why untitled, unwritten?

I once labeled everything before it was written, until I found it kept too many words away. Now I am leaving the unwritten untitled, until it grows into a name.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Successes




Record your successes.

Why this took me so long to realize, I don't know.  I forget my successes if I never write them, forget that I'm more capable than I give myself credit for.  

Like this: I will mentally harass myself for being late to something, because it is my worst habit and I'm only just beginning to break it.  But I'll forget that I completed that assignment and got an outstanding grade because I worked hard for it and earned it.  

There are these things that I write about teaching my someday students: how to find their voice, to tell their stories.  Then I go and forget to practice these things myself.  How can I someday expect my students to believe that their voices are worth hearing if I don't act on that belief about myself?

That's part of why blogger and I took so much time apart in recent months.  I have been looking for my voice, trying to recapture it so that I can try to teach others to find their voices, too.  That exploration came in fits and starts and although I haven't moved past my wordy sentences or over-reliance on clichés or weak verbs, my voice is making its way through onto paper and computer screen.

And that's what matters: putting words down, no matter how unpolished.



["joie de vivre" by Ana Luísa Pinto (Luminous Photography), on Flickr.  Please give credit & link back to her before sharing the image!]

1 comment:

... said...

Your voice is beautiful.