Blackberries

No more than twenty miles, as the crow flies, from the home of the most powerful man on the planet is a modest ranch house on two acres. The country road that leads there dips straight up and down like a roller coaster without curves, and the driveway is at the top of the second hill, right before the next plunge. It's a perilous left to turn onto the property; the few cars that travel it rumble quickly along the narrow track, nearly invisible until they crest the hill. This is where my aunt has lived for almost fifty years.

In my mind, there is still a gravel driveway that runs past the house to parking in the back, and dogs that chase the cars coming and going, barking in the dust. There is also a blackberry patch out by the road behind the mailbox. In July, when the fruit was ripe, our mothers would send the five of us cousins out to pick the tart berries. Despite the summer heat, we had to wear jeans and long sleeves to protect us from the thorny brambles that made little ripping noises as they rasped across the denim and pulled at our shirts. The oldest of us pushed boldly in, reaching for the big berries contained in those cages of stickers that even the birds could not breach. We winced or gasped or even cussed when the tiny thorns at the base of the fruit impaled themselves in our fingertips, and by sheer force of will kept hold of our quarry despite the stinging, then carefully backed out of the patch, like freeing ourselves from the jaws of a trap, to drop the berries in a bucket.

When the container was full, five sweaty children trotted down the driveway and shucked our unseasonable clothes for a tick-check before changing into our summer shorts, and not long after that, the smell of blackberry cobbler would fill the unairconditioned kitchen.

Remote Access

I set my blog up a few weeks ago so that I could post remotely, but so
far I haven't had the occasion to try it. Today is the day. We took
the dogs to a dog beach about an hour from our place. Well, the trip
should have taken an hour, but the park is located on a little
peninsula that juts into the Chesapeake Bay, and the last five miles
of the route are an in-and-out road. Some kind of accident had
closed the all the lanes, and we were stuck for over an hour. Once we got
there, the weather was perfect (this is one CRAZY July), and the dogs
had a great time. Unfortunately, the traffic was still backed up a
couple of hours later when we were ready to go.

It's hard not to stress about stuff like that, but after a while I
just reminded myself that I'm on vacation, so no worries. And now here we
are sitting outside dockside at a little seafood place that we found our way to at a small
marina near the confluence of the Severn River
and the bay. The dogs are chewing on sticks, and we enjoyed our dinners. (Of course, no fish for Josh, but he said the chicken fingers and fries were good). The sun is setting,
there's a light breeze blowing, and I'm phoning the blog in in case we
don't make it home in time.

Shoulda Coulda

"I like it when the weather's like this, because then you can just relax," Josh told us this evening as he looked out at the overcast sky through the sliding glass doors. "You don't have to feel guilty about staying inside and just reading or whatever." I knew exactly what he meant. Our friend, Jen, and I call days like that "Guilt-free Movie Days." There's something about a nice day that demands you be out in it.

Of course, the rules change from season to season, and so today didn't actually qualify as an inside day. Mid-July and we expect it to be really hot and really humid around here, but the weather today was overcast, and although it was a bit humid, it really wasn't hot, so the three boys and I loaded up the bikes and took a fantastic 12-mile ride up and down the canal. We saw a deer, great blue heron, and tons of fogs and turtles, and we didn't even care when we got rained on. It was awesome, and when we got home, the boys were tired and starving, but pretty happy, I think.

I wonder about this notion of acceptable or appropriate recreation. Where does it come from? Why do we feel like there are rules governing the use of our time? Are we so over-scheduled that it has come to this? It's hardly surprising that we would prefer to be outside on a lovely day, but it's kind of a shame that someone might feel guilty about time spent reading on even the nicest of days. Maybe we should all just take our books outside.

It'll Change You

I just got off the phone with my friend who is taking our local Writing Project's Summer Institute. Like everyone I know, myself included, she was hesitant to give up five weeks of her summer, but we just spent thirty minutes talking about how awesome it is. "I can honestly say that there hasn't been one minute that I felt was a waste of my time," she told me. That's pretty amazing when you're talking about two weeks of four 6-7 hour days of professional development with three more weeks to go, but I was right there with her. "Are you jealous?" she teased me.

"Yep," I answered. We talked a little bit about the WP Continuation PLC that I'm supposed to facilitate next year and what it might look like. "Where does personal writing for the teachers fit in?" I wondered.

"I think it's crucial," she said. "They have to write outside and bring it in. You don't understand it until you've done it, but the writing is key to building community." Then she told me the most surprising thing of all... this teacher is pretty well-known and admired for her creative projects and unit plans. "I'm done with projects," she said. "From now on, there's going to be a lot more writing in my class, and it's going to be authentic writing. I don't care what it looks like; I just want to see what my kids have to say."

Wow. That's what I have to say.

Making a Difference

A few days ago, I friended a former student on facebook. I had been her mentor from grades 6-8, but she had moved the summer before starting high school, so I was glad to reconnect with her after four years. I knew she had graduated from high school in June, and I sent a message asking how she'd been and what she was doing. She replied right away. hey i been gud nd thanx i miss u being my mentor nd erything we should chill one day

So I invited her lunch, and we're going tomorrow. Yesterday, when I logged into fb, I noticed her status on my newsfeed: CANT WAIT 4 THURSDAY

Awwww, I thought and clicked over to her page, where I read the following exchange with her friend, N:

R: CANT WAIT 4 THURSDAY
N: Y?
R: cuz im goin sumwere
N: Oh
R: YEP WIT MY OLD MENTOR
N: ? Mentor?
R: SUM ONE WHO KEEPZ U OUT OF TROUBLE
N: I know what it means. Didn't know you had one
R: YEP HAD 1 SINCE DA 6TH GRADE

I particularly like the part where she assumes that her friend doesn't know what a mentor is. It is soooo in character and reminds me of a time when she was working out with the girls basketball team in middle school. The guy I coach with was running them through a drill. "Dribble with your left hand!" he directed, but she continued down the court with her right. "Left!" he shouted. "Use your LEFT hand!" Still she dribbled on with the wrong hand. As she past him, he caught her eye and said sarcastically, "Your OTHER left!"

"Oh!" she replied with equal exasperation. "Well make up your mind!"

Don't Jump

In my family, we love words, and we love playing, and so it follows that we love playing with words. Word games? Oh, yeah, bring it! Crosswords, Scrabble, Boggle, Up Words, Bananagrams, we never met one we didn't like. From puns to punctuation, this play often crosses over into our conversations-- a nice word for it might be "banter," but "bicker" wouldn't be inaccurate, either, and "argue" fits sometimes, too.

When my mother was visiting in June, she mentioned that she had read my blog entry for the day. "What'd you think?" I asked.

"I thought you should have used a semi-colon instead of a colon in one place," she answered. Rest assured that a lively debate ensued, and feel free to weigh in with your opinion (note the red text); it's how we entertain ourselves.

Today, when I picked up Treat and Josh from their photography class, Viva la Vida was on the radio. We batted around a few translations of the title, idly speculating about their meaning. "One thing's for sure," Treat said, "the members of Coldplay have no idea what it means."

"I understand if you don't like them," I said "but--"

"That doesn't give me the right to insult them?" interrupted Treat.

"Well, it might not give you reason to question their intelligence," I countered.

Treat elaborated on his opinion, adding that they were arrogant and self-important, and we let it drop. We were at his house by then, and he went inside to pack a lunch for hiking. On the way to our place, we teased him about whether his two boiled eggs and an apple would be enough for all of us.

"I can feed everyone with a single loaf of bread and a fish!" he assured us.

I looked at him in the rear-view mirror with raised eyebrow. "And you think Coldplay is self-important?" I asked.

"I don't know what you're talking about; I wasn't alluding to anything," he grinned innocently. "I was just envisioning a really, really big loaf of bread and a huge fish.

"Oh, I see," I replied. "Well, pardon me for jumping to allusions."

Hello Hudson Valley!

I had one of those random summer teacher meetings today. Scheduled at the odd hour of 1:30, it cleaved the day into lopsided portions for the twelve out of fourteen people attending who were actually on summer vacation. Even so, I dusted off my calendar, dug up a legal pad and my trusty pen, and headed out to one of the annexes of the Ed Center. I knew I was out of practice when I realized that I had forgotten my water bottle, but I forged ahead anyhow.

I grouse... but this was actually kind of an interesting meeting. For the next school year, our English Language Arts department has decided to allocate our required meeting time to Professional Learning Communities. Secondary teachers can choose from six different offerings: Differentiated Instruction, Reaching Reluctant Readers, The 90 Minute Block, Teaching Literature, Teaching Grammar through Writing, Vocabulary Their Way, and Writing Project Continuation. I was at the meeting because I was asked to co-facilitate the WP group.

As usual, our ELA department's heart is in the right place, but when they say "facilitate" they mean "create from scratch." That's just how we roll, and it's good and bad. Teachers have the autonomy to design their own program, but... teachers have the autonomy to design their own program. See what I mean?

So, this afternoon my co-facilitator, Phil, and I sat down together and brainstormed what a "writing project continuation" might look like for teachers in our district. (Whatever it is, it's already wildly popular: pre-registration has it close to filled.) We have one two-hour session in September, and then five one-hour sessions over the course of the year, and we started with the question, "What did you wish there was for you when you finished the summer institute?"

Of course, my answer to that question is that, personally, I wished the SI never had to end. Imagine my delight this afternoon, then, when I noticed that Bonnie Kaplan was kind enough to link my blog to the HVWPSI '09 site; I nearly jumped for joy. Thank you, Bonnie-- it's awesome to have such a connection to your community!

As for the continuity project... I have a positive feeling about it; I think we have a chance to put together something good. I'll keep you posted.