Blog Manifesto

Blog Manifesto


This blog is dedicated, as the title would suggest, to the qualities of being young. We are young writers. We are playful and sensitive, fluid and changing. We are unashamed with our art. We wonder at the world, puzzle over the meanings of things and twirl in delight at images and ideas that float by, grabbing at them as they pass. We are curious and constantly inquiring and prying concepts open and taking assumptions apart. We are on the ground, close to the earth. We have bare feet and wiggle our toes into nature. We carry our blankies still and wrap up cozy and comfy with each other and tell ghost stories and shiver at creepy things. We laugh and we cry and we take a lot of naps, drained from our outings and exertions.

We write as gifts to each other, tying them up in ribbon and leaving them around for each other to find, hiding and waiting for the person to wake up and read. Surprise! We weave our stories together to create a bond. One writes, then the other. then another again. We have a shared reality that we have crafted, bit by piece by patch, by string. We write simple, honest authentic things, with our unique voices. You can tell each one of us from the other, without knowing who wrote what. Our voices are clear and gentle and original. We whisper and our personalities roar! Like children, our feelings are strong, our passion for what we write shakes us. We are moved and sometimes left breathless, by our own words or the words of each other. We cannonball into each others spaces. We fall backward into each others writing, like into a pile of leaves or a soft bed. We gobble and grin and ask for more. (footnote kudos to JC)

Then we go to bed, wake up to a new day and do it all over again!

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Mr. Pelton

Dear Mr. Pelton...I remember him fondly though I had him for only those two weeks when we shared John Brown's Body. The next semester I had him again! Trying to find his niche, he was teaching physics to academically talented sophomores. And I was desperately avoiding home economics into which my counselor was putting all sophomore girls.  "You're going to need this for raising a family, young lady"

She never knew I was raising a family already. My mother was teaching and I was the oldest of six!   I was cooking, feeding and entertaining my siblings until mom got home from school at night. Dad was working hard and as a man in the late 50's,  expectations of him doing housework were nil. The thing I knew I didn't need was a course in cooking and sewing.

So, the open class was Physics (although I always suspected the counselor put me there to fail and teach me a lesson about my place in the world order). I was very poorly suited for physics.. So was Mr. Pelton. The lessons were not engaging in the least.  When we finally got to do some labs, I spent time looking for the 'wound' thermometer (like it was hurt) not the 'wound' like winded up. {This needs to be read aloud!} Even my vocabulary was against me, not mechanical at all! Everything having to do with that class was over my (by then) sleeping head!

The semester was nearly over and I'd received a C- and was headed for a D or lower when dear Mr. Pelton took me aside and said that I would need to find a new place to doze if I wanted to escape without an F on my transcript! End goal: college! Yes, I left him then.  He had my best interests at heart!  I ended up in choir! Not Home Ec!

And there's more!  But I'll add it later.  What a saga!
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1 comment:

  1. RosieMarch 20, 2012 at 8:28 AM

    grins, grins, glad to see you writing, what a treat. keep them coming!

    ReplyDelete

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