Seeing the Forest and the Trees

Pondering. That is actually where I've been all these long weeks. Feeling a little lost, I've been plagued by self-doubt. Blocked, but faking it all the way. But really. I'd just forgotten to look up! November has its way with me every year, but this started way before that.

Early October hit hard, work, home, commitments, visitors, etc. Distractions and diversions. My writing brain just loves them! I've been playing in the field of self-doubt lately...and that is a dangerous thing.

But today, I pushed myself out of the hole. I've been immersed in memoir with my sixth graders, carving out samples of writing and sharing them with my kids. I've been working on the all too familiar 'Show, Don't Tell' lesson, watching them and reading what they've actually put on the page. When all of a sudden a voice from the back of the room cries out..."Now I get it! It's like living in that moment!"

Well, exactly! Be the moment! I heard a football player interviewed recently, and he said when he's headed toward the end zone, he is transcended...he is the ball. So, my message to my kids was actually the reteaching my writing brain needed too; be one with the story. Not so new to me. But somehow when I'm living in self-doubt, I never seem to see the trees, because I'm staring at the forest floor.

A little while after that, two girls stopped me on the way out of class and asked...no, demanded that I think inside my eleven year old brain. The decision was about braces. "Translucent or metal," they asked. "Metal," I said. "Definitely. I love all the color possibilities...and I could actually arrange my outfits to match!" Suddenly, they (and the universe) had taught me a whole lot more than I could've learned for myself.

So hello to my inner eleven year old; and hello story again! It feels so good to have that buzzing sound back inside my brain!