Magical Memoir Moments
Sailing Acts: A Memoir and an Inner Transformation
We’ve just returned. In so many ways I am home again. Back from Brooklyn, back from the world’s best job of being a Granny Nanny, back from living out of suitcases for three weeks and a studio apartment for ten months before that. Back from writing ten chapters of memoir on a dining room table….
How to Balance Writing with Facebook, Blogging, and Twitter
While I draft memoir chapters about growing up Mennonite, I am also writing to you, the friends of this blog, and to others on my facebook page and twitter feed. Is it worth it to spend my time this way? Sometimes I wonder. A few weeks ago, I was asked by a friend of this…
Mennonite/s Writing: A Tweet-based Conference Review
Most of you know that my memoir-in-progress is about growing up Mennonite in Lancaster County, PA, in the ’50’s and ’60’s. So what a treat it was to attend a conference at Eastern Mennonite University called Mennonite/s Writing VI: Solos and Harmonies. The organizers Kirsten Beachy of Eastern Mennonite University and poet Julia Kasdorf of…
Richard Gilbert's Blog: A Memoir Treasure Trove
Please say hello to Richard Stuart Gilbert, someone I’ve never met in person but feel I’ve known a long time. His words have often left me pondering days or weeks later. He’s a blogger, journalist, memoir writer, professor and more. Some years ago he owned a sheep farm. Sound interesting? He is! Richard seems to…
My First Podcast: On Dancing with Change, Grandmothering, and Leadership!
Brian Paff, a very creative young leader-in-the-making at Laurelville Mennonite Church Center, interviewed me for his podcast series at the Laurelville website. Brian wrote a press release about the series of three speeches I gave at Laurelville April 30-May 1. The theme was dancing with change, and Stuart and I demonstrated the “frame” in ballroom…
Dancing with Change, Part Three: Gramps and Granny Nanny Leave for the Big Apple
In a few days, Stuart and I will move a second time in less than seven months! Our journey has taken us from the Midwest to the South to the Northeast. By the end of this week, we will be living in a Brooklyn highrise. And by August 1, we will be sharing a new…
The Night the Battery Died
“Where are those Showalters?” God must have asked. “They’ve had such smooth sailing lately, let’s shake things up for them.” After a whole week of sunshine and sightseeing in Los Cabos, the Baja, Mexico, and four long flights without any delays, we were ready for the last leg of our journey home—a car ride…
Dancing with Change: A Mini-Memoir
As you may have guessed by now, the December and January posts on this blog are more about issues related to my current life than about the subject of memoir per se. That’s because Stuart and I are in the midst of major post-mid-life changes. Of course, these changes are relevant to the subject of…
Home for the Holidays Part III: What Does Home Mean to YOU?
I have been thinking a lot about houses and the idea of home for the last month. Moving from Michigan to Virginia at age 62 has stimulated introspection. I am no longer at home in Goshen, IN, the place where I spent most of my adult life, or Kalamazoo, MI, the place that nurtured us…
Home for the Holidays Part II: The Soundtrack of the Journey
Our moving day was Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2010. We left Kalamazoo, MI, around 4 p.m. after the two moving vans had already headed east. Our first stop was with Stuart’s brother Hollis and his wife Marty in Ann Arbor. They toasted our transition with a champagne dinner. In the morning after a quick breakfast, they…