Depending on when you met me #SOLSC #SOL21

I’m accepting Teach Write buddy Leigh Anne Eck’s invitation to share a “Depending on when you met me” story. You may read her Slice from yesterday here. It tells the story of me in just a few lines. It’s reminiscent of a “Where I’m from” poem. I’m looking forward to learning more about you!

Depending on when you met me, I might have been: skipping down the sidewalk in a hand-smocked dress sewn lovingly by my mother, perched in my father’s lap, listening to Paddington and Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, searching for beach glass and skipping stones on Peaks Island in Maine with my older sister, wielding my two-handed backhand during a high school tennis match, proudly walking across the stage at Wheaton College (MA) and Lesley University commencements, tucking into haggis, tatties, and neeps while studying the poetry of Robert Burns at the University of Stirling in my motherland of Scotland, crouched terrified, yet enraptured, on the floor of a Ugandan rainforest with a family of gorillas, on my hands and knees digging for Roman artifacts along Hadrian’s Wall in South Shields during an Olympic and jubilee summer, gathered around a vernal pool teeming with life with a gaggle of Kindergarten scientists, or scribbling haiku and tanka in my notebook.

Thanks for wondering and wandering a bit with me today. And many thanks to the crew at Two Writing Teachers, and the extended SOL community, for giving us the time, space, and encouragement to live the writerly life here every Tuesday throughout the year and daily during the month of March.