Quiet #SOLC26 18/31

Part of the magic of writing a daily slice of life is that I’m forced to notice small moments every day, and – somewhat less obviously – allowed to reflect. The noticing is clear: whether I’m writing about something that happened that day or stumbling across a memory that has sudden relevance, I pause to collect the moment and then provide structure via words. In this way, writing is an attempt to capture and share an impression. Writing also shapes the moment, insisting on a start and an end, a form, the importance of some details over others, and an expected or desired effect. As I shape each moment, writing gives me a slender sense of control by ordering my thoughts and making moments into stories. Anything can be a slice of life because I can notice it and fit it into my own understanding of who I am or am not. When I capture these moments, I affirm my identity.

I can imagine writing daily moments and leaving them unconnected – loose beads, rolling on the basement floor – but that’s not my experience with this month. Instead, at some point, I start to pick up those written beads and string them together in new ways. I recognize that one moment is temporally distant from another, but as I shape my larger story, I examine them and mentally place them together. The more I write, the more patterns I can create with my captured moments. I can see myself in different ways. The more I read other blogs and comment on them, the more I am able to understand which patterns are universal (or at least universal to educators) and which are personal.

Somehow the hurried pace of March, the steady march, if you will, of write, read, comment, read, comment, read, comment, write – and my sense that I cannot keep up, can never keep up (have I missed your blog? I’m so sorry. I wanted to read it. When did I stop responding to comments on my blog? I apologize. I cannot even begin to tell you how much I appreciate them.) In the rush, March becomes an exercise in looking for ideas, of looking at what I’ve already written, of restringing the moments. In other words, amidst the chaos, I reflect.

Every year at the end of March people reflect on the month. I get double the reflection time since March Break always happens in, well, March. Here, in this third week, while I’m away from my normal routine, the noise of the school year and my family life and even my writing quiets. Sometimes the quiet is fleeting, but it’s almost always there. 

Today, I am in my favourite place in the world: my aunt and uncle’s cottage on the North side of Grand Cayman. Familiar with the comfort of this place, I allow myself to relax more readily than I might elsewhere. The boys I’m accompanying are at the beach and I am alone. The breeze shushes through the trees, the birds call – grackle, mockingbird, dove – and, from the nearby pool, children shriek in delight. I am no longer the mother of shrieking children. My mind wanders as I sift through the memories, the slices of life that come up. I am a newly minted teenager, exploring the island, spending hours with my sisters, draped over a raft in this very bay, astonished at the giant starfish. That night, my aunt and my mother will rub soothing aloe into our badly burned backs; as an adult, I check my back regularly for signs of skin cancer. I am a high school senior on her first solo trip with her best friend. Driving on the wrong side of the road, listening to the soundtrack from Cocktail, thinking Tom Cruise is sexy, wishing we were Elisabeth Shue. While Kokomo and Don’t Worry, Be Happy blast from our tinny speakers, I feel both sexy and mature – though I am neither – in my strapless blue and bathing suit with a ruffle across the bust and a cut-out back. Now I watch my younger sister get married on the beach as my grandfather wipes away tears, and today I glide over the jealousy I felt back then, choosing to remember instead that my uncle noticed and took me out for secret drinks afterwards, reminding me that he and my aunt met when they were a bit older and had (have) a strong happy marriage. I am here with friends, and as a newlywed, then, later, snorkeling while pregnant and then again with my firstborn, who enthusiastically eats sand, and my second, who does the same. I am here with another family as we watch our older children create a scavenger hunt for the younger ones and we play games on the porch. I am here and here and here. I have written these moments in my journals, captured them in photographs, published them on this blog. 

What moments have I forgotten? Which have I chosen not to share today? Why not mention the Olympic swimmer I met here (ahem) or the time we forgot to defrost the turkey before what must have been Christmas dinner? The way my dad never really did get along with my aunt or the times my sisters and I fought? The time we met a celebrity on a snorkel trip and invited her over? Swimming with turtles and stingrays and dolphins? Being stung by jellyfish or cut by coral? 

Today, in this quiet, I string together moments of comfortable happiness. I know from what I’ve written this month that my mind and memory need this. There will be a time for exploring new places, for highs and lows, for petty jealousies and wild ecstasies. But for today I am content with the quiet of this story and this storytelling. I know that I have plenty of moments to string into different patterns another time.

When I write, I become more conscious of the stories I tell myself about who I am – and I am better for it.