Little Lessons Everywhere

The other day I was sitting in my friend Julie's kitchen, watching her four-year-old through the window. Lauren was playing on the sidewalk when the sprinklers suddenly went on—she shrieked! Arms thrashing, feet slipping, she twisted blindly and howled for help.

"Just walk forward," her mom called through the window. We could see that she was only a few feet from relief, but her predicament was too overwhelming, and her wailing was too loud for her to hear. "Lauren! It's OK! Just walk!" Tears mixed with drops of water and ran down her cheeks while her older brother dashed outside to rescue her. He took her arm and steered her out of the spray.

She wiped her eyes and smiled up at her mom before she started skipping down the sidewalk. The whole traumatic episode had only taken a minute or two, and was forgotten immediately.

I can look back at times when I've been surprised by what seemed like a deluge (a year ago today.) I've howled for help with such a racket that I've drowned out the quiet response, "It's OK, Marty, just walk forward." That's usually when someone shows up to walk with me a little way, and suddenly my tears are gone, and my path seems clear.

I love it when that happens.

Have you had a life lesson lately? Write it down!

Writing Fiction With Facts

"All fiction is largely autobiographical

and much autobiography is, of course, fiction."

—PD James

Alex Haley taught me about faction. It's the art of finding facts, and filling them in with fiction. For instance, my dad told me about a time he was chased by a bear. It seems like a good story, but that's all I remember and now he's dead and unavailable to give details. Grandma's diary mentions a summer during the Depression when they lived up the canyon in a tent, and I know my dad was sandwiched between a couple of brothers, all just a year apart.

Mel, Alan, Jiggs, 1932

So when I tell my grandkids about a little boy named Jiggs, I combine those facts, and create a story about three brothers who wandered away from their campsite and surprised a bear who chased them down the mountain. There's a crashing river to cross, a tumble or two and a lot of roaring tossed in for color, but my grands learn some history surrounded by names, locations, dates, and personalities in a memorable tale. It's faction.

A rewarding way to practice your writing skills is to create a little faction. Try this: remember yourself at ten.

Now, what year was that? Oh, yeh, that was the year I was the tetherball champion. I think. Anyway, I had Miss Paschel and she read us all the Wizard of Oz books. And I was in love with Steven Jones and I wrote him mushy letters. One time at church we were in the coat closet at the same time and our mothers discussed our affair right in front of us! And then he found out I wore glasses, so basically it was all over.

Now you've got a few facts to work with. After all, you're the expert on your own life—you don't need to ask a soul if you got it right!

For the next step you'll need a piece of paper and a pencil. Spend five minutes googling: History in 1959 (Alaska and Hawaii became states—I remember that!) Just skim the list and pick a couple of facts that jump out. Now google another few categories: Music in 1959, Movies, TV (I loved Rawhide! That was the year Bonanza started?) Jot down some particulars.

You're ready! Open your blog, your journal, or your mouth and tell your story. If it helps you get going, begin with "Once upon a time ..." I like to start with a quote and then weave details into the backdrop of the scene.

"You wear glasses?" Steven's new front teeth looked enormous as he chewed on this little tidbit. I knew my whole class would know by morning recess. Of course, they were supposed to know because I was supposed to be wearing them, but who would take me serious as a tetherball champion if I had an elastic band holding red plaid specs on my face? We had just pledged allegiance to our new flag—fifty stars were now staggered in the blue background instead of the even spacing of forty-eight.

I would go on to describe my teacher, tell how I loved story-time right after lunch, how I still remember the Patchwork Girl and the time a hornet flew in the window and stung Miss Paschel on the ear while she was reading. (OK, that's the faction part. All the details I want my grands to know about me need a plot to stick to.)

At the end of this little exercise you'll have written a memoir. Memoir is a writing genre—you can major in Memoir, but you don't have to—and it's such a useful way to practice your skills! Even the most amateurish attempts are valuable as a record, and writing something down solidifies it in your own memory. And hey, somebody's going to embellish your stories. It might as well be you!

Please Write

Art by Carl Larsson

I've always been a writer, but it took me a long time to call myself a writer. Writers seemed to be in an exclusive club, and I couldn't just crash the party and say, "Hey guys! I'm a writer, too." I didn't think the real writers would want me in their club. I might be a bad representative of the craft, and they might not want me to sully their reputation.

Anne Lamott influenced me in her fabulous book Bird by Bird:

"I encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all that it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do—the actual act of writing—turns out to be the best part. It's like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward."

So now that I am a writer I do the writer things. I'm always working. I carry notebooks. No matter where I go, what I hear or read, or even think, it could become material.

Art by Jan Ver Meer

Lamott's father was a writer, and she said, "Sometimes he traveled. He could go anyplace he wanted with a sense of purpose. One of the gifts of being a writer is that it gives you an excuse to do things, to go places and explore. Another is that writing motivates you to look closely at life, at life as it lurches by and tramps around."

It also gives you a reason to read this book!

It's time for summer school—

If you want to practice writing, stop by here for my

Write Stuff Workshops!

Matryoshka

This is what I wanted to be:

Matriarch of a big, happy family,
colorful, kerchiefed, round and rosy-cheeked—
who could represent me better?

I started collecting nesting dolls a long time ago. Made in Russia, their real name is Matryoshka, from a word that means Mother. They are sometimes called Babushka dolls, which I like, too, because it means Grandmother.

There are lots of different themes and designs, and I love seeing how the artists from various villages paint them so meticulously. My grandkids love taking the dolls apart to reveal smaller dolls fitting inside one another.

When my granddaughters turn eight, I give them one to keep. The big doll represents her, her mom is next, and I am after that, with generations of grandmothers and great-grandmothers, back and back and back, who all want her to be happy.

A letter is part of the gift, listing all the names and something unique about each one: Lucy loves gymnastics, Heidi loves to bake, Marty loves to write, June loved to sew, Adelila loved to cook, Emily loved her garden. I tell my eight-year-old that they were loved by these women long before they were even born. If they could, all the grandmothers would share the lessons they learned about life with their posterity. "But you have traits of each of them carried right inside your mind and heart," I say. "It's called heredity!"

Art by Kathryn Brown

I hope my little girls can someday realize the blessing of being Matryoshka and Babushka. It has become more challenging to make this choice.

Bryce Christensen said:

"Too many women have succumbed to a dangerously narrow view of womanhood, repudiating homemaking itself as an outmoded and dispensable artifact of a misguided culture."

In his article Homeless America, he states that women's traditional skills have lost their value.

"By rejecting a role differentiation between fathers and mothers, some women have lost sight of the home as an independent moral realm, building relationships and values that are different from those of the commercial realm."

(This is a great article I've referred to often on my blog. It's long, but interesting.)

Some attitudes in our society are absolutely wrong. I hope my little granddaughters will recognize the great lies listed here:

1. Men are smarter, have all the power and are more important, so if we want to have influence in the world we should be more like them.
2. Marriage and family are confining.
3. Motherhood is menial and a waste of any talented woman's time.
4. Women are perpetually frazzled and failing.
5. A woman's value is based on her size, shape, and what she accomplishes outside the home.

--from a talk by Sheri Dew

Some truths I hope my girls will learn from the legacy of their mothers and grandmothers:

1. By developing the God-given nature to nurture, women have a unique opportunity to change the world.
2. The influence of a mother has no limit and no end. She can share every aspect of her education and experience in the atmosphere of love she fashions.
   
3. Creating a home is a way of creating a world.
4. Women have abilities beyond their wildest dreams to organize and create.
5. Women are the soul of a family and a community.

It's been said that women are the survival kit of the human race. That responsibility has been handed down from generation to generation.

I think it's something inside us!

Now it's your turn~

Comment, blog, or think about these questions:

1. What is the main responsibility of a mother?
2. What was your decision to be a mother, or not to be a mother, based on?
3. How do you think the role of motherhood has changed since you were a child?
4. Is that good or bad?
5. How do you feel about the role of motherhood personally?

Write down how you feel about the big questions for your posterity. What's written down becomes the history future generations will search for. Let your story be part of their understanding.