Listen to your grandma

A couple of days ago I was subbing in an English class where the teacher left a new vocabulary list for the students. Probably the fifth word down the list was “biased,” so I asked the class if anyone knew what that meant or had heard that somewhere before.

One boy at the back of the room with considerable high-school-swag immediately piped up: “uh, yeah, isn’t that like when your mom tells you you look awesome, but you can’t really trust it because she’s your mom?”

Quite right. I congratulated him on his astute summary of “bias.”

While that’s not the definition the teacher had listed on the vocab sheet, it resonated with me. I had experienced this kid’s definition of “bias” when I wrote a letter to my grandparents recently.

After fifty years of living in the same house, Grandma Carolynn and Grandpa Jim moved to a (DOPE) retirement center complete with multiple pools, a dining hall, all sorts of fun classes to attend, and a great view of a lake right out their front window. Basically, it’s college without all the studying.

In honor of their move, I wrote a letter to them about all my favorite memories from visiting their house. I’ll miss the jungle-paradise backyard with fruit trees galore and hummingbird feeders on the deck. I’ll always remember the time Chris and I belly-slid across the porcelain shower floor, thinking we were so clever to have found an indoor Slip-n-Slide. I loved learning to play shuffleboard in the side yard and sitting around the dining room table for endless rounds of Hand and Foot and family dinners.

Not long after, Grandma called me up.

“Katie, we loved your letter! You know, you really should write more things...maybe send something in to Reader’s Digest!”

While grandmas give great advice and—no bias here—my grandmas are the best, my thoughts went straight up Ariana Grande...”aww thank you, but of course you think that because you’re my grandma...next.”

My awesome grandmas...and me as both of them for Halloween 2018

But I didn’t say that to her. Instead I just chuckled, thanked her, and then moved on to another conversation topic.

A few days later I thought about what Grandma Carolynn had said again. Maybe I would like to write something for other people to read...

In college, one of my Journalism professors, Dr. McCollum, asked us to write a blog for a semester on a topic of our choice. If you read “Why start a blog?” you know I chose to write about the fourth-longest-running show on TV—but #1 show in my heart—only behind The Simpsons (644 episodes), Gunsmoke (635 episodes), and Law and Order (456 episodes): Law and Order: SVU (449 episodes, watch out LAO Mothership, you’re about to go down).

Through that experience I learned:

a) a lot about the use of commas, most, of which, was perplexing then, and, I now, have, forgotten.

b) about SEO and how to effectively tag posts (which is different on Wix than Wordpress so bear with me while I figure it out)

c) that if you try to screenshot part of a show on Netflix or the Xfinity app, it will save as a black screen

d) that if you try to circumnavigate the screenshot-block by taking a picture of a computer or TV screen, it looks like a bunch of Tetris tiles have descended onto the characters’ faces

e) people like reading lists amid blog posts

f) people like having things to click on

...and, finally, an unimportant side item at the time:

g) that hey, I forgot that I kinda like to write

I can sense Dr. Mac reading this now and meticulously judging my AP Style.

A few years after writing the SVU blog, just as I began to forget my “I-like-to-write” epiphany, I took two classes about teaching literacy in the Ed program. Our professor, Dr. Hasty, asked us to keep a "Literacy Notebook," which sounded super fancy in the syllabus.

Soon, I was sure, calligraphic lettering would flow from my hand onto a leather-bound tablet meant for genius writers like Shakespeare, JK Rowling, and Eminem. The journal, however, turned out to be a red comp book with mismatch neon sticky-dividers where we would try out different writing genres between class meetings.

...something about great teachers being life long learners and life long learners being fervent readers and writers... 😉

After writing a few poems, a narrative about riding in the middle seat on airplanes, a rewrite of a children’s book I love in a genre I hate, thank you notes, billboard ads, word sketches, and more, I found that I was really enjoying myself.

The classes ended, but I kept adding entries to that classy little wide-ruled notebook.

And once again I remembered, “oh yeah, I like writing.”

So back to the question from the first post: why write a blog?

Grandma reminded me again (third time's the charm, right?): I like writing! And I haven’t done a lot of things I just like doing for the sake of doing them before, so even after 10 posts, I’m still excited about this.

I’m excited about sharing stories from my friends, family, and community, and collaborating with other writers like Emily Reed to tell even more stories!

And, most importantly, I’m excited about writing about the connections I see between what I read, experience, do, etc. and God’s word. Over and over in the Bible, we see prophets, disciples, and even Jesus himself teaching about the Kingdom of God through the retelling of the history of a nation (see Esther 6, 2 Samuel 7, Acts 7 for a few examples) or through sharing a story or parable (the gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—are FULL of parables. I particularly like the “Parable of the Lost Sheep" in Luke 15.)

I Iove the opportunity to add to that body of work with my own narratives and testimony because, as evidenced in the Bible, stories help us learn in such a unique and amazing way.

Dr. Mac and Dr. Hasty: I cannot thank you enough. Thank you for all your lessons about writing (and blogging) and for reminding me that I really do love to write. Thank you for reading my writing and thousands of other students’ pieces, too, and providing feedback to make us better. And thank you for continuing to encourage students to scribe their thoughts—whether its for others to read or just for a journal entry.

And Grandma Carolynn: thank you for telling me to write more. Even if you are the only one reading these blogs, that's 100% worth it!

If there are other readers who made it this far down the page 😉

• Is there something you love to do that you haven’t started doing yet? Why not?

• What’s that item on your to do list that you keep putting off?

• What can you do about it this week?