Month: June 2020

Why I Hide

Denise Krebs1 Comment

Today is Thursday, Day 107 in Bahrain, day 72 of The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad and my 37th wedding anniversary. Today’s prompt was based on a quote from Nehru, the first prime minister of India.

It is no easy matter to decide what is right and what is not. One little test I shall ask you to apply whenever you are in doubt…Never do anything in secret or anything that you would wish to hide. For the desire to hide anything means that you are afraid, and fear is a bad thing and unworthy of you. Be brave, and all the rest follows.
—October 26, 1930, from Naini Central Prison in Uttar Pradesh, India

Our prompt…”Where does the impulse to hide our stories come from? How is this connected to what you fear—and why?”

Is it self-preservation that keeps me from sharing all my stories? There are definitely stories I don’t share and never have shared with others. I guess the fear is shame and humiliation, but is what Nehru said true? If I am brave, all the rest follows? What if I did tell all my stories as needed in the moment, without fear of being rejected, shamed or humiliated? Perhaps my stories would help someone else overcome their fears.

Suleika keeps this quote on her desk, “If you want to write a good book, write what you don’t want people to know about you. If you want to write a GREAT book, write what you don’t want to know about yourself.”

And that is my food for today. I’m going to go and nibble at this as I get ready for bed.

What I’ll Carry

Denise Krebs1 Comment

The quarantine has been lonely and long. I look forward to when we will get back to normal, especially at school. However, there have been multiple silver linings for me. I have several things I look forward to carrying with me into post-quarantine life.

Vegan Stuffed Shells

Cooking and baking are on my list. I’ve always loved to bake, but now I have added a sourdough starter named Stanley, who is serving us well with weekly loaves of sourdough. Cooking, on the other hand, was always only functional for me, never fun or creative. I have turned around 180 degrees, and now I delight in making healthy and delicious meals. My genius hour during our at-home learning was about using the spices in my spice cabinet. I continue to do so with abandon and joy.

In addition to being in the kitchen more, I am also happy that there is less stress in my life, due to a lighter schedule. I’m getting better sleep and have more prayer and quiet meditation. I’m an introvert through and through, so I do better with more solitude. I know the quarantine has not been good for everyone’s mental health, and so I am humbly thankful that I feel as good as I do.

Though I’ve been disappointed in my lack of quarantine reading, I am pleased with all the writing I’m doing. I’ve always been a writer, but since the end of February, I have written more regularly than ever before — 50+ blog posts and 40+ poems, not to mention at least 8,458 emails for school.

Finally, what I am making a commitment to carrying after we go back to “normal” is the message of Black Lives Matter. The U.S. (and, indeed the world) should not go back to normal in the area of human rights. Too many of us, and that includes me, have stayed silent long enough. We must work to dismantle systemic injustice, inequality, and racism. I pray we all carry the story of George Floyd so this is a turning point in our civilization.

Those are a few things I will carry with me throughout the days I have left in this world (minus writing all those emails).

Today is Wednesday, Day 106 in Bahrain, day 71 of The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad. Today’s prompt was provided by Clifford Thompson. It is to write about what we hope to carry forward from the quarantine? Clifford’s latest book is What It Is: Race, Family, and One Thinking Black Man’s Blues.

Feedback with an Audience

Denise Krebs10 Comments
Writing for Slice of Life with TwoWritingTeachers.org

Something happened today that was one of those snapshot moments. You know the kind you know is special so you take a mental picture to remember it?

It was in our Zoom “Open Hour” meeting. This time is like office hours for my fifth graders during emergency remote learning. Students can come and share the draft they are working on, ask a question about the assignment, or just say hi and see their friends.

Zainab had a question on our assignment, which was to write a poem about ourselves using figurative language. She said she wanted to write an Etheree poem, which is a ten-line poem starting with one syllable and then each subsequent line adds another syllable. She explained that she had written 8 metaphors and similes and she wanted to use them all, but they were each 7-10 syllables. So what was she to do? What a great writer question! The ensuing conversation between us was one of those writerly moments that makes me love my job as a teacher. I shared alternative form ideas, but also an example of how I had to shorten some of my ideas, like my metaphor–“I am a sunrise of hope”–became “rise of hope” for line 3. During this encounter, I began contemplating the question, do we write for ourselves or our audience?

Anyway, we were into this sweet writing conference, and at one moment I looked around the Zoom gallery and saw the 13 attentive faces of the others in our meeting, listening to our conference. For a few moments I had forgotten about them.

I’m sure it was the first time in my entire teaching life that I was having a conference where 13 others sat in on the conversation.

We had lots more of these mini conferences during the rest of the meeting. Sometimes other students would chime in to help. By the way, each time I asked the students if they wanted to share and receive feedback in front of their peers. All of them said yes.

Here are our poems. I chose the Etheree, and Zainab chose a different form. I think the Queen of Poems made a good decision.

An Etheree Poem about Me
Me
Denise
Rise of hope
Map of my heart
Daughter of the King
As old as a grandma
Talkative as a parrot
Delighted as a young puppy
Friend of caring, hope, and honesty
Trying to be a better ancestor

I AM POEM
I am Zainab.
I am the taste of pancakes and sweet maple syrup.
I am the smell of daisies starting to grow.
I am the sight of a birthday cake full of delights.
I am the sound of babies whining and their sweet laughter.
And the cheers of a crowd.
I am the taste of freshly baked pizza with a sight of delight for dessert.
I am a collector of my memories.
I am the sound of classical music playing.
I am the touch of guitar strings and fluffy marshmallows.
I am the taste of a fresh salad with a dressing that is made of magic.
I am the smell of the sea on an early summer morning.
I am the sight of knowledge walking on a runway
And books humming their words.
I am a girl with hair like a flowing river.
I am a princess with cheeks as red as roses.

Done by:
The Queen of Poems,
Zainab Aref Almukhtar (5A)

Letters to the Editor

Denise Krebs1 Comment

Today is Monday, Day 104 in Bahrain, day 69 of The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad. Today’s prompt was written by Sara Lettes. The task is to write a letter to the editor.

That should be a piece of cake in these days, but what will I choose?

I’m going to think about that some more and write it another day. Today, I will reflect on my first two letters to the editor.

When I was young and trying to conceive my first child, I decided it would be important to deal with my co-dependency and other issues I had being a child of an alcoholic. I approached my oldest sister, and she gave me a lot of resources to read and listen to, plus she shared long letters about the pain she experienced. I read Co-Dependent No More by  Melodie Beatty. Another thing I needed to do was go to a therapist who specialized in addiction issues. I went to some individual and group sessions. All in preparation for becoming a parent. By God’s grace and with some of the help I received hopefully it helped me to become a better parent than I would have been otherwise.

Anyway, at one of the meetings I had with my counselor, I had to make a poster with things I wanted to do but didn’t feel able to or didn’t feel I had permission to. I was to make a poster so I could hang it up to remind me to do those things. One of the items on my poster was “Write a letter to the editor.”

Well, it took me three years to write that letter, but I did. It was in the Grand Rapids Press. I can’t remember the circumstances exactly, but it was a rebuttal on another LTE about a story in the news. The writer explained that a “mountain was being made out of molehill” and the girl’s parents should teach her the playground rhyme, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me.” It was easy to write an LTE rebuttal saying that this rhyme was a lie and I would not teach it to my daughter, but instead I would teach my daughter to dismantle that rhyme and learn that our words are powerful for building up and for tearing down. No one should have to be subject to other’s taunts. I said I hoped other parents would do the same. In 2008 I wrote another LTE about reading critically.

Both of these letters to the editor I could write again today.

The Unlearning

Denise Krebs2 Comments

My first time becoming aware of my race in a serious way was when my family and I went to the Sears store in Compton. It was close to home, but “over the bridge.” Kind of like being “on the other side of the tracks” in a similar metaphor.

Going was a welcome outing whenever we needed something at our favorite department store. As white people, we were in the minority among the shoppers, but I don’t remember that as much as I remember a conversation on one of our shopping trips.

It wasn’t a conversation I was privy to, but I knew it was important. One day, a friend of a friend of my mom’s stopped us. She was a white woman working at Sears at the jewelry or makeup counter, I think. She talked softly to my mom and that was our last time shopping at this Sears store. I don’t remember when my mom told me, but later she did say that she was told it wasn’t safe to shop there any more.

Most of us can imagine how that encounter shaped me and my beliefs about being afraid of Black people. The older generation passed it right along to me. By God’s grace and with lots of unlearning and re-education in antiracism work by Black women like Rachel, Layla, Danielle, Naomi and others. I am beginning to change, to speak up, and fight for change in how Black people are treated and how to dismantle white supremacy.

It’s not white people that are unsafe in America. It’s Black people who are more likely to die of Covid-19, be poisoned by the environment in their own homes and communities, die in childbirth, have less access to education and medical care, and so much more. Black people are harassed, threatened and killed by police. Vigilantes kill Black joggers. Fearmongers threaten Black bird watchers with death by police. Black women and men are killed in their homes by on- and off-duty police.

The fact that I have come to notice and admit that my white daughters and their white husbands are safe to jog, get pulled over for traffic violations, bird watch, and go to Sears, and the fact that many of our Black brothers and sisters are not–has been a painful, necessary, and important evolution in my life. May God use this evolution in many people to help make the changes needed for our country to get a fresh start. 

Today’s Isolation Journal prompt was created by Defne Egbo. “Reflect on the first time you became aware of race—either yours or someone else’s. What meaning did you make of it then? How has that meaning evolved?”

Today is Sunday, Day 103 in Bahrain, day 68 of The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad.