I don't Twitter--too few characters for me. Still, though, I love the idea of the 6 word memoir. You can even get published at http://www.smithmag.net/sixwords/.

What would my six word memoir be?

Here are a few (some are definitely not memoir-worthy):


Tomorrow I rise early. Break over.


I am tired. Still I type.


My thoughts meander.  My creativity unleashed.


I can do this. Write daily.


Yesterday no blogging. Today  comes flogging.


That is all. Off to bed.

Has anyone done this with their students? I would love to hear about it.

Teen on a Bench

Black chucks with purple shoestrings and an attitude. Sharp edges on her short dark hair that say, "Don't mess with me!" She sits down on the bench ignoring the other adults and small children already there and barks a command at her little brother. Off he goes to play on the playground.

Feeling released of her responsibility, she pulls out her smart phone and starts punching keys. I assume she will be texting and Facebooking just like I was a few minutes earlier. Then, she pulls out her earbuds and blocks out the noise around her. I think she is a typical teen closing herself to the world around her.

I think of how she will miss all that I've seen in children playing together becoming instant friends in a playground world, children taking on new challenges as they try to conquer the monkey bars, and children defying their parents rules as they climb the slides.

My view changes of this "typical teen" the moment I see her pull out a pen and her journal and begin to write. Those earbuds are merely closing out the noise and distractions as she opens her mind to her own world putting the pen to the page.

Feeling like a stalker, I stare at her and wonder what and why she is writing. I'm wondering if she had a teacher who inspired her. She is a writer. She is beautiful. She has entered a special place amidst all the chaos of this playground world.

As I walk down the hill to the car, I turn to capture the moment, taking a picture with my iPhone. As I put my phone in my purse, I spot my journal, forlorn and barely used and realize that a photographic image cannot capture what I have seen in the teen on a bench.

Pluck It!

One morning you wake up and you’re old. I don’t mean old as in one foot in the grave. I mean old as in your hair has more gray, and your wrinkles are more defined. I mean old as in you’re wondering who that stranger in the mirror is.

Those little hairs of gray are not tame on me; they are wiry, poking out of the mass of blond orange curls atop my head screaming to be noticed. Just like that little old biddy in me screaming to be noticed finds herself complaining and griping and moaning about too much to do, students who don’t care, the lack of balance in her life, the papers to grade, the educational policies we are given, and those who see teaching as just a job.

I don’t let those hairs stand out for too long. I take that wiry gray, and I just pluck it. Maybe that’s how I should be with the little old biddy in me (I’m 43, by the way). Pluck that biddy out. Just pluck it! She’s getting in the way of me becoming the best Maya I can become.

Meandering

As a stream meanders,

so do my thoughts.

So much I've begun,

yet little I've completed.

I am here,

incomplete.

Seeking to grow,

to know.

To channel the course

of this meandering stream.

I am a writer,

whose lost her voice.

My voice has become

a status update, a text message, an email.

My soul cries out for more.

I can't share myself

knowing my characters are limited.

I can't find myself;

I will limit my character.

Channel my energies--

set the course of the stream,

And just write.