Hey Everyone!
I read a couple of chapters from "Old Friend from Far Away" today by Natalie Goldberg. Most of them talked about mentors and teachers that we have had in our lives and how there memories, voices, remain with us throughout our lives and become apart of the legacy of who we are as we go through life.
In a great line Ms. Goldberg writes, "It is our hope that writing releases us. Instead maybe it deepens the echo. We call out to our past and the call comes back. We are alone-and not alone."
All that being said, here is our little memoir writing challenge for the day: Tell me about someone who was a true teacher for you. Don't be sentimental. Tell it straight and plain: who was this person? Go. Ten minutes.
"Plain"
His name is Fergus, he was my ceramics (pottery) teacher for two years; he was, and still is, a wiry older man with a love for his home state Kentucky.
He loves the smell of bacon but maintains the vegetarian life style and has never wanted to go back.
He lives in a small house in a suburb close to downtown and has taken the attic as his bedroom, so that his two kids can have their own rooms.
The man taught me more than just how to center a ball of clay on a moving wheel or the semantics of creating something that is not perfect and being ok with it; to even celebrate the beauty in its own imperfections...
As we say in the pottering community, "happy accidents".
Fergus is an avid bike rider all his life, this skinny man has remained the same weight since be was in high school (much to the chagrin of most of the woman that know him).
I learned from him how to compliment a woman, how to allow space for another to say what they will in the time that they say it and he opened me up to the wonderful world of coffee.
But most important of all, the man helped me to take time and "see" the beauty that was and is around me.
He taught me that it's ok to wait for relationships, and when a desire creeps over you to "have a girlfriend" to remind yourself that woman aren't fruit in a grocery store that you compare one to another, but that every relationship should start with a small conversation that is slowly grown between two interested people.
He's a man that every time I go home, I make sure that I sit down and have a beer with.
He's also a man that collects rocks on his dashboard...
Times Up!
He loves the smell of bacon but maintains the vegetarian life style and has never wanted to go back.
He lives in a small house in a suburb close to downtown and has taken the attic as his bedroom, so that his two kids can have their own rooms.
The man taught me more than just how to center a ball of clay on a moving wheel or the semantics of creating something that is not perfect and being ok with it; to even celebrate the beauty in its own imperfections...
As we say in the pottering community, "happy accidents".
Fergus is an avid bike rider all his life, this skinny man has remained the same weight since be was in high school (much to the chagrin of most of the woman that know him).
I learned from him how to compliment a woman, how to allow space for another to say what they will in the time that they say it and he opened me up to the wonderful world of coffee.
But most important of all, the man helped me to take time and "see" the beauty that was and is around me.
He taught me that it's ok to wait for relationships, and when a desire creeps over you to "have a girlfriend" to remind yourself that woman aren't fruit in a grocery store that you compare one to another, but that every relationship should start with a small conversation that is slowly grown between two interested people.
He's a man that every time I go home, I make sure that I sit down and have a beer with.
He's also a man that collects rocks on his dashboard...
Times Up!
Looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow! It's good to be writing again.
Sincerely,
Eric Alan
Sincerely,
Eric Alan
1 comment:
Eric, can I borrow this book when your done?
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