Imagine the Possibilities

I am participating in the March Slice of Life Story Challenge. Thanks to the co-authors of              Two Writing Teachers for creating this  supportive community.

        I love quotes. I scribble them down in my notebook, record them on scraps of paper that fall to the bottom of my purse, write them on the backs of napkins. They are on my phone in “Notes,” and sometimes, if I am feeling very organized, I get them into a file on my computer. Quotes inspire me, stretch my thinking, fill me with questions, and help me understand the world a little better (Thanks, TWT for the great quotes that appear on the daily call for slices). So today, on the day we celebrate the incredible Dr. Seuss, I decided to use one of my favorite quotes of his as inspiration for my slice.

           Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it’s not.

                                                                                                                                 -from The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

Although this quote is from a book published in 1971 about the importance of caring for the earth’s environment (quite timeless, actually), I believe it can apply to many situations. I have used it to spur action with colleagues and to counteract the apathy that would sometimes creep into the attitudes of some students (or even my own children). Think of the many times you may have heard kids say, “I don’t care.”  I believe the most important word in the whole quote is “care.” Caring about something calls for a response. It is a call to action to do something, to advocate for something you believe in. Without sounding too political, let me just say that there are many things going on right now in the world that need our care. We may not be able to fix everything, or maybe even anything, but if we pick one thing and increase the care we put into it, it might just make a difference.

Thanks, Dr. Seuss, for giving us so many life lessons!

I am participating in the March Slice of Life Story Challenge. Thanks to the co-authors of              Two Writing Teachers for creating this  supportive community.

        I felt it as I stood up and walked downstairs – that fluttering in my chest that almost seemed out-of-control. It wasn’t the first time. I’ve had an occasional heart arrhythmia for years that has never been a major problem and has always righted itself without any action on my part. But this time (and the time before that) seemed a little different. No worries. I was on my way to my doctor’s office for a physical anyway.

Within twenty minutes of entering the examining room, the nurse was finishing up the EKG and my doctor was on her way in. She explained that she was cancelling the physical. “I’m sending you to the ER to get this taken care of,” she explained. I can’t go to the ER. Allan is recuperating from double knee replacement surgery. I have to be there tomorrow to take him to his physical therapy appointment. And I’m meeting some friends for dinner later. And tomorrow is the first day of the Slice of Life Challenge! But I knew those excuses wouldn’t work. As I was leaving she reminded me that sometimes things happen for a reason. My appointment with her had been postponed a week because she had a family emergency. She explained to me that although she would never have wanted her son to suffer the seizure he did (he’s OK, thank God), it did require my appointment to be postponed to the day I was having the fibrillation problem. She went on to tell me that her son hopes to become a doctor, and that she would be sure he knew that today he had a hand in the care of a patient. “If you had come in last week, you probably would have ignored what happened today, and you would not have gotten the treatment you need.” She had found the silver lining in her own difficult situation.

Later that evening I read a post from my niece on Facebook. She had hit a deer. But the post was not about the trauma she had, the damage to the car, or the inconveniences it caused. It was about the kindness of all those who helped her. She, too, had found the silver lining.

My take away from all this? Look for good that may come from the bad. And always, always listen to your body and take care of yourself.

I am participating in the March Slice of Life Story Challenge. Thanks to the co-authors of              Two Writing Teachers for creating this  supportive community.

Today marks the beginning of the March Slice of Life Story Challenge and my third year of participating. I began gearing up for it last week by rereading old entries, compiling suggestions and ideas from other slicers, and jotting down a few “aha, I could write about…” thoughts of my own. I decided to reflect on what this challenge has meant to me by creating an acrostic poem for my first entry. I began by listing as many words and phrases as I could about the experiences I had as a participant over the last two years. Then I started combining the ideas into more coherent thoughts, rearranging the words until they made sense and still fit into the structure of the acrostic. This is what I came up with:

Searching through the everyday routines of

Life with wide-awake eyes;

Involved in a

Community of writers who offer support and

Encouragement as I try out new

Organizational structures and

Find out more about myself.

Learning about each other

In humorous and touching ways and moving

Forward as a writer – what I have come to

Expect from the March Slice of Life Story Challenge.

I look forward once again to being a part of this wonderful community of writers!