New Jersey Writing Project

Just as I was getting use to sleeping in every day, my first workshop of the summer started. Intense. Three weeks, eight hours a day. It has been so wonderful, learning new strategies, challeging myself, and more than anything growing as a writer. I have a reflexive piece due in a couple days and then I will begin working on my extensive piece that I must send off to be published. While I hate the alarm clock every morning, I truly have learned so much.

My relfexive piece is not fully fleshed out and is still a work in progress, but I thought that I would share it with my close friends and family (or other people who are bored reading my blog) :)This is a piece that is dear to me.

So, here it is, a draft of my piece. I am still titleless as of right now (and I hate my closing sentence, so bare with me)....

“Hush Sean, he is going to hear us”, I would nervously say, anticipating his arrival.

It was after nine o’clock so dad would be home any second. My little brother, Sean, and I would lay in our parents’ bed waiting for our dad to get off of work and come home. We would pretend to be asleep and any time the bedroom door would slightly open, we would lay as still as we could, hoping it was dad. Looking back now, I realize dad knew every night we were awake; yet, every night he played along. Quietly coming in and walking to the nightstand to gently take his watch off, acting like he was trying not to wake us. Sean and I would lay as still as we could, somehow covering our mouths to where we could breathe, but if we cracked a smile it wouldn’t show.

“Well, I guess I will have to eat ice cream all by myself,” dad would say, as if he were just thinking aloud. Sean’s side of the bed would begin to wiggle as his giggle made the covers bounce up and down. Dad would then say, “I sure wish these kids were awake so I could have ice cream with them.”

Depending on the night, Sean and/or I would start the laugh that made our whole bodies move but still not making a sound; but, clearly saying we were wide awake. Dad would jump on the bed, laying across us and finally making us laugh out loud. Anticipating his arrival and the thrill of dad finally being home, our excitement couldn’t hold us back any longer. Both, Sean and I would jump up and start playing with dad. Often times we forgot about the ice cream and just enjoyed being together with him. Dad worked a lot and was not home often, so we soaked up this ritual every night.

Dad has been gone for eight years now, but even as an adult, I can still smell him walking into the room, I can still hear him put his watch quietly down on the nightstand and I can still feel the bed move as my little brother and I couldn’t hold back our laughs any longer. Above all, I still feel the love I felt from our dad, as he would come in and play along every night showing us he too enjoyed soaking up every second with us he could.