Category Archives: Just for Fun

I decided that for the month of May I would try to write to a prompt each day, and I found a pretty great list of journal prompts on this website. Now I in no way hold Rachel Greig, the author of the blog, responsible for any inept writing that may occur because of her prompt, simply because her prompts are meant to inspire art, and I am using them to inspire my writing.

This first prompt, “What’s the one thing you always forget to pack?” already has me doubting myself, but ever since that time in high school when I managed to forget my swimming suit for a swim meet, I have been a bit unnerved at my packing skills. In fact, I have to spend days before packing writing lists upon lists of what I need to take with me, and then I undo those lists and write new ones, and then I undo those and write yet another set.

In the past I’ve forgotten underwear, toiletries, socks, pants, bathing suit, a coat, and medicine that I was taking for a cold. I’ve forgotten my charging cord so many times that at one point I had a drawer full of USB to lightning cables, which I had acquired solely in emergency situations on vacation. Now whenever I make a vacation “Items to Pack” list, I put toiletries, charging cable, blanket and pillow at the top, shortly followed by underwear, bras, socks, pants, shirts. I figure if I leave anything else behind I can find another way to make do without it.

This brings me to my current trepidation: on Tuesday night or maybe Wednesday, I will pack the things I need to take on a trip to Washington, DC for a few days with over 100 students. I am always excited for a trip, even when I am responsible for lots of other people’s children. The most difficult thing for me on trips is always the packing. Did I pack enough? Did I pack too much? Did I forget anything? Does every else have all of their things? This trip will be no exception. I am worried that I will overpack because I am concerned about making sure I can take care of all eight kids I am responsible for.

I know I will be fine. I know all of the kids will be fine. I know whatever we all pack will get us through and if not, then there are stores where we can buy emergency items, like Oreos and road snacks.

I am grateful for my brother. Without hesitation, he is loaning me the money to survive this summer without having to work. When I discovered that there was an error with my payroll for this school year, and that I would not, in fact, receive paychecks throughout the summer like I thought I would, he did not hesitate to offer to help me out. I appreciate this so much, because I am not sure my I could handle working full time after the school year that this year has been.

I am grateful for my dad. He is busy tilling and fencing and starting plants for a giant garden for us for this summer, so that we can have inexpensive fresh vegetables for summer. I imagine I’ll have to learn how to can too, given how large this garden appears to be in the photographs. He works hard to provide eggs for my brother, and he has started cooking treats for the dogs, so he doesn’t have to purchase them. I can’t imagine how much care he takes to dehydrate that liver for their snacks, nor how awful that must smell.

I am grateful for the best friends a person could ask for. I know I have written about this before, but I have more than one friend who loves me unconditionally, and I think that’s a real blessing. Some people go through life without a single person they can call on at any hour of the day, or about anything, but I have several shoulders to cry on and several people who have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly and still stick around. And, not only do they stick around, but they continuously offer to help and they, without question or without any expectations, give me grace time and time again.

I am grateful for silence and the ability and pleasurability to simply exist with myself. I am not a person who always has to be doing something, listening to something, reading something, watching something, or whatever else, and I thoroughly enjoy solace and quiet. There is peace in long periods of meditation where my brain quiets down and all of the pieces get put back together where they belong. There is peace in a walk in the woods, breathing in all of the moss and leaves and dirt and solitude. There is peace in a swim with the water dampening all of the sounds except the splash and breathing. There is peace in sitting by the river watching the water makes it way to wherever it is going from wherever it has been. I and grateful for and long for more silence, more peace, more contemplation.

I am grateful for days when the Internet doesn’t work. Because the lack of technology makes us slow down, and because sometimes it makes us stop, I am so grateful for the lack of the Internet at school today. My two rules for my students in class today was that they were not allowed to think about Humanities, and they couldn’t use their devices unless their devices were fueling communication between them. So, for example, they could play games where they were working together like that ridiculous game where you hold your phone against your forehead and try to guess the word on it, or they could play cards, or they could talk with each other, but they could not just use their data plan and sit and stare at their phones. Most of them chose to sit and have conversations with each other in what seemed like a fairly meaningful way.

I am grateful for grace. Without grace, I would not be here.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve processed my feelings through writing first, then, when I haven’t kept things hidden in the way back part of my mental refrigerator behind the outdated ranch dressing and mostly empty jar of banana pepper rings, I talk through them with friends and family. Today was no exception. I wrote a short memoir piece about an event, or series of events, that happened when I was in high school and which I have never shared with anyone except the other person who was involved. I plan, in the very near future, to talk through it with real live people. Maybe, since it seems a lot safer, my therapist will be the first person who hears this one. Writing first helps me to make sure that what I want to share with others is something that needs to be shared, is something that I can’t process on my own, and is something that I won’t be embarrassed that I shared after I share it. I also write through it because sometimes memories are too painful to speak out loud without first creating myself as a character experiencing that memory. Anyway, I am so grateful for writing and the role it has always played in my life.

I am grateful for diversity. I am grateful for the experience of working at a computer company in a city where there are people from all around the world. I am grateful for having a diverse, as Gholdy Muhammad calls it, textual lineage. I can’t imagine what my life would be like without the diverse books and other texts that I’ve consumed throughout my educational and leisurely reading. I am so grateful for my foremothers in academia, the ones who blazed the trial for all of us who are part of various marginalized groups.

I am grateful for art. How can you look at this painting and not believe in everything lovely?

Lilacs and lily-of-the-valley have always been two of my favorite flowers. I don’t typically like strong fragrances, but these two flowers are what I think heaven smells like, and I need heaven right now, because I miss my mom so much I can’t even think about how much it hurts. I can remember her laugh, but kind of not, and I can remember her love for all people, but I don’t remember what her real voice sounded like, only what her hospital voice sounded like all raspy from being on a respirator and then having a feeding tube scratch up her throat. I want to be able to hear her singing “His Eye is on the Sparrow” or “Amazing Grace” or “Lily of the Valley,” which is why I love those little flowers so much. I am grateful that I can remember when I was really little playing outside of our old house with her and the smell of the lilacs permeated the air, and I remember the way she helped me cut some to bring into the kitchen, so we could have them on the small table when my dad got home for dinner. I am so grateful for the lilac bush that grows in front of my house, because the smell comes in my front door and reminds me of who I am and where I come from, and the sweet aroma makes the small, dull ache in my chest go away for a minute.

I am grateful for incredibly smart students who teach me things. My parents taught me to approach every person and every situation with curiosity and inquiry. I also learned that from some of my best professors in college, seminary, and graduate school; if you enter into an interaction with an open mind, you will learn from those around you. I am grateful for being encouraged to live my life in this way, because if I hadn’t lived this way, I’d have missed some real opportunities for growth.

I am grateful for coffee. Coffee wakes me up, gives me life every morning, and brings me happiness. I have nothing more profound to say about it, but I am so grateful for that delicious dark brown bean juice in my cup every morning.