Slices of this day

Day 29 of 31 at TWT!

One of my favorite parts of the Slice of Life community is being inspired by other writers. Whether it's a unique craft move, a new format, or a story idea I connect to, I love discovering ways to improve as a writer, notice-r, thinker, and liver of life. 

A couple of days ago, I enjoyed Sherri's post, "On This Day". It was so much fun to see her dive back into her past writing to catch glimpses of her life, on one certain date, over the years she's been blogging. It was striking to consider the enormity of time passing, the differences in life moments and writing ideas from year to year, and the accomplishment of participating in this challenge for years. Immediately, I was excited to dive back into my own past slices across time and see what I might find!

11 years ago, I was nearing the end of my very first March Challenge, after slicing on Tuesdays for about 6 months prior. On March 29, I wrote the 3rd post in a series about a particular EL student, and when I first re-read this post, I couldn't figure out which student I had written about, because I thought I was teaching EL at the time, but the story didn't match any students I remembered from my years at the first building I taught EL. Suddenly, I realized that this story was written back when I was still a Spanish teacher, and I got to help out with EL students at one of my schools for one period. This was truly a lifetime ago. Right away, I rocketed through a time tunnel, and I could see this student perfectly. Her whole story came rushing back to me. Little did I know then that she was just the first of so many incredible EL students with inspiring resilience that I would have the pleasure of learning with, learning from, and yes, teaching. What an amazing girl. 

10 years ago, it was Spanish Friday, and I remembered watching the Good Friday processions in Spain years before. Now, I was teaching high school EL for the first year.

5 years ago, I skipped writing on this day, but the day before, I (ironically) wrote about writing when it's hard, and the day after, I wrote another Spanish Friday post about the processions. Now, I was an experienced EL teacher and a mom of 1, recovering from a year with two pregnancy losses and praying for a rainbow baby.

Last year, I wrote about spending time with the Afghan refugee family we met as part of our district's collaboration with a local refugee resettlement agency. Now, I was a mom of 2, living through a pandemic, teaching middle school EL for the first year after having taken a year off to keep my girls safe and healthy, and back to fully slicing every day in March.

This year, after having chosen to take a break from writing during my spring break, I'm enjoying the last few days of the challenge and looking forward to presenting the classroom challenge to my students. For the first time, I've gotten several colleagues to slice with me, and I happily churned away this afternoon pulling together my favorite resources for them to use if they decide to try the April challenge with their students. On my wrist, my new bracelet reminds me how sweet my girls are and how much I love them.

So many slices. And on them, cherished comments from blogging friends old and new. Such drastic change, and yet so many common threads. I love to teach. I love language. I love writing, even though it's hard. I love this slicing community. I love making a difference. And I love my family.

I can't wait to see what next year will bring.