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Off the Deep End by Michelle Holland

2/22/2014

12 Comments

 
PictureMichelle Holland
I’ve been an English teacher most of my professional life, teaching grades 6-college level.  I’ve spent the past six years teaching at Los Alamos High School.  I’ve always enjoyed the classroom, and I’ve had great success developing student creativity and skills in composition and literature.  At times, the experience was simply a blast.  However, over the years at LAHS, my creativity has dwindled, and my writing life was compromised.  I didn’t focus as much on my poet identity, lost that thread of conviction in the glare of hostile and unsupportive colleagues, and felt bereft.  My connections with writers and poets through New Mexico CultureNet, NMLA, Sin Fronteras/Writers without Borders, and the rare times that I could write with the Monday writers in Santa Fe kept me in touch, at least.  The short story, I quit teaching high school English at LAHS in December.  My life has changed.  I am writing again.  We are broke.  I leapt off the deep end.  No insurance.  No steady income.  No retirement.  But, we don’t owe anybody anything.  My husband and I carry zero debt.  And, financial security of some sort is part of every writer’s writing life. It has to be.  

The poems I receive intermittently, emailed from my husband, and my poetry responses, are also part of my writing life.  Our exchanges began four years ago when I spent most of every work week living with our daughter in a place we invested in up in Los Alamos.  Sylvia, our daughter, was active in soccer, track, and cross-country, so we decided it best to keep her as close to her school as possible.  Tom would come up on weekends, or I would drive down to our real home in Chimayó when I could.  In between, we would email poems to one another.  The practice has continued, and sometimes, those poems were all the writing I did in a given week, or even month.  When our daughter graduated, we sold the condo, and we moved everything back down to our house, then moved most of the furniture into Sylvia’s rental home in Albuquerque.  Now, with my husband reading the paper across the living room from me, I check my email, and surprise!  there’s a poem he wrote about baking bread the other day.

I’ve already responded with a poem about sprinting “diagonals” with my new (and first) coach, Abraham, gesturing me to keep my knees up, and run in a straight line, not waste precious yards on my wayward sense of direction.  I am invested as much in my running and training as I am in my writing, so the two have become merged as I think like a poet and an athlete.  I’m not sure where that puts my audience, but I’m always searching for the words to make the balance and thrill of my body in motion manifest in the height of my knees, the rhythm of footfalls, the feel of the earth from the rocky inclines, and sandy arroyos, to the give of the oval track where I run as fast as I can, looking at my Garmin, then glancing up to see the snow trails on the Santa Fe Ski Basin. 

My writing life.  Not Hemmingway’s, or John Updike’s, or Sylvia Plath’s, or well, anyone else’s.  Right?  And, even this life, right now, is not what it was last year at this time.  For the first time in many years, I am writing more daily than not, and I have goals.  First, I’ll check my email to see if there’s another poem!




12 Comments
Shebana
2/22/2014 12:11:06 pm

Michelle - this is lovely and heartfelt - here's to leaping and exchanging poems across the room :)

Reply
jaybird da vinci link
2/23/2014 12:19:36 am

hey, i'm out in the deep end too or more like the middle of the river doing some version of the dog paddle. not sure where i'm going but so far it's wonderfully spooky. stay alert, watch for omens, follow your blizz.

Reply
MIchelle Holland link
3/10/2014 09:16:08 am

Thanks. I dog paddle pretty well. Love "spooky," as I live in Chimayo, where most everything is spooky beautiful.

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Nancy Zastudil link
2/23/2014 11:54:43 am

Good luck to you! Check out the book Running and Being by George Sheehan.

Reply
CC link
3/2/2014 03:08:37 am

Michelle - Enjoyed hearing the full report of what's happening - so happy for you. Movement on the land, sharing creations with spouse -- these are inspiring. Yay for no more glares.

Reply
MIchelle Holland link
3/10/2014 09:17:40 am

I know the book well. Thanks.

Reply
Tim Keller link
3/10/2014 08:04:53 am

Hi Michelle - What an enjoyable slice of life, a fine introduction as I look forward to meeting you in Raton next month. Good road (and good email) - Tim

Reply
MIchelle Holland link
3/10/2014 09:19:14 am

So pleased you found our NMLA website! See you in April!

Reply
Ellen Bosman link
11/25/2014 05:06:21 am

Professor Hall:

I’m a librarian at NMSU in the process of compiling a list of NM authors.
See here for progress so far nmlitmap.nmsu.edu. presently the database is undergoing maintenance and I am using this time to research new authors for the database. If you interested I would like to add you to the database. if you are interested please contact me @ ebosman AT nmsu.edu
Sincerely,
Ellen Bosman


****************************
Ellen Bosman
Professor & Head of Technical Services
New Mexico State University Library
P.O. Box 30006 / MSC 3475
Las Cruces, NM 88003

Reply
Katya Pronin link
6/9/2015 12:31:47 am

Dear Ms. Holland,
I was one of your 6th (and briefly 9th) grade students! We corresponded a little when I was in high school. You were, perhaps, the most inspiring teacher I ever had. I was thinking of you the other day when I heard Mrs. Newman was retiring as director of The Hudson School. From spying on you this past half hour, I'm so pleased to see all the interesting writing you've been doing. I especially love what you did for the snowpoem project. I don't write much anymore, but I do take photos and teach ESL.
How is Emily?
It would be nice to reconnect if ever you had some time. katya@katyapronin.com
I can't offer poems, but I do send pictures of kittens.
warmly,
katya

Reply
Nick Ricci link
10/15/2015 07:35:04 pm

Dear Mrs.Holland, I was also one of your 6th grade students as well 7th, Mom and I are still doing well, Tony and I are still the best of friends. Hows the family? Hope I hear from soon
Nick Ricci
Email nikkorino19@aol.com

Reply
Barbara Lai
8/18/2017 07:51:04 am

this is an incredible loss for not only LAHS, but for all the students. Ms. Holland prepares kids for college like no other teacher, ever. She cares about her students and their success in life.

Reply



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