writing prompt #1 What Five Things Did You Love The Most When You Were Six Years Old?

My childhood was full of happiness, fairytales, wishes, dreams. By number three, I forgot that I was only supposed to write 5 things that I loved and continued to 6. I might have to do a "Part 2" at some point.


1. I loved how my parents packed my lunch for school. Mom would write little notes or draw pictures or stars, smiley faces, and hearts XOXO on my ziplock bags. Looking back now, I think about how different my lunch usually looked compared to my classmates' lunches: wheat bread on my sandwich, fruit juice, and a cloth napkin.

2. I loved jean mini skirts and my frilly white dress with candy stripes on the sleeves and skirts. When I wore the white dress I felt like I was the mot beautiful thing in the world. I remember wearing it while dancing around in our garage, bouncing off and on my dad's home-made workout bench.

3. I loved the game "Oh Chicken." This is a game my sister and I made up that involved repeatedly standing on one arm of the couch and falling backwards intoning, "oooooooooohhhhh" while falling and  "CHICKEN!" when our backs made contact with the couch cushions. My sister and I played our game until we grew too tall to fall so trustingly onto our couch without the fear of hitting the backs of our heads on the other arm.

4. I loved Bond Crosby. He sat across from me in Mrs. Swank's 1st grade class. He had a military crew cut and played pencil hockey with me . I remember constantly trying to reconcile that his name wasn't "Bill Cosby," or "James Bond."

5. I loved when my friend Elizabeth's mom would make the car dance. Miss Betsy would pick us up from gymnastics, or brownies, or school and on the way home would drive maniacally down our neighborhood streets, one hand gripped on the steering wheel, moving it as if she were wiping it down, the other waiving convincingly in the air. The car jerked left-right-left-right to the beats Ace of Base's "The Sign,"  or Gloria Estefan's "Conga." Elizabeth and I shrieked and laughed and demanded that she admit that it was her, not the car that was dancing, which Mrs Betsy of course denied and simply switched driving hands to waive the other frantically out the drivers' side window.

6. I loved singing and, therefore, the Little Mermaid. I loved that my mom made me a Little Mermaid Costume for Halloween. It was a little purple bandeau, and a long, straight, green skirt with a little stuffed fin at the end. It was a dream came true, despite being made to wear a white turtle neck underneath my purple bandeau because it was cold. How dare my parents ruin the illusion of me being an actual mermaid! I've since given myself hypothermia for the sake of a costume looking cool. I had good parents with better sense than I had.

empathy and teaching

     I recently read a quote that declared empathy "an act of imagination," and a necessary skill to produce great creative writing; imagining oneself as another person in a given scenario. I would also add that empathy, and therefore imagination, is key to being a great teacher. If a teacher can imagine him or herself as that child or teenager they are trying to reach, I think it is much easier to connect and to figure out the words and methods that will reach that particular student. Imagine yourself as a 10 year old who is smart, hyper active, lives in a fairy land, and imagines herself as the center of the universe. Imagine yourself as a 13year old terrified of the ultimate disgrace: being uncool in middle school. Imagine yourself as an 18 year old who is responsible beyond her years, with the ability to shoot daggers out of her eyes, with absolutely no qualms about making a fuss about getting her way. In someways, we've all been each of these kids at one point or another.
If I can see myself in every student, I can reach every student.

Read, Swim, Garden: Invitation to comment on a couple of ideas

These are some ideas I've been thinking about, but have yet to take the time to flesh out in any readable form.

What would change in New Orleans if every citizen could read, swim, and grow a garden?

How would teaching people how to garden change a community? What steps could be taken to begin this process?

How would cultivating a healthy, integrated relationship with water change the lives of people in New Orleans and the city as a whole? Where should we start making changes?

A book I'm writing in my head:
How Orleans parish could thrive out from under the thumb of corporate America.

I had to write these ideas down so that I can come back to them later. They are part of my effort to be a part of what could potentially be a cultural change that is unique to New Orleans a (literally) steaming hot bed of new ideas and opportunities waiting to be had.

Intelligent, optimistic members of the community, unite!!