Calling Alaska

Alaska mountain landscape / Photo credit through Flickr: blmiers2 / Thank you, Barbara Miers!

Flag Counter says this site’s visitors include people from 102 countries and 49 of the United States. Naturally, we all wonder, Who is missing??

Alaska!

So, hello, Alaska! How have you been?

How ironic that the next dream vacation on my list is an Alaskan cruise. I saw a travel film of that spectacular coastline with its colorful boats and homes, the calving of both ice and whales. (Wait–do whales calve in Alaska or someplace warmer? I’ve decided not to fact check that so I can keep the pun.) Maybe I’ll visit the Alaskans before they discover me. I know someone who owns a secluded hunting lodge in Alaska. I have friends who summer there–kayaking, cooking over a fire on the beach (or is it a river?) and covering their windows so they can sleep. (Is it cheating if they visit my site from there?) One Christmas, I passed along a YouTube video of “The Hallelujah Chorus” creatively presented by the schoolchildren of Quinhagak, Alaska. I know the capital is Juneau. (Then again, I know all the state capitals; I just proved it when my sixth grader’s teacher quizzed us parents. It helps that I grew up in eight states and a province of Canada.)

In other words, my understanding of Alaska is almost as limited as the Alaskans’ knowledge of me.

Arizona hosts winter snowbirds from many beautiful summer spots, but an Alaskan/Arizonan split would be hard to beat. I would love hosting retreats in Alaska all summer. And if you reversed the usual preference–so you’d winter in Alaska, and summer in Arizona–you’d spend so much time indoors, you could be a prolific writer. Either way, it’s one of those perfect pairs for a writer’s paradise.

So whenever you arrive here, Alaska, please comment. What do you want me to know about writing in Alaska?

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Text © Gwyn Nichols 2012. All rights reserved. WritersResort.com

Photo © Barbara Miers through Flickr: blmiers2

“The Power of Your Past”

My birthday present from Berrett-Koehler

The week of my birthday, I won a book! (The Berrett-Kohler newsletter I’ve recommended to you has a challenge, and I entered.) And because I was in transition, stepping from one year into my next, and even from one job toward another, I chose John P. Schuster’s The Power of Your Past. I’m still enjoying it, savoring its reflective exercises.

While many are preaching at us to live only in the present, John warns against amnesia. He agrees that we should live in today, but not without learning from yesterday and claiming its gifts. He says, “It is about gathering important insights, and the wisdom that comes before informed action.” He advocates that we not misuse the past, either romanticizing/ minimizing the past, nor getting stuck in victimization, but instead, that we reflect on our past experiences and mine them to refine our identity, remember our dreams, and clarify our choices.

John outlines a process to “Recall, Reclaim, and Recast” the past. He recognizes that not all minds work alike, so he offers graphic organizers for several approaches. He has us identify the settings of our lives and consider the places where we did get stuck (what he calls compressions) and where we found encouragement or achievement (his evocations). That alone is a great start toward understanding where we have healthy relationships with our pasts and where there’s more treasure to be found.

And another gift for me: the book is well-edited and well-designed. Too often I get distracted by my own editing brain. So far, I’ve found only two suggestions. (1) I would left justify epigrams, instead of right. (2) I’d simplify some of John’s compound, complex questions. For example, here’s the first question: “How well do I integrate the gifts of my body, my mind, my will, my feelings, my sense of play, my enthusiasm for learning, in a way that helps me to be a well-balanced person?” (Say what?) So I wrote out the question, realized the point was whether I’m well balanced, and felt relief that I wouldn’t need a week to answer it.

This book is the perfect length–just enough examples for memories to bubble up, accompanied by simple processes to inspire reflection and insightful writing. It’s warm, wise, and welcoming.

Don’t skip the footnotes. I always read them–academic editor training is forever present–and I like to read notes all at once, after I’m well into a book. John’s footnotes are the perfect blend of citations, additional readings, and conversation.

The Power of Your Past made a fabulous birthday gift. And yes, I’m already beginning the new job, the new editing projects, and one of my favorite years so far.

Thanks, B-K!

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Text © Gwyn Nichols 2011

Thanks, I Needed That!

WordPress showcased “10 Prolific Post a Day/Week Participants,” and I’m one of them!

Shall I tell you what this meant to me?

I realized today how burned out I’ve become in the last few weeks. New quarter, new classes, new students, new preps, new circadian schedule, forecast of 116 degrees and no rain, no summer vacation. When students whined, I felt their pain all too well, and my short fuse required amends. Already, life had been warning me so strongly of impending burnout that three of the four classroom projectors I had touched in the past week had refused to shine, and today, the fifth worked barely long enough before burning out. Colleagues comforted me, assuring me that vulnerability is wonderful for my growth as a teacher, and my students received me better in that vulnerability. The spill gates had opened and I came home weepy.

My son is writing a musical, Invincible, in which he explores vulnerability. (He’s wise beyond his years. And we were discussing it way too late last night.) So maybe I can receive the message now?

So here is the unvarnished truth: I came home, looked at my computer, and resented my blog for the sixth blogging day in a row. I hadn’t even been here in a week. I wasn’t being consistent anymore, felt I’d lost my stride, and had nothing I wanted to say in public. Vulnerability schmulnerability. (There, Drew, we’ve finally rhymed it.)

Here I’ve been writing all year to encourage your writing fluency and confidence–and my own had fizzled out.

I did check e-mail this evening, where I found several congratulating comments on this recognition. It could not have been better timed. This challenge itself has been a blessing in my life, and today, when I hit that wall and wondered whether I should quit, there you were, handing me a cup of water and cheering me on. Bless you all!

I look forward to visiting the other nine. Maybe one of them is as thirsty as I was today.

WordPress Daily Post

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Text © Gwyn Nichols 2011. All Rights Reserved.