Writing

 I once thought that writing was a painful process.  When the first day of school came around and I was old enough to realize that the first assignment of the year would be the inevitable “What I Did This Summer,” I would dread it. I just didn’t like to write about what the teacher assigned.  If I had to go through the process of writing I wanted to choose my own topic. Mostly I didn’t want to go through the process of writing. I didn’t want to do it especially if we had to go back and edit the outcome of this painful process. That would mean one had to actually read what one had written! Ugh!

I have no idea what it was that made this so painful. When I could write about what I wanted to write about I found it to be pretty interesting.  I especially liked research and writing. 

Then I became a teacher and received my certification which boldly stated that I could teach Music K-12, Foreign Language, and Language Arts. Language Arts! Please, I pray you, any administrator that sees this don’t see the part about Language Arts. Then came the assignment, this year you will be teaching Advanced Language Arts! Well it was only one class per day. I could probably live through it. After all,

Mrs. Robert Brydon in full bloom

gifted kids who would be in the class (because I had an additional endorsement for the education of the gifted and talented) are pretty verbal, naturally. However, the pretty verbal kids, it turned out, didn’t like writing any better than I did at that age. They also really didn’t like editing. Many of them who had not attended the Challenge Center (Sioux Falls elementary school for highly gifted kids) had sort of coasted through school and editing was work. Middle school students seem to have some sort of aversion to work for the most part.

What to do?  I thought back to my days in what was then junior high school and to my own thoughts about writing at that age. So, my first assignment was not to write about “What I Did Last Summer,” but to write about something.  What came forth was very interesting. Fantasy pieces, favorite pop artists, time with grandparents, the variety was incredible. And the writing was really quite good. When told that there was a possibility of having their worked published they didn’t seem to mind editing.  In other words, and it’s about time I got to that point, as long as the writing was theirs it meant something. I learned a lot about the students and they hopefully learned to enjoy writing.

In my email this week was this meditation from Henri Nouwen:

“Writing is a process in which we discover what lives in us. The writing itself reveals to us what is alive in us. The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write. To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know. Thus, writing requires a real act of trust. We have to say to ourselves: ‘I do not yet know what I carry in my heart, but I trust that it will emerge as I write.’ Writing is like giving away the few loaves and fishes one has, trusting that they will multiply in the giving. Once we dare to “give away” on paper the few thoughts that come to us, we start discovering how much is hidden underneath these thoughts and gradually come in touch with our own riches.”

It has been a good week. I’ve felt really well and have met my exercise goals. I’m ready for another week of chemo.

It turns out that the Parks and Rec department doesn’t know how to count! There are actually 83 parks on their list and as of today I have visited 78! 

The Spray Park

I discovered I’d missed a park in the “north end” of Sioux Falls in the area called Riverside. It is an area of small houses, may of them rentals, and the school in that area has been known as a “tough” school.  Those who teach there, on the other hand, love the children and would do anything for them including buying clothes, seeing to it that they have food to eat. They wouldn’t teach any other place. Just a few blocks from the school there is a park with a rather curious name of Monsor-Pioneer Park.  More intrigued by the name than anything else I went to see it.  It was more heavily populated than any park I’ve visited. There were lots of children and their parents enjoying the day.  Why? There is a spray park. Since all the public pools are closed for the summer due to Covid 19, the spray park was a great attraction on a 90+º day.

The historical marker satisfied my curiosity over the name.  Monsor was a Lebanese immigrant who set up a grocery business in Sioux Falls.  It was what we might refer to as a Mom and Pop store.  It was in the Riverside neighborhood which most businesses would choose to ignore. Near the beginning of the 20th century there was a wind storm which totally destroyed Mr. Monsor’s little store and scattered groceries hither and yon. Mr. Monsor was known as a very kind person, buying birthday presents for children who would come to his store, providing food for families in need, often selling groceries on a hand shake. The neighborhood got together and rebuilt his store with donated labor and scrounged supplies. He continued in business and when he died he left what he had to the neighborhood. So, this park which was christened Pioneer Park had his name added to the title at the request of the neighborhood.  Nice!

Late August and Mrs. Robert Brydon has come into her own full glory. She is a bush clematis that is bent on taking over the neighborhood. She has to be kept in tow through the growing season.  This time of year she is in full bloom with a mountain of tiny blue flowers adored by the bees and butterflies. It’s a sight to see.

Thanks for reading, and your thoughts and prayers.

I’ll write to you next week, I promise.

Some days it's too hot to even roll over!