Early-Morning Blogging

Chris had a really early morning (read: alarm clock went off at 3:30) this morning, because he started carpooling again and had to fill the car with gas. I managed to sleep a little while after that, but by 4:30 I just gave up and got up (hoping to wear myself out by so doing, so that I could get some more sleep, but failing). And so I've spent my first hour up playing on the internet and reading blogs. I've been reading through writing as jo(e), which has made my fingers itch to write. It's probably because she's a writing prof, but her blog reminds me of the expository/persuasive writing course that Ky and I took a few years ago. It's also probably why I feel so much like writing about my Little Grandma.

We took the course out of the SIFC (Saskatchewan Indian Federated College, now the First Nations University of Canada) at the UofR, because the prof teaching the course was one of Janny's favourites. It turns out that the prof is widely published in creative non-fiction (especially life writing), and she encouraged us to explore that genre for our essay assignments. Something about that course encouraged us all to explore our lives and our pasts, and to look at them reasonably as good inspirations for writing. I think I really found my voice in that course, even more so than in the creative writing courses I took. (And it probably explains why I love blogging so much.)

For the first assignment, three of us wrote about our grandparents. I wrote about my grandparents' house (which they had sold during the previous summer when my Grandpa went into the home) as being the personification of my grandparents. I loved writing about my Grandma's kitchen as being her: the constant motion and the comforting sounds (the washer, my Grandma's constant praying out loud). I don't know what makes me remember that essay more: the therapy of writing out an event that figured so largely in my memory, or the fact that my prof called the essay "publishable," which built up my confidence in my own writing.

It's funny how much has changed, since I wrote that essay. Grandma turned 89 last month, and it's hard to believe that I once associated her with constant motion. She moves so slowly now. And yet my little grandmother is adventurous. She moved across the province this summer, feeling only gladness and excitement. (I, moving across the country at the same time, felt more trepidation about leaving my hometown of 25 years than she did about leaving her home of close to 60 years.)

And now I really should get going with my day. I should soon be able to do online pre-boarding for my flight, since you can do that up to 12 hours in advance. Yay, being first to pick my seat! I also foresee Ky going deep into Drabblations as a result of my discussing this writing course, as a result the time we embarassed ourselves in Wal-Mart in front of that prof.