This girl is taking the summer to travel and speak in as many places as I can about HOPE! So I'm putting my blog on autopilot and bringing back a few of my favorite posts from the 10+years I've been doing this crazy writing thing.
The month of June will be devoted to the wisdom and general good sense from our very own Holly Chamberlain, with whom I will be spending some beach time very shortly!
She needs no introduction. The next four weeks are hers:
SATURDAISIES: Yes, Another Holly Chamberlain Post
February 6, 2016
So. You know. I’m standing there in my classroom just before Thanksgiving making sure that my biscuits understand how to make in-text citations, MLA style, because that’s pretty important since I send these kiddos right up to Mr. Nic Darlinton, fellow Flying M-Inkling, masterpiece of a human being, and the finest educator I’ve ever known in over two decades in this industry. He teaches 8th grade English and Literature and takes nearly all of my students, and I would be completely mortified if I were to send him students who couldn’t cite their sources precisely and correctly especially since, if I were to take his English and Literature classes, I’d very likely get a B.
Minus.
I would never send children to him who didn’t know how to cite their sources using the MLA format. What kind of writing teacher would I be?
So. Like I said. I’m standing there in my classroom in front of 12-year-olds that are completely riveted like they are every day, sitting on the edge of their seats soaking it all in like the sponges that they are as I point out the correct way to quote text explicitly as well as how to paraphrase using quotations marks (or not) and where to put the author’s last name with the page numbers and how to put the period after the parentheses – exciting stuff – and someone waltzes… no, someone swaggers… through the door and inexplicably yells loud enough to wake the disciples: “Whazzzzuuuuuup???”
Holly Chamberlain.
Can you believe it? Holly Chamberlain, my Las Vegas desert rose, my beach buddy, my hot tamale mamacita who said she would never, ever, ever come up here to Idaho if we were under seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit. Yet here she was with a dazzlingly diabolical smile on her face with Sean-Martin, who had been acting like a weirdo all week long, right behind her. They’d been planning to surprise me with this for three months. My husband had talked her into staying the entire week of Thanksgiving break – so that he could go do some guilt-free fly fishing, which is a-okay with me.
And what did my kiddos do? Why, they broke out their phones, of course, and recorded the whole episode. This generation is ever armed and ready with their cameras for opportune moments such as these. They’re like paparazzi. This whole scene is very likely on You Tube filmed from thirty different angles, with me standing cemented in place like grace at my whiteboard unable to process what I’m seeing – eyes wide, jaw dropped, pink expo marker drying out in my hand. My sweet honey biscuits have figured out that as long as my hair looks half-way decent and I’m not flying around the room on my broomstick or dangling a kid by his ankles over the balcony, what do I care what they record?
The tears that flowed were the first hint that my frozen state was melting, which is fine. Some people are worth melting for, after all. Holly was laughing and pointing the entire time.
GAWD, I love that girl.
As soon as I thawed out and wrapped my head around the fact that my friend was here – she was really here – I capped that expo marker and called it a day. Those MLA style citations were gone faster than the speed of love. Mr. Darlinton will just have to pick up my slack next year. Holly went back to her rental car to bring up her ‘lil canine-companion, Loosie Loo, and stayed with me the rest of the day. We took in all the sites in Nampa, which took us six minutes or so, and spent the entire week with the best bottles of Sauvignon Blanc that New Zealand has to offer, laughing and scheming and talking about writing and business and solving all the world’s problems. And you know what we figured out?
Moments pass – even the good ones.
No one is coming.
There’s no such thing as a safe zone.
Sounds slightly daunting for a couple of Hope Givers, doesn’t it? I’m pretty sure we’re right, though, and those little tidbits of truth are valuable information to have as we navigate through this life. I’m going to take these three slices of wisdom and unpack them in the next three weeks of this month and weave throughout them another one of Holly’s messages which is this: We can do hard things. If you’re ready to be inspired, check back in these next three weeks. Follow and share this blog if you are so inclined, and I’ll send you a reminder on Saturday mornings.
If you have not had the pleasure of knowing Holly, you should introduce yourself today. You can follow her on Instagram and visit her blog.
Until next week…
Daisy Rain Martin is an author, speaker, advocate, and educator as well as a founding member of The Flying M-Inklings Writing Group. She lives with her husband, Sean-Martin, in the beautiful state of Idaho and teaches English and Literature during the school year to the best 7th graders the world over. Daisy spends her summers writing, speaking, researching, creating, gardening, and canning.
Hope Givers: Hope is Here, is the sequel, of sorts, to her comedic, spiritual memoir, Juxtaposed: Finding Sanctuary on the Outside, which was her publisher's (Christopher Matthews) #1 top selling book in 2012. She has also written a free e-book for anyone who has or is currently being sexually abused called, If It’s Happened to You, which appears in its entirety in Hope Givers. Please follow her weekly blog, SATURDAISIES, which addresses a plethora of current issues including child advocacy, all things hilarious, and matters of the heart. She would love for you to join the Rainy Dais Community by friending her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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