May 10: An Oldie

I was clearing out a box on the eve of this holiday weekend and found an oldie but goodie from the days when those who made me a mother would wear silly homemade costumes and pose for pictures when asked. I won't call them the good old days because I vaguely remember there were sleepless nights and endless laundry in those times as well as diapers and slobbery kisses. I also know I was one of the lucky ones who had the gift as well as the challenges of motherhood. 

Always

Know you

Were the greatest

Gifts, teaching me humility,

Loving, despite many mistakes, foibles.

Thank you for bestowing

A wonderful chapter

A memory

Always

May 6 We Can

 

  

It's Saturday, but I'm sharing with Spiritual Thursday, just a few days later, thinking about Chris Margocs post about beginnings and endings which really is the essence of what the spring season is all about. From Song of Songs: See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land.

I think of this quote often as I think of the emotionally laden holiday of Mother's Day this weekend. For the many of us who have lost or are too tired/overworked/ busy/exhausted to appreciate, estranged from, or who will not see, or who yearn for mothers, children, or both, this holiday is a emotionally tough. Yet, for everyone, even those in the throes of sadness, there is an optimism of this season that offer hope.

I smiled as I passed the busy nursery this morning remembering we all can buy ourselves flowers and celebrate that spring has come.

To be a parent, mom, 
Grand, aunt, cousin, daughter
To have loved, helped, cared
Gifts of spring are promised.
Celebrated, forgotten, all
This season, is for us all

SOL26: May 5: Wires and Boxes

I am writing and sharing with the Two Writing Teacher's Slice of Life community.

I know I don't need cable TV, but I do need internet and frankly Fios works better than other services in my area. Plus, Verizon keeps lowering the price every time I ask/beg/buy a new phone, so I had planned to continue the status quo, BUT, now I am in a dilemma.

About 6 months ago, I got a mammoth box from the company with new boxes and cables and a link to directions.  I put the box in the basement as the holidays were coming and I felt no pressure to do something about the box. Then yesterday, I decided to catch the end of American Idol mostly because I had read several articles about the talent. My cable was out. Yet, I could see my neighbor was watching so it way my cable and not their cable. I figured it was about the box. 

I tried calling the 800 number along with about 300.000 others and was told the wait time was 14 hours and 5 minutes. I hung up. I started to read the directions that are written clearly for people with advanced degrees in technology, nothing about literacy teachers, even those of us with pretty good comprehension.

I've already put in about 3 hours on the directions and one wire. Based on my track record of 3.5 weeks to assemble a Little Tykes Cozy Coupe and 9.11 months to assemble a Weber grill, I am predicting this project will last somewhere in the middle, around 4.5 months. 

Right now, I am remembering my drama with the Cozy Coupe fondly, borrowing internet from the neighbor, and seriously wondering if Verizon really has a clue about real people and real wires!

 
 

May 3: Losing Choice

As I read this NYTimes article, tears mixed with my coffee in an unexpected merger of the reality of economic hard times and vague memories of my family's story. In a nutshell, the story documents the selling of a Butter Ridge Farm on the NYS Pennsylvania border after four generations, as costs have exceeded any economic value in maintaining the farm.  It had endured since before the Civil War and the family had great hopes in a pro-farmer president; however, tariffs destroyed the export market while gas and fertilizer were up 70%. So, they auctioned off every last Jersey.  They didn't choose to leave, they were forced to do so.

My dad chose to leave the small family farm where he was raised in Montgomery, NY, in the days after his own father passed. My dad was the tenth and last child raised on that farm that, based on stories passed around, did OK even during the Great Depression by selling sweet milk from alfalfa fed-cows to clients in NYC. The older brothers and sisters had long left the farm for lives in the big city and beyond by the time my dad maintained the farm during his dad's cancer fight. I suspect the farm was his IF he wanted to farm, which was not his dream. 

My Dad was fueled with ideas from his older siblings and a childhood friend who summered in nearby but planted visions of changing the world through engineering a better future. I suspect it was my dad who made the call to the auctioneer way back in  August '45 days after the funeral; by September, his mom had relocated to Brooklyn and he was enrolled in Columbia. 

I sometimes wonder how my own life would have been so different growing up on an isolated farm in a rural upstate community, and then I remember I would not exist as there is no way my mother would have chosen life on a farm, even with my father whose world was broadened by college, opera, baseball, lifelong learning opportunities. My father made a wise, even if hard, choice for him.

The difference is choice.  Those who lost Butter Ridge Farm did not have a choice.  What so many people are losing right now is a choice. 

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Verse Love 26: Day 30: Poeming

Today's Verse Love Host, Sarah Donovan, asks us to share what we saw, what changed, and what we carry forward from this month of poems. I am very grateful for this community of educators Sarah has amassed that share drafts bravely and encourage each other graciously.  I started to try to do what Sarah did and thank those whose words made a difference, but there are too many of you and my poem of gratitude was endless. I'll try to do some thank you notes in comments but please know your words really do matter. 

After this month of poeming,

Love this new word, I am 

Reminded that written words are potent,

Empowering communication tools for mortals,

Wishing we could use this approach for embracing

Writers in schools with intense, risk-free experiences,

Thankful for the encouragement to take this risk,

All who noticed my voice and drafts as valid,

Energized by thinking as one might feel after a

Completing a great book or marathon while 

Planning to return to read, learn, grow, share,

Perhaps, maybe even host a day in the future.

Verse Love 26: Day 29: Of the Woods

Our Verse Love Hosts are poets I have long admired, Barb Edler and Glenda Funk, who churn out poems that call to my heart as if it were their missions in life. Today, they invite us to choose a topic important to us, one that lifts a shroud to reveal what others may not typically see. For years, I have written unshared missives about the loss of my family after my husband's shattering decision to leave our family as we were about to become grandparents. I've been sad, embarrassed and climbed slowly out of the dark hole thanks to writing bits and pieces about the loss and bravely sharing and receiving feedback from this community. 

Today I am sharing a poem loosely based on my cherished grands which is about anyone you might wonder about and love even though they are missing from your life. I am sharing this version from the perspective of a child,

I used to ask about him, wondering

If he liked to hike in the mountains, or wade

With shells in the morning, like she does, 

I learned answers were empty 

Like mom's eyes when I asked

If he bear-hugged when she was sad, or played 

Football and catch like my uncle, or 

Stole her Halloween candy, or was her best friend?

It seemed as if the questions had no answer, so

Imagine if he were merely lost, took a wrong turn,

A journey into a dark, dense woods where 

Tangled brush holds you from moving forward or 

Back to those you love. Where dark shadows

Fill his heart with sadness, questions, misplaced

Love. Where he he wanders alone, 

Wondering how tall I am, whether I love

Science (I do) and which flavor

I would choose at the ice cream shop (chocolate)

And if I think of him (I do), if there is a pathway

Out of the woods (I hope so).

Verse Love 26:Day 28: Reflection

 Today's Verse Love Host, Jessica, Sherburn encourages us to wrap up this intense month of writing with reflection on our writing process and our plans going forward. 

Some days, 

Words form easily, 

Thoughts, gel with form

I feel like a writer who matters

Bold stances flowing from a full 

Fountain of memories, ideas, images,

Some days, it is really hard. I

Am a writer who struggles,

Stares at my cursor

Remembers the 

Challenge

Is hard. 

SOL26: April 28: Walk of Shame

Today I am sharing small bits of life with the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life community.   

Long, long ago, they had a bit of give in order to be close-fitting jeggings, in a pre-Covid style popular before some of us (me) put on a few. I have appreciated that stretch and have used every bit of it for a while now. But, the now overstretched dust rag hangs limply along the knees and sags mightily along the derriere. The zipper is stuck, so I just pull them up and down and hope.  It was time.

I could no longer read the brand and your guess of the size is as good as mine. I think they came from Marshalls, so that is where I began the hunt. I was feeling pretty confident as I have been eating clean and exercising vigorously and I filled my cart with 6 pairs in various sizes and hews and levels of waist-band give, but clearly jeggings are no more. 

That first pair was so loose, I was dancing in the booth and singing the praises of exercise, The second pair, same size, did not clear my knees. The third pair would have been perfect if I was in the circus. After 6 failures, I did the walk of shame back to the racks and tried again. 

One pair was clearly designed, and not marked, for pre-pubescent girls. Two, maybe three pairs were great except the zippers and modesty aspect. I was pretty discouraged, but walked in shame once more and found just 2 more pairs, hoping but not hopeful, and clearly exhausted.  

I walked in shame, one more time, to my car in my paper-thin antiques wondering how anyone could order jeans that would fit on Amazon. My poor old jeans must have been even more traumatized about the fitting room adventure than I was as they gave up the fight right in the parking lot! 

I wrapped my sweatshirt around my waist and headed home hoping the neighbors would not see me as I did the walk of shame into the house.  

Verse Love 26: Day 27: Remember Your Purpose

Today's Verse Love Host, Dave Wooley, asks us to think about the points of distraction that you encounter or different ways that you present yourself to the world (teacher voice, text voice, bill collector voice…). My first thought today went to my own multiple, intersecting identities which is a stretch from Dave's prompt but how I really see myself these days as apart-time professor, sporratic  aquacise teacher, and grandma-on-call with a focus on enjoying this chapter of life.

Let's get started, answers to your questions

            Let's warm up, reach and pull, right, left

                    Let's get started, I have so much planned

                            Let's hit the costume exhibit first,

You must document all sessions with your student

            Kick like you mean it, wake up those muscles

                    Games, art,  snacks, where should we start?

                            That would look great on me!

Audio is fine, no face front videos, will spot listen

            Tuck your abs so tight so you can feel them cry

                    Mac and cheese is not just for lunch!

                            I would love PJs in that fabric!

Mini-lessons are just that, 5 minutes is a long time to focus!

            Five more moguls on each side, what a great job!

                    I have not won a Uno in a year, it's just luck?

                            Did you really see that exhibit last year?

Provide options for support and choices for response, 

            Head to the deep, bicycle, cross country, you choose

                    I think these new stencils will work with these crayons,

                            I'd love to really visit Egypt!

Remember the purpose of what you are doing    

            Remember to breathe and sing along, too.

                    There is no wrong with art, did you hear of Picasso?

                            I feel so fortunate to have this place so close!

Verse 26: Day 26: Minnewaska

Today's Verse Love Host, Clayton (Boxer) Moon, asks us to consider home. It’s where we’re from, where we belong. He asks us to show this favorite place and then, use line breaks and to create a poem. After a nomadic life, I did live in a home on top of a mountain where my children grew up and there were happy times; yet, the when I go back there now, painful memories overpower any sense of home. 

Yet, there is a place of sanctuary where I have always felt secure and as if I belong. As I look back now, I am not sure how I braved those hikes with little children and their their mountain bikes, but we talked about the very real dangers that come with very magical memories. Perhaps I really do have my roots in Minnewaska, now a state park in NY.

That first hairpin turn out of New Paltz 

A clue of the breathtaking wonder ahead,

The road weaves, clouds envelope you,

Before you set foot or brave mountain

Bikes towards High Peters Kill 

In search of Castle Point, slowing for

Deer, strange tracks, left over ice, 

Dangling markers, higher and higher, 

Switchback where rocks dangle, respecting

That view stretching to the skies where

Prayers are a hop, skip, jump away.

Before descending, respectfully, 

Searching for Awosting Falls in the

Distance before skinny dipping, perhaps,

In frigid Lake Awosting or head to

Gertrude's Nose or Millbrook Mountain

Breathing deeply, making memories, 

Respecting the power of that glacier 

To leave a path to heaven.