I'm starting to believe that the greatest sign of mental health is the ability to laugh at one's self. Teaching renders many opportunities to test this theory. I decided today to share with my students some of my own high school writing samples. Students are funny creatures when you share anything remotely personal with them. At first, they glanced upward at me, stifling the growing giggles. One brave soul would chuckle out loud for all of us to hear. By the time I could barely read through my laughter, they joined me. We had a great time, and I ended the exhibition by telling them they could never be afraid again to share their writing in class. On a personal note, I'm so glad that I was able to save my file folder of teenaged writing. It is a mixed up collection of English writing assignments, poetry scribbled on spiral notebook paper, reflections on life, and even my falling-apart Bible complete with margin notes. What a walk down memory lane. As I read my classmates and...

Today has been a delightful day. For weeks now I've been complaining about how cluttered my life feels. It's a long story, and all that is important for now is that the heaviest albatross around my neck has been the clutter around my house. I'm not much of a pack rat. In fact, everything that is important to me fits nicely inside one large and one medium sized tote in my computer room closet. My husband, however, still has the football and basketball he played with in middle school tucked away in the garage. Armed with a hefty black trash bag, I marched into the computer room and turned on my "work" DVD: Dumb & Dumber. While Harry and Lloyd traveled across the country, I organized the puzzles and board games on the top shelf, set up a filing system for our "important" papers, shredded five year old bills, carried two full trash bags outside, and planned part of my next clutter ambush. My mantra: yes, you can throw away those newborn pictures of other...

I will forever be grateful to the youth group leader who first shared with me Shel Silverstein's "The Missing Piece." It is the story of the missing piece in search of it's missing piece. In this installment, the piece comes across several potential pieces: one that doesn't want to even try to be "its" missing piece, one too small, too large, too sharp, and too square. It finds some pieces that fit, but it doesn't hold it tightly enough, or holds it too tightly, or finds that its life is stifled when "completed". No matter how many times I've read it (or the sequel), I'm moved by the delighfully simplistic prose and drawings. I shared this with my classes today. We all needed the break from our rigorous writing lessons, so I read to them and shared the pictures with them. As I usually do, I cried when the missing piece sets down his "piece" and rolls away. My students were outraged that the piece was calloused enough to ju...

This world is kinder to the kind that won't look back They are a chosen few, among us now, unbowed somehow And one day he looked at me, and before I took one breath I knew I would only see his shadow in what light was left And those who need adventure, they can sail the seven seas And those who search for treasure, they must live on grander dreams I didn't write those words, but I've often wished I did. This song is about moving on and letting go of the past...a concept I wish I could grasp. Instead, I find myself sitting in a revolving door of bitter memories and self-loathing wishing and wondering when I'll finally take the jump to one side of the building or the other. What's funny (in a peculiar, not "ha ha" way) to me is that the centrifigal force holding me in my mental prison is my own fear of sharing myself with the world. For much of my life, the image I needed to portray to the world was one of strength and steel. This is very much part of my na...

Here's my cheesy wish for myself and all my loved ones: I hope we all find a place of comfort ...in our spirits ...in our lives ...in our attitudes ...and follow our bliss! This is one of my great danes, Peaches. She likes the bath tub as much as I do, but without the water!