The English Geek

on Textuality

This Thursday, October 6, I have a new class starting at Big Picture. It's called Textuality. Here are the top ten questions I get asked about this class, which I'm sharing just in case you happened to ask me one of these questions and I spaced emailing you back. Note: I NEVER space emailing someone back on purpose. Usually I just think I've replied, I'm certain I have, and then I realize with horror two weeks later that, no, I only thought I replied.

Anyway.

Top Ten Textuality questions:

1. Why should I take this class?    Because it will help you look at your scrapbooking supplies in a new light. It will help you get more of your supplies onto your layouts (where they belong, in my opinion!). It will give you new answers to the perennial "how should I embellish this layout?" question. And because it will be a fun four weeks!

2. What kind of word is "textuality" anyway?    It really is a real word. Literary theorists use it to describe the qualities a piece of text has that make it a piece of text. I chose it as the title for my class because all the learning in the class revolves around ways making text in any scrappy form (journaling, words, titles, letters, alphabet supplies) visually interesting. In fact, it was that word itself that sparked the class.

3. Is there any writing involved?     Only whatever journaling you bring to the class. Unlike my Write Now! class, Textuality does NOT discuss writing techniques, except for one that's really more a part of the designing of layouts than the writing of journaling. There aren't any daily writing prompts either. So, less writing than in Write Now!, much less, in fact.

4. How much work is involved?     Each week you'll receive two entirely optional challenges via email. These relate directly to the information in that week's handout. The first is called "dig into your drawers" and challenges you to use some of your alphabet supplies. The second is called "use what you've learned" and challenges you to use a new skill on a layout.

5. Is this a "project" class?     Not really. You won't have, say, a finished mini album by the end of the class. If you do all of the challenges, you'll have eight completed layouts at the end. Rather than a project, the class teaches processes and concepts for using text in unique ways. At the end of the class, you'll have a myriad of new ways to approach your layouts.

6. Is this class only for people who've been scrapping for a long time?     Not at all! I think any scrapper could take it, beginner or oldie. If you ARE a beginner, you'll be happy to know that there are lots of step-by-step instructions. If you're an oldie (like me!), you'll rediscover—and use—some of your old, beloved supplies.

7. The description mentions using just your word processor...I don't need Photoshop or something fancy?     No. Word is all you'll need. While there are tons of cool things you can do with text in Photoshop, I wanted to keep this class as non-technical as possible. The majority of the lessons about word processing involve typesetting details—making your journaling look good, in other words. The majority if the techniques involve using your supplies instead of your keyboard.

8. Is this a class for digi scrappers?      All of the supplies I use are traditional ones. The lessons do focus on using traditional supplies. This is not because I think traditional scrapping is better than digital scrapping—I don't! For me, however, one of scrapping's appeals is its kinesthetic happiness. I, personally, enjoy the texture, the mess, the pressure of scissors through paper more than I enjoy using my computer, so that is why my class focuses less on the digital aspect. That said, though, nearly every single technique would translate to digital supplies and approaches. You'd just use, say, digital chipboard instead of temporal chipboard.

9. What sort of supplies will I need?     My scrapping philosophy in a nutshell is this: new stuff isn't better than old stuff. (If you want to read a few detailed explanations, try here or here.) One of the main goals of the class is to encourage you to use your stuff—to not let it pile up in ignored and neglected corners while you're off buying the next new thing. So, the supplies you'll need are the supplies you already have: alphabet anything. Specifically, there are sections on alphabet stickers, chipboard, rub ons, stamps, and papers; journaling cards and stickers; word embellishments; supplies that aren't word- or letter-based used in a textual way.

10. Did you know there's a movie called Textuality?      Why, yes, I did! I haven't seen it, but I can say that about 99% of recent movies. I'm not sure why I hardly go to the movies anymore, especially now that I have two built-in babysitters. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that at least one person on the set of that movie has heard of my class. They totally stole my idea! ;)

So! If you're interested, make sure to sign up soon. It starts on Thursday! And, if you have any more questions, shoot me an email or leave a comment and I'll answer you. I totally won't space it!

Big Idea Festival

One of my favorite parts of working for Big Picture Classes is the summer class we do every year. It's always something new and unusual and fun—and FREE! This year is no exception:

 

If you're new to scrapping, or if you've been scrapping forever, this little class is something you will love! Each of the teachers focuses on one word each day (my word is cherish) and shares a layout and some scrapperly advice. Plus, if you sign up (you just have to create your account, put the Big Idea Festival 2011 into your cart, and check out—no credit card required since it's FREE!), you'll get to see a video of me talking about things like thesauruses and babies and dictionaries, AND you'll catch a glimpse of my messy scrapbooking closet and revisit my long hair.

Who wouldn't want to see that?

The workshop starts tomorrow, August 15, so hurry and get registered! If you sign up, let me know how it goes for you!

Write Now!

Next Thursday, on August 4, my Big Picture Classes workshop, Write Now!, starts up again. This class is perhaps my favorite class I teach at Big Picture, and here's why:

I think all scrapbook layouts deserve some journaling. That isn't an altogether popular point of view; for plenty of scrapbookers, the journaling part is sheer, frustrating drudgery. Or something that just never gets done but then makes the guilt flare up. That's one reason I wrote the class: to help scrappers feel confident about their journaling and to enjoy the process.

But I also think that if you're going to write some journaling—or any sort of writing, really; you could easily apply the techniques in Write Now! to your blog or your private journal or that personal memoir you've always wanted to write—you might as well write it well. The cool thing is that it doesn't have to take a long time to write it well. That's why the class's subtitle is "A Speedy Journaling Workshop." It teaches you how to write well and how to do it quickly.

Also, it's my favorite class because I deep-down, to-the-tips-of-my (blistered and toenail-less) toes believe that everyone can write well. Yeah, sure: not all of us can write good novels, or poems, or short stories. Not everyone has it in themselves to be the next great and famous Writer. But we can all write about our lives and our kids' and friends' and pets' lives with authenticity and significance. It takes a combination of things: knowledge (the techniques that writers use to make their texts come alive), confidence (which comes with practice and with never getting out of the habit of practice), and desire. Write Now! will help you with the first two. The desire part has to come from you.

Here's what I mean by that. This morning, I did notwant to do my scheduled 7 mile run. My back hurt and my right foot has been having this weird, inexplicable pain. (I even had an x-ray to make sure it wasn't a stress fracture. Which it isn't.) But when Kaleb asked me why I wasn't in my running clothes, I knew I had to put them on and put in my miles anyway. After I'd finished, when I was walking up my driveway, one of my neighbors stopped to chat with me. She told me she admired me for running, and that she wasn't sure how I did it, because running is hard for her to do. Her comments added to my post-run exhilaration, but I also had to chuckle a bit, thinking about how hard it was for me just to put my shoes on and get out the door.

Writing good journaling is exactly like that. It seems like it's too hard to do and that only a few people can do it. But if you do it every day, it becomes easier. With running you learn stuff like pacing and building endurance and avoiding injuries and maintaining glycogen levels and stretching just the right amount; those things help the seemingly-hard process of running become easier. With writing, you learn stuff like sentence structure and word choice and organization, silencing your internal editor and being brave on paper and filtering out the fluff to get to the real; those things help the seemingly-magical process of writing strong journaling become easier.

Doesn't matter, honestly, if you love journaling or hate it, this class will help you. If you have the desire, everything else will start making perfect sense! And, as a happy little perk, there's a give away on Thursday, July 28 at write. click. scrapbook. for a free seat in the class. Click over and leave a comment to enter!

Gift of Words: The Impossible Gift

This year, when my mom asks me what I want for Christmas, I know exactly what I'm going to say: divinity. I've tried to make it before and it turned out dismally. But it tastes like Christmas to me, and she makes it well.

The gift I really want from my mother, though, is something impossible. I'd like an old, yellowed sheet of notepaper, torn from a notebook so the edges still dangle a bit. On it: the details of my birth, written the day I was born. I'd like to know both the story of the delivery and the way she felt, welcoming a third girl. Something my dad said, or my sisters, or my grandma.

This is an impossible gift because she didn't write that note. I'm not criticizing her—she's not a wordy kind of person, and I don't think people did that back then anyway. But I still wish she could give it to me.

Those kinds of desires are the motivation behind my Gift of Words Class at Big Picture Classes. I think that more people than you know wish for words—your words—and the class does that. It helps you write the things that might go unsaid (because, let's face it, it's easier to write some things than say them).

Check it out! It starts tomorrow!

Sixth Day of Thanksgiving: Scrapbooking

Way back when I was pregnant with Haley (that's been sixteen years ago, mind you!), I was working at WordPerfect. My friend and coworker, Teresa, invited me to a party she was hosting and since I was all about being supportive, I went. It was a Creative Memories party, and from the second the consultant started showing us layouts, I was hooked on the idea of scrapbooking. I didn't buy anything that night—the expense of getting started seemed overwhelming—but I did start planning how I would write about and photograph this new baby of mine.

It grew from that moment, my delight with scrapbooking. I went through the binder stage, and then the CM stage, and now I use CTMH albums. I went through design stages: figuring out how to make cool letters, reading books about visual triangles and balance, trying every. single. technique discussed in Creating Keepsakes magazine; realizing I could do it my own way. I went through the I-must-get-published craziness, collecting CK's silent rejections but finding my niche at Simple Scrapbooks and then at Big Picture. I recognized my shortcoming: my layouts aren't really about scrapbooking, per se. They're not about paper and ribbon and stamping and punching and all the stuff, even though I buy and use and love the stuff. They are, in the end, only about the story, and no one can sell anything based on that. (Translation: I am comfortable with my limited publications and confident in knowing I continue to stay true to my own vision.)

But whatever the phase, here is the truth: I am still, sixteen years later, deeply and thoroughly in love with scrapbooking. My sisters and my mom all think I'm weird. You shouldn't get me started on how Kendell feels about it, and I'm pretty sure even my very own daughter thinks I'm overly obsessed. My friends who used to scrapbook with me no longer scrap at all; my scrapping-and-emailing friends of newer vintage don't, either. In fact, I'm the only person I know in person who still does it on a regular basis. Part of this is simple stubbornness: I've bought all this stuff! I can't give up my hobby because what would I do with all the stuff? But it's more than just the stuff; I keep on loving scrapbooking because it is a space for telling stories, for pushing my children's experiences into the future so they will remember and so that someone in the future will know.

Yesterday, I visited my dad for the annual Thanksgiving dinner at his care center. My mom and niece and sister were there, and later (because he forgot), my uncle Monte also came. Becky told him that she would like to sit down with him and ask him about our grandpa Curtis (his and my dad's dad), because Dad never talked about his childhood. Monte told us a bit about our grandpa's funeral, and Becky asked if he had any pictures. He sighed, and shook his head, and a small sorrow welled up in me for all those lost photographs. For all the stories that are lost with them, too. Monte can tell us some of the words of the stories, but when you have pictures paired with words? That is when personal history comes alive. Maybe it will be decades before anyone changes from thinking I'm weird to thinking I was right in persevering with the scrapbooking thing. But one day, someone will want a story and an image; I will be able to give it to them, and that is reason enough to be grateful for scrapbooking.

But there's also this: sometimes I get to influence others, too. So I'm also grateful that I've gotten to be a part of Big Picture Classes since nearly the beginning. I really, really love the philosophy behind BP, because it jives so thoroughly with my own ideas. I still get a happy little thrill when a class of mine starts (like this one); I still happy dance at the thought of helping other scrappers. BP is celebrating its fifth birthday this week, and I got to make a little happy-birthday video. Dare I confess that my compassion for the contestants on ANTM has grown by leaps and bounds? Talking to a camera is hard work, and I don't do it very well, so if you'd like your daily laugh, you should check it out.

Or you could just tell me (because I'm curious): how do YOU feel about scrapbooking?

Don't Miss It! (it's FREE!)

Next month, this is starting up at Big Picture Scrapbooking:

The free summer class, The Big Idea Festival. It lasts all month. Every few days, you'll get three more ideas for using a scrapbooking kit from Cocoa Daisy.

And, lest ye be startled by that word—kit—here's a confession: before I made my projects for this class, I had never worked with a kit before. They always seemed a bit extravagant to me. Plus I like shopping for supplies! But I discovered that kits are great for pushing you out of your comfort zone. They encourage you to think in different directions because you are, in a sense, following the thought patterns and design inspiration of whoever put the kit together.

Plus, hello? This kit was full of orange supplies. Have I ever told you how much I love orange scrapping supplies?

At any rate, this class is FREE! There will be prizes and give aways in addition to all that inspiration. You can see more details and sign up here.There are some awesome scrapbookers involved and I'm certain you'll end the month with tons of new ideas. Happy scrapping! 
 

Writing Challenge: Textuality #5

The radio station I listen to in the mornings (now that my FAVORITE station is off the air, sigh, sadness) has a feature on Wednesdays in which they discuss "things that must go." I love this segment. Even though I believe firmly in the power of kindness, and of trying to be flexible and going with the flow and not being easily annoyed...I get annoyed at stupid things, and it is cheery to hear other peoples' annoyances. (One of the "things that must go" this morning: people using the word "troop" to refer to just one soldier. "Troop" is a collective, not a singular, noun. Yay for people getting snarky over word choice!)

Honestly, this morning? I am annoyed. In my personal journal I wrote a Dennis-Leary-esque entry berating the person who started all this annoyance that is so rude I probably shouldn't save it for posterity to read in the future; I'm thinking about deleting it later today. But it did make me feel a little bit less annoyed. Which brings me to today's writing challenge.

It's good to have a whole bunch of techniques in your writing toolbox. Try writing something in second person, for example, using the "you" as a sort of generic everywoman you're writing about. Start in the middle of the story, or the very end, and then write towards it. You don't always have to go with a traditional structure either. Today, rather than writing in paragraphs, write your response to the topic in a list format.

Here's the thing about writing lists. Sometimes they turn out as, well, lists. Sometimes, though, you get sidetracked on one item, and end up writing a list that morphs into something more focused. That is great, too!

Today's Writing Prompt:
Write a list of things that annoy you. Use the writing time as an excuse to vent—to get all those annoyances out of your brain and away from your creative self. For the ten minutes you're writing, you're excused from all responsibilities such as politeness, or worrying about hurting other people's feelings, or the ramifications of your annoyances. Just get them out!

Here's mine:

• People who mispronounce the word "library" and say "libery." There are two Rs in there, people!
• The fact that the word "library," when you say it quickly, sometimes slips out as "libery." How embarrassing that I also, every once in awhile and only very occasionally, just perhaps once a month or so, slip out a "libery." I take solace in the fact that it is an accident and I really do know how to say it correctly.
• Library patrons who think they are the exception to the rule. "Yes, i know there are 227 people waiting for this book, but *I* am not finished with it yet."
• The sense of entitlement that seems pervasive in society today.
• No, "being angry" isn't really on the list of things you are entitled to. Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, ok. That's all on the list. Your all-encompassing anger isn't.
• Nathan's spelling homework, which all year has had the word "you're" on it, in a spot where "your" should be used instead.
• The fact that every week I've circled that "you're" but his teacher hasn't fixed it. I know, I know, I sound petty don't I? But I think teachers should get it right. I can say that because I was a teacher, and I had literal nightmares about finding typos on my handouts.
• McDonald's advertising. They have it down to a science, so every day I must argue with my 4-year-old about not having a cheeseburger for lunch. Every day.
• Kids not closing the bread bag, so the first slice is dried out.
• The oil spill in the Gulf. OK, that's really more than a personal annoyance. (Honestly, I get so worked up about it that if I think about it too much I get a stomach ache.) But it gets me fired up to think of all that waste, and the filth, and whatever bureaucratic mistake made it happen in the first place.
• The weather. It's May 5 and 42 degrees, and yesterday it snowed. WTH?
• My favorite radio station is gone. Replaced with "generation X" style music, which is apparently lots of crap with an occasional only half-way decent song thrown in for good works.
• My insatiable chocolate urge. Those forty days of Lent aside, it is back with a vengeance. I KNOW I can conquer it. I just don't want to. I'm eating a peppermint patty right now as I write this. After drinking hot chocolate with my breakfast. Which was, at least, toast. Without chocolate on it. (I made toast because someone left the bread bag open and the first slice was dry anyway.)

And I'm really hoping I will still be loved & adored (LOL!) after posting this...Even though I must say: totally liberating!

Writing Challenge: Textuality #4

My husband isn't a fan of blogging. He doesn't really see the draw to it, and if he sees me reading someone's blog he'll say something like "are you checking to see what they had for dinner last night?"

It's a sure way to annoy me.

On the other hand, though, he's partly right: some blogs do  read like a sort of appointment book, a list of what-I-did-today. And while I don't think there's anything wrong with that, I tend to not read them. Instead, I like the blogs that make me think, or laugh, or be surprised, or maybe even get a lump in my throat. In other words, I like writing that makes me feel something.

I like writing with a "so what."

I think scrapbooking journaling especially requires a "so what." It's that thing that makes the writing memorable, that takes it from just a pretty description to a string of words that provokes emotion or thought in the reader. It's also the thing that people struggle with. It's not always obviously apparent when you start writing, what your "so what" will be. And that's OK. Remember, the origin of the word "essay" (and I think that scrapbook journaling is, in effect, a mini personal essay) doesn't have anything to do with proving the symbolic import of Hester's letter A or the metaphoric impact in Eliot's poetry. It comes from the French word for "to try." Writing an essay—even of the mini persuasion that you'll put on your layout—is really about trying. Trying to find a point,  to convey something important, or to figure out what it is you think. You don't always start with the knowledge. Sometimes you find it through the process of writing.

So! For today's prompt, I want you to try. Start with the topic—I kept it vague and short on purpose—and see what you discover about what you think of it. You might have to write for a few minutes, filtering through the obvious choices to something more important. Move toward a specific experience—the event you're describing—and push deeper. So what?

Today's Writing Prompt:
The thing I forgot to do...

Here's mine:

Lately I forget a lot of things. My cell phone is the most-often-forgotten item in my little world. I write a shopping list and then leave it in the car; I leave the house without coupons or the mail I needed to drop off at the post office. Last week I forgot to wash the basketful of undies. I'm not really sure how I forgot them. The basket was right there at the doorway of the laundry room. Being a working mom for awhile has taught me the importance of this truth: you should always have at least two weeks' worth of underwear and socks for every person in your family. That way if you skip a week of laundry, everyone still has enough clean things to get them through.

But I forgot to do the undies basket. And apparently Kendell doesn't have two weeks' worth, because Saturday arrived—the Saturday I had to leave for work—and he was out. No clean undies. The unthinkable happened: he had to be responsible for a load of laundry. And while I could start down the path of "why doesn't he help more often?" I don't want to go there. I mostly don't care that I do most of the laundry. I mostly don't care that my family seems to believe clean laundry appears magically in drawers and closets. Do I do the things I do so that they can tell me thank you? Not really. I do them so that they feel taken care of.

And so they can leave the house in clean clothes.

Of course, one of my personal strengths is self flagellation. I felt a little bit like beating myself up for forgetting to wash that load of clothes. But I didn't. Because I had this little inkling of an idea. Maybe clean laundry notappearing magically might be good for them once in awhile. Not because I want them to walk around feeling inordinate amounts of guilt for the sweat-and-tears effort of laundry. Not because I need to be thanked for hanging up the shrinkables so they don't shrink, or for washing the blacks carefully to minimize fading, or for pairing up all the socks. But so they can not take it for granted. Clean laundry is sort of a synecdoche: a clean pair of jeans is a bit of the person who washed them for you. If they take clean laundry for granted, they take me for granted, and then maybe they forget that, in the end, their clothes are clean because I love them.

And I don't want them to forget that.

Writing Challenge: Textuality #3

Maybe because my sister Becky is moving to a new house, I have been thinking about houses and homes lately. A quote I love about where we live:

Home is a place where you can catch a dream and ride it to the end of the line and back. Where you can watch shadow and light doing a tight little tango on a wooden floor or an intoxicated moon rising through an empty window. Home is a place to become yourself. It’s the right spot, the bright spot, or just the spot where you can land on your feet or recline in a tub of sparkling brew if you’re so inclined. It’s a place of silence where harmony and chaos are shuffled like a deck of cards and it’s your draw. It’s somewhere you can close a door and open your heart. (Theo Pelletier)

and a bit of poem, from Anne Sexton’s "Welcome Morning":

All this is God,
right here in my pea-green house
each morning and I mean,
though often forget,
to give thanks,
to faint down by the kitchen table
in a prayer of rejoicing

Today’s prompt has to do with houses, obviously! Writing about place is essential, no matter what kind of writing you do. What would a novel be without a setting, a travelogue without a place traveled to, a biography without a description of the house the subject grew up in? Places help to define us, and perhaps our home defines more than anything. Onto the writing!

Today’s Writing Prompt:

Pick a place in your home that has a significance to you. Describe it, but also push past appearance to explain why the spot matters and to illuminate why and how it helps to define you.

Here's mine:

Once I’ve dragged myself out of bed each morning, I walk down the hall and, through the frame of the doorway, look across the front room and out the window to see the type of weather the day might hold. Then I turn and walk into my kitchen, around the table, and to the back door. I stand there and look. Looking starts my day. Sometimes I press my forehead against the glass pane; maybe I am wearing slippers or socks or maybe my feet are bare against the wood floor. The back doors are the French style, made of glass and framed with white that needs, desperately, to be painted; usually they are smudged with children’s fingerprints. Beyond the doors is the back porch, which is sometimes a place of refuge, sometimes a peaceful spot for contemplation. When I am in a sleep-walking span of time, I tend to end up there often in the darkness, muddled with laughter and confusion when I wake. The kitchen behind me is one of my favorite parts of our house, its purple paint, its accumulation of good meals and arguments and laughter and sicknesses and homework at the table, but for the beginning moments, even if just thirty seconds, what matters is the exit of the kitchen, the looking outward.

I take the temperature of the mountain every morning, through the view of my back door. I note the progress of its snows (rising or lowering upon its flanks, depending on the season) and of its scant greenness; I measure the day’s possibilities with the length and breadth of blue (or grey or cloud or white wind) along the peak. I take a deep breath, I draw my gaze downward into my own realm, my oddly-shaped backyard with my family’s marks left on it—sidewalk-chalk portraits, flowers I haven’t deadheaded yet, brilliant green lawn, someone’s flip flop buried in new snow, the neat winter stackings of patio furniture. My own yard full of memories.

This morning looking done at the portal of doors, however short it lasts, helps focus me. It brings the peace of nature into my heart, which gives me courage; it reminds me that our struggles are small compared to the world and also that our small struggles are all we have. All we are, and so are the most important thing, too. It brings me solace when I am discouraged and adds a silver edge when I am joyful. It is inward and outward, all at once.

(I am trying a different linky because the other one didn't seem to be working...hopefully this one will!)

Writing Challenge: Textuality #2

It's grey and dark here today—that temperature of light that makes you turn lights on, even during the day. Sleet, snow, rain, hail, and wind. Driving the carpool this morning in this weather, I found myself daydreaming about our February trip to California. It wasn't hot weather then, but it was definitely warmer than the end of winter in Utah. The air there already smelled like spring.

 

A fragment of Elizabeth Bishop's poem "Questions of Travel" came to mind: "and then a sudden golden silence in which the traveller takes a notebook, writes." Right there, in the car at the stoplight by the McDonald's where eight or ten school buses visit every morning, I decided to change today's writing challenge. First, a recap of the rules:

 

The writing exercise rules:

 

1.Write for at least ten minutes.

2.Let the topic be a starting point and see where it takes you—if you veer off in an entirely different direction, that's fabulous!

3.Keep writing. Don't let your fingers stop. If you run out of ideas, simply transcribe the thoughts in your head.

4.NO EDITING! Don't backspace or cross out or stop to look up how to spell a word. You can do that after your writing time is up.

5.If you want to publish what you wrote—on your blog, or on the Textuality website, you can edit. But only AFTER the writing, not during!

 

Today's writing prompt

Write a vacation memory. It can be from a trip you took last week or one you took seventeen years ago; the time of the experience doesn't matter. Rather than writing a list of what you did on the trip, try to focus on exploring one small moment, some small experience (it can be good or bad) that has stuck in your memory. Write with the goal of getting your reader to feel what you felt.

 

Here's mine:

 

As if some great wave had picked us all up and then randomly spread us out on the beach, we are scattered like seashells ourselves as we look for seashells. Kendell is near the pier, with its glimmering shadows and the teal underbelly of waves wrapped around the poles, ostensibly watching the pelicans, which stay always one step ahead of you, but only one, and seem to be tripled: their shadow, their reflection in the thin sheet of water they stand in, and their very bodies—a heavy machinework that seems too bulky for flight.

 

Really he is talking on his cell phone.

 

Jacob is racing the waves, trying not to get wet but not caring if he does. Nathan, halfway between his older brother and his dad, probes the sand with his toes. That blonde hair seems to make him the epitome of a California surfer but really, he's probably shivering, even with his sweatshirt. Haley, far down the sand, flips to a different song on her MP3, caught in her individual beach experience, blissed out from being at her favorite place in the world but still annoyed and prickly. Kaleb, who was toppled by a wave when we came to the beach three days ago, has been my shadow, glued to my side, but while I have been looking for everyone else he's gotten braver, wandered ahead of me, and is now almost caught up with Haley.

 

So I run.

My feet are bare. I'm wearing a swimsuit and a sweatshirt and goosebumps; the wind catches my hair up into Medusa swirls and maybe the light—which is so beautiful, glinting off the waves, bronzing the sand, tripling everything—catches it, too. I run for three minutes, and then for five, past Kaleb, past Haley. Not breathless, my heart barely seeming to pound even though I am sprinting. I'm running as hard and as fast as I can, not for the exercise or the conditioning but just for the sheer joy of running, of freedom, of being alive right at this very second. It is painless, effortless, joyful running, the way I run when I am dreaming, the way I wish running could always be—movement as a translation of joy. I sprint down the sand, everything (children and husband and obligations and sorrow and aches, those awkwardly beautiful pelicans) behind me, everything in front of me (time, distance, water, wind).