I am deep in summer.

White hot summer.

The sun is past the friendly figure you watch rolling over the horizon.

It is a beast you want to forget.

This tree has a story to tell

its white leaves memory

its roots dug deep underground

its song a silent reminder

of the connected soil

Imagining

things, again

things I can't see

things I only wonder about

when snow covers all still to born

1984 style. A fraction too much friction

What it is about dark ink? Gel pens -- those light pink and yellow and green ink things that my students love to use for the color and the sparkle-- will be the death of my old eyes. I want dark on light. Words etched into stone. Thick black sharpies leaving trails on white walls.

Where we walk

among the brambles

where dead bugs

tell no tales

the spine of this dead

tree never fails

to intrigue me.

I like this examination of both inside the text (and with the text) and outside the text (alongside the text). Both have value but both are different. In one (innotation), I am writing WITH you. In the other (annotation), I am writing BESIDE you. Where does one merge into the other?

I wonder what is the tension between us in #modigiwri. What conversations are being inspired? What conversations need to be inspired in our spaces? What problems should we be addressing? What are our unique problems arising from our own spaces?

I would say they broaden the conversation.

Of course! Always!

Whatever they contribute. It is easy to read without ever voicing anything. If I remain silent as a reader, it begs the question "if a tree falls in the forest..." It is only when I participate, respond to the text that I "bring" anything.

It must be public writing, since it is accessible to all who find it.

Ontological:

I don't know this word. Or at least, not enough to automatically recall its meaning. That happens sometimes, where a word has some faint echoes -- like, maybe you looked this one up before but only now remember that you once looked it up -- and yet, you can't draw the lines. So, I looked it up. The definition (below) is more confusing than the word. So here is where I pause, stop and think: this word is my hurdle to understanding, and the flow of my reading has come to a stop. I think I might just hop/skip/jump over it, then. I am the master of this distraction.

from Wikipedia:

Ontology is the philosophical study of being. More broadly, it studies concepts that directly relate to being, in particular becoming, existence, reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations.[1] Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology often deals with questions concerning what entities exist or may be said to exist and how such entities may be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.

Take a moment to wander outside, and kneel down, into the grass and soil, and look closer. Give yourself some perspective on this world. What you see is the micro of our place. It's interesting to do this now and then to remind us that we are not the only creatures and living things inhabiting this space, that other worlds turn inside of ours. We just never notice. Take a moment to notice, won't you?

I have a friend, who works at the Wall Street Journal, who texts me and my friends regularly about the coming economic crash. I have trouble telling if he is overreacting to the political events of the day (he is a fine conspiracy theory activist) or is right in tune. I, too, am wary of where the economy is going and while numbers suggest some stability, it all feels false. Too many people still struggling. Too many Wall Street companies getting rich quick. If the crash is coming, is anyone ready?

I like to think that all of us are researchers, to some degree. In the various regular writing I do -- looking at the small moments with SmallStories, for example -- I think of this as research, of examining the world. Researchers notice things. They put a larger frame around what they see. They write to understand it. Even if it is only you, stopping a moment to see something you might otherwise pass by, that's some kind of research. It won't get you that PHD, but it will give you pause. And pausing is something, too.

We're in a sort of strange time here in our house. Two of three boys don't really live here -- they are in college -- and the third boy, 14, is both blessed and curses by all of our attention now. We do joke about this, a lot. Even he joins in. Still, I am sympathetic towards him and yet, feeling a bit nostalgic for the crazy, hectic days of three kids in the house, and I even appreciate (now, later) the chaos of it all. This is life, though, and another chapter. At least we have the baby, 14, for a few more years.

Anna -- I am reading your rewriting and finding key words for small essays in the margins. Kevin

How is it that writing became so important to me? I'm thinking back, trying to remember any one single event or teacher that hooked me into it. I only draw blank. Perhaps it was my mother's love of books, and my own love of libraries and books as a child, that led me to understand the power of story and writing. I don't remember loving writing in school, at any grade, although a few classes here and there in college -- mostly, electives -- gave me more freedom to write in different genres, and that opened the door a bit. I'd like to think that, as a teacher, I can inspire some of my students to become life-long writers, but maybe that is just the hope of teachers everywhere. And who knows if it comes true?

At teacher lunches, we often talk about our students, and a common refrain over the years has been a lack of patience and perseverance by young people. Our students don't want to mull over something or to dig deeper, the criticism goes. They want the answer now. Many of my colleagues blame video games and technology on this decreasing attention, and it may be true, but I often find myself resisting this blame game, and I wonder about how it is we are teaching and what learning looks like to our students. It does no good to cast blame on the kids in front of us if we aren't reflecting and changing what we're doing to ensure we meet their needs.

My mom had a blue car -- a blue Grenada, if I remember right. It looked like a police car, if the blue of a police car had been lightened by a spray paint can. I remember driving her car -- it was a standard -- to high school parties in woods and sometimes, people would scatter, thinking the police were arriving to break up the party. Only to discover me, in my mom's blue Grenada.

I stop and think of a compass. The way north always seems to pull us forward into some unknown space. people follow a compass rather blindly, don't we? We expect it to work. Same with GPS. We expect it to work and walk with faith that north is where we'll end up. Sometimes, we get lost.

our writing might be / fleeting, flexible and fragile.

Moving from space to space / with the faith we place in knowing. https://36qi.app.link/vsw3FJk05S

The larger story is all around us / As we write and think and react