Prompt #37 By the Book

Every week I read the New York Times Book Review, and one of my favorite features is called "By the Book" in which an author answers various questions about their reading habits.  I have often thought it would be a great prompt, and now seems to be the time.

I have pulled 13 typical questions from this feature, but by NO MEANS does that mean you have to answer them all.  Just answer the ones that are most interesting to you. Or, if there is something you want to say, create a question and answer it.  You are free to make this work for you, the writer.

Check out this example from Sloane Crosley.  NYT asks questions pertinent to each author, so if you like some questions here that are not on the list below, feel free.

By the Book: Sloane Crosley

Copy and paste the questions below, and answer the ones you like in the same style as the NYT feature. There is always a photo of the writer with the article.  Could be cool if you included one, too. And perhaps even a little intro as to who you are....think big time!

QUESTIONS

What books are on your nightstand?

What is the last great book you read?

What's your go-to classic?

What is the best book you've read that no one has ever heard of?

Which writers --novelists, playwrights, critics, journalists, poets -- working today do you admire the most?

When do you read?

What moves you most in a work of literature?

What book by someone else do you wish you'd written?

What book are you embarrassed to say you haven't read?

What book might people be surprised to find on your shelves?

Who is your favorite fictional hero or heroine?  Favorite antihero or villain?

What kind of reader were you as a child?  What were your favorite childhood books?

Disappointing, overrated, just not good. What book did you feel as if you were supposed to like, but didn't.  Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?

What do you plan to read next?

You're organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?

How I Became a Teacher... Or Why I'm Not a Doctor

Response to Prompt 36: Another Part of You


I have told the story countless times in hundreds of ways, but I don't think I've ever told the truth. Until recently, I don't think I knew the truth. At least I had been too cowardly to face it. Here's the part you may have heard before...

I spent most of my childhood growing up on Long Island. We moved to Florida just weeks before I started high school, but it would take years for the Long Island in me to fade away.  We lived in a city where public schools were like private schools, run by an independent school district. Local people were heavily involved in the goings on in the schools, and the locals in Great Neck were wealthy and professional (top 6.9% in the state for family income). That meant raising kids from whom they expected the same. The schools were competitive and some of the highest performing in the country.

Just to give you an idea, currently my would-be high school is ranked 30th in the state of NY, with a 94% graduation rate, and standardized test averages above the state mean. Over 95% of all girls and boys in the HS meet state proficiency, and 96% of the students earned the Regents endorsed diploma. In 2017, 94% of the graduates enrolled in higher education: 2-year (14%); 4-year college (80%). For those who might be wondering, Great Neck has less than 8% of their students qualify for free lunch, and is not very diverse. By why all this? Why does this matter?

My community raised me to believe there were few avenues to success. One could be a doctor or lawyer, or become part of a prestigious business. I'll be careful to note, though my parents had high expectations for my success in life, they did not encourage me to go down any specific road. College was an expectation, but what I wanted to study and my career path were not dictated to me or even pushed on me with any pressure. Somehow, when you grow up in this type of community, this is just a state of mind. It's engrained from a very early age, perhaps unknowingly. I was smart, came from a good home, was raised in an affluent community, and I would become a professional. For me, that meant I was going to be a doctor.

In 1987 we moved to Florida. The academic world was very different in my new home town. Sure, there were plenty of smart kids, but few had had the early education of a Great Neck Independent School System. As a high school freshman, I had already learned about 75% of what was covered in my classes. I am careful here not to dog Florida schools. I do have my criticisms, but I think this was more about what I got from my schooling in NY, than it was about the shortcomings of the Sunshine State. But I was on track to become a doctor, more specifically, I wanted to be a child psychiatrist. Because I was advanced, I was offered the chance to take psychology as an elective my freshman year, and that just sealed the deal even more. (Little did I realize, it was my teacher who was inspiring a somewhat dormant path toward education.)

I was immensely successful in high school. I came in so far ahead of the game, I really rode the high all the way through. I had honors and AP everything, and in my senior year I dual enrolled. By the time I graduated HS in the top 10% of my class, I already had more than one semester worth of college credit under my belt. I was completely exempt from college freshman English because of my AP and dual enrollment classes. At the time, that was awesome. Now, I wish I had taken those classes at the U. But you know what they say... hindsight is 20/20. I was going to be a doctor.

I was a great student, however I was never a great test-taker with the exception of essay tests which I always excelled at. My college entrance exams were fine, but nothing stellar. I got waitlisted at my top choice, and then got a partial scholarship offer to attend the University of Miami. Off I went in the fall of 1991. I was pre-med with an emphasis in psychobiology. I was on my way.

This is where the story might sound new. It sure is new to me, due to a recent look in the mirror. Thus far, the story has gone like this... I was big fish in little sea and went off to a highly competitive program at the U with tons of brilliant students, many of whom were international. There, I was most certainly a little fish in an enormous sea. Picture Nemo struggling to survive amongst piranha and sharks. They were smart and I was not, and so I allowed freshman bio to weed me out, as it was intended to. By sophomore year I was gone. I didn't have what it took and I changed my major. I was not cut out to be a doctor.

I feel the need to insert here, that this was not when I made the choice to become a teacher. I was not a victim or outcome of the mindset, "Oh, if you don't know what you want to do, just be a teacher." I changed my major to Speech Communication with the thought I might go to Law School. As I said earlier, it took a lot of time to move me from the Long Island mindset.

What I did next is not as important to this story, as my reflection on why I did what I did and what it says about me during that time in my life. The truth is, I let myself talk me and everyone else into this  idea that I was a victim of my own lack of confidence. Poor me, I thought I wasn't smart enough. I was struck in the head with a reality check. Upon further reflection, deep, now-that-I'm-in-my-forties reflection, this is not why I changed my major at all. I don't know that I ever doubted my own intelligence, although it is definitely possible.

What I did is make the decision, albeit unintentionally, to not work hard enough to follow my chosen career path. The class was challenging. But the most challenging part was not the content, it was the time needed to dive into it, to study, to learn. I never had to work so hard to get good grades in high school, and I paid the price in college by not having developed a strong enough work ethic when it came to my studies. I could argue if it was important enough to me and it was truly what I wanted to do, I would have made it a priority. But I'm pretty sure that's bullshit. It was what I wanted to do as far back as I could remember. I was spoiled and it didn't come easy, so I made the excuse. I'm not smart enough. I don't belong here. Pretty pathetic, huh?

I have no regrets about my chosen career path. Somehow it feels now like I'm doing what I was "supposed to do." But who is to say I wasn't "supposed to do" what I set out to do in the first place? I'll never know, and it's ok. I feel better knowing I have admitted to the real reasons I changed my mind. I feel more resolved about it now. Certainly I have developed quite a worth ethic since then. I have an advanced education and work very hard in my field. My experience though,  is what I think makes me fearful for my son. I hope he hasn't abandoned college because he's afraid to work for it. I hope he left to find an alternate path where he can be and feel successful like I have.

Easy Way Out

Response to Prompt 36, Another Part of You.

When you wear you heart on your sleeve, confide in those you trust, it's hard to tell them something they don't know about you. In fact, they might know too much about you and wish you'd  keep some things secret.

I mulled over what to write about. I'm still on the fence but figured I'd go with my normal strategy of beginning and just taking it where the words want to go. Admittedly, the easy way out, but a way that often works out for me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I always wanted to be a psychologist. Something about the way the human brain functions--and malfunctions--fascinated me and continues to pique my interest. Why I didn't pursue this path has much to do with my own issues: lack of confidence, lack of endurance, lack of motivation.

But, it's always been easier to just blame my circumstances: lack of funds, lack of academic ability, lack of encouragement. 

I'm sure a psychologist would have a field day with me. 

I love when people ask kids what they want to do when they grow up, then proceed to poo-poo their dreams. I was told a psychology degree was only worthwhile if you got a Ph.D, that anything in between wouldn't land me a good job. Then, when I adjusted my goals, I was told by a teacher in middle school I could do better than being a teacher when I told him that was my career goal. So, I crossed that off my list. Add to it a family who didn't know how to navigate the post-secondary world--one that didn't even expect any of us to go to college. See? It was my circumstances, lack of support by well-meaning people who didn't want me to fail but didn't seem to know how to help me succeed. 

When I did make it to college, I had to work full-time--sometimes a full-time job and a couple of part-time gigs--to pay my bills, including college. My $500 scholarship from high school didn't last long. I continued to earn around the same GPA I did in high school--3.2-3.4. Above average. Slightly. And, like high school, I thrived in classes where writing was the main mode of demonstrating my learning. Bring on the essay tests. Multiple choice wasn't my jam. 

I transfered to UF, declaring Public Relations as my major. I would get to use my writing skills, use the social skills I discovered at my first job. I was also interested in advertising, but I couldn't draw, so I figured this was the next best thing. 

And then came JOU 3101. News Reporting. Trying to get interviews for my first story did not go well. I never even gave it a chance. The first person who refused to talk to me sent me cowering. The one who yelled at me then hung up solidified that this wasn't for me. It's not what I wanted to do anyway. I took a D in that class versus finishing that assignment. 

I took a psychology class, volunteered to tutor at-risk youth through the department. I don't remember why, but I think that experience was some kind of psychological experiment itself. I had to interview with the professor running the program a few times. I know I left those interviews feeling bad about myself, shut down. My naive world-view was beginning to be tainted. I wasn't smart enough to pursue psychology, wasn't ballsy enough to pursue journalism. 

Excuses, excuses.

I finally settled on declaring English as a major. Liberal Arts degrees were encouraged back in the day, and this was something I could do. Read and write. Those things were my jam. In other words, I took the easy way out. And, other than one professor who made me feel less than, I thrived in those classes, found my voice when it came to writing about and discussing literature. My GPA for my major was as close to a 4.0 as I'd ever come. 

Success. Or was it? I had no idea what I was going to do with this degree. I really didn't care. By then, I was already successful as a property manager with a large company (making more money 25 years ago as I make right now). At this point, it was just about finishing, getting that degree. A personal goal rather than a career goal. 

That is something people don't know about me: I often take the easy way out. Well, really usually.  And then blame my circumstances. It's not something I'm proud of. I don't even know if it's something I've acknowledged until recently. But, it is definitely my M.O. 

This is not to say I regret anything about the way my life has turned out. This is not to say I think of myself as an unmotivated slug. I just have some work to do in the next few decades. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Easy Way 

The easy way is often criticized--

a method employed by the lazy, unmotivated, 

a cop-out for the weak of heart. 

Perhaps.

Perhaps not.

It's possible that the easy way

gently leads you in the right direction,

takes you where you need to be.

Perhaps not but

perhaps. 

On the Other Side of the Door: A Storyteller

 Response to Prompt #36

On the Other Side of the Door: A Storyteller

In the spring of 1986, Jim and I took our first trip out west: New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona.  We were already collectors of Native American art, but found ourselves surprised by the prevalence of a type of pottery we weren’t really familiar with: The Storyteller.  This pottery art come primarily from the Cochiti Pueblo, located in Sandoval County, New Mexico.

In the Pueblo Indian tradition, the storyteller is the elder who preserves the oral tradition.  The artistic representation always features children climbing on the storyteller, and the price of the art is determined by how many children are on the elder: about $100 for each child at that time.

As we visited a variety of stores in Old Town Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Sedona, I fell more and more in love with the storyteller.  Finally, at the Pueblo Indian Cultural Center, I found one that captured me fully, created by Martha Arquero, and was somewhat more affordable (at $450) than many of the storytellers we had seen.

My precious storyteller made by Martha Aquero (Cochiti)

***

As a child, I didn’t play with dolls.  They held no interest for me.  My friend Veronica had every kind of Barbie and related paraphernalia, but we didn’t play with them together.  On my First Communion, my grandmother gave me a Barbie doll. All I remember is that my mother was furious, and I was not encouraged to play with the item.

But Veronica and I did have another game we played.  It was totally imaginary.  We both created “families,” and we were the mothers.  We would divide up the yard into our two homes.  We knew exactly where every room in the house was, and we would go about our day as mothers, doing what we imagined mothers do, and talking to each other about our children.  I was Joan.  Veronica was Peg.

When our family moved to the suburbs, Veronica and I wrote letters to each other.  And along with those letters, we would include letters between Peg and Joan, still discussing their children and their married lives. 

About a year into this, on a summer day, I received a letter from Veronica and Peg.  They were together in one envelope, which I read, and then inadvertently left on a table in the family room when I went out to play.

When I came back in, it became clear that my mother had read the letters – and she mocked me for it.  She humiliated and shamed me over this “fake” exchange with my friend, and caused me to feel that I had done something horrible and wrong.

My response was not to get angry with her for invading my privacy, but instead I stopped. You might say the door to storytelling slammed shut.  I never had Joan write back to Peg.  I ended the game.  I never told Veronica why, and I don’t think she ever asked.  I did not even acknowledge this happened until about thirty years later.

***

When I was a member of Toastmasters, I completed the first ten speeches, and then was seeking to expand my skills through other types of speeches. These speeches would be gathered in advanced manuals by themes.  One of the themes was “Storytelling,” and I found myself reacting strongly to it.  I would say to myself, “Who would want to do that?  How trite!”  A member of our group started working through the storytelling manual, and I had to admit that it didn’t seem all bad. In fact, he seemed to be having a lot of fun.  I also had to finally face the fact that my strong reaction to it probably meant that was the way I was supposed to go.

So I did it.  I became a storyteller.  Not only that, I became an advocate for storytelling, and as Education Director for my group, often encouraged other members to try the speeches in that manual.  I began to attend storytelling events (with Iris, of course, also a storyteller) and we even attended the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee in October 1995.

It wasn’t until I was having coffee one morning with a friend in December, 1998, I uncovered what had happened with my mother that summer day in the late 1960’s.  It was the first time I acknowledged that she had shut me down as a creative writer and imaginative storyteller.  I recall going through the day feeling like something had crashed down around me, at the same time something had been built up over the past few years that held me strong.

You see, behind the door I was always that storyteller.  It was represented in the artwork I had purchased in 1986.  It was represented by my willingness to punch through my comfort zone and start to tell stories.  I put together a wonderful storytelling program for my high school alma mater’s Arts Festival.  I wrote grants with a teacher I knew to teach storytelling skills to her 7^th grade students, which they performed for the elementary school kids.  Even when I moved to Florida, storytelling connected me to kids at the Sanibel School, where I would often sub, and the Language Arts teacher there welcomed me in to do the program there.  In college when I had to write an analysis for my Shakespeare class, I zeroed in on how Horatio was the teller of the story of Hamlet.  Understanding story brought the world more fully into focus.

The storyteller lived inside of me all those years, even after being shamed and shut down.  Finding her again was an incredible process. Storytelling helped make me a teacher, gave me new confidence, caused me to connect more fully as a writer, and opened my world to the power of narrative and how it is alive everywhere.

Finding that door I was hiding behind freed the storyteller in me. And what can be better than that?

Artist: Pamela Quintana (Cochiti)

Prompt #36- Another Part of You

Five years into our precious writing circle and 35 prompts into our blog. Next month marks the 3rd anniversary of the TB Blog. Wow...

I've played around with some ideas for this month's prompt. Revisited some Poets & Writers issues, perusing their prompts and rereading articles. I really enjoyed reading about Melissa Scholes Young's writing residency to France. Those residency retreats sound unbelievable, something you don't earn the right to until you become a published writer, I suppose. No biggie. We need to create our own time and space to write. And we need to do the kind of writing we want to do.

Anyway, I tucked this idea away at the onset, searching for other ideas. But it kept coming back so it must mean it's the right one. Probably appropriate for five years into our writing together. We're going to dig a little deeper, share a little more. Or maybe not. Maybe you choose to write fictionally. You might be inspired to take this journey through a character rather than as yourself. As usual, the choice is yours.

This prompt comes to me in two parts. The first is a dive into who you really are. We seem to know each other so well. We've become more than just writing buddies. We attend concerts and special events together, we enjoy nature outings and meals. We trust each other with the trials and frustrations of our jobs and our family life. But what don't we know? Who are we really? Is there a part of you that we don't know much about? Why is that?

As I considered these thoughts, I was reminded of a book of poems I used to read with my 4th graders. This poem, which shares the book title, kept coming to my mind. It's a simple poem written perhaps for children but oh so relevant to all of us. The visuals are concrete and enticing to me. Use it for inspiration if you will. And tell us, who are you on the other side of the door?

On the Other Side of the Door

By Jeff Moss

On the other side of the door

I can be a different me,

as smart and as brave,

as funny or strong

as a person could want to be.

There’s nothing too hard for me to do.

There’s no place I can’t explore

because anything can happen

on the other side of the door.

On the other side of the door

I don’t have to go alone.

If you come too,

we can sail tall ships

and fly where the wind has flown.

And wherever we go, it’s almost sure

we’ll find what we are looking for

because anything can happen

on the other side of the door.