There is no greater gift than these words. My heart did a little dance when my daughter-in-law shared these with me.
“I want to have alone time with Nana and Poppa.”
Four-year-old Frog and Mom were driving to our house on the last day of school before winter break, to pick up little sister Bird from her day of care with us, when Frog named this want.
She must have been reflecting, thinking … about Bird, her little sister, having a day with us, perhaps thinking about the fun we must have been having.
“I want to have alone time with Nana and Poppa.”
You see, Frog’s in full-time preschool now, and our time together is much reduced. She doesn’t get to be with us, her grandparents, very much at all, except for an hour or two at the end of a school day.
Plus, our home was being remodeled over the past many months, and we couldn’t have the children over for sleepovers.
“I want to have alone time with Nana and Poppa.”
We used to have a weekly overnight . . . long walks in the woods . . . fun in the kitchen, making pancakes and biscuits, washing dishes at the sink . . . all sorts of low-key fun, together.
We have to do something about this.
“I want to have alone time with Nana and Poppa.”
This afternoon, tonight, tomorrow morning: a special holiday sleepover. Frog and Bird together again, at Nana and Poppa’s. There’s no limit to the fun we’ll have together!
Bounteous alone time – together.
A drawing by Frog of me, on our trip to Yellowstone this past summer
She was bright and cheery when we arrived, eating the remnants of her breakfast and hungry for more. Bird loves to eat! We cooked a pot of oatmeal, and enjoyed this with her.
Less than an hour later, the two-year-old yawned. Once. Twice. Three times. This is very unusual. “Bird, are you tired, little one? You are not usually tired so early in the morning.” We had not gotten a report on how well she had slept the night before, in the rush of parents getting out the door for work and big sister heading to school.
A matter of minutes later, she started whining and fretting, and she sat very still, a sad little lump, not playing. What? Where did our happy little Bird go? I invited her to sit with me on the couch and read books, and she could hardly complete this easy climb, moaning with exhaustion. I noticed her eyes were watery. Ah, the tell. This little girl was getting sick.
We literally watched a virus consume our little Bird, and it was a bit like those paper towel commercials where you watch the crud be absorbed.
She curled up at the end of the couch away from me, not wanting to be held, but to be alone near us – honestly, like a wounded animal. One book later, she was back in bed for a nap – without protest. Oh my.
I was not at all surprised when she woke up hot with a fever.
(Come to think of it, there was another big clue. Bird insisted on wearing a pumpkin dress in the midst of this Christmas season – I should have realized that this was her way of telling me that something was wrong, hahaha.)
Since her big sister Frog started preschool this past August, we have had so many viruses pass through our family, one after another. The day that Bird got sick was Frog’s first day back after a two-day fever virus. My son jokes (? is this humor?) that Frog rarely makes it to school for every day of a five day week. The classroom seems to be passing the bugs back and forth, with so many children are getting sick.
As their caregivers, this sets us up for sickness, too – and I have been so pleased with my resilience. Have all my years of teaching preschool built up my immunity, allowing me to stay healthy in retirement?
Well, my resilience broke down with this latest bout of grandchildren sickness. Yep, I am now tired, achy, and congested. It is not COVID, just a gift from the grandkids. ‘Tis the season, yes? So it is!
Be well, everyone!
Happy Holidays!
It’s Tuesday and I’m participating in Slice of Life.
Thank you, Two Writing Teachers, for creating
this supportive community of teacher writers.
Often, I only discover what I’m feeling
when what I write tells it back to me.
- Pádraig Ó Tuama ( Poetry Unboundnewsletter)
I had a mini experience of this, just now.
It’s after 7pm here on the east coast and I am struggling to write a Tuesday slice for this week. I opened up my journal and re-read my early morning writing, in hopes of discovering something I might share. I feel bereft of ideas and short on time. Today, and the past several days, have been like one long run-on sentence, fun and full and in need of a good editor.
I found this little nugget from my morning journaling:
orchid blossoms fade
wispy worn angels falling
resting on the sill
You see, I had watered the houseplants, and, in so doing, I had the gift of watching a spent blossom quietly fall, this lovely slip, slide of a dance. Such a sweet little moment deserves a haiku, yes?
In the busyness of today, I had long since forgotten this surprisingly slow, languid moment. Surely, this is one of the greatest joys of my morning writing, however aimless it may feel at the time – to discover the forgotten.
I think I will let this be my slice for this week – simply so.
It's Tuesday and I'm participating in the Slice of Life.
Thank you, Two Writing Teachers,
for creating this supportive community of teacher writers.
somewhere
maybe out west on our travels this past summer
under rocks along the canyon ridge hike in Yellowstone
slipping down the slope of Crater Lake
behind one of the many tall and stunning redwoods of California?
somewhere
no, probably here at home when we returned
to the demolition of remodeling
all the ensuing shocks and decisions
squished between spackle drywall wiring?
I don’t know
somewhere
perhaps in the tragic defeating headlines of the larger world
so much ugly right at my fingertips
the relentless cascade?
actually maybe it is woven within
these pandemic years themselves
intertwined with all the isolation tension unknown?
who knows?
it could simply be
turning sixty-three
Joy Harjo imagines
every seven years - a new transition
maybe this is the focus of
my next seven year chapter?
somewhere
somewhere
somewhere
I’ve lost words
unexpectedly
over and over and over again
yes, language stumbles away from me
it happens right in the midst of
an ordinary conversation
an ordinary sentence
an ordinary word
ah…ah…ah
(yep, that’s what I always say)
and
so ensues
all manner
of pantomime
charades
good luck charms
incantations
mental hijinks
a friend suggests
getting up and immediately
walking back
across the threshold
of whatever room I’ve entered
believing
this action will bring the word back
I try and try and try
to find
the elusive rascal
here
at the outset of
this hide and seek game
I am chuckling
I see
words playfully hiding
but this could get old very soon
The story behind this poem –
Just the other day, I was telling a friend about our upgrades to the air conditioning and heating system here at the house, when for the life of me, I could not recall the word
“ducts.”
The word had simply vaporized from my brain. The next thing I knew, I was stuttering and flailing, trying to conjure the word, and my friend – as if on cue – starting playing a guessing game with me, trying to help me along with my storytelling.
If this were a one-time thing, this incident would hardly merit a ‘slice of life’ post (though maybe it would, due to its exceptionalism? Hahaha) I seem to have entered a phase of my life where I am losing words more regularly, ordinary words that simply escape my tongue for reasons I cannot understand – just enough to be irritating, not enough to truly scare me or require medical expertise. (I think!)
So, tell me, does this happen to you, too?
It's Tuesday and I'm participating in the Slice of Life.
Thank you, Two Writing Teachers,
for creating this supportive community of teacher writers.
For the Spiritual Thursday prompt this month, Robert Hamera asks, ‘How then do we slow down?,’ especially in the midst of our challenging world and its rapid changes. How do we not get caught up in the franticness of what is going on around us? Check out his thoughtful reflections on this theme, and read the comments on his post for links to other writers and their responses.
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The very question “How then do we slow down?,” implies that we should slow down – and I totally agree. I have lived with myself long enough to know almost instantaneously when I am becoming too immersed, wound up, caught up in an overwhelming situation – and that everything I am doing is not helping to ‘solve’ whatever is wrong. How do I recognize this? I feel it in my body, recognizable in my inability to sit still, my pinball attention span, my reckless cravings for sugar and salt, and my general fatigue that is not nourished by a nap. Most painfully, I hear it in my voice, flagged by my short-tempered, rapid, sometimes sarcastic exchanges with loved ones. All these signs tell me that I have let larger, unsettled challenges take center stage inside me, at the expense of myself. I need to stop. Slow down. Breathe. Put aside whatever the BIG UGLY is, and take care of me. Give myself space.
What fills me with awe is that when I give myself space – permission to slow down, to not focus on the overwhelming but instead center on that which is right there in front of me – the challenges become less so. Always. I take myself out of the equation, and, in so doing, I fortify myself. Always.
I read this Bible passage, recently –
But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. - 2 Peter 3:8 (NRSV)
I find this verse both formidable and calming. It is a paradox. To me, it says – live with the understanding that what we do will echo through time, live with the understanding that this time in which we live is not the center of everything or anything, live with the understanding that what we do today matters very much, live with the understanding that what we do matters not at all. Yes, and.
It is definitely helpful to spend time in quiet meditation after reading that!
As a retired teacher, I am able to heed the need for slowing down on a much more regular basis. It is amazing to have this time and space, to quiet myself enough to be more fully present. An introvert by nature, it is a joy to begin my day very slowly and quietly. The first moments of my day are spent in quiet contemplation, with journaling and readings, a mix of meditations, prayer, and poetry.
I try to slow down enough to write a poem from my journaled musings, to ‘catch my thoughts.’ Here is the poem I wrote this morning, as I studied a tree outside my window. I think it fits quite nicely with this theme of “slowing down.” (I wish I had taken a photograph of this tree in the morning light – perhaps I will tomorrow morning, and add it to this post.)
to be last
autumn turning to winter
bowing offering genuflecting
the ground is cold and brown
all the leafing trees are bare
except this one dear oak
who holds tight
unable to let go
the morning sun mingles and kisses
dazzling her leaves a bright amber
her branches yield to the rippling wind
and offer a friendly wave, as if to say
hello! good to see you!
this one dear oak is nestled
by three evergreens, who
she towers above yet leans into
resting on the conifers’ shoulders
conversing affectionately, whispering
you are who I want to be near
is she keeping her plumage to be
like her friends, the evergreens?
is she aware that others have moved on?
it is both pleasure and precious
to be last
secret lives of trees? not really
they are lived in the open
if we only we pause to see
