March Slice of Life Challenge Day 7: I remember

For the month of March, each day I am writing and posting a slice of my life, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. 

March Slice of Life Challenge Day 7: I remember...

Writer Natalie Goldberg has some fantastic, practical ideas of how writers can live a writerly life in her book Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Mind. On page 10 Goldberg writes:

"Do a timed writing for ten minutes. Begin with "I remember" and keep going. Every time you get stuck and feel like you have nothing to say, write, "I remember" again and keep going. To begin with "I remember" does not mean you have to write only about your past. Once you get going, you follow your own mind where it takes you....The memory can be something that happened five seconds ago. When you write a memory, it isn't in the past anyway. It's alive right now." 

On Wednesday I used this question to fuel some writing in my writer's notebook. Writing nearly two full pages, I was surprised what my mind uncovered in only ten minutes. Since my daughter was home sick from school on Wednesday and I stayed home to care for her, I wrote about remembering the time I had mononucleosis as a sophomore in high school and missed way too much school. I remembered being so tired that I could barely function; I attended only one class each day (math) for over a month. To make matters worse, I had an enlarged spleen and couldn't participate in a church youth group trip that I participated in each year. 

I hadn't thought about having mono in ages. 

My I remember exercise also led to writing about one of my childhood bedrooms, how we packed up our boat to save room in the car when we went on summer vacation to my grandpa's cottage, and how I didn't realize how introverted my dad was until I was an adult. 

Ten minutes of writing opened up all kinds of things to write about and for all kinds of "seed ideas" for another time.