Finding Meaning.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the everyday stories of life.  There is so much power in the ordinary, routine, and daily living that we do.  Yet so often, this living just passes through us like the air we breathe.  Suddenly the week is over.  Suddenly it’s the weekend.  Suddenly summer is over.  Suddenly the new year is upon us.  And if we haven’t documented the everyday living, suddenly things have changed and we don’t know what happened or how.

Yet, it’s not so sudden.  It’s day by day and all those little things that happen add up to big meaning.  Last summer I posted 57 times in June and July on my personal blog.  In August I added another 36 posts.  I relished the everyday last summer.  I collected and documented and breathed in life.  I was satisfied with the day to day living.

In the first five months of 2009, I posted an average of 18 entries each month.  Ths summer I’ve posted:  zero. What happened?

I’ve noticed that something has been a little off in my life.   Something is missing.  And it is this:  Collecting the ordinary moments from life make it so much sweeter. 

Yet it is not only the collecting of moments, but the reflecting upon them.  It’s pushing myself to ask the important questions:  Why does this matter?  Why is this important?  How does this little moment add up to big meaning in the grand scheme of it all?

This is why I believe in the power of Writer’s Notebooks for our young writers.  It gives them a spot to sift through all the little moments that make up their lives and find the common themes, the importat meaning.  Yet it isn’t just the physical book that makes the impact, it is helping them develop a habit, a routine, of collecting bits of their lives.  Helping them find time to write entries. Pushing them to find meaning in little things of life. 

This is part of my grand scheme for launching Writing Workshops this year.  I desire to help students begin document their lives.  It is within these stories they will find meaning.  Once students are writing with meaning, it is at that point we can teach conventions and craft with the most ease and power.

(And, because I know we’re all thinking about it, I think blogging is a fine way to keep a writer’s notebook.  The process I use is both a blog (actually two blogs — a professional and personal one)  and a traditional writer’s notebook.  In fact, I have many writer’s notebooks — the one I take to classrooms, one in my car, one in my camera bag, one by my computer, one by my bed, and one on my dryer. 

So here’s to collecting the stories of our lives, finding the real meaning behind them, and helping students to do the same.