My Summer Mission: Writing to Celebrate by Erin Vogler

I’ve been spending a lot of time looking through my old notebooks as I am already thinking ahead to next school year. My notebooks are the place I go to define, describe, process, stumble, and rumble through my thinking, my curiosity, my emotions. I would be lost without this space to be me, wholly and completely, without filter or fear of judgment. My notebooks are one of my life’s touchstones.

As I was paging through, a pattern emerged that I did not expect. So much of my writing during the last few years has been focused on trying to fix things - lessons that went badly, other people, society’s ills...me. It wouldn’t be accurate to say that the writing I’ve been doing is all negative. Some of it definitely shows moments of negativity and frustration. It also wouldn’t be accurate to call it judgmental, although, even though I write without judgment or fear on those pages, there are certainly moments when I am making judgment or trying to work through a set of beliefs that make me uncomfortable. It would be most accurate to characterize much of my writing over the last several years as heavy. Serious. Intense.

Life is heavy, serious, and intense every single day. Admittedly, I’m a person who abhors and avoids small talk. I love getting lost in a big question. I adore wrestling with difficult ideas. I am set aflame by problem solving. I am intense. I’ll never be the person you sit next to for an easy, breezy conversation. If you sidle up next to me and we click, the conversation will go deep quickly.

I think that’s something people appreciate about me. Colleagues and friends come to me often for help or to run through thinking. But you know what they don’t do? They don’t come to me with their fun. I often feel like I’m on life’s sidelines watching other people have fun, and I finally understand why.

I’m intense. Serious. Heavy. Just like my writing. Much of that will never change.

But some of it can.

And that’s where summer writing comes in. This summer, my focus is on moving my writing and thinking forward to include writing to celebrate - myself, others, the world. I’ve had a recent opportunity to do this when tasked with writing a short speech to celebrate a student, and guess what? It felt AWESOME! Recently, I was the recipient of some writing that celebrated me, and I cannot tell you what a precious and surprising gift those words were.

I am in the middle of  another opportunity to write to celebrate as I draft my youngest sister’s wedding ceremony. When she asked me to officiate, I was terrified because this type of writing (and public speaking) is not in my wheelhouse. But in the end, I feel like it is exactly the opportunity I needed to push myself and my writing forward. It is a chance to celebrate.

So, for me, this summer’s writing is about celebration. Intentionally noticing and writing about the joy and beauty that surrounds me. Does that mean that it will all be light and breezy? Nope. Not a chance. I’m still me, afterall.

What it does mean, however, is that when I push myself to write to celebrate, life doesn’t feel as heavy. I don’t feel as intense. It allows me moments of brightness and escape in a world that is already serious enough.




Erin Vogler is an 8th and 10th grade English teacher at Keshequa Middle/High School in the lush, green, and glorious Genesee Valley of Western New York. She’ll be spending her summer hiking local trails, wrestling with two overactive boxer puppies, giving lots of love to her 13 year old Boston Terriers, reading and writing next to a quiet lake in Canada, and loving every minute of it. She can be found on Twitter @vogler3024 Instagram @mrsvogler3024, and at her blog https://fosteringvoicesandchoices.wordpress.com/.