Tag Archives: Natalie Goldberg

Outside

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I spied this gorgeous hawk sitting in a tree not far from me as I was walking today.  I slowed and carefully positioned my camera, trying to capture this image.

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And as I watched and then continued my walk, a short 25 word story (or maybe the beginning of something more) was brewing in my head.

Tucked in behind the gas station and across the street from the McDonalds, hawk oversees wild space…what is left of what used to be.

I took a minute at the stop light and jotted notes down in my phone to remember this thought when I got back home.  Thinking about what used to be interests me.  What caused developers to leave this wild space untouched?

Last week a parent in our class sent us this article about going outside to write when you feel stuck or uninspired with your writing, saying that it reminded her of us and our classroom.  (Such a great compliment!)  I’ve shared it with many others…and was thinking about it this morning as I headed outside for a long walk.

I knew I had lots of writing to do today (beyond my blog post) and told myself I needed to get outside and be active before settling down to work.  To make the prospect more appealing, I planned my walk with a mid-walk stop at the local Starbucks and had my iPhone handy for any interesting photo opportunities.

As I started my walk I noticed that my “monkey mind,” as Natalie Goldberg calls it, took over.  I could feel my attention pulled in a million directions as I noticed sounds (cars, birds, breeze, leaves crunching, bicycles whizzing by…), smells (the smell of water in the curb drains, car exhaust, the damp of foggy air…), sights (the lone purple flower in a sea of ground cover, scraps of paper interwoven in the brush, leaves blowing…), and physical feelings (the sheen of sweat building on my shoulders, the push of air as cars rushed past, the uneven sidewalk under my feet…).  Before I started my walk, I had thought I might continue on a theme of water photos started yesterday with a walk on the beach, but the first half of my walk didn’t offer any interesting possibilities.

And then I noticed the hawk.  It literally stopped me in my tracks as I looked closely, noticing the beauty of this bird.  Crows and pigeons are pretty commonplace on my walks…and hawks are mostly noticed from a distance, flying high above.  I loved the opportunity to look closely as I angled my lens.  He watched me as I watched him.  And then he spread his magnificent wings and took to the sky.  I only wish I could describe the sound of those large, powerful wings as they lifted the bird from the branch.

As much as people complain about “screen time” and lament that devices are keeping our young people indoors, inactive, and uninspired, I find that it is my device that gets me moving, heading outdoors, and paying attention to my surroundings.  As always, we need balance in our lives.  Opportunities for solitude and times to interact.  Playtime and sustained work.  Time in nature to notice and question and wonder and time with our screens to produce, write and connect.  It doesn’t have to be either/or…can’t it be both?

How does your device (or devices) impact the ways you interact with the outdoors?

Developing a Practice

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One of my favorite weekend morning activities is the opportunity to lounge in bed and read. It’s such a luxury since even on weekends I often have to be up and about and out of the house early.  This morning I was reading Natalie Goldberg’s latest book, The True Secret of Writing: Connecting Life With Language.  I’ve read most of her books–and while this one doesn’t rank as my favorite–the chapter I read this morning on the importance of developing and committing to a practice struck me.  Here’s what Natalie says about practice:

…we established a different slant to practice other than “practice makes perfect”: It’s something you choose to do on a regular basis with no vision of an outcome; the aim is not improvement, not getting somewhere.  You do it because you do it.  You show up whether you want to or not.  Of course, at the beginning it’s something that you have chosen, that you wanted, but a week, a month in, you often meet resistance.  Even if you love it, inertia, obstacles arise: I can make better use of my time, I’m tired, I’m hungry, this is stupid, I need to listen to the evening news.  Here’s where you have the opportunity to meet your own mind, to examine what it does, its ploys and shenanigans.  That’s ultimately what practice is:  arriving at the front–and back door–of yourself.  You set up to do something consistently over a long period of time–and simply watch what happens with no idea of good or bad, gain or loss. No applause–and no criticism.

To get myself blogging, I gave myself a challenge (maybe that is one variation on a practice) to write and post a blog daily for 30 days.  That short term challenge felt doable.  I didn’t create the challenge for myself because I hoped to become a professional blogger (or writer), but because I wanted to feel what it would be like to consistently blog.  But, I am on the verge of establishing a blogging practice.  I have continued to write and post daily on this blog, well past the 30 days of the challenge…but I am sure as the school year begins on Tuesday that this daily practice will need to morph to a regular practice that is more like a three times weekly practice.  But what I love about the practice is that I have written and posted every day–even when I was tired and couldn’t seem to think of anything interesting to write.  I have pushed past my comfort zone and figured out how to generate ideas and get something composed each and every day.

And I can authentically share my experience of developing a practice with my students.  I can help them develop a regular writing practice.  It doesn’t have to be my practice–writing and publishing a daily blog post–but the act of developing a practice and “showing up” on a regular basis help us each learn something about ourselves.  It also helps us to develop those valuable traits of persistence and grit–hanging in there even when things seem hard.  Because ultimately it’s our drive that determines success and learning.  Talent is great…but effort over time is everything.

This reminds me of my time working for McDonald’s Restaurants before I decided to go into teaching.  Ray Kroc, McDonad’s founder, was inspired by this quote by Calvin Coolidge…which I kept for years on the bulletin board in our home office.

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

Natalie recommends keeping a log of your practice–even if you skip–and rather than giving up when you miss a day, just make note of it and resume the next day.  I like this recommendation…and I like that my blog keeps track for me.  I can easily see which days I have “practiced.” What practice will you develop?