What happened this summer mostly seems not to have been about me.
I don't mean I didn't do things. I did an awful lot of things. I finished a draft of FIGHTING WORDS in June and another--the sixth--this week. That feels something like a miracle. (How close are we to finished? I don't know.) (I hope I find out soon.)
But a lot of what happened to me this summer happened also to other people. Our stories are intertwined. There's no way of telling my part without also telling theirs, and I don't have the right to do so. I sometimes have the obligation to not do so. As an example--I loved spending several days with all five of my lively nephews. But, even though I've protected their privacy by always referring to them by pseudonyms on this blog, I still can't tell you about our adventures without saying things they might prefer I didn't. And even though they might not care right now, they might care someday. Their childhoods are not blog fodder, any more than my children's were. (When I say something about my children on this blog, it's with their permission. They always have veto power, for any reason.)
I could write about grief, and joy, but it wouldn't be mostly my grief or my joy.
That's not why I didn't blog all summer. I mostly didn't because of the two drafts of FIGHTING WORDS--this is the hardest I've ever worked over a summer--and because I was busy learning some things for ALI. But many times when I thought, oh, that's a great story, and started thinking out how to tell it in my head, I would realize it wasn't a blog story, and leave it alone.
Here's a small story I can tell, from yesterday.
My daughter acquired a horse this summer. That's a long story, and not a blog one, but suffice to say he's a lovely kind large animal of indeterminate age and breeding and a fairly traumatic past, with very little in the way of actual knowledge, and our goal, my daughter's and mine, is to never scare or hurt him. My daughter's out of town right now, and the horse--his name is Merlin--likes to do things, so yesterday I took him out on a rope--which is to say, in a rope halter and a lead, not under saddle--to our 7-acre field. We have 3 tires jumps out there. Think Oreos stacked sideways only tires. My daughter'd ridden Merlin over the smallest one, but he was a bit anxious and didn't seem to understand it the way he understood jumping a log. So I worked him over it on the rope--he was still puzzled, but figuring it out. We jumped it all four ways (both directions, off both reins) and I praised him and rubbed his face. Then we moved on to the second tire jump. He jumped it back and forth. I praised him and rubbed his face.
We moved to the third tire jump, which is narrower and on a bit of a slope. I told Merlin to start walking around me in a circle, preparatory to aiming him at the tires.
He stood still beside me.
I told him again, more clearly. He took a step closer to me.
I told him again.
He said no.
I knew he understood me--basic rope work is something he gets--so I stood still, and stared at him, and asked him what was wrong.
He said, this just keeps getting harder. You keep making it harder.
I realized, from his point of view, jumping the tires was a LOT. I was asking him for too much, too fast. 'Sorry, dude,' I said. We walked back to the first tires, the easiest ones. He jumped them once and we walked back in. And he was happy, and so was I.
Now. I've been working a lot this summer preparing for Appalachian Literacy Initiative and the new school year. I've learned about fundraising and grant writing, and I've figured out how to put our entire story into a coherent narrative, backed by research. Essentially, it's this: access to books is the number one driver of student success, yet 61% percent of low-income kids don't own any books at all. Many low-income families lack access through libraries as well. The best thing we can do to help kids succeed is give them books, and we're doing it. ALI is currently enrolling fourth-grade classrooms in our program for the 2019-2020 school year. THE DEADLINE IS THURSDAY. Please help spread the word, so we can get as many books to as many children as possible. The application is on our website at readappalachian.org.
The test scores for the classrooms we served last year won't be released until October, but I've heard anecdotally from two of our schools. Both showed large gains in reading. One school went from 23% of fourth graders reading on grade level to an astonishing 96%. Of course that's not all ALI--we're not claiming that--but, as the number one predictor of whether a child will graduate from high school is whether they can read at grade level by the end of fourth grade--wow, a whole bunch of kids' futures suddenly look much brighter. We are so happy for their success
I don't mean I didn't do things. I did an awful lot of things. I finished a draft of FIGHTING WORDS in June and another--the sixth--this week. That feels something like a miracle. (How close are we to finished? I don't know.) (I hope I find out soon.)
But a lot of what happened to me this summer happened also to other people. Our stories are intertwined. There's no way of telling my part without also telling theirs, and I don't have the right to do so. I sometimes have the obligation to not do so. As an example--I loved spending several days with all five of my lively nephews. But, even though I've protected their privacy by always referring to them by pseudonyms on this blog, I still can't tell you about our adventures without saying things they might prefer I didn't. And even though they might not care right now, they might care someday. Their childhoods are not blog fodder, any more than my children's were. (When I say something about my children on this blog, it's with their permission. They always have veto power, for any reason.)
I could write about grief, and joy, but it wouldn't be mostly my grief or my joy.
That's not why I didn't blog all summer. I mostly didn't because of the two drafts of FIGHTING WORDS--this is the hardest I've ever worked over a summer--and because I was busy learning some things for ALI. But many times when I thought, oh, that's a great story, and started thinking out how to tell it in my head, I would realize it wasn't a blog story, and leave it alone.
Here's a small story I can tell, from yesterday.
My daughter acquired a horse this summer. That's a long story, and not a blog one, but suffice to say he's a lovely kind large animal of indeterminate age and breeding and a fairly traumatic past, with very little in the way of actual knowledge, and our goal, my daughter's and mine, is to never scare or hurt him. My daughter's out of town right now, and the horse--his name is Merlin--likes to do things, so yesterday I took him out on a rope--which is to say, in a rope halter and a lead, not under saddle--to our 7-acre field. We have 3 tires jumps out there. Think Oreos stacked sideways only tires. My daughter'd ridden Merlin over the smallest one, but he was a bit anxious and didn't seem to understand it the way he understood jumping a log. So I worked him over it on the rope--he was still puzzled, but figuring it out. We jumped it all four ways (both directions, off both reins) and I praised him and rubbed his face. Then we moved on to the second tire jump. He jumped it back and forth. I praised him and rubbed his face.
We moved to the third tire jump, which is narrower and on a bit of a slope. I told Merlin to start walking around me in a circle, preparatory to aiming him at the tires.
He stood still beside me.
I told him again, more clearly. He took a step closer to me.
I told him again.
He said no.
I knew he understood me--basic rope work is something he gets--so I stood still, and stared at him, and asked him what was wrong.
He said, this just keeps getting harder. You keep making it harder.
I realized, from his point of view, jumping the tires was a LOT. I was asking him for too much, too fast. 'Sorry, dude,' I said. We walked back to the first tires, the easiest ones. He jumped them once and we walked back in. And he was happy, and so was I.
Now. I've been working a lot this summer preparing for Appalachian Literacy Initiative and the new school year. I've learned about fundraising and grant writing, and I've figured out how to put our entire story into a coherent narrative, backed by research. Essentially, it's this: access to books is the number one driver of student success, yet 61% percent of low-income kids don't own any books at all. Many low-income families lack access through libraries as well. The best thing we can do to help kids succeed is give them books, and we're doing it. ALI is currently enrolling fourth-grade classrooms in our program for the 2019-2020 school year. THE DEADLINE IS THURSDAY. Please help spread the word, so we can get as many books to as many children as possible. The application is on our website at readappalachian.org.
The test scores for the classrooms we served last year won't be released until October, but I've heard anecdotally from two of our schools. Both showed large gains in reading. One school went from 23% of fourth graders reading on grade level to an astonishing 96%. Of course that's not all ALI--we're not claiming that--but, as the number one predictor of whether a child will graduate from high school is whether they can read at grade level by the end of fourth grade--wow, a whole bunch of kids' futures suddenly look much brighter. We are so happy for their success
