“Querencia – A place where one feels at home.” When I was looking online for the piece by Georgia Heard, I discovered many sites about “querencia” and this same lesson. The idea for me came from Cindy O’Donnell-Allen’s writer’s notebook unit during training at an AP Summer Institute in 1997. The Lesson As part of my Writer’s Notebook lesson when I was teaching, I would read the following article with my students: “Querencia” by Georgia Heard A few summers ago I experienced my first–and last–bullfight, in a small French town near the Spanish border, where Picasso once lived. When the gate to the ring opened,…
Year: 2019
The Nonfiction Book I Finished This Month
I plan to share my monthly reads via this blog, starting this month. My hope is to share my nonfiction choice the last week of the month (and my fiction choice sometime during each month). I love to read, but I have not been as committed of late. I miss sharing about books with my students, so I hope you will share your thoughts on a book I mention or share about what you are reading. Having kept a hand written book log/journal for years, I just started keeping it on Google drive for quicker reference and for making my notes for upcoming months. I…
Change – Don’t Be Afraid to Look
Change – a word that not only strikes fear, anxiety, apprehension but also excitement, anticipation. Transition: passage from one state, stage, subject, or place to another : change b : a movement, development, or evolution from one form, stage, or style to another (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transition). Spring – a time of rebirth, renewal, change. I love spring. The gorgeous mix of color while new life begins, rain washes winter away, and everything seems fresh and new. This spring, though, brought major change, and, in a sense, renewal for us. The Last Four Months I have not posted or written anything since the end of January. Our lives…
Mom, Dementia, Daughters, and Dying
This post is the conclusion to my last post about Mom. Our last Christmas with the remnants of our Mom was in 1997. We knew that it would be. We made our peace with that and tried to prepare for what was to come. The years 1998 and 1999 are a blur for me. Mother’s mental capacity and physical health rapidly declined. Two years of visits with doctors to discuss her physical problems. The blankness of her stare with an unintelligible babble or sound comprised our visits. I was a single mom starting my teaching career, and my sister, blessedly, attended to many of those…
Mom, Dementia, and Daughters
I have not written much about my Mom as she has been physically gone for almost nineteen years. She died when she was 74. She would have been 95 years old on January 30 this year. Losing Dad is still fresh, and writing has been a catharsis for me in handling my grief. Mom, though, and her circumstances, rendered a different kind of grief. My Mom had either Alzheimer’s (which we think) or vascular dementia (something about which I recently read). The phone rings at 4:03 in the morning. Sleep, uncertainty. Answer? Yes/No? Prank? Emergency? Respond. News. Nursing home. Hospital. Another step toward going home.…