Stephen King advises against the use of a writer’s notebook because “it’s a great way to immortalize bad ideas.”

As he explains, life is a giant sifter for your memories and it’s the good stuff that stays behind. In this context, he is referring to good ideas and he’s correct–they never leave you–but he also points to something more.

The memories that stick with us over the years on on the extremes: really good and really sad.

I suppose it’s the reason we reflect on our childhood and adolescence with a filter of how we are now. If we’re in a good spot, we look at the tough parts of our childhood as resilience building lessons and remark how the good stuff was part of the ‘good ol’ days.’

The fact I laugh with my mom about how many wooden spoons she broke over my rear is a testament to how awful I must’ve been and how good things are now.

Sometimes, I think we try too hard to create good memories and forget that regardless of what you do, the good stuff will stay with you.

And the good stuff is usually the unexpected and it’s always in the details.

There have been many great joys since this quarantine began and I want to highlight two.

The first is my success at making sourdough bread.

I know it seems trendy, but it seems understandable why the trend surged: making sourdough requires the upmost patience and its process takes constant monitoring to complete. When you have nowhere to go and nowhere to be, it’s easy to take up the task.

My mother and my grandmother were bakers and the closest I’ve ever come to baking was throwing a Pop-Tart in the toaster. It was redeeming to work with my hands to bring back the smells and tastes of my childhood.

The second is I’ve learned how to write again.

Now, I’m always looking to improve my craft and I haven’t stopped writing, but I rediscovered my love for it.

Writing, for me, was never about the outcome. I love the process.

It’s the sitting down (or standing) and letting the words out in what I consider a meditative act.

Over time, it’s felt like a grind. I’ve been struck by imposter syndrome and self-consciousness, which has left me fearful of every word I put down.

Is it good enough?
Does it show my growth?
Am I being too pretentious?

That has all melted away because I’ve recognized the original reason I fell in love with writing is that it’s fun!

I literally just sit in a room and make stuff up (fiction) or talk to myself on paper (non-fiction).

It’s freeing.

Should this quarantine continue any longer, I might discover a penchant for doing repairs around the house… but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

If I were to compare my writing output to others (and to where I’d ideally like to be), there’d be disappointment. The writer who gets to sequester themself in an office for hours and write thousands of words will always seem like a pipe dream.

With the current demands of life, I’m limited to writing in a notebook in very short bursts whenever I can stack steal a moment–typing it out later when (if) the day settles.

Prior to quarantine, the writing happened in my commute to work as I dictated into my phone.

If I wanted to get writing done and feel satisfied, it’s necessary to adjust the parameters upon which it will occur and what its outcome will be.

As life and circumstances change, so will the parameters.

Contrary to what I originally imagined, it’s never a straight, clear course to get where you want, but as long as you adjust…

You’ll get there.

My previous attempts to keep a lawn green and healthy resulted in the installation of artificial turf.

Problem solved: perfect green lawn all year with no maintenance. Well, it required the occasional vacuuming, much to the confusion of my neighbours.

In speaking with my dad about the subject (as I never remember our lawn being less than perfect), he told me the best time to lay seed is the fall. It won’t germinate well, but the roots will grow through the winter and come Spring, it’ll be ready for the heat.

Planting in hot days produces shallow roots that die easily.

Deep roots grown through the patience of a few seasons provides the strongest results.

How patient are we to grow our own roots?

I was given the following thought to consider:

I will never know the freedom my parents had as kids and my kids will never know the freedom I had.

It’s a staggering point to consider, especially since my parents were very much of the old school mentality:
“Here’s a Pop-Tart. now get out the door until the streetlights come on.”
Yet, their parents helicoptered them even less than that.

That doesn’t fly (as much) today despite the fact our world is much safer than it has ever been. However, the dangers are there and amplified by media saturation of nothing but horror stories–making everyone a little paranoid.

It still doesn’t fully explain it and I suspect a key factor is the loss of our local community. Giving a child some cash to walk to the corner store and buy some bread isn’t possible because, for one, the corner stores are gone. Then there’s the issue of barely knowing our neighbours.

Perhaps we’re just in another cycle and the pendulum will swing back, especially since virtual spaces are being created to bring local communities together.

Or perhaps our kids will just never know and not be bothered by it.

The health benefits of going for a walk kick in after the first twenty minutes.

The results of a workout come when you exhaust the muscles.

The best writing comes after you get the first few paragraphs out of the way and let the subconscious take over.

The difficulty and reward of running don’t come in the first five minutes, or even the first five kilometers.

We never know what we’re capable of unless we’re willing to push ourselves. Push too hard, of course, and it could end in disaster.

But unless you’re willing to find out where that limit is, you’ll never see what you can truly accomplish.

There was a wonderful thread on Twitter about the “EduCelebrities” that dominate the platform. These are educators who have exploded in popularity thanks to their ideas, methodology, or (if you really dig beneath the surface) marketing.

The gist of the thread is their online personas have elevated their egos, and therefore their insecurities, to jerkface jerk status. Not all, of course, but they create a precedent for others to be like them.

I have no doubt there is a genuine care for the craft of teaching and willingness to elevate the practice so that all may benefit, but some honesty is needed.

For instance, at a Math conference, one teacher did a workshop on going gradeless in his classroom. He started with all the benefits, but then pivoted to show the progression and the result: the performance of his students dipped for the first few years, but then returned to where it was prior.

This could be seen as a failure (why do all that work for the same results?), but he showed the caveat–the performance curve was the same, but with way more students in the classroom.

Well, the norm was over a dozen would drop the class and now they weren’t.

Where the EduCelebrities are concerned, there is a feeling (whether intentional or not) that if everyone adopted their way of thinking, we will have fixed education. Period.

Yet, we never hear of their struggles, their issues, their failures and heartbreaks. This is a concern to me, especially for those who follow them with blinders on.

It can give a teacher (especially young in their career) a sense that if they’re not perfect, with 100% buy-in from their students, they’re failures. It’s devastating and can lead to burnout quite easily.

It’s the responsibility of an educator to keep learning, keep growing and keep adapting… while always keeping in mind this is for the benefit of students and not other educators on social media.

My thoughts lately have drifted towards what will happen when quarantine restrictions ease up. What will we do with ourselves afterward?

Aside from the obvious excitement of re-uniting with people, visiting family and stepping foot into areas that were closed off, what differences will there be?

As much as we feel we can get right back to it, there’s going to be an adjustment period for all of us. We’ve changed our rhythm and expectations and we’ll have to change it again.

Then there are the lessons we’re learning.

Remote learning has been a tremendous adjustment, but there are many flowers to be picked from its weeds. There’s also the time with my kids, the teamwork my spouse and I have established, learning how to bake and… this is the big one for me… completely unplugging for the weekend.

In the world of work, we’ve gone from, “It can’t be done!” to “We have to do it!”

There’s a real appreciation for our health care workers and genuine concern for our vulnerable people. UBI has gone from a pie-in-the-sky idea to plausible outcome when this is over.

The future is looking different… I just wonder how different it will be.

When I need to figure out what thoughts are ruminating in my mind, I find it helpful to fish them out through writing.

Writing is typically treated as a production art.

You write to show something:
Write a reflection piece…
Write an essay to argue…
Write a Facebook post to inform…

A major contributor of this treatment is our education system, of which I am a part and doing my best to unravel some of its more damaging practices.

However, divorcing writing from the production piece frees the mind to uncover the depths of your own thinking.

Julia Cameron recognized this through her practice of morning pages.

People who journal recognize this as well.

Sometimes I write my thoughts out completely and pull out a nugget for my posts here. Other times, the entry is too personal and I simply don’t post that day.

In a time where all of us are filled with emotions, fishing through writing may be a helpful way to cope.

It’s the first question I ask every morning.

While the optimistic, motivational speakers tell us to think positive and watch the day manifest itself accordingly–that’s not how it works.

Some days are tough and others are flat-out garbage. No self-affirmations will fix it.

The kind of day it’s going to be should be dictated by the following questions:

What am I going to pay attention to today?
How am I going to react to what happens?

That should determine what kind of day I’m going to have.