Selfish writing

I am thinking about how I want my classroom and lessons to improve and doing a lot of teacher book reading for inspiration. I just started a book about keeping a writing notebook. The premise seems to be regular writing nurtures a love and comfort of the craft that in turn leads to deeper, more significant final pieces. Certainly, after a year of painful five paragraph essays this sounds highly appealing. The book starts out by explaining how to launch a notebook and how to stop the inevitable comment "I have nothing to write about." This hit home with me. I think about this blog and that thought goes through my head each and every time. What about me and my life is important enough to write down here - a place where anyone can access it? But, as the book explains, just the process of writing helps you to see significance where you couldn't see it before. The more you do it, the more worthwhile an activity it becomes for you, and maybe at some point, for your reader as well. Writing is a selfish activity, in whatever form it describes something about the author.

So, back to thinking about teaching, a major motivation for me is to join the students in the activities I assign them. If daily free writing is one of those activities then I need to start keeping my own writing notebook. I think I already have right here. And it feels good.

July is slipping away and the baby is growing. I just updated the whiteboard and we have 28 days until D-Day. Four weeks left of being a young woman. Four weeks until I become a young mother. I'm spending my days waiting - filling in time with lovely activities like reading 19th Century British literature (I'm halfway through A Woman in White"), starting a book club at school, pre-natal yoga, seeing friends for lunch, watching TV shows via Netflix online streaming, walking Gus in the humid Philly weather, napping, watching my belly shake and stretch with each little movement. There is no pressure on me right now. It still makes me feel guilty and I list things I could be doing in my head, but then I stop myself with the thought that in a few weeks this freedom is going to be gone. I should enjoy it while it lasts.

It's fascinating how my brain works with all this freedom. I may have a day with nothing specific planned, but in my head I have to break the hours up into various activities - if it is just going to the store or cleaning. I obviously need a routine. I think free time scares me, doing nothing scares me. I need a schedule - almost so if anyone asked how I filled my day I would never have to say "I did nothing".

Wow, this is a lot of rambling free thoughts. I have already gone to delete a lot of it. But I'm not going to want my students to delete, so I can't delete either.