My brother-in-law’s spirited young dog had been fascinated by the yarn in my lap. Despite the dye, perhaps he could smell something of the sheep, or maybe he just liked the way it moved when I knit. He kept trying to eat it, and we had a couple of close calls.

At one point, we lost track of him. It turned out he had opened the plastic bin in the other room where I keep my yarn and was now tearing around the house with the yarn in his mouth, victorious at last. Hilariously, he had grabbed the same color I was using.

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The fear of criticism prevented me from sharing my writing in the past.

Especially scary was the possibility that someone might tell me how wrong I was and be right about it, sending major cracks through the foundation my work is based on.

In fact, this fear didn’t just prevent me from sharing my writing — it prevented me from writing in the first place. That may have made me blameless, but it also made me bland. I wasn’t committing to a point of view, which meant that I wasn’t clear on what my point of view actually was.

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People are trying to make sense of the passage of time.

Reflecting not only on the past year, they’re attempting to process the past decade, hoping to glean some lessons and understand the trends that shaped the events they’ve just lived through.

If you’re feeling a sense of loss, a fear of missing out, a worry that there’s a party going on without you, let me reassure you: Nobody knows what the heck they’re doing.

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When I was in fourth grade, a teacher asked me how I felt about writing.

“I don’t like it,” I said. “It makes my hands hurt.”

She went on to explain that what she meant by writing was not the physical act of marking the page, but “making up stories.” This, I liked just fine.

I think of this conversation often for two reasons. First, it reminds me that my students don’t necessarily see the world the way I do. They may even have a different definition of the words we’re using.

And second, it gives me an opportunity to consider a student’s perspective on writing, specifically. Even if they understand that by writing, we mean composition and not transcription, could they still be working from a limited definition?

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The assignment had been given: Write about a place you’ve been.

Barely five minutes later, Chris, a sixth grader, had already turned his in. I glanced up to see him already engrossed in something else. Warily, I plucked the sheet of paper out of my inbox and read.

“The place I’ve been is San Francisco. My dad took me with him on a business trip. We went to Chinatown and Ghirardelli Square. We also went to Muir Woods. It was awesome!!!”

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