Aaaaaand we're back!

I finally realized a few years ago that it actually takes until November before I feel truly settled with a new group of students. During the first week we learn names and stand-out characteristics, some likes and dislikes. After the newness wears off and the kids begin to feel safe in their new environment, truer patterns of behavior emerge. In mid to late October I learn about things that have been flying under the radar--the unknown math skills a certain girl possesses, the lack of phonetic knowledge covered up by a good visual memory. Initial feelings of "Oh no...how did I not notice?" lead to a revised course of instruction.

So here I am, just coming out of the whirlwind of the intense initiation into the new year, already two viruses down, lots of laughs as well as struggles, and feeling like I have a deeper sense of each individual's strengths and needs.

My teaching partner and I have already revised our previous year's math curriculum to move deeper into problem solving, and we recently met Pete Bowers, who completely turned around our ideas about word study and spelling instruction. We presented at a large-scale conference our school hosted, and tomorrow we're visiting the Wonder of Learning exhibit in Monterey, an exhibition based on the Reggio Emilia schools in Italy.

Needless to say, we keep ourselves busy.

But school life is not my only true passion, and so I continue my quest to maintain a work-life balance and devote time in accordance with my heart's desires. I began this blog with the intention of teaching myself how to write regularly, how to make time in the midst of an otherwise full life.

November arrived and several moments of madness pointed to my need to sign up for NaNoWriMo (otherwise known as National Novel Writing Month.) And so I did. This morning.

(I say this succinctly to encourage the idea that this is no big deal, but my ego wants to shout: THIS IS A REALLY BIG DEAL!!!)

It's five days in, but I don't mind. Whatever I get done toward the 50,000 word goal will be far more than I've been getting done for the better part of 7 1/2 years (the official moment I decided to Become a Writer.) I'm entering into the endeavor with a sense of play, the practice of non-editing, and radical self-belief. It's all an exercise in letting go of fear, anyway. Let the writing be wild and reckless! I have a good supply of band-aids and lots of Halloween chocolate. That should take care of any serious injuries that occur.

Alright! I'll let you know how it goes. Feel free to bother me about it. I'm sure I'll need all the encouragement I can get!

Twenty-two days

Twenty-two days ago I decided to write a blog post every day until July 31st. And here we are! I made it! (Except for one busy Saturday. See below.)

It has been a real shift in habit for me, getting up and writing each morning. It's been absolutely dreamy. It feels important. I feel important. I feel more important if I've already taken a shower when I sit down at the computer. Much more official.

“There is something very right about simply letting yourself write. And the way to do that is to begin, to begin where you are.”

-Julia Cameron, The Right to Write

 {elloh}

I gave myself an assignment to formally note what I have learned/noticed/relearned over the course of the month. Here’s what found its way to my list…

~ Writing is magical.
~ Writing is hard.
~ You've got to show up every day.
~ Sometimes you have nothing to say.
~ Time off is also important. We need to fill the well, let things simmer. (Reason for the missing Saturday post.)
~ Some ideas take time.
~ Length does not equal profundity.
~ I'm really wordy.
~ I'm perfectionistic.
~ Being the caretaker of Six Giraffes fills me with elation.
~ It also feels like a big responsibility.
~ This belief often leads to fear.
~ Meeting like-minded strangers is exhilarating. So is turning them into new friends.
~ Knowing I’ve impacted someone's day gives me a tingly thrill.
~ I crave validation. Especially for my personal ideas.
~ I’m still finding my voice.
~ I love telling stories with visuals.
~ I want to create a realistic blogging schedule for the school year.
~ I love teaching people things.
~ I love musing on personal life journeys.

I am a writer.

I’ve been saying that for about eight years now, and it has been true all this time. I’ve gone through periods where I spend copious time in my notebooks, carrying around small journals to capture unusual moments throughout the day. And then I get "busy." Notebooks start to collect dust.

But now I am consistently writing, and that is all it takes to be a writer.

“I think the angels reward people who show up at their desk at 6:00 a.m.”

-Elizabeth Gilbert 

Last night I just had to draft out a snippet of an idea. It was as if I had suddenly stoked a previously invisible smoldering fire. Energy rushed through me and onto the page until I could no longer fight off sleep. This morning I felt a weight had lifted, as if that idea had been taking up internal, spiritual space. The bubble gum that had been holding the envelope tight was gone. Once I freed that character onto the page, I was able to speak about new things. Literally.

This fascinated me. Do I show less of myself when I don’t provide an outlet for the characters inside me? When I am really committed to my writing schedule, will I feel more space to express new ideas? I’m curious to see as well as curious to read what finds its way to my pages.

{artsyville}

Thanks to everyone who has spent some time here at Six Giraffes during these inaugural months. I love reading your comments, and your encouragement lands like a bouquet of bright daisies in my happy hands.

Next week I’ll be taking you on a road tour of the California coast. Stay tuned to see what magic awaits—hoping to have lots of special things to share!

A lesson via Coleridge

My mother is ambitiously sorting through all the STUFF in her house. I was informed that I needed to come over and go through various old boxes of mine to decide what I intended to keep. (She is graciously still storing some of them for me. Thanks, Ma!) In one of the boxes was a selection of old books that I had chosen from my grandparents' collection when we cleared out their house, years ago. To my surprise, I discovered an ancient artifact among the pile...

(The title on the spine, Coleridge's Poems, fell off just this morning...)

This leather-bound collection was awarded to my great-grandfather for his academic accomplishments at St. John's College in Toledo, Ohio in 1906! The cover feels silky soft, and the book smells like an old, antique library.

I was introduced to Coleridge and "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" in high school senior English. We did "Kubla Kahn" too, which always childishly made me think of Olivia Newton John's cult classic - "In Xanadu did Kubla Kahn..."

 

We read a lot of romantic poetry that year, and I was completely entranced by the fanciful odes to nature and the faery realm. I've found myself re-creating a relationship with poetry this week, and I felt the power of this volume not just in my hands, but deep in my soul. An affirmation, if you will. 

 

I'd love to be invited to this party...

Delicious! It makes we want to sit amongst the trees all day weaving words about mossy banks and stream-soaked pebbles. Am I allowed to do that? Well, I am on vacation. 

Isn't this the kind of question that plagues so many of us? If this is what I love, why am I not doing it all the time? That doesn't mean I have to quit the job that pays my bills (and fortunately also feeds my soul.) It is possible to keep our passions present using smaller chunks of time. I know a successful business man who travels abroad several times a month who is also a gifted portrait artist. He uses his time on the plane to sketch, and it's amazing how much he accomplishes.

I've heard this message before. Nothing new. It really comes down to choice. Art, while seemingly thriving in dreamy freedom, needs structure. It needs regular time set aside to perform, develop, grow. The question really becomes...when will I give my art the structure it deserves?

Nobody tells beginners...

You may have seen this already or even watched the original interview with Ira Glass. I can't help but post this anyway. I passed it by once, feeling the little, nagging tug that meant I should probably listen. When I ran across it a second time, I figured I'd better give in.

Brilliant iteration by David Shiyang Liu

I love this idea of good taste. Artists need to hear stuff like this. I often wonder, unconsciously I suppose, "Why is it I've been called here to do this work, yet when I sit down to do it, it comes out so much differently than it felt inside my head??" I understand that skills need practice and time to grow strong. Still, how easy would it be for me to give up? Well as a perfectionist, very easy. But hearing that I have "good taste" is a special kind of reassurance. I need to know that eventually, someday, what I believe to be good work when I read it, will come out of my own pen. I just need to keep showing up. And read good books. And play. And be gentle with myself.

It's okay to be a beginner.

Cookies and milk

I've been steadily making my way through a package of amaretti cookies, which I recently bought for my nectarine galette. They're a perfect, bite-sized treat and I have to admit that I've snacked on them before breakfast. More than once. Like today.

I stood looking out the kitchen window enjoying the sweet almond flavor and the quiet neighborhood when Bam! A memory flooded its way back into my brain in full technicolor. You know that feeling?

My grandparents lived only twenty minutes away growing up, so I would often go spend the night with them, especially in summer. They were quiet, neighborly folk who enjoyed speaking French and listening to classical music. Many of my personal influences come from early days spent at their house.

If I happened to be there on a weekday, my grandpa (Boppa) would leave me a special breakfast treat before he left for work early, early in the morning. This was one of the best parts of staying at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Sliding my way into the kitchen in my nightgown, I was sure to find a small plate with four or five Stella D'oro cookies and a tiny glass of grapefruit juice. If you never had the pleasure of encountering these cookies, here's a picture.

They look almost as I remember. But the rainbow sprinkles used to belong to a flower-shaped cookie, and they were extra rainbow sprinkly.  I really don't remember that obnoxious green frosting. Weird.

Anyway, these Italian cookies were such a warm way to wake up. I would eat them while Grandma slept, imagining what Boppa's day was like at work. The cookies were our own little secret, Boppa and I. "Be sure to finish them before your grandma wakes up," he would say in hushed tones. I'm sure she knew, but at the time I felt so...sneaky. In a good way.

These memories are important for us writers. I know this to be true. But I'm having trouble putting my reasoning into words. Anything that zaps out of the ether into my consciousness has got to be worth remembering, right?  I think my job is to write it down and keep it in the Well of Ideas. It might not get used immediately but it's ready to serve at a moment's notice.

This is such an offshoot of my recent ponderings on Flow. I've noticed a lot of other wonderful, creative people who have been musing about the same the past few days. I'm going to let this idea simmer. What do you do with those lovely memorable tidbits? How do you keep them with you and do they ever suddenly reveal their purpose? Big questions...

Weekend fun: alphabets

I'm in love with typography and alphabet inspired art. 

The ALPHABET is a key tool in the physical toolbox of expression.

I'm proud to honor it today, 

along with these featured artists! 

(credited whenever possible)

 {concept poster}

To start us off, here is a photo of the Celtic alphabet that hangs in my living room. I snatched it up the moment I laid eyes on it in a sweet, little shop in Dublin. It's based on the art found in the ancient Book of Kells.

{artist unknown}

As a teacher and children's book writer, I also swoon over alphabets created for children.

{Carmen Mok}

{Paul Thurby}

 My favorite board book

{Charley Harper's ABC}

Admiring the intricacies of pen and pencil illustration...

 {Raluca Avarvarei - Old Alphabet of Fee}

 {Robert Westwood - hand drawn monograms}

Another collection of alphabet eye candy: FOUND ART

 French - avion, bicyclette, canard...

{Grégoire Ganter}

{Jen Quinn}

{Abba Richman}

{aerial typography of New York - Rachel Young}

And finally farther afield...unusual examples of alphabet reverence.

{EINE shutters - Middlesex Street}

{pantry typography - Samir Zahran}

cool large image here

And my FAVORITE of the day...

{via wattpad}

Find more ALPHABET LOVE on my Pinterest board!

Wordplay: not just for kids anymore

“Language is most daring and most advanced when it is used in a playful setting.”
 -Jerome Bruner

We have been given the beautiful gift of luscious language, why not make it a regular part of our adult playspace? More and more research is finding its way into popular media on the importance of play in innovation, creativity, and personal health for both kids and adults. Words are with us every moment, which means we have an infinite number of opportunities to let loose, flap our traps, and cut a literary rug. 

"The opposite of play is not work, it is depression."

-Brian Sutton-Smith

I feel fortunate to belong to an urban tribe full of playful wordsmiths. We seem to find ourselves rhyming, alliterating, parsing, and coining with reckless abandon. Here are some examples that tickle my fancy.

I giggle inside at the use of Old Timey words used in modern contexts. Words like:

betwixt
alas and alack
tomfoolery

Some words just feel good to say like hoodikai. [(noun) the thing you can’t remember the name of]

“Where the heck is that hoodikai?”

Skedaddle, Roxaboxen, picnic, cinnamon...

My friend calls her Kitchen Aid stand mixer the “the Mixin’ Vixen.”

I also love moments that might call for super swags to use swear words or slang but they choose totally innocuous phrases instead, like:

“Splendid!”
“Yikes!”
 “You! You’re such a turkey.”

Did I mention that you are allowed to be as nerdy as you want in wordplay?

Invented Words
In an unusual energetic role reversal (I’m usually beat by 9:30 each night, he’s working hard to get to sleep by 11:00) Ben sleepily said to me, “Why are you so awake and I’m so…whomper??”

Last night, nine of us kids had a “Hangout” on Google+ (more to come on this soon!) We had aimed to have a Meaningful Creative Melding of the Minds, but the excitement of being together took over and “important work” transformed to pure silliness. Someone snapped a shot of the screen with their phone for documentation, and I quipped, “We’re so meta beta right now.” Like, commenting on our fumbling prototype? Get it?

Then we got lost with trucker lingo for awhile.
"Gotta get my covered wagon to the chicken coup before another Big R blows my doors off!"

One of my word champions started a game around the campfire in Yosemite. The goal: to make the longest, sensical string of rhyming words possible. (You can start it off with a non-rhyming word.)

I sought her hotter, broader, daughter.
Caught her.
Got her water, got her fodder.
Taught her, fought her,
shot her.

You need to read this out loud as fast as possible to really get it. Go on! You know you wanna try it.

Another 'king of non-sequitor' friend tweeted:
{Why sing a song of sixpence when you could just rob the "Feed the Birds" lady, who's clearly been raking in the tuppence all day?}

You may have hilarity oozing from every orifice. (Please share your kooky examples in my comments! Bad puns earn extra points.) Or you may not realize how much you already engage in wordplay. Give an extra ear to conversation, sports headlines, and commercials to find language being used in surprising ways. And listen to kids—they’re naturals at messing things up in funny ways.

Lucas: “I know why there’s a [-ber] in December. It’s because it’s so cold and usually snowing!”

It’s Friday—the perfect time to play!  So loosen your lips and let out some luscious language. If you're a writer, be sure to jot your findings down in a notebook for possible future use.

And as the truckers would say,
“KEEP THE SHINY SIDE UP & THE RUBBER SIDE DOWN!”

Succulent storytelling: symbols

Yesterday’s post has initiated a wave of thoughts. My good friend, At the Dew Drop Inn, was synchronistically paddling in that same sea yesterday, and it got me thinking about how symbols might lead to storytelling.

Personal Messengers

Do you have something that finds you over and over again? An object? A creature? A certain phrase? What does it represent to you?

Like the bird droppings in Diane’s beautiful and humorous story, I realized birds have been capturing my attention for many years.

~The squawking blue jays in my grandma’s backyard during my preschool years

~The raven illustration that lived above their wall of bookshelves, now hanging in my mom’s house

~The hummingbirds we watched on the bottle brush tree and fuchsia outside my grandma’s front door

~The little bird that guided us through the rain to our backpacking site one summer in Yosemite

~The chick I hatched/raised with first graders, which died three weeks later

~My second graders’ growing fascination with all varieties of birds during a big research writing unit

herculiz

~ Socializing baby penguins at the SF Zoo

~The red-tailed hawk that led me back to a missed trail while hiking alone in Mendocino (once again in the rain)

~The hummingbird that visited me at the beach days after my father died

Any of these moments might turn into a story or at least a featured detail. Did any moments in the list make you curious to know more?

I want to pay more attention to the collection of symbols that gather in my day-to-day world and see how or if they speak to becoming something larger. If stories come from an amalgam of our experiences, than I suspect symbols are crucial elements of our personal storytelling repertoire.

I would love to hear about your life story symbols!

Succulent storytelling

Yesterday morning I was having a conversation in my head. You know, the whole idea that there are no new ideas in the world? That we keep telling the same stories over and over? And how that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t tell them anyway? I came to some really powerful revelations.

First, did you know:

11% of 30+ year olds maintain a personal blog

and

there are 152 million blogs on the Internet?

Infographics via @kevwrex 

What is going on with all these blogs? I couldn’t regularly read even 100 in a day without making it a full time job. Somehow these personal narratives are serving a purpose. And then I envisioned how we live our life in circles. The Google+ developers must have had the same idea.

Christopher David Ryan

We make friends, and we say they are now “part of our circle.” We become interested in, or at least exposed to, the things they are interested in. Suddenly we find ourselves in capoeira class or traveling the world with middle schoolers thinking, “Huh, ten years ago I never imagined I would find myself here.” We are led down a journey of life--experiencing, learning from our mistakes, searching for purpose, loving, and being loved. We seek out the comfort and wisdom of those around us as we create the life we feel we want to live.

And this is why we all need to retell the same stories.

The common threads that weave through our lives guide our actions year after year. Our surroundings shift, and we revise our stories to fit more modern times. Nowadays as “the digital world bleeds into the physical world and personal relationships migrate to the web,” we find ourselves with friends and guides whom we’ve never met in the flesh. These relationships can be as important as the people we see at the office or in the mommy’s group. We can’t predict where our next bit of wisdom may come from or who might need to hear our stories. Our circles are widening with surprising friendships, like bloggers who drive to Canada and stay in the homes of bloggy friends they have never “met.” (Great post from {not your average ordinary}!) I believe that we find each other for very particular reasons. Some friendships last for years and others for just a brief instant, still, they are no less powerful. We have but one job—to share our stories with anyone who cares to listen.

Feeling supercharged, I grabbed SARK’s book Succulent Wild Woman off the shelf to read in my breezy backyard. I have a hard time finishing books (I’m usually in the middle of 9 things at once), so I opened to the page bookmarked with an old receipt. And naturally, here’s what it said:

And if that wasn’t enough to let me know I was on the right track, this Succulent Wild Bird suddenly glided across the backyard and landed in my orange tree, 

as if to say, "Helloooo, over here! Yes, you! You got it!"

[Birds have recently become my personal messengers!]

So, that’s it. No more hiding behind “there isn’t enough time” or “what if it’s not good enough.” It’s time to daringly share our stories, succulent or simple.

I am a storyteller, and whoever wants to listen is more than welcome.

Please...come and join me!

First drafts

Opening the door,

light spills
 

early morning magic.

Glittery sparkleshine

comes from you alone.

I hear your words,
 

see your visions,
 

feel your dance
 

radiating wonder.

Writing with power! - part 2

I sent out a questionnaire to my future writers a few weeks before camp. One of the questions I asked was, "What do you love about writing and/or what do you find challenging about writing?" Jack was the first to respond. I had already received a frantic message from his mother, who was worried that her boy was going to make trouble for me. His answer to the question..."I don't like anything about writing. It is challenging because I can't come up with any good ideas and I think it is just really boring. I feel like celebrating when I don't have to do any big writing assignments. P.S. I am in Spanish immersion so I have written mostly in Spanish but I would prefer to write in English."

Game on.

In that moment, I made him my personal project. Across town, this red-haired, freckle smitten, soon-to-be fifth grader was also hoping to be challenged. He secretly longed to be a confident writer but was absolutely not going to say so. Doesn't his voice just ring out in that response?

After some fun, first day games, I asked the kids to write down their hopes and dreams for the week. What did they most want to accomplish? Surprisingly, one of Jack's goals was "to have a better attitude toward writing." The door was open! During writing choice, he started a piece about the first goal he scored in lacrosse, his current passion.  A classmate of his, Jenny, shared his trapezoid table, and the two set to work between light conversation. Partway through his first paragraph he came and asked for help with the /h/ sound in 'behind', and my empathy grew. Something so simple for my first graders proved challenging for this kid who did his primary learning in Spanish. 'J' or 'H'? No wonder writing was as pleasant as picking snails out of a manure pile. Instead of just giving him the answer (and stopping Jenny before she gave it away) I helped him link his knowledge to other words to find the sound. With less reservation he asked, "How do you spell took?" I replied, "How do you spell book?" Instant connection.

The next day his mom emailed me to say thanks. Whatever I was doing was working because she found Jack in his room later that afternoon writing in a journal. A first! It brought tears to my eyes to read her kind words. Throughout the week, Jack persevered with his lacrosse project. One day he even stayed in during break time to work (of course there really was "nothing to do outside"), and I promised not to tell. On the last day, he sat with me while we read his piece aloud for editing--adding commas, tightening up run-on sentences, removing unneeded details--the nitty gritty that makes writing tedious. But he stuck with it and had to be coerced into stopping. He wanted to make his piece the best that it could be because it was his story. Working in a high expectation, low-pressure environment allowed him to make mistakes, ask for help, and go for it! His rewards were seeing his words fill up those pages and hearing his story come to life as he read it aloud for the group.

I had the pleasure of watching this happen sixteen times, each in its own way. Some kids were already passionate writers when they began, and some still had stage fright when it came time to share, yet by the end of the week they had become a truly supportive community of writers.

Tomorrow--Part 3, What THEY Taught ME

Note: 'squak' = squeak and 'whosh' = whoosh! (after our morning nature walk)

Writing with power! - part 1

Two weeks ago, 16 young writers and I launched ourselves into an exploration of Powerful Writing at Nueva Summer, a camp with the motto “Imagine Create Explore.” I love those words! I believe kids should be doing that all year long. At the very least (fault "No Child Left Behind" evilness and other political nonsense), they should spend summertime fueling their curiousities with PLAY. While a request to include some skills work trickled my way, I realized that none of my teaching would matter in the end if the kids didn't have fun. I’d love to share some of the highlights with you from the week. (Of course for privacy reasons all names have been changed.)

Morning Pages
On the second day (our first day was spent deliciously cultivating Ideas), I introduced what I called “Pages” based on Julia Cameron’s practice found in The Artist’s Way. I had read that Aimee Buckner (Notebook Know-How) also does this with her fourth graders, so I felt justified in bringing the challenge to younger people. For these 3rd – 5th graders, I asked them to put pencil to paper to fill one notebook page with stream of consciousness ramblings. I told them that “I do not know what to write. This is boring. My hand hurts...” was just as valid as “The pig jumped in the oatmeal. Mrs. Pig. Boing. Woah!” They were eager to try it. And while their hands did hurt by the end (good time for a lesson on proper pencil grip!) they were impressed that they had just written over 100 words in 15 minutes. Sloane, who loved to write but had a strong internal critic, was thrilled with the opportunity to get her silly, crazy thoughts down on paper with strict instruction not to judge. Jon, who only wrote single letters across his first page, independently asked if he could try it again later with words. We were getting somewhere.

I love this practice. I do my best to stick to the regimen of my adult version, 3 notebook pages by hand daily. I look at it as the garbage pickup for my brain. All the silly worries and lists of things to do and strange feelings are downloaded onto the page, leaving me free to move on with other writing and the rest of my day. When you commit to this practice over weeks and months, interesting insights begin to appear. New ideas you didn’t know were hiding behind some subconscious brick wall, waiting to be invited out for tea, suddenly clamor for air.

Writing Choice
I fully believe in letting kids having freedom of topic choice. I did ask them to try some strategies from our mini-lessons, but after about 10 minutes they were free to either continue that work, or move on to their other ideas. Sophia, a third grader who had attended many camps in the past elsewhere, declared that this was her favorite simply because she was allowed to write what she wanted. After kids learn how to generate their own ideas, there's really no stopping them.

Seriously—how else are we going to convince kids that writing is a pleasurable activity unless we let them do what inspires them?

Tomorrow...Part 2: Jack

Making a commitment

It's not yet 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday. This is probably my favorite time of the week. The summer light is illuminating the neighborhood with a hazy, periwinkle sheen. Birds have awakened and are in the middle of their morning sonatina. The dog and the boy sleep peacefully in bed, where I would like to be, if not for all the non-stop excitement that ricochets in my head. I pinned an image on Pinterest that says it all:

Know that feeling? I think many people experience this in the wee hours of the night. For me, it's the early morning.

In these waking hours, lying in bed hoping to return to sleep, I come up with my most inspiring and energetic ideas. I'm often moved to leap out of bed and begin some new project in earnest, fueled by an inner force. It feels incredible! And then...

...it's time for breakfast. Need to start the laundry. Let's go on an errand. Oh yeah, remember that other house project you've been meaning to get to? The desire to write and create is not lost but the energy has been redirected. And here is where I feel, in all my usual calm, groundedness, I experience my version of ADHD. When I return to free time, I've been distracted by another of my many interests. Between blogging, creative writing, cooking, singing, playing steel drums, gardening, photography, reading, movie watching, social networking, yoga, dancing, hiking, traveling, writing with kids, singing with kids, baking, not to mention spending quality time with my love and my family, hanging out with friends, dog walking, and keeping house. Oh yes, and my time-consuming, passion-inducing career in education!

I'm thoroughly exhausted just reading the list.

And somehow I think I can fit all this into the span of each week. Clearly, some realism could be brought to the table. Especially as one sits with a sprained ankle and crutches nearby.

Do you wrestle with crazymaking such as this?

So, I'm going to do it. It's time, and I stand here (sitting, ankle elevated!) before you to say, I'm going to write a post each morning until the end of the month. No matter what. It might be totally uninteresting or crap or any of the other things the inner censor wants to call it but I'm all right with that. Characters need to be given a space to speak before we can know and understand them. Finding that voice is step numéro uno in the vein of creation. I'm going to take advantage of my summer freedom and use it to uphold this commitment to myself.

Who will Six Giraffes be at the end? And after that?
Well, we shall see!