As I am cleaning, I come across old pieces of writing that evoke significant memories. This is a good one. I think it may be a children's book sometime in the future. I wrote it before I was a Math/Science specialist, I think. As I recall, I used to do a writing lesson called Extraordinary Stories. I wanted the kids to share, and I wanted it to be a safe space,  (there may have been a bully in the class I was worried about)  so I wrote this to get that idea across. Here it is:

Before I leave to Guam, I wanted to have my living area in some kind of order. (Yeah, because my sister is coming to visit my mom when I'm gone and I didn't want her to see my mess.) It was a mess for a couple of reasons. One, I was a teacher so a bit of a packrat, and I had some boxes that I had brought home from school that still needed to be sorted out. Two, I have an aspiration to be a collage artist, so I would save random stuff thinking it would be good for collage. 

This is what I have been working on, pretty much like a full-time job since January. It's done and available on Amazon! The story of how this came to be can be traced to adolescent angst while I was growing up in Guam. 

My fascinating, soulful daughter Dance hosts a radio show on Guam called Soul Sessions on Guam Public Radio, their time Saturday from 7 to 9 pm, and our time Friday from 11 - 1, live streamed. When I was working, I was so exhausted on Friday, that I had to set my alarm to wake me up to listen in, and then I would go in and out of sleep throughout the show.  

Last week, I wrote two letters to the editor of West Hawaii Today and one of them got published. I do not know why the first one didn't, but their policy is that publication s not guaranteed. Both were about education, which I guess is my hot button issue, understandably. I do care about other things, but I guess I write about education because I know it so well. Here is the first letter, followed by a link to the one that got published. 

I guess I haven't written much about this thing that has been consuming my life for the last month or so. When I lived in Guam in the 80s, I wrote, developed, and produced a play, Pulani. It was a great experience, something in my life that I am very proud of. When I was in Guam last summer, I wrote a proposal to the Arts Council to do it again, and in October found out that we had gotten the grant. 

I have turned the story of my play, Pulani, into a story poem. When I laid it out on a dummy, I saw it was going to be 48 pages, which is longer that a typical 24 or 32 page picture book. I am on page 36, so I am almost done.

A few months ago, I purchased a Vitamix. Sure, I could have got a cheaper brand, but I was impressed with the Costco demo. It was not an impulse buy because I was sold on it a few months before I bought it. I told myself that I would buy it next time the demo came to Costco. And that is what happened.