This was the title of the bulletin board I put up today. And by bulletin board I mean old-fashioned school staple and cork-board bulletin board. I'm not talking about a web bulletin board. I just finished up a unit on writing personal narratives with my students. We focused on "small moments" of our lives. Each student wrote a piece, trying to focus on a 5 minute segment of their lives. The most popular topic was writing about a moment with a pet (whether meeting a pet, a pet dying, a funny pet moment). Others wrote about playing the piano, falling asleep in chapel, fighting with a friend, etc. Then we revised the pieces using such strategies as: "find the heart of the story and stretch it out" and "add five sense words" and "include internal thinking." Anyway, I put up their writing on the bulletin board, along with small illustrations and comic strips they had drawn to accompany their words. I searched for some quotes by famous authors about "moments" to place around the bulletin board. I want to share a few because they are soooo philosophical (and I like them):
"This moment contains all moments." - C.S. Lewis
"The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough." - Rabindranath Tagore
"Love the moment, and the energy of that moment will spread beyond all boundaries." - Corita Kent (RSHM)
"Life isn't a matter of milestones, but of moments." - Rose Kennedy
I was particularly happy to find the Tagore quote, as I am especially interested in Tagore after learning more about him in India.
My quote: The moments of our lives compound, overlap, magnify and direct each other, but remain distinct as well. Also, our lives are more than a sum of moments.
I always like reading books that tell about the small moments of people's lives. Like Prep, by Curtis Sittenfield, made up of vignettes. I totally recommend this book. It includes many small moments from the life of an adolescent (through the eyes of her 20-something self) and it addresses such topics as race/class/sexual orientation throughout as well.
3 comments:
Prep is a great example. In my own writing, I have the major plot outlined, but it's fun to actually figure out in the act of writing some of the things that the characters experience moment to moment. =)
YEah, this reminds me of Ann Lamott's Bird by Bird where she has people describe what they got one day in their school lunch growing up. This could be a humorous account, seemingly uneventful, but contain emotions and thoughts that give a lot of insight into a person's character/personality/background.
Ralph Waldo Emerson on the value of a moment -- one of my favorites:
"We must be very suspicious of the deceptions of the element of time. It takes a good deal of time to eat or to sleep, or to earn a hundred dollars, and very little time to entertain a hope and an insight which becomes the light of our life."
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