Imprints in the Sand

    Tonight, when I sat down at my writing desk (my schedule currently is a LOT of nocturnal writing) I thought it was time I got back to my writing blog, and posted something actually about writing. Lately, I’ve been focused on a great many pieces I’m either editing or drafting, and writing has been going extraordinarily well, for a very long time, which, for a blog like this, is not necessarily a good thing.  Without personal (recent) experience of the stumbling blocks, what could I possibly write about that other writers would relate to? 

For help, I started browsing through a file I keep of drafts that I have started, either for the blog or for articles or essays. In doing that, I ran across several draft blog posts from my previous blog “Judy in

A student gathering at Eluwa Special School

Namibia” - an online journal I kept while I taught at Eluwa Special School (a school for the deaf and blind) in Ongwadiva, Namibia.  One particular draft stood out to me tonight; my little internal voice whispering that it was relevant, I should explore. I’d like to quote it in full here:

This morning, I walked down to my classroom to print out some student evaluation forms for tomorrow (yes, I know it’s Sunday).  Both as I was walking there and as I was walking back, I took detours around the school grounds. It is a “home weekend” and many of the children have been picked up to go spend the weekend with their parents on their homesteads or in nearby villages, but many have not. Regardless, the campus is quieter than usual on a weekend. I walk around the buildings and courtyards, and, looking down, I see my own footprints in the soft sand everywhere I go – my little sandal with the “Ecco” imprint in the middle – surrounded (everywhere I go) by the footprints of the children (often bare feet) and the prints of other teachers. I see my own prints headed this way and that all over the school.

Yesterday, as Digna and I headed out down the unfamiliar sand paths (Note: we had been invited to spend the weekend with another World Teach teacher at her school outside of a village a few hours away) back to the highway, I always knew we were on the right path by the sight of my own footprints coming in.  There has been no wind in several days, and the prints last.

I can’t help but wonder, today, how long after I leave those prints will be here.  Ashley had

A homestead in the desert we visited that weekend

been worried about us getting lost going back to the highway in the confusing array of sand paths through the brush, but I just followed my own prints.  I realize that, at home, on the concrete walkways of my school, I leave no imprint when I pass, and wonder if that contributes to the occasional sense of having lost my way on my own campus. 

Another teacher here texts me that he can’t really, at the moment, bear the thought of going home to “business as usual” at his school in California, and I understand.  I miss everyone at home so much, but I already know the many things I will miss here – the constant greetings from everyone, the sense of welcome in the cultural traditions, and the clear sense of having left an imprint, a mark, an impression.   

 

Here’s what struck me:  “I realize that, at home, on the concrete walkways of my school, I leave no imprint when I pass, and wonder if that contributes to the occasional sense of having lost my way on my own campus.”  

 

I think every person - and certainly every writer - wonders at some point about the imprint they’re leaving - what is memorable and what is like a conversation in the hallway at work or school - dealt with in the moment, and then forgotten? We wonder if we've lost our way, and no one has noticed we're missing.

Here’s the odd thing - I never got lost in Namibia - in the twisting narrow openings between huts and

Heading out from the highway into the brush (Digna 
on the left)

shacks, in the chaotically arranged streets of the larger cities, in the unmarked pathways in the desert, I headed out, time after time, and got where I was going, and felt, each moment along the way, that I was where I belonged for that journey.

I’m sure that confidence, that centeredness, came from the people there. Fresh from their revolution and separation from South Africa, fresh from a successful battle against apartheid, they owned where they were, every step of their daily lives, and owned it with pride. Few of them owned land or much in the way of possessions, but they owned their country, they owned their lives, and the sensation was contagious. It shone from them, infused the air around them. It’s an impossible sensation to fully communicate in words. 

For a writer, the road to owning where you stand, what you write, is a difficult one. No revolution will help you, it has to be a revolution of one. Don’t lay down concrete paths designed for the masses - kick

"my girls" from one of my classes at Eluwa - they
certainly left an imprint on my life, especially 
Selma, bottom row center. I hope I left a good
imprint on theirs. 

pathways in the soft sand, and beckon others to follow your footsteps, your imprint. Find a place in the world of writing that, when you speak with your own voice, it is the voice of the owner. 

Your goal should always be to leave an imprint - from writing to brighten a single life, or writing to shed light, or writing to set a fire - you’ll know the right path when you find it.  It will feel like home, like you can see the imprints of your own feet, hear the sound of your voice, know that you fully own where you stand. Leave an imprint.

 

 

Re-Surfacing Out of a Love for Words

I love words.  I love their simultaneous clarity and their inherent potential for confusion (especially in English). There is, at one and the same time, a beauty to a word's simple, direct meaning, and a potential for darkness in their possible connotations.  Nothing gives me so much joy as to see words that bring understanding, that sweep away confusion, and that brush away the fog.  And nothing - not a damn thing - makes me as mad as words intentionally used to muddle meaning, to manipulate, and to mislead. Sometimes, similar muddled meaning and misdirection can be unintentional - unskilled speakers, or people who believe their profession requires more language rather than clearer language. I don't blame them.  I do find them frustrating, and I know many others do as well. 

So, for that reason, there's a new thing I want to start doing here with a series of posts I'm calling "The (Un)-Ravel." One skill I know for certain that I have is an ability to take complex or ambiguous (or intentionally disingenuous) words and make the meaning behind them understandable. What often happens in the process is that what I am making clear are errors (unintentional or intentional) in thinking. 

On social media, I've often posted such things - analysis of someone's communication or statements to try to suss out what is the message behind them, or the problems buried in them.  I posted an analysis of a decision written by Justice Alito, an analysis posted of an argument supporting gun rights posted by a family member, and several others - all received with enthusiasm by people who found them to be helpful in clarifying their own thinking about the issues. 

I love doing this - not to rile anyone up, not to take anyone down, but to try to make clarity and (please God, I'm begging for this) clear thinking more of a priority in the way we receive and process information. Note

that I did not say "critical thinking." I used the term "clear thinking" instead for two reasons.  A) the term 'critical thinking' is embroiled in and therefore has its meaning muddled by a great deal of dissension and debate about its validity in education, making the term so weighed down with connotations it loses its usefulness; and B) 'critical thinking' comes nowhere near being accurately descriptive of what those who use it mean by it.  "Clear thinking" is, to my mind, much more descriptive of my goal.

Note that the majority of posts I put here will still be about what they have always been - the various reflections, incidents, and skills a writer uses to find her way in her work. The "(Un)-Ravel" posts will always be titled with that identification, and will likely be much less frequent, as un-raveling what someone is saying and/or arguing takes quite a bit of time when their original language is unclear. 

For each (Un)-Ravel, I will take some public writing or speech or article, and give it that kind of shake-down, taking out and disposing of the dirt and mud that only obscures meaning to see what we have left. First up will be (coming SOON) an un-raveling of the words of US Attorney General William Barr in two

places - his written opening statement for the US House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, and an interview he did with NPR, in both settings where he appears to deny the existence of systemic racism, and makes broad statements about the causes of crime, the causes of police brutality, and the appropriate role of law enforcement. That un-raveling is currently in progress and should be coming soon.