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The Robin

Published on April 23, 2024

It is Tuesday and time to write a 'Slice of Life." 
Thank you  Two Writing Teachers for creating this supportive community
of teacher-writers!

Is there any special meaning when a robin crosses your path? They are, to my eye, the very harbinger of spring. Some say they offer good luck, positivity, and joy. Others say a robin suggests growth, renewal, change.

It’s one thing to see them bob-bob-bobbin’ along across the lawn, perhaps pulling a worm from the ground. It’s another thing entirely, in my opinion, what’s been going on at my house recently. Early one morning a couple weeks ago, a robin tapped at our bedroom window, not once, not twice, but over and over. The same robin returned the next day. And many days thereafter. Here, our granddaughter (amusingly, nicknamed “Bird”) discovers him, tapping hello –

Scientists posit that this behavior means that they are being territorial, that they can see their reflection and are ‘fighting off’ another bird:

If a robin has chosen your yard and location as a good site (yeah for you as they are very cool birds), then both parents will defend that area throughout the nesting period. That means that ‘other’ robin in the window is a real threat to them. The more energy and time they take to fight that guy, the less they spend with their babies or eggs or feeding. So, it is helpful for the bird for you to intervene and convince them that the bird they are seeing is gone.
Native Bird Care (Oregon)

We’ve lived in this house more than thirty years; I’ve never seen such bird behavior before. What has changed? We are quite certain our visitor is one robin and not a variety of robins; we have been studying their feathers and shape. Thinking that the nearby shrubs might be harboring a bird’s nest, I went out and checked out the landscaping in the vicinity of our bedroom window. There was no sign of a bird’s nest. The robin must be feeling territorial for some other reason than protecting a nest. Perhaps they have discovered some yummy nearby ‘fast food’ berries or worms, and are trying to protect their stash from other robins?

Just today, I added this crocheted shawl to the window in order to change the light and glare, to reduce the possibility of the robin seeing their reflection:

This is not the look I was going for in my bedroom, but I’m beginning to feel responsible and worried about that robin. They’ve left dozens of scratch marks on my window glass; their beak must be getting quite sore.

One day in, the stats are great: no robin visited the window today. Let me close with a simple revision of Rock-In Robin:

He rocks at our window all day long
Hoppin' and a-boppin' and a-singing his song
All the lil’ people that live at this house
Are trying to figure this out, out, out

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Musing

Published on April 16, 2024

It is Tuesday and time to write a 'Slice of Life." 
Thank you  Two Writing Teachers for creating this supportive community
of teacher-writers!

Someone is singing an opera in my backyard as I write; they’ve been at it all morning. My Merlin app tells me they are a Northern Flicker, a visually beautiful dear soul with dotted plumage, yet I cannot catch even one tiny glance. They prefer to sing from deep within the leafing branches of the maple tree, and perhaps their song is one of lament because I am not able to see them. Yes, I put myself at the center of their song.

I don’t know what to tell you.

Hmm.

Does anyone else have trouble starting a ‘Slice of Life,’ now that the March challenge is over and the writing is not daily?

Which personal thread to grab onto and run-write with it?

I simply don’t know.

I could tell you about my relaxing weekend in the woods, on retreat with my book group. I could write about our conversation about Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake. Oh, and how a few of us watched the 1940 film classic of Our Town, as a little ‘background’ for the book.

(Should I tell you how surprising it was that this movie deigned to create a new ‘happy’ ending for Thornton Wilder’s play?)

I could focus on just one hike, share with you the sweet spring growth I observed. Here are a couple photos of this emergence:

Oh, but I’ve shared about countless hikes in this space.

How about I tell you about the book I’m reading – Terrance Hayes’ Watch Your Language? I am absolutely awed by his witty and playful writing, how he draws clever doodles throughout the book, and simultaneously offers so much scholarly wisdom on Black poets and the history of modern poetry in general. He is piercing many myths I have swallowed whole. With every page, my understanding and curiosity about poetry expands.

I don’t know where to begin.

Consider this excerpt about Gwendolyn Brooks, as he considers the historical timeline of ‘modern great poets’ –

Brooks makes any conversation about American poetry of the last half century more interesting. Brooks was born in 1917, the same year as Robert Lowell, who won the Pulitzer in 1947, three years before Brooks. When he passed in 1977 Lowell was considered one of the chief poets of the twentieth century. He taught both Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. His family history could be traced back to the Mayflower.

As Robert Lowell is to Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath, Brooks is to several generations of poets. Brooks met with James Baldwin and many Black poets of the era in her living room. I wish there was a better record of her relationship with Sonia Sanchez, their chats about motherhood, poetry, Blackness, community. Sonia Sanchez published her debut, Homecoming, in 1969, the same year Lucille Clifton published her debut, Good Times. Audre Lorde published The First Cities, her debut, in 1968. Brooks was a central figure in the work of all three poets.
Terrance Hayes, Watch Your Language, pp 24-25

He notes, 
“She often goes unacknowledged the way caretakers and angels go unacknowledged.” 

Terrance Hayes’ writing sends me tumbling, makes me pause, reflect, and re-read. He makes me wonder about all the details that were left out of my schooling. I chase down my Gwendolyn Brooks poetry book and lose myself within. 

There is so much I was never taught. 
There is so much that was so dull about the way I was taught. 
There is so much more to learn. 

Why was I never challenged to question? 

I don’t know what to tell you.

Let me close with a poem I wrote yesterday for Ethical ELA, where Angie Braaten prompted us to write an elegy, with inspiration from Clint Smith's poem “Playground Elegy.” Honestly, I think all of my above rambles fed into this poem:

Textbook Elegy

The first time       I penned                  my name and date
in that       rectangle stamp       of the history textbook 
reading the     names of students     from years before 
I turned   quickly   to      chapter one,              devouring. 
Each   line      of text     so pure and real and insightful.
I studied every page and absorbed  great knowledge.
I looked forward      to the next year’s               textbook
revealing    so much                 more                 of the world.
It would be  years   before I noticed its     white space. 
I knew sanitized only from the bathroom.          I knew
sifted from cakes,                      left out from friendships,
omitted from   don’t say that      around mom and dad. 
I didn’t know                 what                              I didn’t know. 
I read with joy,                     absorbing believing trusting.
Now I wonder who   powers  every single line of text
and do students wonder about this and does anyone
know         what is not written.

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Shedding the Wild

Published on April 9, 2024

It is Tuesday and time to write a 'Slice of Life." 
Thank you  Two Writing Teachers for creating this supportive community
of teacher-writers!

I gazed out the window while chatting on the phone with a friend, and froze mid-conversation – uh! I’ve gotta go! I’ll call you back! Sorry! – and I immediately disconnected. I was astounded at the sight. He was sitting right at the corner of our shed, not quite licking his paws, but as if this was where he belonged, as if he didn’t have a care in the world, as if his owners hadn’t spent the last week plus looking furiously for this little fellow. Oh my goodness! There’s Dear One! In our backyard!

I wrote last week about my neighbor’s cat slipping from their house during a plumbing fiasco, and the sad unease that had settled over all of us when the cat could not be found. This seems the perfect story for today’s slice: Dear One is back home, safe and sound.

On EthicalELA’s #VerseLove on April 7, the host James suggested honing in on “a fleeting moment, [where] everything seemed glorious and wonderful and possible.” Finding the lost cat was exactly this, as if everything was back in place as it should be. I had fun writing my first Chōka poem in response to this prompt, about the cat coming back. (As explained on #VerseLove, Chōka is a Japanese style of poetry, of indefinite length, consisting of alternating lines of 5 and 7 syllables, with an extra 7-syllable line at the end.) Here is my poem:

you are home again

cold rains bruising breeze
where have you run to for warmth
days of wondering
you slipped out an open door
away from two who
love you feed you tend to you
little cat dear one
everyone’s looking for you
seven days of sad
fearful nights as foxes creep
never you, no you
what can we do but accept
your forever loss?

wait, that’s YOU in our backyard
sitting so pleased with yourself

What I did not express in that poem, however, was the wild fiasco of the chase to catch the cat. Oh my! Seriously, someone should have filmed the adventure for the sheer humor of it.

I dropped my phone call without explanation and phoned my neighbor, who did not answer. I cautiously opened my back door, stepped out into the cold, muddy yard in my socks, called out softly to Dear One, only to send the cat running away, under our shed. I yelped “STOP!” (not an effective word for a cat, in retrospect) and ran to my neighbor’s house, who – thankfully – was out in his backyard.

“Quick! Come! He’s in my backyard!!”

We raced back towards the shed and got down on our bellies to look under it. Together, we tried to cajole the cat to come out from the back recesses. We tried to stretch our bodies long and wide enough around the circumference of the shed to limit the cat’s exit, both of us pleading with tsih-tsih-tsih, kitty-kitty-kitty. My neighbor raced home to collect the humane cage that he’d set up in his backyard, in hopes of catching Dear One. We searched for rocks and bricks to block some of the gaps under the shed, hoping to funnel him towards the cage. We tried to gently poke and prod Dear One, singing and cooing his name, and we offered him food, all to no avail. Dear One watched us with wide scared eyes.

My husband returned home from an errand at this point of the chase. He’s unable to see my neighbor at the far end of the shed, and instead finds only me, crouched, talking to someone invisible. He paused. Then, he asked – “uh, is everything alright?”

No time for small talk! Tony drops what he was doing and joins us, trying to bring Dear One back to safety. “Anxious” has been the cat’s personality since his earliest days, and this situation had him cowering and overwhelmed; he was not coming out from under that shed.

We step back to rethink, reevaluate. I retreat for a brief moment and put on my shoes. Then, the grand (and ultimately successful?) plan: Tony and I will block the sides of the shed while our neighbor sprays a bit of water onto Dear One with the hose – gently, oh so gently. The cage is placed “at the exit.”

Ready, set, let it flow!

In a heartbeat, Dear One surprises us, finding a new and unexpected exit from beneath the shed (makes his way out of no way) and we are all three wildly chasing him along the tight squeeze behind the shed.

(I am immediately reminded of a wayward preschooler who slipped out the school gate towards a very busy road, and it was ‘all hands on deck,’ chasing the errant fellow.)

FINALLY, my neighbor scoops him up – only to have a very frightened Dear One howl, scratch, and bite him. OUCH!! He pops the cat into the waiting cage.

My neighbor’s eyes glistened with joy.

It feels like a small miracle, a hard-earned one, to have that cat back home.

Just today, I returned home from a walk to see Dear One cozily asleep in the front window of his home. My neighbors say that he has been so happy to be home again – purring all the time, staying close by their sides, and demanding to be petted. He has lost a good bit of his anxious aloofness, wanting their company. He has also lost a lot of weight after a week on his own, and they are spoiling him with his favorite foods. All is right with the world.

One wonders what went on while he was ‘in the wild.’

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#SOL24-31 Endings

Published on March 31, 2024

It is Tuesday and time to write a 'Slice of Life." 
Thank you  Two Writing Teachers for creating this supportive community
of teacher-writers!

How to close out this fabulous month of writing? I simply don’t know how to end or where to start. This month in community has been so rich with ideas and connections. Our last day together is like reading a really good book – I do not want our stories to end.

I hope everyone will continue to share slices on Tuesdays with Two Writing Teachers. Thank you for all your thoughtful and caring comments on my blog. Thank you, especially, for all the wonderful new places that your writing has taken me. It has been a great month!

Endings are uneven. They come in so many different varieties, and of all sizes. Some hurt, some make us smile, everything changes, always. I remind myself, endings are always thresholds to beginnings, to something new. To conclude is to start. I wrote a little poem to capture these musings.

Endings

one sip of tea left in the bottom of the cup
thunderous applause and a final bow
one more hill to climb and then we rest
a door inadvertently left open, a beloved cat slips out
no running water in the house
three in the afternoon brings quiet to the classroom
an alarm wails
unkind words fester within one’s heart
a marriage dissolves
a daffodil fades and falls gently to the ground
the builders reject the stone
hushed voices at bedtime
the bridge collapses
a river goes dry
breathes his last 
the pastor shares the benediction
the stars come out
dessert 

a concluding refrain, final stanza, closing words
a period at end of sentence
last day of the month
March 31st, Slice of Life Story Challenge ends

                                                                                              . . . and . . .

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#SOL24-30 Three

Published on March 30, 2024

It is Tuesday and time to write a 'Slice of Life." 
Thank you  Two Writing Teachers for creating this supportive community
of teacher-writers!

As his colleagues shared their farewells, I took notes:

“an upstanding man”
“a mentor, a coach, a friend”
“he assured everyone who worked with him, especially his interns, ‘this place is full of opportunities; if this is something you are interested in - go for it.”

I was the proverbial fly on the wall, listening and learning, at my brother’s retirement.

My brother “Three” ( of my four brothers) and I are thirteen months apart in age and have always been close. We both settled in the Washington, D.C. area after college. (Isn’t ‘settled’ a funny word to describe all the ups and downs, the gyrations, the unpredictability of life, anywhere?) The years have tumbled by, with so many loving connections – we hung out together as young singles, then we each got married, followed by a blur of years raising children, hosting playdates and sleepovers between our boys, family holidays and special dinners, supporting our parents in their declining health, music concerts, road races, and other fun pastimes, and holding each other up in times of grief and challenge. We have always shared stories about work with one another, but honestly, work life was never the primary topic of conversation – especially, I think, because we weren’t in the same field. He was a broadcaster and I was a teacher.

I knew he loved his work though.

When he was a child, he loved two things: sports and radio. He was always running around, playing sports, every imaginable physical game that came his way: basketball, football, ping-pong, racquetball, baseball, tennis, whatever. Basketball was his all-time favorite sport. He also loved to listen to the radio. He played with the dial constantly, sifted through the AM stations, kept his ear out for Casey Kasem Top 40, and rushed to respond to “be the tenth caller…,” hoping to win a prize.

He won a huge prize career-wise: finding work that wove together those two childhood interests. Three just retired from a long career with Voice of America. Let me share this from VOA’s mission statement:

Since its creation in 1942, Voice of America has been committed to providing comprehensive coverage of the news and telling audiences the truth. Through World War II, the Cold War, the fight against global terrorism, and the struggle for freedom around the globe today, VOA exemplifies the principles of a free press.
Voice of America, https://www.insidevoa.com/p/5831.html

My brother Three hosted an English language radio show broadcast to Africa about his one great love in life: sports.

Here I was at his retirement, visiting VOA for the first time ever. We arrived at his office near the Mall in Washington, D.C. just in time to witness a motorcade on a neighboring street – police on motorcycles escorting seven black SUVs, sirens blaring. It made me smile to see this, thinking about how many years this was my daily experience, being in the midst of this hustle and bustle. Now, I am like a tourist, oohing and aahing, trying to guess what important person is being chaperoned to the U.S. Capitol.

The VOA building was fascinating. These flags in the entry hall represent all the different languages in which broadcasts are offered:

I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of his retirement function. I quickly assessed how much his colleagues loved him. What a wonderful experience for me, his big sister, to hear these accolades! It was so amazing to view him through this whole new lens.

The line that made me laugh so much:

“If the race was between two dead turtles, he’d still make the race exciting.”

This was one compliment made my eyes water:

“He offered me space and freedom to create and express the way I wanted and then he cheered me on.”

He would have made a very fine teacher, I think. (Yes, big sister here, having the last word.)

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#SOL24-29 Soft Words

Published on March 29, 2024

It is Tuesday and time to write a 'Slice of Life." 
Thank you  Two Writing Teachers for creating this supportive community
of teacher-writers!

If we took violence out of our everyday language, would we notice more clearly the violence in the world? Does our language itself numb us to real pain and tragedy in the world, becoming almost a blanket or a throw that we hide beneath, normalizing the horrors around us?

These aren’t really my thoughts, but a paraphrasing or extension of the poet Ocean Vuong’s. He speaks about the preponderance of weaponized words in our ordinary vocabulary (Krista Tippett, On Being, “A Life Worth of Our Breath” April 30, 2020/updated May 3, 2023) and his message lingers in my head. I repeated some of his thoughts to a friend, reading from the transcript:

I think we’re still very primitive in the way we use language and speak, particularly in how we celebrate ourselves — “You’re killing it.”

But one has to wonder, what is it about a culture that can only value itself through the lexicon of death? I grew up in New England, and I heard boys talk about pleasure as conquest. “I bagged her. She’s in the bag. I owned it. I owned that place. I knocked it out of the park. I went in there, guns blazing. Go knock ‘em dead. Drop dead gorgeous. Slay — I slayed them. I slew them.” What happens to our imagination, when we can only celebrate ourselves through our very vanishing?
Ocean Vuong,
On Being with Krista Tippett,
April 30, 2020/updated May 3, 2023

I said to my friend, I wonder how often we do this? How often are we using violent metaphors and phrasing?

She ~~shot me down~~, I mean, she denied the possibility, saying “I never do that; maybe you do it, because you come from a military family.”

Well, I didn’t argue with her, but I think we all use these expressions. I think Ocean Vuong is right about our language being steeped with such references. I told my friend that I really want to work on this in my own language, to pay more close attention to my verbal ~~minefield~~ – I mean, the vocabulary I speak, to watch my words and notice where I slip. I started a log of ‘violent’ words that I use and hear, times when I invoke ‘death’ or cruel or brutal terms when I am actually conveying something much lighter.

~~I took a shot at it.~~ I wondered. I guessed.

In my word journal, I write and practice ‘rewrites,’ writing the message anew by using words that offer softness, love, and kindness.

Honestly, I am surprised by how ubiquitous this ‘verbal tic’ is for me – and how heightened my awareness when these terms are used by others. Here are a couple entries from my log:

I have a love ritual at bedtime with my grandchildren, where I dump a bin of their stuffed animals on top of them after I tuck them in…yes, it’s rather silly, but it is great fun for the littles. I realized I was saying “I’m going to ~~bombard~~ you!” – and my immediate substitution was “I’m going to get you!” (which sounded rather ‘attacking,’ I think). After some thought, I changed the words of the game to, “Here comes a rainstorm, oh my, such rain, today!” This offers them a gentler image before sleep.
Try to name what I love about the person rather than ‘dismissing’ their uniqueness with a canned line. “You are ~~killing~~ me!” becomes, perhaps, “You are so quick-witted!”
~~Bullet~~ journal? ~~Bullet~~ lists? My goodness, everyone says this. How about “dot journal/lists”? Or an ‘itemized’ journal/list? This one has me flummoxed; what to substitute for ~~bulle~~t?
What about the word ~~trigger~~; why do I use this? Might it be substituted with “awaken” or “set off”? Scares me? Makes me uncomfortable? (To illustrate how often this term is used unnecessarily, I happened upon a prayer that read – I kid you not – ‘trigger my care, Lord” – and thought, why couldn’t this be written ‘awaken my care’?)
~~shoot~~ from the hip; say instead, “just a wild guess here” or “I’m being a bit impulsive, but I wonder…”

There are many more entries; my list keeps growing longer and longer. Maybe there isn’t a one-to-one replacement for every one of these terms. Maybe more than one word is needed. Maybe the whole context needs to be rewritten. Maybe it makes sense to use the terms at certain times. I do think this is worth thinking about and that these basic twists to my language are a positive step for me.

“We often tell our students, The future’s in your hands. But I think the future is actually in your mouth.”
-Ocean Vuong

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#SOL24-28 Tenebrae

Published on March 28, 2024

It is Tuesday and time to write a 'Slice of Life." 
Thank you  Two Writing Teachers for creating this supportive community
of teacher-writers!

Today is Maundy Thursday on the Christian calendar, a very solemn day of the Easter week, as it commemorates the day Jesus celebrated his final Passover. It is said that Jesus humbly washed the feet of his disciples after dinner that evening, and offered his greatest command

Love one another, as I have loved you

Our church has a beautiful Tenebrae service, a service of shadows. The church is lit with candles and there are a series of readings about Jesus’ suffering:

The Shadow of Betrayal | Matthew 26:20-25
The Shadow of Unfaithfulness | Mark 14:32-41
The Shadow of Desertion | Matthew 26:47-50, 55-56
The Shadow of Accusation | Matthew 26:59-67
The Shadow of Mockery | Mark 15:12-20
The Shadow of the Cross | Luke 23:33-46
Love is Stronger Than Death | John 13:34-35
The Word was God | John 1:14, 10, 12, 3:19

I am a participant in the readings, and after I read, I blow out a candle. A moment of silence follows. The church becomes progressively darker, with each reading.

This service of shadows fills me with deep reflection about pain and suffering in our world, what has always been, what is now, and must it always be? My mind sifts through the hurt, with a heightened awareness . . .

The horrific pain and shock, just this week, of a local and essential bridge, the Key Bridge in Baltimore, which was destroyed in approximately 40 seconds by a container ship carrying hazardous materials

The death of six construction workers in this tragedy; how immigrants do anonymous, difficult, and essential work, and endure such endless prejudice and hardship

The continued horrors of war and rampage in Gaza, Ukraine, Haiti, Myanmar, Yemen, in so many places throughout the world, leading to the death, suffering, and starvation of so many innocents

The endless hate and discrimination towards others, often in the name of religion, so antithetical to a loving God, I think

The growing, horrific appeal of christian nationalism, white supremacy, far-right, autocratic beliefs

The assault on truth and freedom throughout the world; the barrage of corrosive headlines that greet me each morning; the explosion of fake news

The personal hurts and traumas within our communities, heavy and invisible loads which we bear alone

How we fail at love

The final reading is offered by our minister, and when that candle is extinguished, there is total darkness in the church. We recess from the church and go our separate ways, in darkness and silence.

How can one not be moved?

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#SOL24-25 No Fanfare

Published on March 25, 2024

It is Tuesday and time to write a 'Slice of Life." 
Thank you  Two Writing Teachers for creating this supportive community
of teacher-writers!

As I set the table for our family brunch, I had this moment of amazement: our youngest grandchild eats with a regular plate, a regular fork, and a regular cup. Everyone has a place setting of “adult-ware.” Wait – when did this happen? We have a bin full of children’s unbreakable dishes and tiny spoons and forks, and no one needs them anymore. We babysit the grandkids for a day or two each week, and somehow I missed this? How long have we been serving them with regular utensils? Right under our eyes, they have moved on. I wasn’t even aware that there was a ‘last time.’

There must be countless other examples; let me think –

all the baby clothes that no longer fit
now they put on their own socks and shoes
they open their own yogurts and cheese sticks
they know how to wash and dry their hands
when I am watering plants, they actually help me … whoa …

When we go for a walk these days, it’s the baby dolls who get strolled – and the granddaughters who do the pushing and caregiving.

Our babies have grown.

I seriously don’t know when it happened, and I wish there was some way to slow it down. Yes, yes, I realize they are still quite little (ages 5 and 3), but this is astounding to me.

From one stage to the next, time passes almost invisibly. No fanfare, no pushing, no demanding, it just happens, in the midst of living.

I tried my hand at a triolet, to hold my reflections –

holding you close

oh my sweet dear one 
tender as morning dew
kissed by adoring sun
oh my sweet dear one
life’s magic being spun 
beaming light anew
oh my sweet dear one 
tender as morning dew

#SOL24-24 Fitness

Published on March 24, 2024

It is Tuesday and time to write a 'Slice of Life." 
Thank you  Two Writing Teachers for creating this supportive community
of teacher-writers!

How much effort would it take to pop into my son’s home gym for a few minutes when we go to babysit our granddaughters, one or two days each week? Wouldn’t this be a great way to add strength training to our walking routine?

This was our goal. We honed in on it around the new year, when one is supposed to be amending their ways. We stated the goal aloud to our son, who echoed our thoughts about the importance of strength training as we age. Everyone agreed, this was a good idea.

There the new exercise routine sat, in our imagination. We took no further steps for many weeks.

Late February rolled around, and we still hadn’t started to work on this resolution. My son offered to give us a little coaching, to create a brief routine that we might complete in 15-20 minutes. We dropped by his house on a non-babysitting day and he showed us seven basic exercises – five of which do not require special equipment and we are able to do at our own home, with hand weights. He recommended two to three sessions each week.

Sure!

Not.

What keeps getting in the way? I don’t know. It is HARD to start new stuff.

On our long drive home from vacation last week, Tony and I agreed to revisit the goal, to begin doing the exercises. Starting the very next day, we would do the five that required no special equipment, and practice these at home.

Wait, what were these five exercises?

That tomorrow became tomorrow’s tomorrow’s tomorrow. Finally, I said: Let’s start!! I opened up the notes I had taken on my phone and tried to decipher the exercises. Truthfully, too much time had passed; we no longer remembered what each exercise ‘looked’ like. How were we supposed to hold our bodies for each one?

In lieu of working out, I decided to make a project of my notes: Using the terminology my son used when he coached us, I looked up each exercise on the internet. I read as much as I could find on each exercise, paying particular attention to suggestions and advice for how best to hold your body. Then, I drew diagrams of our body positions in a small notebook, to keep with our weights in the basement.

(Do you see how ‘academic’ I am about procrastination, successfully avoiding the actual exercises with a creative diversion?)

In my defense, I moved my body into position for each exercise so that I might understand directions and draw a better diagram (although I did not hold hand weights). These are silly images, I think – but I am a person who needs visuals and they do help me. Here’s one for “squats with weights”:

I shared my new visual guide with my son, who said “This is great, Mom! Good job!” (One of those exchanges when I feel we have flipped positions, he the parent, I the child…how much more of this awaits, as I age?)

Then he looked at the guide and said – Mom, I never showed you this exercise, #2:

(Him) This is very advanced, done by bodybuilders. Did you try this?

(Me) No, I just drew it. I was wondering why I didn’t remember it. It did seem challenging.

(Him) Here, let me show you the original exercise, which is really more of a stretch, something you can do any time of day, and will help you ease your aching feet and calves. It is great for knee health. Really, this is a good exercise for you. You do not need hand weights.

He demonstrated the stretch and I took photos, and then, of course, I had to draw it out and add it into our exercise booklet:

He proceeded to look through the rest of my drawings and descriptions, and made a couple minor corrections. The exercise drawings are all set now. Nothing prevents us working out!

I wonder, how often do I overthink? How often do I make the simple unnecessarily complicated? There is real wisdom in that old Nike ad: just do it.

Tomorrow.

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#SOL24-21 The Leak

Published on March 21, 2024

It is Tuesday and time to write a 'Slice of Life." 
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How to describe the sound? So quiet it overwhelms, and wakes you in the middle of the night. It is a strange kind of echo, the sound of water flowing, a ‘white noise,’ steady and resounding, and you will jump from bed to investigate. What is that?!

While we were away on vacation, our next door neighbors watched our home for us, collecting any stray packages from the doorstep and making sure that all was well while we traveled. We have great neighbors, and we do this for one another whenever one of us is out of town. We checked in with them a time or two by text, mostly to send a braggy photo or two of our fun travels. Then they texted back their dilemma:

They heard the sound of water running, yet no sign of water. They searched upstairs and downstairs, turned on and off faucets, double-checked the laundry area: no surprise water anywhere.

We texted back immediately, to double-check their words – Wait, your house or our house? Who has this problem?

Ours is the frightened response of people who have “been there, done that.” We knew exactly what the problem was: a pinhole leak in the water pipes to one’s home. You hear water running, flowing, gushing. You see nothing. It is eerie.

Good news for us, it is their home that is having the problem. Bad news for them, we were right: pinhole leaks. And, unfortunately, their leak is causing such a severe flow of water, the WSSC cut off the water supply to their home. I feel so badly that they are having this dreaded experience.

All the water pipes in our neighborhood are quite old. Most of the homes were built between 1935-1945, and the pipes are galvanized metal. These do not age well, rusting out and forming holes. Water gushes into the ground, invisible to the eye, only something one can hear. The pipes must be replaced, which is a labor intensive task requiring the digging of a deep trench. (Here’s a question – is it really an improvement that old galvanized pipes are replaced with some new thick polyvinyl? We all know the wonders of plastic in our water…but I digress.)

If the leak is in the part of the pipe between your yard and the street, where the main water lines are, that’s a county problem and they must pay for the repair. However, if the leak is in your yard…ugh….

If only one home hears the water flowing, chances are close to excellent that the leak is in that one yard.

Our education about pinhole leaks occurred right before my husband’s 50th birthday party, when we had tons of people coming to the house to celebrate. You could see the usage dial spinning on the water meter, yet there was no evidence of water leaking inside our home. Our water pressure deteriorated. We called WSSC with fingers crossed that this was a county issue, but that was not to be. The plumbers dug an enormous ditch through the front yard, in order to make the repair. The repair took several days, straddling the birthday party. On the bright side, we were able to keep our water on, in the house; I don’t know that we could have had a party without it. The yard, however, was a disaster. I remember the plumber put sawhorses around the cavernous trench, to keep children away, and I believe I added celebratory balloons to these, for a chuckle.

Our neighbors didn’t have the added hassle of a bunch of partygoers coming to the house, but they had the terrible timing of hosting a friend from Texas. Hosting company for several days and no running water? Oh my.

One cannot function without water.

We didn’t hesitate; we insisted they take over our home while we were away – use the kitchen, take showers, collect water, run laundry, whatever you need. It is now a whole week later, we are back home, their guest is gone, and their repair has still not been made. The plumber cannot work on the fix until the county issues a permit, and there has been a delay in acquiring this.

The neighbors are eating lots of takeout, filling big buckets with water from our hose to run their toilets, and keeping their spirits up as best they can; it is good that they don’t have young children underfoot, I think. We gave them a spare key to our basement, and insisted they come and go as they need. This area of our home was more or less ‘an apartment’ for our boys as they became young adults; there is a full bathroom down there, the laundry room, and a separate door to enter/exit. Our neighbors always send a text before coming over, though we insist there is no need for a heads up – our children never did this for us, lol!

In the early morning, one might notice someone ‘sneaking’ out of our home with a backpack of clothes over their shoulder, slipping across the driveway into their own back door.

I wonder if other neighbors are wagging their tongues at the sight?

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