Slice of Life- The Weekend Was Great...

   It's Tuesday, and Tuesdays are for slicing.  Anyone is welcome to join us through Two Writing Teachers, slicing, sharing, and commenting on other slices! 

What a great dinner out with friends on Friday night. And a great day on Saturday catching a friend's track meet after spending time with my mom as she recuperates from her hip surgery. 

And a nice day on Sunday playing a round of golf and picking up some basil and parsley to plant before an afternoon excursion with two of my girls. 

Maybe a developing cough should have worried me more late Sunday afternoon...

And now I'm ready for some binging recommendations and have no excuse for not slicing since I'm stuck at home for several days having experienced the dreaded double line. 

Writing will be on the agenda! Open to other suggestions! 

Slice of Life- Appreciating language and music

  It's Tuesday, and Tuesdays are for slicing.  Anyone is welcome to join us through Two Writing Teachers, slicing, sharing, and commenting on other slices! 

For the last eleven Aprils, I am struck by how difficult it is to change from slicing every day to slicing every week. Even right now, at this moment, as I am on the keyboard on Tuesday morning with the luxury of time because of vacation, something that I did every day -- every day--  challenges me to get going. Once a day felt so much easier than once a week. I could go on with maybes and possibilities, but I'd love to hear if others experience this phenomenon. Maybe it belies the importance of daily writing workshop... In any case--

Alice, Camila, and I had finished an arm workout, and we were deciding what/IF to do anything else. I was visiting Alice at her home in DC, a visit we'd both looked forward to for a while since I had not been able to come to her husband's memorial service. Her daughter, Camila has been working from home since her knee surgery a few weeks ago. Camila was up for anything since her body was craving exercise, but Alice was iffier. 

"I've been trying to take some of the classes in Spanish," I said, and Camila was instantly intrigued. She wanted to know what dialect. 

"I can barely keep up with the subtitles and recognize the 3-2-1," I said. "I have no idea."

Camila wanted to know, and we pulled up Camila Ramón on my Peloton classes. (Camila, my friend, LOVED the instructor's name!)

Once the music got going, Alice, who was in the adjoining kitchen, came right back in. 

"What is this?" she asked. Alice grew up in Chile, and Spanish is one of several languages she knows. She had no problem pinpointing the country in South America through the instructor's dialect, and she tried to explain the nuances to us. 

Alice didn't take another workout class, but she danced and sang along in the adjoining room. Watching her, Camila (my friend) and I had much less trouble pressing through the repetitions, even though it was our second class. 

"Now this is good music," she said several times. 

Writing and reliving this moment reminds me of the importance of language and music for bridging gaps and creating joy. 

Slice of Life: Somersaults for a how-to lesson

 It's Tuesday, and Tuesdays are for slicing.  Anyone is welcome to join us through Two Writing Teachers, slicing, sharing, and commenting on other slices! 

"You're doing an observation?" I asked as the principal walked into the kindergarten classroom where I've been coaching and working with the teacher and students. "Now? In writing?"

I knew that she'd been trying to get in for an observation for a while, but she'd been aiming at word study, and not writing. 

"Is that okay?" she asked. 

"Sure," I said, thinking about Susan Kennedy's analogy of a duck she wrote about in one of her March slices. I was working hard to look calm and collected on the surface, but my brain was spinning fast.

The teacher had a lesson to teach. I had planned it and written the demonstration text. We were in the beginning phase of a How-to unit. I knew we'd talked about her leading the lesson, but I'd given her the piece before the weekend. What was it about? I was working hard to remember. 

"What do you want my role to be?" I asked. "I've been coaching in here hard. Sort of co-teaching."

"Can she do this herself?"

"She should be all set," I said. 

"Then let's see," she said. 

The teacher called students to the rug and headed my way with the demonstration text that was still the one I'd written which is when I remembered why she'd been so ready to be the leading teacher as opposed to the back-up: the how-to involved teaching someone (who would be me) to do a somersault, with the teaching point around what steps were missing or needed to be clarified. Great. 

I took out my hair clip and handed my glasses to the para in the room to await my instructions. Warning: If you ever write instructions for yourself to do a somersault, make sure you remove those accessories! Also, I had not written to tuck my head, another key step in doing a safe somersault. 

And as one of the adults pointed out after the lesson and my demonstrated somersaults in the middle of the circle, you probably want to consider who gets the backside view of you before you push off with your feet because, well.. yeah, they get quite a view...