Thank you, Grasshopper
"You have learned well, Grasshopper."
When I retired a little over three years ago, I finally had the time I had longed for since my 30’s to write. But where to begin? I knew I wanted to start a blog, maybe even write a memoir. Grand ambitions. About the same time, I was fortunate to stumble upon the book Dear Universe, I Get it Now. The book is centered around the intriguing question, “What would you ask the Universe?” It's a memoir, not of a life in entirety, but of a life shaped by youthful consciousness and the unique and impactful experiences of a child, teen, and twenty and thirty-something woman.
The book just happened to be written by one of my former students, Alyssa Berthiaume. As her language arts teacher, I was not the least bit surprised that this bright-eyed, curious, witty, and sometimes pensive former 11 year old student, who sat in my classroom, raising her hand, laughing with her friends, making up dances, and advocating for a range of sixth grade causes had become an accomplished writer. As a student, she read and wrote voraciously. And she questioned, observed, and led her classmates.
In her book, Ally reflects upon, examines, and both joyfully and painfully responds to another timeless question, “So what am I supposed to learn from this?” Well, reading along as she ponders, responds, and moves through her own life experiences, I learned a great deal about life’s parallel pathways. This precocious and inquisitive student who lived in my classroom for 6 plus hours each school day for two years had been shaping a life and making sense of her world all along, and long before she entered my classroom. Some of the chapters of the book tell the stories of that time in her life – the time when she was my student. And suddenly, as an educator, I was given this precious gift of looking into the aspects of the life, perspectives, and thoughts of one of my students–both in and out of the classroom. As I read, I got to watch her navigate relationships with friends and loved ones, and make sense of the people and the events around her. As I read her stories from childhood to adulthood, I cried, laughed, gasped, and cheered for the 11 year old I knew. How remarkable to read the grown-up words of a former student, the life stories that shaped this strong, funny, confident, intelligent woman who, in the first year of my retirement, I came to know as my writing teacher in “The Writing Bar” workshops.
And because this was a true “You are There!” (remember those?) reading experience for me, I got to learn more about myself as a 30-something teacher back in the day, and how that former self continues to sprinkle crumbs of long ago passions and regrets into my current life. Feminist author, memoirist, and teacher, Nancy Miller, summed this phenomenon up so well in her book, But Enough About Me: Why We Read Other People’s Lives (Columbia University Press, 2002 via The Lioness in Winter by Ann Burack-Weiss, p.26), “Thanks to other people’s memoirs, you can time travel to a former self, though there are no guarantees that you will like what you find.”
Me, on the left (of course), the Amazing Alyssa, second from the right. 🙂
And in reading Ally’s book, I was humbled. All those classroom projects on the trade books, quizzes on the parts of speech, or weekly vocabulary matching – those weren’t where the learning was happening. Ally was deep into the life experiences that would both develop and test her character. In high school and college, her long term projects weren’t only research, but “me” search, and her notes were populated by the stories generated not by her girlhood imagination, but by her own creative, imperfect, and brilliant life. What a gift to read those stories as her former teacher. And what a privilege to have my former student, the author of Dear Universe, actually become my writing teacher. Thank you, Grasshopper.
“Let yourself be shaped according to your true nature.”
I am so grateful to Ally. Sitting in her Writing Bar workshops a few years ago and diving into her lessons on memoir writing, I felt like the 30-something teacher who had wanted so desperately to be a writer had been called home. And with Ally’s encouragement over the next year, I started my blog and never looked back. The nudge and expertise of Ally, coupled with the continuing support, wisdom, and guidance of Helen’s Women Rowing North Workshops, have given The Precious Days of my retirement purpose, meaning, and joy.
For the month of September, I was honored to be asked to share a guest blog post on Ally’s website. The theme was “bravery,” and she asked some great questions about my own writing journey. Yes, it is brave to put yourself out there, to tell stories that are yours, stories that someone else may say you have no right to tell. The bravest thing we can do is to own our life stories, and then tell them.
