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A Labor of Love
Dear Readers of Footnotes2Stories, “I am writing this to you, and I hope that you will read it so you’ll know . . .” how much I care. When summer ended and school used to start after Labor Day, often the first day assignment included writing: “How I spent my summer vacation.” Writing was good practice for thinking about what I had done, what I read, and which experiences stood out. Swimming lessons, Camp Fire Girls Day Camp (raising and lowering the flag each day), and weeks spent at the Friends of Youth Camp at Mt. Charleston outside of Las Vegas, Nevada made summer fun. Although I never had an…
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Thank You Note? Or Thank You Not?
To write or not to write? That is the question. Whether tis nobler to overlook acknowledgement of a gift or to take pen in hand and write the words "Thank You," thus opposing the nature of ingratitude, and by opposing, end the default sense of entitlement. When gifts received are not acknowledged by the receiver, what’s a mother to do? Or anyone, for that matter. Anyone who gives time and thought and money to purchase a gift merits proper acknowledgement. acknowledgement: a thing done or given in recognition of something received Recipients who fail to make the connection between gifts received and the giver who gave the gift ought to…
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Shauna Niequist Talks About Change
In her latest book, I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet, Shauna writes about life after death––death of the life she thought she would live. “This is not about what I’ve been through; this is about what remains . . ..” “This book you’re holding is one I’ve been writing and rewriting for years, and as much as I’ve struggled with it, the struggle has healed me, helped me, and forces me to make sense of my story and our world––as much as anyone can. Being a writer means being committed to paying attention, to walking through the world as a noticer. It means finding language for the seemingly unspeakable,…
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Clock Faces: Time Only Moves Forward
“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” William Penn The psalmist wrote words to remind you and me to number our days in order to apply our hearts to wisdom. [1] Easier said than done. Right? Clock by Linda Pastan Sometimes it really upsets me—the way the clock’s hands keep moving, even when I’m just sitting here not doing anything at all, not even thinking about anything Why or why not? except, right now, about that clock and how it can’t keep its hands still. Even in the dark I picture it, and all its brother and sister clocks and watches, even sundials, all those compulsive…
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How Our Stories Affirm Eternal Truths
A play, a film, a book, each story sets out to consolidate something true about life. The narrative winds its way through characters, setting, scenes, and plot to capture in time what otherwise takes a long time to learn in real life. A director directs actors, hoping the audience will get caught up in the story and feel all the feelings, experience a reality that embeds itself in memory, almost as if the events portrayed had happened to them. “I’m awfully interested in how big things begin. You know how it is; you’re twenty-one or twenty-two and you make some decisions . . . then whissh! you’re seventy. You’ve been…
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Running Away from Home
[Remembering from my life an earlier All Saints’ Day, here’s an edited chapter, excerpt from my memoir manuscript.] That both our fathers had died the year before, within months of each other, this had nothing to do with Dianne and me running away from home on November 1, All Saints’ Day. Neither of us had planned to run away, but instead of going to school, Dianne and I awoke that morning after Halloween on sugar overload eager for an adventure. Dianne had spent the night with me on a school night. My mother had already left for work. To school, or not to school? Our plan unfolded. We combined our…
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When Kids Say the Funniest Things
I hope you write down what your kids or grandkids say when what they say makes you laugh. Adults need more refreshing spontaneity of children and less duplicity from adults. If you are a teacher of children, you have an unending supply of funny things that kids will say. Somewhere I have a book that a teacher compiled after asking her students how to cook a turkey. She asked these young children to draw a picture of their Thanksgiving turkey and give instruction for how to cook it. The one I remember: “Get up in the middle of the night. Turn the oven to 2 degrees.” A child’s perception of…
