Blog #3 "Superman and Me"

In Sherman Alexie's Superman and Me he describes how he learned to read by looking at Superman comic books.  At first, he would make up what he thought the words said by the pictures, and in this way he quickly learned to read by the age of three.  How, if he was something other than an Indian boy growing up on a reservation, he would have been considered a prodigy.  I love how he explains how he found paragraphs and that he looked at all things as a paragraph.  The reservation was a paragraph, his house was a paragraph, his family a paragraph and through genetics and common experiences they where linked together.  He explains his father's love of books and because he loved his father with an aching devotion, he too would love books. Ha paints for you a picture of how reservation life was for him and the expectations that are placed on Indian children.  He reminds us that being able to read is the gift by saying over and over, "I am smart, I am arrogant, and I am lucky and I am trying to save our lives." 

     The picture he painted for me was a door in the middle of an open prairie. On one side, a small child is locking the door and standing against it afraid, he is standing on the other side with the knowledge of the world.  He is demanding they open the door to knowledge so they can walk through the fear.  I was the child locking the door.  I don't remember learning to read.  I know that I struggled for a long time and I was always put into the lower reading groups.  I remember my sister's making fun of me when I was small because I wrote my three backwards.  I withdrew from learning and began to not care about school.  I would rather be outside playing where I was free to be who I was out of the confinement of school.  My daydreams and imagination told me the stories.  I struggled with grammar, reading, math and as a result I never felt smart.

     I really struggled with math and I felt stupid and afraid.  I decided to go back to school when I couldn't help my daughter with her homework.  I sat in that first math 10 class and fought as hard as I could to resist the information as I had always done.  I was the locked door in the prairie.  My teacher was knocking, but I was too afraid to open the door and walk through.  I sat there at times holding so tight to my chair in fear that if I let go, I would run screaming from the room.  I felt that way most days in that small, cold room.  My teacher kept telling me to let go and allow the numbers to move around the page and that I was doing better than I thought.  I got an A+ in the class, but I was still standing behind the door.  In math 20 during the review I unlocked the door.  However, I just stood there looking out, clinging to the door handle.  One night I was doing homework with my daughter and she didn't know what to do.  We sat there looking at the paper, most nights would end with me very upset and angry because I couldn't help her, but this night I was able to help her.  I finally let go of the door handle and walked through. 

Blog #2 "Shitty First Drafts"

          In the essay, “Shitty First Drafts," Anne Lamott describes the writing process from her perspective.  She removes the illusion that a writer sits down and it all perfectly flows with their first draft.  Although, she generalizes all writers stating, "not one of them writes elegant first drafts.  All right, one of them does, but we don’t like her very much.”  It helps you as a reader take into consideration that the beautiful book you just finished was not written in a day.  It may have taken months and in some cases, years.  I was tickled to know I wasn’t the only writer who found only a few lines of greatness in my four-page paragraph. 

            Her explanation of it being difficult for even the best writers is very comforting.  It takes the mystery out of the process. She describes, “we all often feel like we are pulling teeth,” and how each writer has a different ritual they perform to get the process started.  She encourages the new writer to just allow what ever comes to mind out.  Put it on paper and do not judge it.  She calls it the “Child’s draft.”  Don’t try to make sense out of what comes to your mind just type or write.  Keep writing you may find the meat of your story on page 6 on the very last line you write.

            After reading this essay, I am left feeling lighter by my writing style.  I just wrote a blog the other day on my iPad and published it before I revised it.  My silly mistakes where there for all to see, just like a trail of underwear at the Laundromat leading directly to my car.  It’s all out there for the world to see!  Thank God for revision or they would all be Shitty First Drafts!

Blog # 1 (The Price of Reading Is Eternal Vigilance)

I like Anatole Broyard take on reading and the responsibility we have as readers to be as much apart of the book as the writer.  In “The Price of Reading Is Eternal Vigilance” Broyard talks about how we separate ourselves from a book and put them above us in different ways.  It is up to the reader to become apart of the story just like in The Never Ending Story, where the boy becomes apart of the story and its up to him to save the characters from disappearing.  For me, it is always so sad to end a good book.  I sit and wonder what the characters are doing after the final chapter.  I imagine where they are and I wish the story could go on forever.  What I feel Broyard is trying to convey is that through a good book, or a bad one, if we allow ourselves to transcend through the words and into the story, we will connect once again to all that we really are “One.” 

Introduction Blog

My name is Taryn Scudder and I moved to Eugene in 2004 from Los Angeles, California with my daughter (Cailyn: age 10) and mom and dad (Pam and Billy).  Mostly, because we were able to find property with a guest house we could afford.  L.A. pricing at the time was in the 2 million range!  So north we went and this is where we found the perfect place.  Likes: my daughter, family, gardening, food from my garden, making kale chips, making spiced vinegar, cooking, singing, Love, beautiful sunsets, the full moon, long walks, writing, poetry, alchemy, the smell of roses, quantum physics, math, photography, flowers, trees, nature and natural things, politics, chocolate, The Beatles, horses, faire (CA Renaissance Faire), my friends and BFF's, I am lucky to have more than one, theater, good wine and a warm fire, John Lennon, good movies, creating things with my hands, playing guitar, creating music, fairies, the sweet sound of Cailyn laughing!  Dislikes: burnt chicken, empty container in the frig, toilet paper going the wrong way, bad drivers, tantrums, my daughter getting hurt, learning a hard lesson, a broken heart, traffic, all my friends living in L.A., no El Pollo Loco or In N Out Burger,  not getting paid for my art, not having someone to share my life with, politicians, the lack of concern for civic responsibility in a democracy, corporate greed, people who stand with a party even though they know its wrong, people who don't stand up for what is right, people who make children stop believing in magic!