Memoir-abilia

Quote of the day

Go to your desk on Monday morning and think of some event that's unusually vivid in your memory ... any event will do as long as you still remember it vividly. Call that memory back and write it up ... On Tuesday morning, do it again. Tuesday's memory doesn't need to be related to Monday's memory ... (William Zinsser, Writing about Your Life, Page 164)

I remember one of my first early childhood conferences. I had been in the United States just over a year or so, when I attended the NAEYC conference in Atlanta. I traveled with my, now, good friend Marion. At the time she was the Assistant Director of the ECRC at the University at Buffalo. As a lowly preschool teacher, and accompanied by my teenage son, I had come to America from Israel, to change my life by returning to school for a higher education. I was described as a non-traditional student, which meant being older than typical students, with more life experience - many of us with children of our own - some, like me, divorced and wanting to change the course of our lives - wanting another chance to shift professions, start anew. I was full of hope, expectation and excitement at having the opportunity to study in a large, reputable university. Indeed, I could not believe my good fortune at being accepted! In addition, I was shocked that I was capable of writing papers that were deserving of high grades, and, at times, even accolades. It was as if I had won some sort of life lottery. And so, I applied to present at a National conference and off we went to Atlanta. There, I joined tens of thousands of early childhood educators from all walks of life, ages, colors, shapes, and sizes.I attended sessions in jam-packed rooms. At one such session in which Marion and I participated, there was a panel of experts sitting up on a stage, each one sharing a different piece of research, point of view, and debating about this and that. The level of dialogue and discussion amongst the panelists was intellectually stimulating for me, opening up my mind to ideas I had never considered before, as well as reinforcing and confirming others I had thought about alone in my classroom as a preschool teacher in Israel. My eyes were shining, cheeks flushed with excitement at the prospect of all our future opportunities as doctoral students. I leaned over to Marion and said, "Someday that will be us, Mar."

Now, twenty years later, I get to present in a panel at the World Forum on Early Care and Education in Belfast. I am excited, once again eyes shining and cheeks flushed - this time, with enthusiasm and gratitude to be participating in such an event along with 700 other people from 76 different countries - all of us caring about the future of all the world's children. As I am standing to greet the attendees to our presentation, in walks one of those experts Marion and I saw twenty years earlier in Atlanta. Later, I discover that she came specifically to hear me speak. During my part of the panel presentation, she participates energetically and with insightful humor, and at the end comes up to tell me, "Well done!"

On the way home to the United States from Belfast, I write in my journal about the memory of Marion and I in Atlanta. Later, at home, I describe my feelings on my Facebook page to inform old friends about my experience. I write:

You know you've made it when LK *chooses* to attend your presentation, participates in it and comes up afterwards to say it was great! I could have died and gone to heaven right there and there! No need to carry on ... my job is done!
My friend, Marion replies (almost immediately) coincidentally reminding me:
"Someday that will be us Mar" ....and it was for my sweet friend ... Oh sweetie what an unbelievable experience. I tell you this 60 stuff is sweet.

Gratitude abounds for finding so much joy this year - allowing myself to open up my heart to let love in from so many different places, when, for so long I had chosen to wall myself off in fear. I look at the date and realize it is the anniversary of confronting my mortality. 

In the end, it seems, life is all about second chances.

A year ago at Mining Nuggets: Blogging in my mind

Comments

[Chanel j12]

The yeast/strep infection was finally starting to clear up after 2 weeks, when he woke up Friday morning with hives. At that point, they were only on his legs. He had a follow up appointment with the dermatologist asdflready scheduled that morning, so I guess you could call it good timing. If you consider anything associated with hives good timing.

[tamarika]

Hi there, dearest friend,
Actually it comes out of one of the chapters in book no. 2! They also have a CD on their website that has the proceedings of the whole conference. Do you want me to send you my book?
Hugs and love, love, love.

[Jan Delacourt]

Can a lowly olive farmer ask where one could READ the mightily important words of her best friend from highschool who is now such a world-wide expert?? here I mean the paper from belfast specifically...Is it under wraps to come out in Book No.3??

[Donna]

LOL! She is great... I love the way she says things!

[tamarika]

Donna,
Most recently I heard LK say:
Teachers are trying "to get children to do earlier and earlier what they shouldn't do later."

Brilliant!