Final day at the RRVWP

What a way to end the summer institute! I had set our alarm clock for 5 am. Kristie gave me a thorough editing of my final professional piece, so I had to go to my classroom before heading to GF.

I woke to Kristie shaking me and saying, "It's 8:30!"

So after a quick shower and throwing some clothes together, I was off around 9.

I did make it to the final session, albeit 3 and a half hours late. What was really funny was that the ladies (there are only two Y chromosomes in this session) were all worried about me. I had to leave the previous day's session early because I was afraid my car was overheating (in actuality, my air condition just gave out).

So the ladies were glad I was okay and not stranded along the roadside somewhere.

I finished my three pieces - a revised poem on my grandmother's arthritis, a fictional piece that I had written previously on a fight that had taken place next door to my house when I was a child. But the more I think about it, I think the fight really happened between my grandfather and grandmother. So I revised it to focus on that more. My professional piece was a braided essay about writing a braided essay. I began it with a great quote - "Nobody an author loves is ever dead." Then I included a professional essay about using the braided essay format in my composition classes. I also wove in blog entries chronicalling my father's death (I begin the essay with an entry focused on his funeral) and then I recount his illness and his eventual death. Braided among those two pieces are contrasting images (thanks to Kristie - it was her idea) of Dad. For example, one is from an old essay on Dad. It describes him standing on a hay rack as a proud hardworking farmer. The impetus for the description was his old John Deere hat. That image is paired with a description of Dad's last hat, which I held close as we cleaned out his room in Riverview the morning of his death. It was Kristie's idea to balance the images of dad and really try to appeal to different senses that illustrate just how much he had changed with his illness. In addition to those images, I have quotes from things people came up to me at the wake or funeral and told me about Dad. And I also have my eulogy in there too. I think it works and is pretty powerful. But it could be too much crammed into an essay too. I guess we'll see.