What divided my classes a bit about the essay was the end. Hoagland spends a few hundred words describing turtles – the various kinds, the ones he owns, where he finds them, how they can die easily in captivity – basically, the first section of the essay is an ode de la turtle. But at the end of the piece, it takes a turn (at most good essays do) and becomes much darker. Hoagland tells us about how he bought a turtle in Manhattan, thinking it would make a good pet, only to discover it was a Diamondback that preferred brackish water, not fresh water. At home, the turtle is “morose” and “spent his days thumping interminably against the baseboards.” Out of exasperation, Hoagland decides to carry the turtle to the Hudson and set it free. After he tosses the turtle into the water, he realizes the animals is “afraid” and realizes “that I must have done the wrong thing.” The turtle couldn’t survive in the rough water.

The final line of the essay is what we debated in class – “But since, short of diving in after him, there was nothing I could do, I walked away.” Some of my students thought Hoagland cruel to walk away; some thought he had no real choice in the matter. My interpretation rests on one phrase in that line – “short of diving in after him.” These six words tell me that Hoagland knows he had a choice, albeit a dangerous one, and that he feels bad about himself for making the choice he did. This phrase allows me to feel sympathy for the writer while still grieving the turtle. And since the entire essay is about Hoagland’s feelings for these animals, I find this last line to be quite fitting and masterful.

Hoagland’s last line shows, I think, the power of one phrase. Think how different that line would be if he just said, “There was nothing I could do; I walked away.” That’s the line of a heartless fellow.

Sometimes a simply set of words – in an essay (and in life) – can make a world of difference in how the people around us experience our stories. Our honest, aware sentiments wrought well in words can alter a perception monumentally.

Unless like one student, your love for turtles overwhelms all else, and well, then, what’s a writer to do.

– Diamondback Terrapin

Sometimes, when I realize this, I begin to want to strive, to grasp, to try to make life what I think it should be. I should be married. I should have a “real” job. I should have children or at least a dog. But “should” isn’t really part of life; life just is. Life is in our attitude and outlook and our ability to realize we are where we are for a reason – for a reason that will, ultimately, work for the good.

As I was praying today, I was struck by the phrase, “Let Life Come.” If I can realize that I am where I need to be, that I am experiencing what I am experiencing for a reason, then, I can be content. And contentment – that’s what I need more than I need what I think I should have.

So here’s to “letting life come” in whatever form that may be. Here’s to knowing I will always have help to move through it. Here’s to knowing that my life has a purpose and is working for the good.

Somehow, in the process of “growing up,” I have lost the ability to trust that all will be well at the end of the day. I no longer trust that home will be there when I get to it. I don’t have childlike faith anymore.

Yet, I need it. So much in this world is beyond my control. So much is past my ability to intercede or change. What I need to remember is that this is okay. I need only do what I am asked to do – go to school, take the bus to where I need to be – and God will do the rest. Ultimately, home, my family, and even cookies will be there when I most need them.

How do you cultivate childlike faith? In the vastness of glory, beauty, pain, and banality, how do you see that all will be well?

The first book we’ll be reading is Patchett’s, and I had never read the book (the curse of a short hiring timeline is sometimes having to pick texts unread), so I started right in with the reading. Then, I couldn’t stop. This memoir is perhaps the most beautiful, tragic, simple, and gorgeous memoir I’ve ever read.

The book tells the story of the friendship between Patchett and Lucy Grealy, author of The Autobiography of a Face. Patchett describes their friendship of most than twenty years and takes herself (with us in two) through the pain and edged beauty of their love for one another. Patchett is able to convey their friendship honestly without “sweetening up” or demonizing Lucy or herself. As readers, we are able to see each woman as complex, flawed, and sincere in their love for one another.

The fact that the women are both writers gave this story another layer of power and import for me, and the book informed my idea of writerly friendships, the nature of love, and the power of relationship in general. I am profoundly changed by this book in the way that great writing shifts things subtly but substantially in our souls. I only wish I could read it again for the first time.

– Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett

While I was there, I kept thinking about how much I don’t know about my grandparents. My grandfather rarely talks about the war – he came to Dachau shortly after it was liberated – and my grandmother doesn’t share a great deal about her Pennsylvania German upbringing either. We’ve asked, and sometimes – like this weekend – we get stories, but the stories never seem to capture the weight of their experiences.

So much of life goes on beneath the surface of experience, and so when we don’t even know the full extent of another person’s experience, we are left – largely – in the dark about what makes them who they are. We don’t know which pains have caused their stalwartness in the face of tragedy, and we don’t know which joys make their toes tingle. We really know so little about one another, even the ones we know and love best.

This weekend, I was reminded how powerful love can be – that even though we may not know all that makes a person who she or he is, we can love them with the force of a hurricane. Perhaps this is why we cannot know anyone fully – perhaps if we did, we would find our flawed selves unable to love truly.

Today, I am grateful for what I do know of the people I love, and I still long to know more. I am also praying for the compassion and wisdom to see people as icebergs – glorious, mighty beings who full existence rests beneath the surface. I am praying for the compassion to realize there is so much that I cannot see in each person I meet, and I am praying that I may know more and love more as I learn.

There is always more to humanity than we can see; think of your own life – what is going on “behind the scenes” in your existence that most people don’t know? If we have this much iceberg hiding in the depths, don’t those around us have at least as much hidden pain and glory as we do?

Sometimes, though, when we write, we forget that a person is on the other end of that communication. This is especially true of online communication, like email, but it’s often true in more traditional forms of writing like business reports and memos. We have a standard format, and we use it no matter to whom or for what we are writing.

Maybe we do this because of the way we’re taught to write in schools, where the teacher is our only reader, and so we write a generic format that we’ve been taught to adopt. Hopefully, as teachers, we are moving away from these audience-less forms of writing and asking our students to engage more formally with audience analysis.

There are some great ways for us to think about writing for particular people or groups. We can look at advertisements and think about how those ads target a specific audience – how does an Old Navy ad differ from one for Folgers, for example? We can look at letters to the editor or email campaigns and see how the writers made choices for their particular constituencies. We can just think about our own communication choices – what would you say to your “BFF” that you wouldn’t say to your grandparents?

If we can be more aware of our audiences, we will be more compassionate, informed, and effective communicators.

A hurt unspoken. A little less sleep than I need. A honking horn.

It’s the little things that can make or break our days. Today, I will try to revel in the shiny little things and leave the dark ones out of sight and out of mind.

Here’s one “little thing” for you today – you are loved.

In high school, I’d read between class, devouring a few pages of Frankenstein before English started or making my way through a novel before Calculus. I used books as a way to fill the spaces between things, and I not only read a lot of books this way, but this pattern also helped keep me out of trouble. I wasn’t a kid prone to trouble – goodie-two-shoes really fit me – but I am a woman prone to worry and, honestly, nosiness. I get involved in the problems of others by overhearing conversations, or I get wrapped up in my own concerns in unhealthy, unintentional ways. Reading keeps me focused on something meaningful.

I had this lesson yesterday as I waited for a doctor’s appointment. It had been almost an hour, and I was getting frustrated. I did have a book (Ann Patchett’s Truth and Beauty) with me, and that helped me stay busy. As my frustration started to build, I noticed that a copy of the Desiderata was hanging on the wall above the examination table. It has been years since I read that poem, so I stood up and gave it a look. These lines jumped out to me –

But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Talk about a well-placed poster. I thought about the words, took comfort, and went back to my book. A little grace extended, again, through reading.

So today, as I teach my first classes of the semester, I will carry my book close by as a way to keep me busy while I wait for class to start, as a way to fill my time between classes, as a way to keep perspective in my day.

– by Mark Kennedy

I guess this is the way with all things new and important – they produce a certain amount of nervousness in our bodies and minds. Yet, I know that once I walk into that classroom and get started (the first few minutes of set-up in a new class are always nerve-wracking; all those expectant faces waiting on you to say something interesting), I’ll be so glad I am there. This is the way of the things that are “right” in our lives. We feel a little nervous about pursuing them, but when we do, all seems right and good in the world – at least for moments.

Here’s a prayer and “thumbs up” for all of you going back to school today and for all of you parents sending those kids back to school or off for the first time. All is well, and all will be well.

10. They give me a place to go that is outside of myself. When my life seems too much with me, or when I need a break from thinking through something, books allow me moments of escape. They require my attention more than TV, and they grip me more than any movie could.

9. They introduce me to people and places I may never meet or visit. I think of Barry Lopez’s essay on road kill in his book About a Life. I am certain I will never take a road trip where I stop to bury or at least move aside every animal killed by a car because I feel such compassion for them. Or Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert; it’s unlikely that I’ll have the time or cash to travel to Italy, then India, then Bali, but I went with her when she did it.

8. They remind me that sometimes there are actual products that come from hard work. So much of life is about relationships – in my personal life, in teaching – and while relationships can be highly rewarding and wonderful, they don’t usually produce a product. With a book, I can actually see the work that a writer has put in, and I find that very inspiring.

7. My ideas of what humanity should be are shaped by books. From the Bible, to The Chronicles of Narnia, to Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, to Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies, books are the way I most easily and privately bear witness to what is glorious and painful about humanity. They set my gauge for what people could be and what I should be (or what I should not become).

6. Some of my best friends are people (and animals) I’ve met in books. Peter in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Charles Wallace inA Wrinkle in Time. Asher in Chaim Potok’s My name is Asher Lev and The Gift of Asher Lev. (Interestingly, the characters that came easiest to mind where young males. I”ll have to ponder that one.)

5. I love the smell and weight of pages in my hand. That’s it. I just love it.

4. Books give me the chance to study craft and style almost without noticing. As I’ve said, I learned almost everything I know about writing from reading books, and I didn’t read to learn how to write. Most of the learning came through simple observation and emulation.

3. I love the lessons that books can teach me. This is different than books with morals, like The Left Behind Series; I really hate those. But books that can show me some insight about humanity stir something in me. I think of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road or Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany or the essays in JoAnn Beard’s collection The Boys of My Youth.

2. The feeling of accomplishment and, sometimes, of deep sadness when a book is finished keeps me seeking that thrill again and again.

1. C.S. Lewis once said, “We read to know we’re not alone.” Well, that’s the core isn’t it.

– C.S. Lewis