Monthly Archives: March 2018

(For this month’s Slice of Life Challenge with Two Writing Teachers, I am aiming to do Six Word Slices most days, with some extended slices on other days.)

Context: Last night was our annual gathering of the Neighborhood to celebrate with a Winter Blues Party, full of food and raffles and laughter. A new subdivision off the main neighborhood in recent years has really expanded the number of neighbors, and babies!

Peace (in the hood),
Kevin

(For this month’s Slice of Life Challenge with Two Writing Teachers, I am aiming to do Six Word Slices most days, with some extended slices on other days.)

Context: I had yesterday off, due to the snow in the higher elevations of our school district. The rest of my family did not. That meant I had time and space to write and record some music here at home.

Peace (sounds like),
Kevin

(For this month’s Slice of Life Challenge with Two Writing Teachers, I am aiming to do Six Word Slices most days, with some extended slices on other days.)

Context: My high school senior son was presented with the coach’s Most Valuable Player award at his Indoor Track Team’s ceremonies last night, for being a leader on the team and for volunteering to do events, and then excelling at them, to help his team win. (He now holds the school record for Long Jump, even though he is a relay sprinter).

Peace (and pride),
Kevin

(This is for the Slice of Life challenge, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. We write on Tuesdays — and many join in to write every day in March for the Slice of Life Challenge — about the small moments in the larger perspective … or is that the larger perspective in the smaller moments? You write, too.)

This is the eleventh year of the Slice of Life March Challenge, and I guess I’ve been here since the start, thanks to an invitation from my friend, Bonnie, to write. I’m not committing to writing for Slice of Life every day this March. I’m not quite feeling it, for whatever reason.

Part of this reluctance to sign up and commit is that what used to be a small writing community of teachers has become a huge writing community of teachers. Which is great. Wonderful. Amazing. All those teachers writing? Magical. Yet I miss some of the regular, sustained interactions among a small group of folks. I feel less in the flow. Maybe that’s the natural course of things over time.

It has nothing to do with the fine folks at Two Writing Teachers. With a handful of projects underway and some regular writing in a slice-like vein on Mastodon, I’m feeling like I have my writing time covered.

But maybe I say this every year (I think I do, in some form, hedging my commitment) and then find myself writing a Slice every day anyway. Just, no promises, I’m telling myself.

So … eleven years ago:

• My oldest son was 9 years old. He was in fourth grade. He’s now in his second year of college. His is a fleeting presence in our lives for much of the year — he’s not a big on one regular contact from the parents while he’s at college. He’s still making movies and producing media.
• My middle son was 6 years old. He was in first grade. Now he’s a high school senior, contemplating where he wants to go to college next year. We just found out yesterday that all four of the schools he applied to have accepted him and offered him some scholarship money. He’s stressing about the decision as we try to keep him calm and centered.
• My youngest son was 2 years old, in preschool. He’s now in seventh grade — in the heart of our city’s middle school year, juggling the different social terrain of being a budding teenager. Lately, he’s been writing and producing music. It’s been interesting to watch that talent develop.

Eleven years from now … who knows where we will be …

Peace (slicing it),
Kevin