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SOLC Day 2 People Watching at the Hospital

March 2026 SOLC–Day 2
A huge thank you to Two Writing Teachers for all that they do to create an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write, learn, share and grow.
http://www.twowritingteachers.org

As we left the hospital wing where we’d been visiting my son and daughter-in-law and our new (and first! and adorable!) grandchild, we walked down the long hallway. I watched the people entering the building, knowing how lucky we were to be here for a joyful reason. Most people in hospitals are not. I scanned their faces, their postures. Who were these people here to see? What were their stories? 

As we neared the elevators to the parking garage, a very tall man and his much shorter young daughter walked toward us. She was maybe five or six years old, and bounced as she walked, her ruffled skirt bobbing about her thin legs. Although I couldn’t make out her words from a distance, I could see that she was talking non-stop. I glanced at her father, trying to read his face. Were they here to visit a new baby, like we were, or was their purpose more worrisome? Although his head was inclined slightly toward her, an ear out to catch her stream of talk, he seemed quiet, maybe even sober. Or maybe it was just the contrast with the animated child at his side? 

We passed the two of them, and not long afterward, the little girl’s high voice drifted back to us. “Daddy, do you want to skip with me?”

What would he say? I wondered. Would he do it? 

I paused for a moment, but then couldn’t resist turning around to look.

Much to my delight, there they were, still in sight, at the far end of the hallway. The man had leaned way over to hold the child’s hand. The two of them were moving together in a hopping-bobbing-up-and-down approximation of skipping. People stopped to glance and smile as they passed, but the two of them focused on each other. And on their skipping. His long gangly legs angled out from side to side, jerky and awkward. She moved with the fluidity of youth. His movements were somewhat taut, and slightly ridiculous looking. Hers were graceful and free-spirited.

Together, they skipped down the hallway toward whatever awaited them.

And together they were absolutely beautiful.

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SOLC Day 1: And so it begins…

March 2026 SOLC–Day 1
A huge thank you to Two Writing Teachers for all that they do to create an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write, learn, share and grow.
http://www.twowritingteachers.org

It’s coming.

The words, or a variation of them, have been a pulse threading through my mind for at least the past week, probably more like two or three. A steady beat. Sometimes louder. Sometimes softer. Always there.

It’s coming. Soon. Are you ready?

The words have ebbed and flowed, a flutter of anxiety occasionally accompanying them. They’ve sparked an increased awareness of time evaporating. Of a deadline fast approaching. Of more things crowding into my mind. Onto my to-do lists. Into my already over-scheduled day. Into the madness of March with it’s glut of assessments, report cards, conferences, etc. (And that’s just the school stuff!) Every so often, the words have crescendoed…It’s coming. Are you ready? Are you? Soon! Soon! It’s coming… and the flutter of anxiety has roiled into a full-fledged heavy repetitive beat. Uncomfortable. Persistent.

How will I do this?

Inside my head a tentative voice reminds me this is a choice and that I’ve done it before. Many, many times.

Still, this year feels different. I’m unsettled by the world and by changes in my own life. I’m juggling a lot of commitments to myself and to others. I’m already feeling overwhelmed and dropping balls here and there.

Where will this energy come from? Where will the time to write come from? Should I even bother starting?

I remind myself I can quit. That missing a day isn’t failure. That’s what I tell myself, but I’m not sure it’s what I believe.

“I’m feeling stressed about the Slice of Life challenge,” I blurt out to my husband. “More than usually so.”

The questions spill out of me. “Am I being ridiculous to pile more into this month? Am I just needlessly adding stress?”

He turns, but before he can even answer, I continue, “But I say this every year. And I always get so much out of it.”

I know he can’t answer this for me. I’m just thinking out loud. Trying to get my feet under me.

This morning I wake. The calendar page has turned. March has arrived, and it’s time to decide.

With trepidation looming, I’m trying.

It’s here.

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PF: For Sullivan

Susan Thomsen is hosting Poetry Friday today at her blog, Chicken Spaghetti. I took her up on her invitation to join her in writing in response to Walt Whitman’s line, “I stop somewhere waiting for you.”

For Sullivan on the day of his birth

This morning I await
your mother’s and father’s
texted updates.
I check my phone again
and again
and wonder at this world
expanding
as we wait for you.

You should know now
and it will forever
be true
that I will always stop
anywhere
anytime
and wait for you.

©Molly Hogan

Our first grandchild was born this past Sunday, February 15th. He weighed a bouncing 9 lbs 3 oz and measured 24″ long! You’ll have to take my word for it that he’s the cutest guy ever!

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Just a small moment

There’s nothing like a morning walk to loosen all that has become tangled and taut. I took this picture back in December, on a morning of wandering wide swathes of open beach. I reveled in the sights and sounds as the sun rose and the skies transformed again and again. It was a day when I celebrated being small and finding myself lost in the flow of it. By chance, I scrolled past this photo again this week and saw it in a new way.

Above the vast expanse
of sandy beach
clouds gather
like a herd of horses
flick their tails up
into cerulean blue
and gallop along
the horizon

©Molly Hogan

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Robyn Hood Black at Life at the Deckle Edge.

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Feeling small, a different perspective

At the end of the day, S. sat in the corner and cried and cried and cried. She’d begun the day with tears as well, devastated to realize that she’d missed the opportunity to sign up for the Talent Show auditions. “I don’t know what my talent is, ” she sobbed, “but I want to be in the show!”

With some support, she’d managed to reset for much of the day, but despair had descended on her again powerfully as the day ended. She now sat facing the corner, dejection radiating from every line of her body. I’d already checked in with her and tried to help, but small sobs still shook her shoulders.

“S,” I said to her now, “Your mom is here to pick you up. “

“I’m not going!” she wailed.

“S, if you want to be in the Talent Show, you should talk to your mom about it. They have one every year, so you can try again next year.” I suspected this was little comfort, but wasn’t sure what else to say.

“But my mom won’t take us anywhere. My dad has to watch the other kids and he doesn’t want to. He’s just lazy!” she exclaimed. “I wish,” she sobbed, “I just wish I could meet with someone.”

“You want to meet with someone?” I asked, a bit at sea.

“Yes,” she said, vehemently, “I wish I could meet with someone who could invent a time machine. Then I could go back in time and sign up for the auditions.” Tears streamed down her face.

Eventually, I managed to convince S that the best choice right now was to head out to where her mom was waiting for her. I offered her a hug and then helped her gather up her things and get into her coat and out the door.

Soon after she left, a colleague on dismissal duty came to check in and ask if I knew that S. was very upset as she headed out for pick up. I assured her I did, and that I also planned to drop a quick e-mail to her parents.

“I had no idea she even wanted to be in the Talent Show! She never said anything! ” her mom exclaimed when she responded.

Such big feelings in such a little body.

Not too long ago, I wrote a blog post about the value of feeling small (here). This moment reminded me that there are times that feeling small and powerless is really just no fun.

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Poetry Friday is here!

Welcome to Poetry Friday! I’m so glad you’re here! You are invited to the Inlinkz link party! Click here to enter

This month it was my turn to choose the Inklings’ challenge. “Make it easy!” someone pleaded, and I thought I did. But after fiddling around with it, I’m not so sure. I think it’s one of those prompts that sounds easier than it is.

Anyway, the prompt I chose was from Audrey Gidman’s advent prompts (here). She wrote:

“Write a poem after Wendell Berry’s “Like Snow” — word for word. Choose a subject: rain, a butterfly, granite, the ocean, anything. Berry’s poem is three lines long. Break down each line. In line one, replace the word “suppose” with something else: what if; in spite of; imagine etc., replace the pronoun and the verb, replace “snow” with your chosen subject. Do the same with the second and third lines. Be sure to write an epigraph that reads “after Wendell Berry”.” I added that everyone should feel free to interpret the prompt in ways that worked for them, including going rogue and writing to another prompt on the link.

As I intimated above, I found these tricky! Here’s Berry’s inspiring poem:

I definitely worked loosely with the prompt. I wrote quite a few of these and would love to keep fiddling and revising. But, it’s time to post, so here are two for today:

Like Rain
after Wendell Berry

Imagine if we fell together
like spring rain, gently, gently
nourishing everything around us.

©Molly Hogan

Like a bud
after Wendell Berry

Suppose we could still unfurl
like a bud, blossoming, blossoming
after enduring winter’s grip

©Molly Hogan

To see what the other Inklings wrote, click on their links below:

Mary Lee @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Linda @A Word Edgewise
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Catherine @ Reading to the Core


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A Hard Won Slice

This week feels long and it’s only Tuesday. I told myself I’d write tonight. I still haven’t done so. But, I did enjoy a nice, large glass of red wine. So, that’s a win. And I’m trying to write, which is better than giving up. Right?

I can’t settle on anything to write about, though. Nothing feels right. I’ve already done it, or it’s boring, or I’m boring, or something. So finally, I just gave myself 15 minutes and told myself to do it. Just write about something.

I could write about recess in the winter in Maine. About how we go outside even when the real feel hovers around 10˚F or a bit colder. Maine children know how to dress for the cold. They put on all their layers (which takes an eternity!) and then once we’re outside, quite a few of them surreptitiously remove their coats when teachers aren’t looking. “It’s hot!” they complain as we insist they put on their jackets while we huddle in our full length coats and clutch our electronic hand warmers. The other day some kids found hoarfrost in the playground drain grids. “It looks like snowflakes!” they exclaimed! “They are like little crystals and they melt when I touch them!” It’s gorgeous out there, but the cold can take your breath away. Somedays, no matter how many layers you wear, it seems to take hours to truly feel warm again!

I could write about our current Science unit. About how kids are exclaiming, “Look, Mrs. Hogan! There are geysers coming out of the rocks!” as they observe the volcanic rocks they’ve submitted in water. How they take the hand lenses and wear them like glasses, their little eyes magnified and buggy. How I’ve had several heart to heart talks with students, trying to open their eyes to the depressing reality that “poop”, although hilarious, really is not the best descriptive word choice for the color brown.

Or I could write about a recent day when we’d been mapping and studying the word “other”. We came up with a rhythmic chant to help us remember it–O! T-H-E-R! A little later when I challenged them to write it on their slates, I noticed a student was stuck. I wandered up behind him and started quietly chanting to help him out. Apparently, I was moving about a bit enthusiastically, too. Another student noticed and piped up, “Mrs. Hogan! You’ve got some moves, Girl!” which sent us all off into peals of laughter and a short-lived dance party.

So, there it is. Not really a slice, but a few of them cobbled together. A Frankenstein slice maybe? lol

But, hey, I wrote. So, in my book, that’s a definite win.

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Seeking small doses of joy

These days, more than ever, I’m following Mary Oliver’s advice and actively looking to be astonished and stand in wonder. The opportunities are there if you “pay attention”, and I need the counterbalance. So, I’m actively tuning myself to the joy channel, trying to notice and linger in such moments–this morning’s moonlight streaming through a frosty window…the daily sunrise…mist rising from the river as I cross the bridge on a frigid morning…the laughter of children reveling in the new fallen snow at recess…the steady warmth of the wood stove’s heat on my back as I write…so many small moments of wonder! And here was another one:

Taking the trash out on a January morning

I step outside into bitter cold
into clear, clean air
and a glow in the west
The moon hides below
the tops of snow-sugared pines
and casts a diffuse light heavenward

In the east the sun rises
in purples and reds
smudged with charcoal clouds
a canvas for the stark elegance
of winter trees

After hoisting the trash into the bin
I turn carefully
on the ice coated driveway
west to east,  moon to sun
and then again
east to west, sun to moon

I turn and turn and turn

dizzy with the glory of it all 

©Molly Hogan

I hope that your days offer up small wonders to notice and be astonished by, and that they act as a balm in these bruising times.

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at her blog, The Poem Farm.

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The Unwaning Lure of Snow

I woke and glanced over at the clock. 3:46 am.

How much had it snowed?

Lying in my nest of blankets, I imagined piles of snow draping the garden, layered upon the table like a huge dome of frosting on a cake. Did we have a foot? More?

I already knew we didn’t have school, so there was no need to get up and wait for a call. I closed my eyes and snuggled deeper, willing my body to fall back to sleep.

My mind had other ideas.

Maybe I should just go to take a quick look?

I’d deliberately left the outside light on overnight, in case I woke during the night, and wanted to take a quick peek from upstairs to gauge the snowfall. But I’d slept through and now it was morning. Well, sort of. Still, I could just take a look. But I know myself well enough to know that once I’m up and out of bed, I’m up.

“Go back to sleep,” I told myself. “The snow will still be there when you wake up!”

So, I tried. Really, I did. I lay there beneath the blankets, my eyes closed, sternly telling myself to sleep. I was warm. I was cozy. I was dying to know how much snow there was!

Finally at 4:03 I gave up. I couldn’t resist any longer. I had to know.

I reached for my glasses, put on my robe, and tiptoed out of the bedroom and into the hallway. Then I peeked out of the frosted window to the garden below. Mounds of sparkling white draped everything in sight. My eyes scanned the scene, utterly delighted by how the heavy snowfall transformed the world outside my door. It was absolutely beautiful– a generous gift from Winter, and one that was well worth getting out of bed early!

No matter how old I get, I simply can’t resist the lure of of a fresh snowfall.

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PF: A Pantoum

Somehow January has flown by. I just realized that I haven’t managed to show up for Poetry Friday more than once. Yikes! That’s a trend I intend to break, so I’m showing up a day late to the gathering.

I love when Pádraig Ó Tuama reminds me to try out a pantoum (here). His formula always yields interesting results. He says to write 8 lines, number them and put them into this order: 1,2,3,4 2,5,4,6 5,7,6,8 7,3,8,1. Then he says, “As lines repeat, feel free to punk them up a bit.” So here’s my pantoum-ish poem:

New Year’s Day

I forgot to watch for the first bird
I watch the snow fall instead
The trees shiver, draped in winter white and
we have eight blue birds at the feeder

I watch the snow fall
Even inside, the air by the windows is cold
While blue birds come and go from the feeder
my pen stumbles and starts

The air by the windows remains cold
As the moon descends, the sun peeks over the horizon
My pen stumbles and starts
The stack of firewood is getting low

The moon has disappeared: the sun peeks over the horizon
The trees are graceful, draped in winter white
The stack of firewood is getting low
I forgot to watch for the first bird

©Molly Hogan, draft

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Tabatha at her blog, The Opposite of Indifference.