It is Tuesday and time to write a 'Slice of Life." Thank you Two Writing Teachers for creating this supportive community of teacher-writers!
We are on vacation at the beach in South Carolina and it is absolutely beautiful here. I offer you a taste of this magical setting through photos and haiku (writing format inspiration from Barb Edler’s post yesterday – thank you, Barb!).
gift of this day
waking to wisps of seagrass
sheltering our earth
dear sweet gull soaring
along the lapping ocean
under striated sky
spring glides on a bike
with a wild giddy whoosh
across shifting sands
pelicans in flight
holding the ocean
together
water draws the sun
into its bounteous arms
kissing the day farewell
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It is Tuesday and time to write a 'Slice of Life." Thank you Two Writing Teachers for creating this supportive community of teacher-writers!
The FIRST real signs of spring were around Fayetteville, North Carolina, where we stopped for the night, to break up the long drive south. There were lots of flowering trees and bushes; here are a few photos to share the joy:
The FIRST flowering redbuds – my favorite spring flowering tree – were just south of Florence, SC. This means the redbud in my front yard in Maryland should not flower until I return from this trip – yay! I want to be home for this beautiful sight.
The FIRST time the four of us traveled together was last March. We had so much fun, we insisted on a reprise – here we are, my brother, sister-in-law, husband, and I, on vacation together in the Lowcountry of South Carolina.
The FIRST celebration of the week is my brother’s birthday; later we’ll celebrate Tony’s & my anniversary – this is a joyful time for a getaway.
The FIRST blast of truly warm air was at the rest stop on I-95 near Ridgeland, SC. Until then, we’d had a cool rainy drive south. We spread our arms wide and spun around, rejoicing, in the parking lot – this feels like vacation!
The FIRST sighting of Spanish moss was on Carolina route 462 – this growth means Lowcountry to me. Spanish moss needs just the right mix of salty, marshy air, humidity, and heat, in order to grow and spread. It dances through trees in this part of the south, flowing from branches.
photo taken from the car window . . .
The FIRST slice from our vacation is this brief one. More to come!
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It is Tuesday and time to write a 'Slice of Life." Thank you Two Writing Teachers for creating this supportive community of teacher-writers!
My eyes were irritated, and more so in my left one. I hoped it was a simple infection, another byproduct of time with grandchildren, but a glance in the mirror confirmed my fears: there was no redness and no visual difference between the two eyes.
This means it must be the mole.
Somehow, I missed all the marks of my anxiety’s favorite game – feeling unusual symptoms just before my annual eye doctor appointment.
Thirty years ago, my eye doctor discovered a mole behind my left eye, an internal mole, something that can’t be seen without a special camera. He assured me that it is probably nothing, yet he has to take a picture of it every year and compare its size and shape to that of the year before. It has not changed one iota in thirty years, except perhaps in its ability to make me fret. Aging is weird like that. My father had all sorts of problems with one eye and was basically blind in it by the end of his life, and this invisible-to-me mole feels like some parallel to his health issues. Regardless of the doctor’s reassurances.
At the eye doctor’s, I had my usual thorough exam. I read the vision chart. The doctor dilated my eyes and I waited alone in the dark with my active imagination. He returned and we sat knee to knee with my chin in the stirrup of the eye machine while he issued commands about staring straight, looking this way, no blinking. I moved to the second room and sat perfectly still at the eye camera and stared into a bright green star without blinking, over and over again, each eye.
Everything. Was. Absolutely. Normal.
No change in the size of the mole, no changes in my eyeglass prescription, even. All is fine. What a waste of time worry is! Though it did leave me with a poem:
my eye
feels dusty
filmy
off
there’s something
pestering
in the most benign way
as if
somehow
a spot of honey
slipped onto
an eyelash or two
and each blink
kisses
other eyelashes
which struggle to separate
from the sticky caress
double vision? no
spots? no
blindness? not yet
I just feel odd
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It is Tuesday and time to write a 'Slice of Life." Thank you Two Writing Teachers for creating this supportive community of teacher-writers!
FEELING COCKY
For years and years and years, I have baked homemade brownies, only homemade brownies, yummy homemade brownies. It’s really simple. I can be a little snooty about it, refusing to cook from a packaged mix.
I use the simple recipe on Baker’s Unsweetened Chocolate for ‘one bowl brownies.’ I always stir in a bag of chocolate chips as my final step before baking. (Is it possible to have too much chocolate? I don’t think so.) These are a crowd pleaser and I can basically make them with my eyes closed.
Be careful of what has become too ordinary for you.
I set the oven, got out my bowl, and began to measure the ingredients. I got out a small second bowl to beat the eggs. I suppose Baker’s Chocolate Company would be disappointed in this second bowl, but one must put their own flourishes on recipes. Over the years, I have learned that I prefer to beat the eggs separately, rather than try to do so while combining them with the chocolate and sugar.
Measure, mix, stir, yum. Everything is going well. I stir in the chocolate chips as the final step.
CONFUSION
Hmm. The mix looks a little different. Thicker. I can see the granules of sugar, and I don’t remember that being so before. I guess I haven’t made these in a long time. They’ll melt into yum in the oven, I reassure myself.
Into the oven they go. I set the oven for thirty minutes and begin cleaning up the cooking mess.
Two minutes into their baking, I find the separate bowl of eggs. As in, sitting on the opposite end of the counter. As in, never stirred into the batter. Step 3!! Yikes! I rushed to the oven and took out the pan and prayed the brownies hadn’t cooked too much. Two minutes? That can’t be a big deal, right?
I scraped the mixture into a third bowl. Bowl one was in the sink with soapy bubbles. Bowl two had the eggs. Oh my.
I quickly mixed in the eggs – not at all easy to do, when flour and chips are in there, too. I’ve heard that you shouldn’t beat brownies too much…it makes them dry…ugh, there’s no escaping this now, I must beat in the eggs.
Done.
I popped them back into the oven, and set the timer for 25 minutes, so they wouldn’t overcook.
GOBSMACKED
I’m out of the room when the timer rings, so my dear husband turns it off. I jump over to the oven and speak to him with frustration – “Look! You turned off the OVEN, not just the timer! I may need to cook them longer.”
“I thought I hit the timer button not the on/off for the oven, sorry!”
I open the oven door and it is cold. As in, no heat whatsoever. Brownies haven’t cooked at all. The oven hasn’t been on! What?!
I put the uncooked brownies on the counter, exasperated. I thought about my process . . .
CONTRITION
Oh my goodness. The mistake was TOTALLY MINE. Back when I rushed to the oven to grab the brownies and then mix in the eggs, that is when I myself must have turned off the oven. In haste.
(A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough.)
I apologized to my husband for my snippy tone; it was not his mistake.
I am beyond frustrated with these brownies, and with myself.. These ‘simple’ homemade brownies! My ‘go-to’ favorite! Oh my.
I turned the oven on. Waited for it to reheat. Popped the brownies back in. Again, I set the timer for 25 minutes. I double-checked that the oven was heated. I went back to my writing and waited for the timer to go off.
In a matter of minutes, the room began to smell so heavenly. They were definitely cooking this time around.
EPILOGUE
Don’t they look delicious?
No, they were an epic fail.
Dry, crumbly, possibly overcooked. They were impossible to cut.
One star for flavor.
Boo hoo.
Served with ice cream, everyone was complimentary. But I knew better. (Still cocky, I guess.)
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 tell myself it is all about the guest room, and I begin dusting and straightening there. Of course, I notice ‘junk’ that shouldn’t even be in that room at all, so I gather these and wander away. I am an awesome culler when company is coming, so several of these find their way to the donation bin or to the trash. The donation bin is in the laundry room, so I throw in a load and fold what’s hanging out in the dryer. Then I begin to tidy that room, too. I remind myself that the priority for cleaning is the guest room. I grab the vacuum and head back upstairs, but I go through the kitchen and the counters need wiping. Look over there, I say to myself, I should vacuum the family room rug. In the midst of vacuuming here, I notice that the dining room table needs another leaf in it, because there will be ten of us for dinner tonight. Where is the leaf? The leaf is stored in the basement – and of course, it is very dusty. Let me clean that…
This is how I clean before company – I begin highly-focused, honed-in on one particular room of the house, and then it’s this wild spree where I am cleaning any and all things in my path. My route is up, down, over, under, around, around, around, faster, faster, faster.
Let me draw you a diagram of my house cleaning process:
I’m not sure why I get so worked up about having everything “just so.” My brother and sister-in-law are visiting, and they are dear and easy-going guests. The kids are going to join us for dinner, it will be a joyful and fun time together.
And the house looks great, lol!
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It is Tuesday and time to write a 'Slice of Life." Thank you Two Writing Teachers for creating this supportive community of teacher-writers!
Bird and I were savoring the warmth of this spring day from the sandbox. Her shoes and socks were strewn on the ground to the side. The sand was clammy and cold, and the three-year-old was fervently working on filling containers and then flipping the molds out. A variety of bugs had taken up residence in the sandbox, during the many months we had left it closed up. I used a play shovel to remove them gently, one by one, at her insistence. The gentle part was my requirement, and I tarried a moment with each shovelful so that she might see these small beings up close in a benign way. They mean her no harm, I repeated, they are just living their lives. Lucky them, finding our sandbox as a nice home away from the winter cold.
All of a sudden, we were greeted by loud and resounding bird chatter, with the most discernible voices being piercing caws from humble crows. Looking up, I witnessed swarms of crows – a murder, as it were – in the air above, wildly circling one another and the winter trees. My glance shifted high into the treetops, madly searching for the focus or goal of all this ruckus, and I saw the branches bustling and swaying, quite literally in motion. It was a scene from a Hitchcock movie, and I stood there transfixed. What in the world?
Here is one snapshot of the crows in the tree
Quick – Merlin app to the rescue, what am I hearing?
Rapid fire pulsating response from the wizard in fifteen brief seconds, highlighting over and over: Fish Crow and American Crow, with Tufted Titmouse, Song Sparrow, and American Robin sprinkled in, once or twice.
What is the difference between a Fish Crow and an American Crow? I need to read up on this; all the crows look very much the same, from this distance. It seemed to me that one large tree held about a dozen wiggling, busy crows, and a neighboring tree held another dozen or so, with other crows flying about, darting between the two trees. All the birds were calling out harshly, creating a huge commotion.
Were the American Crows in one tree and the Fish Crows in the other? Or were they all mixed up together? How do I tell them apart? Was this some sort of argument? Who offended whom? Or were they worried on behalf of someone else? Was someone’s nest being harmed and they were all there to support the injured party? Or ward off the interloper?
We went back to our sandbox play, not knowing any answers. Then, perhaps ten minutes later, all the crowing stopped. It was peaceful again. The trees were emptied now. Where did the crows go? How did I miss their departure?
Think of that adage – “nothing to crow about,” as in, being less than worthwhile. Hmm. I think this is rather condescending to crows. Today’s tumult was very unusual. I have no doubt that there was a real reason for their uproar. They were obviously seeking to be heard and understood, in fact, they were demanding to be.
Clearly, there WAS something to crow about. I just didn’t know what. How do I know it’s not meaningful?
crow full
fish crow
American crow
fuss crow
fume crow
this way
that way
a real crow’s nest
crow over
crow about
swoop crow
loud crow
this is the way
crow flies
definitely something
though I know
not what
A little chalk art found in my neighborhood park.
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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 soon the.children stream down the aisle in pursuit of the altar, I break into smiles. Each Sunday service includes a children’s time, where the children sit and talk with the pastor for a few minutes. They are invariably all over the place, full of energy and joy. The mood is conversational, with lots of back-and-forth between the pastor and the children. It takes a lot of skill, I think, to ‘herd cats’ in this way – to share an engaging spiritual reflection for the children to digest, while inviting their questions, and moving the lesson along efficiently. All the while, the pastor is balancing the children’s wiggles and moods and unexpected tangents. I am awed by his patience; he seems to truly enjoy the children, and never seems to mind their time together going a bit sideways.
Today, I am still smiling from a simple misunderstanding by one young child, and can’t help thinking her confusion makes a good message all on its own. I wrote a poem to share the story:
Isaiah 61:1
on Sunday
a child
misheard
the reading
and asked
bewilderedly
insistently
understandably
perplexed
why but why why why
has the spirit of the Lord
annoyed me?
brilliant
forthright
out of the mouths of babes
are we
bringing good news to the poor?
the brokenhearted?
the prisoners?
perhaps
to be anointed
we need to be more
annoyed
truth to power
rise up
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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 have a kind of unease,
a prickly sensation,
a coldness in my bones
when I’m around a certain type
of easy chatter
superficial back and forth
embedded in a distancing
a loved one doing their best to fake it
to cover up pain
I grew up reading
the room
weighing the change in tone
hearing the false perkiness
masking
exhaustion
giving up
hollow
A dear friend is ensnared with depression. I have watched it build in recent years. Who knows the root? A frightening diagnosis from a doctor, perhaps. Recovery that feels less than complete, perhaps. The loneliness and fear of the pandemic, perhaps. I don’t know, I can’t possibly know. Is it ever one thing sending us tumbling into this hard sad numbness?
We women of a certain age often speak about ‘not letting ourselves go,’ trying to age with strength. We mean this mostly in the physical sense and we share about our morning stretching routines, daily walks, or a new fun exercise class. Being with this dear person, all these daily routines feel so foolish and inadequate. Depression is a poison, permeating the body, turning routines into mush. There is no ability to engage, to have a project or a pastime, to enjoy a long walk. An eerie distancing from all and everything.
Every outreach I make feels useless, a band aid when someone is hemorrhaging. I feel myself losing her. She is hurting and I am struggling, too.
an unknown invisible misery
weaves within you
spreading mysteriously
in ways unforeseen
leaving you so troubled
pulsating with fear and anxiety
I do not understand
you so bold and beautiful
now sitting in sad eerie silence
bereft of oomph or desire
where have you gone, dear one?
how might I help you
move forward in the dark?
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It is Tuesday and time to write a 'Slice of Life." Thank you Two Writing Teachers for creating this supportive community of teacher-writers!
This day is so rainy, I don’t know how much light Dear Orchid will receive this morning. All the same, I think she likes it here, sitting on the table next to me, listening to my early morning chatter. We both enjoy watching the sun warm up this room, spreading its happy rays about.
That’s not happening today, with this steady rain.
My early morning routine these past couple of months: strive to get up around sunrise, stumble walk my stiff aging feet to the front living room, pick up Dear Orchid and carry her to the window at the back of the house, the family room, to soak in the sun from the day. Next, turn on the space heater, to warm up the family room. Make myself a cup of tea and settle down in the chair alongside her, and write.
My pets are my plants. I don’t have the four legged variety. I have green leafy ones.
Dear Orchid is proving to be a challenge. She means a lot to me – a gift at my birthday back in early December from my son’s girlfriend. I adore the girlfriend – one must keep the plant thriving, right?
Within a matter of weeks of her arrival, Dear Orchid began to show signs of acute stress. Her flowers and leaves began to droop and, most ominously, a new flower bud dropped off without opening. All my other houseplants are thriving in this room; Dear Orchid was not.
Orchids are sensitive plants, needing just the right light and warmth. I realized that the family room is much too cold overnight for Dear Orchid, at this time of year. Fresh from a greenhouse, I am sure she wasn’t spending her nights in temperatures in the 50s, as this room can be overnight – oh my. Dear Orchid made her protests clear to me.
I have patience for her, because I am sensitive, too. As a child, that adjective was a pejorative – “Oh, Maureen, you are way too sensitive!” All these years later, I can still hear the dismissive, taunting sound of the insult. No time for such nonsense in a military family, I guess. Cold and tough was better. In time (and therapy, of course), I learned the beauty of my sensitivity, my ability to pause and listen, to feel empathy, and to take care of others. Why shouldn’t we try to understand one another and meet each other’s needs?
What was I to do about Dear Orchid?
The daylight in the family room was perfect, the dark of night was not.
Our warm living room in the front of the house has a windowsill right above a radiator. However, it doesn’t get a lot of sun during the day, making it too dark for Dear Orchid.
So began my intensive care regimen – letting the living room windowsill be Dear Orchid’s cozy warm ‘bed’ overnight, and bringing her into the happy sunshine of the family room for her days. We’ve been doing this routine for about eight weeks now and I am hopeful that it is just the right mix for her. Certainly, it is working for me – I enjoy her company. She brightens my writing nook.
May she still be blossoming when my son and his girlfriend drop by again.
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It is Tuesday and time to write a 'Slice of Life." Thank you Two Writing Teachers for creating this supportive community of teacher-writers!
When my granddaughters (ages 5 and 3) visit, we draw and paint. I keep a small table well-stocked and ‘at the ready,’ with a variety of markers, colored pencils, and drawing paper. Painting together is a little bit more of a production – we do this at the craft table in my basement, near to the utility sink for rinsing all those brushes and wiping up messes.
We go through a lot of paper. Paper, paper, paper, we simply cannot have enough paper around here. I am always looking for ways to make it stretch. I am a scavenger, on the lookout for ‘extras’ – scrap paper at the back side of cards, or cutting blank sections of business mail and other papers, and tearing out the pages at the end of old notebooks and notepads. We like to draw and paint on cardboard boxes, too. A real favorite has been the large rolls of ‘painter’s paper,’ leftover from our home remodeling. We can cover tables with this and draw to our heart’s content.
Just the other day, my poetry writing with Ethical ELA led to a wonderful way to stretch my paper supplies. An inspiration by Amber Harrison introduced me to a fanciful new world: ‘zines.’ I don’t know that I have ever heard of this word before, and I went down a real rabbit hole learning more about these.
The biggest thrill for my granddaughters and their drawing: one sheet of paper can be folded into eight rectangles, and with one simple cut, a small book is created. Yes!! I had to show this to the girls!! As I imagined, they were delighted – busily working on these small pages, creating their own books. They created smaller designs due to the more limited space, and they began to think about their art as storytelling. Wonderful!
I created my first zine as the girls worked on theirs. What whimsical books these can be! I am reminded of the limits and focus of writing into a specific poetry form – I am whittling my thoughts to fit a particular framework. For this first zine, I wrote some silly wordplay we repeat often around here, whenever I can’t remember the word for something…might as well laugh about it. Here’s what my zine layout looks like, unfolded:
Here is my zine ‘poetry’ in a more straightforward fashion –
Whatsis?
by Nana, AKA Maureen
What’s this called again?
That’s a something-or-other.
A thingamajig.
What did you say?
A doohickey.
What’s a doohickey?
A whatchamacallit.
A gubbins.
What?!
A gizmo.
A thingamabob.
A widget.
A doodad.
A thingy.
A so-and-so.
Say what?!
Leave it be, so be it,
I don’t know
The girls laughed when I read this little book to them, capturing our family joke. I am going to play around with this zine idea some more. Next up, I’m creating a zine of healing thoughts to share with a friend who is having surgery next week – just to let her know I am thinking of her.
It is always good to be stretched in new ways – and always good to stretch my paper supplies, too!
