Originally published in in the summer of 2005, this article is filled with writing exercises inspired by the summer holidays. I think they will come in handy again to help you keep on writing, even though summer is loaded with traditional holiday social demands and active outdoor recreation.

Learning the history of holidays can provide writers with prompts that aid in memory retrieval, the valuable use of metaphor, creating dialog and writing scenes from life. With the Internet or a trip to the children’s section of the library, it is not hard to find information on the calendar of holidays and how each began. Once you read about particular holidays, you will surprise yourself with questions that lead to writing.

Here are two short histories of the up coming holidays that always anchored summer for me as a child and as a teacher–Independence Day and Labor Day–and following the histories, examples of writing exercises I created for myself:

History of Independence Day
As I read about the roots of our July 4th holiday, this is what caught my attention: In June, 1776, the Second Continental Congress representing the British Colonies in America met to discuss the battles of Lexington and Concord and to draft a Declaration of Independence from the British government, which had infuriated colonists by taxing them on items they needed such as glass, tea and paper. On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress met again to vote on approving the Declaration. A crowd, waiting outside the State House to hear the outcome of the vote, broke into celebration creating huge bonfires when they heard Congress had voted in favor of independence. Today, fireworks set off after dark probably symbolize the gun and cannon battles fought to win independence from the British as well as the bonfires of celebration.

 History of Labor Day
As I read about the Labor Day holiday in the US, I noted that Knights of Labor leader Peter J. McGuire requested that the 1st Monday in September be a day of rest for American workers, and on September 5, 1882, a parade in New York City’s Union Square honored the working people of America. Thousands took the day off to be in the parade, to picnic, listen to speeches and set off fireworks. The first Monday in September is now celebrated each year in America to honor workers. For many, the day also marks the end of the summer holiday season and a return to school for America’s students.

Exercise for Independence Day
Having read about the bonfires of waiting and celebration, I think of questions to ask myself that can help me write from my personal experience of waiting for or achieving independence or a goal or having joy or fulfillment: What do I have to celebrate? Who would I invite to join me in celebration? What would we use as kindling for our bonfire of celebration? Where would our bonfire be? How would we look around that fire? What would we do there? Would anyone object to our bonfire? How would we reenact the bon fire on the anniversaries of our first celebration?

Without knowing about the history of celebratory bonfires, I might still write based on thoughts inspired by the holiday: What does it mean that the fireworks I watch each July 4th are as dangerous to assemble and set off as they are startling and beautiful to watch? That people lose fingers or lives setting them off themselves? That I will be taking my grandsons to see these displays? I will write to make the fireworks a metaphor for the dangers and the joy of freedom, the pleasures and responsibilities of freedom, the bittersweet understanding of prices paid. I might start in Union Township, NJ at the municipal park, with the feel of the grass at night and the finding of the right spot for our family blanket. I will remember the fire engines there and the ambulances and how visually we were surrounded by the possibility of tragedy, how after each dazzling display in the sky, the winds brought the ominous smell of gunpowder our way. My mind might leap to later in my life when tragedy did strike and I might write to consider how all of life is framed by danger, by the potential for loss, by mortality, but burns bright inside the frame.

Thinking about the word “bon” meaning “good” in French, I looked online for the etymology of the word “bonfire.” I found out that what lies behind the word is a mishearing that is interesting in relation to my thoughts. The original word in Middle English was “banefire” and meant burning of bones. Ben Johnson mistakenly thought it was from bon (good) in French. How eerie and wonderful for my potential essay that what hides behind the word as in what hides behind the celebration is destruction. It seems to me to heighten the significance of how I wanted to go about framing the celebration and life’s joys.

Exercise for Labor Day
What ritual would I invent to honor someone close to me or myself as a worker, home and family maintainer, caregiver, political activist or career person? What foods, symbolic materials, and activities would I include? Who would I invite to join me in the inauguration of this ritual? How does the ritual honor the role? How might the ritual evolve?

Or, I suddenly think, I might want to write about the time before I was a worker. What did Labor Day mean to me then? What was associated with Labor Day when I was growing up? Putting away summer clothes and white shoes? Closing a beloved beach house? Buying notebooks, pens, pencils and clothes for school? Who was with me? What could we afford? Where did we shop? What were the things I did and talked about, feared and looked forward to? How would I describe the place, the people, the events and thoughts from a typical Labor Day of my childhood? Did these end of summer days help me think about the honor of work, my future as a worker and adult or was that a forgotten or un-thought notion?

Curious now to find out how etymology might help me, I look up “labor” and “knight.” Labor, I find out, may include the meaning “tottering under a burden,” related to the Latin labere “to totter.” Knight has a link to the Old English word “nihthad ,” the period between childhood and manhood.” These word histories seem significant to me when I think about early responsibility and how we may “totter” under the burden of our roles if we take them on too early and how we may gain sturdy footing in our roles when we are practiced enough and old enough to fulfill them. That transition might make an interesting essay, I begin to think.

****

See what happens when you consider making prompts from holiday histories or write from the prompts I’ve created. Let us know how it goes by leaving a comment here.