Starting the 2025 #WriteOut Traditions a Little Differently (That Is, Sort of Our of Commission for a Wee Bit)(Oh, Poo). It is What It is.

It’s a holiday in the northeast, but I’m taking five - five minutes of outdoor contemplation to reflect on another year of #WriteOut, our National Writing Project traditions, and the somewhat timely nor’eastern bringing winds, rain, and clouds over Connecticut.

The good news is that I got outdoors before the prep (isn’t that teacherly of me…being prepared for all that’s coming). For an educator like me, Columbus Day means a day off to accomplish one of the million items that are put off because of the demands of a teaching life, including the explorations that need to occur to keep us healthy. This, for me, includes colonoscopies ever three years. I suppose drilling into dark caverns and building lives underground is the way of prairie dogs, cicadas, badgers, and bilbies. It is also the major labor of alien beings when they come to Earth to learn more about the human species. I read Whitley Strieber’s Communion as a very young man (well, high school student). Ever since, I’ve only known it to be a matter of time before the visits. Friends who went before me, realized such probing is the way of a middle-aged life, and so this is why I’m scheduled for my second one this morning.

It’s actually nice spending five minutes reflecting on an October day as the winds start throwing leaves from the trees and the gray stratus clouds wisps along quickly underneath the thicker ones above. Typically the waves head out to the Atlantic ocean, but these are flowing west, being pushed in from the storm entering on the east. My outdoor chimes are loving the exercise and grateful to play music north of the Long Island Sound.

Tanya Baker, Executive Director, and I recorded two special episodes of The Write Time for this year’s #WriteOut, both which are destined to be inspirational and moving - I loved listening to the brilliance of James Fester, Maggie Delgado-Chernick, Rob Walker, & Kevin Hodgson. I also appreciate the never-ending leadership of Christine Cantrill.

And I’m thinking about movements as I write this windy afternoon, and how hard it is to keep Crandall from sitting still. I know I have to sit still today in oder to allow the Columbus Day festivities to commence. It’s isn’t 1492, nor is anyone sailing the ocean blue (in the narratives we tell ourselves about history). I’m just hoping a winning lottery ticket is discovered, because one of my intents has always been to invest back into the National Writing Project network - to bring funds to teachers, schools, districts, and writers, so that more classrooms have support and more conversations about writing instruction can be shared via institutes, workshops, and the power of teachers teaching teachers. 

Tomorrow at this time I’ll likely be curled up in a fetal position in the same way that Karal (the dog) has been curled up in response to this October storm (she sensed it was coming a few days ago). No popcorn, nuts, or red/purple dyes. I have my drop off and my pick up, and I’ll be carrying with me the surreal nature of being out of control for a little while (ah, Write Out…perhaps it’s a little trick we tell ourselves that we’re ever in control…naturally, we’re always at the whims and fancies of the Great Whatever). 

But here’s to the work. Here’s to October 12-26th and the collegial celebration. And here’s to good health, always.