family to attend college? What does that feel like for them? What do they want to write about? Perhaps they've won a writing award of some sort. Perhaps not. Perhaps their words simply comforted a friend.  

A 15-week semester is a learning, growing opportunity for students - and me.  I learn through students' writing what it's like to score the winning goal in a state tournament or how hard - yet necessary - it is to hold a dying grandmother's hand. I do not stand at the lecturn and play know-it-all professor, for I am as much a student of craft as the students I am honored to teach. We learn together, and it is exciting.   

Words are my favorite things. I savor the way they resonate in my mind or linger in the air like a spritz of perfume. My love affair with language blossomed in elemenatry school when the first word I could read was "cat." At the time a lively assortment of eight cats resided in the cow barn on my family's farm, and the connection between a printed word on a flashcard and my life was immediate, and powerful. I was charmed. Reading and writing became my passions. My intent with this blog is to nurture the romance in a new way. Like any relationship, maybe it will work out. Maybe it won't. Meanwhile, thank you for stopping by.  Feel free to add your words to mine.