I’ve been in resistance training. Or at least that’s what it feels like. Everyday I am actively working not to hear the increasingly loud and rapid tick… tock… ticktock… tickTOCK… TICKTOCK… TICKTOCK TICK TOCKTICKTOCK!!!!
AHHHHHHHHHH!
Ok….sorry about that. It’s just that August is here, fully entrenched and–OMG It’s the 18th already! That means August is actually almost half over…
AHHHHHHHHHH!
Oops! There I went again. This seems to be happening with increasing frequency! What I’m trying to get across is that I’m trying to live fully in each moment, resisting succumbing to the ever-increasing, inexorable pull of the great whirlpool of the impending school year…
but as each day passes, the closer it gets, and the stronger the pull. I am working frantically diligently to avoid future-thinking and immerse myself in the present and the remaining gift of free time. Occasionally, I’m successful, and often that’s with the help of time outside and with my camera. And lots and lots of reading. But, as that pool of time diminishes, it’s getting harder and harder.
To be clear, I really am looking forward to many aspects of returning to school (more so than in many past years), but the relentless pace is NOT one of them. I dread the constant rushrushrush with such limited time and energy remaining outside of school hours and responsibilities. Sigh.
So, I’m curious (desperate? lol). Can you throw me a lifeline? What do you do to keep things sane when you return to the hustle and bustle of another school year? Do you have a number one tip? Maybe a “school hack” to increase efficiency and productivity?
We always look forward to the hummingbirds’ arrival in the spring. Some years they arrive, and then are scarcely seen as summer commences and flowers bloom, offering plenty of food in the wild. This year they have been present all summer, feeding from our feeder and garden blossoms. I usually have at least two or three of them whizzing about the garden, chittering and darting. Sometimes they show off their undulating “U” dance, which is always a delight. They also frequently perch in our birch tree, on our weather stick, or amidst the wisteria vines. I never tire of watching them and am always fascinated by how their colors change depending on the light. They are truly a gift of the season.
hummingbird
with her needle beak and darting flight summer seamstress stitches together all the sweetness of the season
Welcome! I’m delighted to be hosting the Poetry Friday Roundup this week!
After a few years of exciting travel and busy summers, and a hectic start to this one, I’m now enjoying a slow-flowing summer. I’m embracing and embodying words like putter, meander, wander, roam. I’ve done more than my fair share of digressing and side-tracking. And then there’s that delightful French verb, flâner, which means, essentially, to wander about with an engaged and inquisitive eye, but no destination in mind. I like to think of it as being open to everything, but with no agenda. Now, that’s a summer plan!
One of my favorite things to do this summer has been to follow the pollinators around my gardens and take pictures. It’s made for a lovely pace.
As the calendar flipped to August this week, I started thinking even more about pace. I confess, I have a propensity to hurry and rush. Too often I let the pace rev up to frantic, especially once the school year starts. I’m not sure how to stop this from happening (yet!). As I’ve been thinking about all the impending rush and scurry, this poem has been in my mind.
Hurry by Marie Howe
We stop at the dry cleaners and the grocery store and the gas station and the green market and Hurry up honey, I say, hurry, as she runs along two or three steps behind me her blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down.
Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave? To mine? Where one day she might stand all grown? (To read the the remainder of the poem, click here.)
Those first two lines of the second stanza are playing on repeat in my mind: “Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave?/ To mine?”
So, I’m deliberately pushing pause while I can. Avoiding making too many plans. Cancelling or reorganizing them when I realize I have done so. I’ve taken more and longer naps this summer than I have in my entire life, and I’ll try to tuck in a few more. (The hammock and I have become good friends.) These days, when I think of running errands, I’m pausing to ask myself, “Do I want to do this right now? Do I need to do this right now?” More often than not, the answer to both of those question is: I don’t. It can wait.
Today as I lay in the hammock, I hear the bees buzzing about the hosta blossoms. I hear their sound ebb and flow, muffled by petals as they enter each soft chamber. My eyes trace the undulating path of a swallowtail butterfly. A pileated woodpecker swoops directly overhead to land momentarily on an adjacent tree. I watch it move up and down, hear it’s beak thunk into the trunk of wood, see it’s wings unfold as it flies away and listen to its ululating cry. I watch the shadows shape shift in the leafy canopy. I close my eyes and try to imprint the moment.
Summer is ending… but it has not yet ended.
Summer Mantra
May I be present in moment’s glow, resist directing its ebb and flow,
relax into the day’s embrace, let buzzing bees decide my pace.
May my eyes drift with monarch’s flight and revel in day’s changing light.
May I gauge time by shadow’s reach or tidal rhythms at the beach.
While clocks and phones sit idly by, may I unwind with heartfelt sigh,
and coalesce with present space. The gift of now can’t be replaced.
Do you remember that old Staples ad? It was a back-to-school ad that showed a parent gleefully throwing school supplies into a cart with two glum children following along behind them. While I’m not thrilled with the glum child aspect, I still think the ad was amusing. Take a peek to refresh your memory!
I’m pretty sure I look a bit like that parent whenever I am shopping for office supplies. I’m not sending any children off to school these days, but I’m an office supply addict! Pens, folders, notebooks? They’re my jam!
So, last week, with great anticipation, I went to Staples for the first time this summer. I walked in feeling the excitement grow. What would I find this year? I lingered in the aisles, picking up and putting down various items. Considering this. Considering that. I kept Investigating all my options. Black pens? Blue pens? Red pens? … All!!! I dumped multiple packages into my cart.
Next, I debated about crayons. I don’t usually have individual crayon boxes, but I’d been considering it. They were on sale… I did the math. I could always add them to the community bin if I didn’t want to use them individually. Decision made! Twenty boxes of crayons were added to my growing pile.
After making many more decisions, changing my mind, trying to remember what I’d already ordered, reconsidering, adding, removing, etc., I finally made my way to the counter to pay. I piled up my tower of crayon boxes alongside the other items.
“Whoa! That’s a lot of crayons!” a small voice piped up from behind me.
I turned from the counter to see a wide-eyed young boy, standing next to his grandmother.
“Are those all for you?!” he asked, eyes bulging.
“No,” I smiled at him. “I’m a teacher and these are for my classroom. Are you getting ready to go to school, too?”
He nodded, holding tightly onto his own teetering tower of supplies. “I’m in precool.”
“You were in preschool last year,” his grandmother corrected. “This year, you’ll be in Kindergarten.”
“I’m gonna be in Kindergarten,” he said.
“Oh,” I said. “I teach second grade. But Kindergarten is pretty awesome! Are you excited?”
“Yes,” he nodded enthusiastically.
After a moment, he looked up at me again. “Will you be there?”
Kids and office supplies…best combo ever! No wonder I love being a teacher! 🙂
This month Catherine set the challenge for our group. Inspired by Irene Latham’s recent post, she asked us to try a triptych. I did a little research to make sure I fully understood the form. Apparently, there’s room for some interpretation 🙂 According to AI, “A triptych poem is a poetic form consisting of three distinct, yet related, sections or stanzas. It’s inspired by the visual art form of a triptych, which is a painting or sculpture made up of three panels, often hinged together. In poetry, the three parts of a triptych can explore different facets of a theme, tell a story in three stages, or offer contrasting perspectives on a subject.”
Another site I found offered additional, more complex, options, stating: “There are two types of Triptych poetry forms:
A poem consisting of three poems of equal length displayed side-by-side, like the panels of a triptych painting. Not only do the poems work together thematically, like the painting, they actually form a fourth poem. The fourth poem is read horizontally across the three poems. This fourth poem completes the theme of the Triptych.
A poem of three stanzas. The first stanza comments on the past, the second comments on the present, and the third comments on the future. The second stanza is twice as long as the first and third.”
I fooled around with all of these, lingering with the side-by-side format for a long time, enjoying the appeal of a visual triptych and the lure of a fourth poem to complete the trio. Eventually, I put that aside to work on again at another time. It was tough! The deadline was looming and I still wasn’t sure what I was going to do! But once again, I’m grateful for the birds. After looking out my window yesterday morning, I put everything aside and wrote this:
I the birch tree stands dappled in sun and shade one graceful branch arcs low a living artifact of the weight of winter snow
II blue jays gather and perch a cluster of fledglings all flutter and clatter and gawking beaks a constant, raucous clamor of bold and boisterous demand
III sudden lift and exclamation jays erupt skyward in an exhalation of blue and silence descends as softly as a falling feather alighting on the curve of the empty branch
This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Jane Whittingham at her blog, raincitylibrarian. If the summer heat has you down, click the link and spend some time chilling with some poetry!
In her typically generous fashion, Georgia Heard has begun to share monthly writing prompt calendars. For July she created a “Month of Tiny Letters.” Each day offers an invitation to write a tiny letter. Yesterday’s prompt was “Send love to your tired self.”
Dear Tired Self, A nap is a gift – not an indictment.
Lean in. Close your eyes. Let the hammock gently rock you into easy dreams.
Three days. Two naps in the hammock. I’m doing something right!
I thought my summer hadn’t fallen into any sort of rhythm yet. Then, I realized that it’s actually been an unexpected rhythm, mostly consisting of a sedentary pattern of sleeping, eating and drinking, reading, napping. Rinse. Repeat. Other than the reading, I’m apparently emulating a newborn!
As the days of July are now more than half over, I’m considering how I want to shape the rest of my summer. Adding a bit more writing and creating to my days is high on the list. I haven’t participated in Poetry Friday in quite some time, and have really missed the community. Today, I’m chiming in with a late-to-the-party nonet.
Visiting my in-laws in Nashville wondering where the years have gone days spiced with laughter and tears time passes so quickly inevitably departure looms cherish each fleeting now
After a fairly frenetic start to summer, I’m still struggling to find my summer rhythm. So far it’s mostly eluded me. I had all sorts of good intentions about getting back into a blogging routine, but once again, a few weeks have passed since I’ve posted.
In the last couple of days, inspired by On Being’s “The Hope Portal”, I’ve been trying to focus on finding “moments/sightings/experiences that bring flashes of light into your day.” I’ve also been trying to get a sort of routine in place–writing, walking, photography, etc. Yesterday morning I forced myself to take a walk, and found, as one usually does, a glimmer of joy.
After a bit of a writing dry spell, I wanted to write about making jam today. It’s a subject I’ve visited before (here and here and even once in the Portland Press Herald.) and no doubt will again. So, I pulled up my blog this morning, determined to write and to get back into blogging more regularly. I knew it had been a while since I had written, but I was shocked to see that my last post was at the end of May! That’s more than two months ago! 1/6 of a year!! How can time pass so quickly? (Update: My husband has informed me that my math skills are a bit off, and this is closer to one month than two. I’m not sure whether to feel better or not! lol)
I’ve been thinking about time a lot lately. Perhaps it’s prompted by the arrival of summer, which is always jarring in a teacher’s life, or perhaps it’s where I am in my own life, and where my loved ones are. It’s also been a common theme in books I’ve been reading. Time passing. It’s our one true constant, isn’t it?
I’ve been considering how the nature of time changes–how on some days, time visits you in a leisurely way, curls around you and tucks you into its slow unfolding, and on other days it whips past, barely seen, leaving you breathless in its wake. Most days it falls somewhere in between.
Perhaps that’s why traditions, like jam making, matter so much to me. They’re like small anchors in the tide of time. Or maybe small flags of proclamation. Jam making literally feels like a way to capture time in a bottle, to savor at a future time of your choosing. Ray Bradbury says it best, when writing about dandelion wine in his book of the same name:
“And there, row upon row, with the soft gleam of flowers opened at morning, with the light of this June sun glowing through a faint skin of dust, would stand the dandelion wine. Peer through it at the wintry day – the snow melted to grass, the trees were reinhabitated with bird, leaf, and blossoms like a continent of butterflies breathing on the wind. And peering through, color sky from iron to blue.
Hold summer in your hand, pour summer in a glass, a tiny glass of course, the smallest tingling sip for children; change the season in your veins by raising glass to lip and tilting summer in” ― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine
(After reading Bradbury’s writing again, it’s hard to continue writing this piece. What a master he is!)
At any rate, last summer we traveled extensively and I missed strawberry season entirely. This winter I found myself buying jam for the first time in years. I think I bought every flavor except strawberry, and I admit it was fun to have some variety. Still, this year I hoped to make jam again. As we moved further into June, I trawled through the local U-pick farm’s FB posts, eagerly searching for updates. Finally, after days of tantalizing “Soon!” posts and pictures of dangling berries, there it was:
Today’s the day!!! Opening Day for strawberry u-pick season!!
FB photo from Fairwinds Farm, Bowdoinham, Maine
The post appeared on Monday night. The fields were opening the following morning, which was the last day of school, and also the Tuesday before out-of-town visitors arrived and we hosted a party for 100ish people at our home. Over the following days, no matter how I juggled, there was simply no time for picking and jam-making. Things were starting to look grim on that front.
Once the party (such fun!) was over, visitors remained, and then the fields were closed for heat waves and then rainfall. There were sad commentaries about unfruitful harvests. But fear not, Dear Reader! For on this past Sunday morning, the grey clouds looked blanketing, not threatening. Temperatures were not supposed to rise into heat advisory zone. The local farm’s Facebook page said picking was light to moderate, but they were optimistically opening for the day. I set out for the fields first thing.
Picking strawberries tends to be a layered experience for me, and that morning was no exception. I crouched in my chosen row, avoiding puddles, searching for berries. A veery called repeatedly from nearby shrubs. Two cat birds swooped and dove nearby. As always, I listened to the voices drift over the fields from other pickers. Most people were in small groups or partnerships. I used to pick with my mother-in-law and children, but in recent years, due to distance and scheduling, I’ve been picking alone, steeped in memories.
Berry picking is a treasure hunt. This year it felt especially so, as the berries were smaller and fewer in quantity. Every so often I stumbled upon a patch of glowing red berries, but more often I was brushing aside damp leaves, searching for hidden ones. Sometimes I was rewarded. Sometimes not. But bit by bit, my green cardboard quart baskets filled up. Eventually I was finished picking and I headed home to make jam.
There was no rush. I had nowhere to be. No pending commitments. Just a morning free to pick berries and make jam.
Still, soon enough, I found myself hurrying, thinking about being done and not so much about doing. After months of crazy to-do lists, I’m working really hard to catch myself when I’m not being in the moment, not experiencing and appreciating it as it unfolds. I’m working to switch gears, to lean into the moment at hand, and not think ahead to the next thing, or the next step. So, on this day, I caught myself rushing, and then deliberately slowed down.
Walking out to the back yard to harvest rhubarb, I focused on the damp weight of the encroaching vegetation against my legs. I felt the gentle scrape of the massive leaves against my hands as I parted them and reached low into the plant. Heard the snip of scissors cutting through each ruby stalk and the subsequent tree fall of it timbering over. Back in the house, I focused on the flow of water over my hands as I washed each stalk. The crisp slice of the knife. The gathering pile of chopped pieces on the scarred cutting board. Then the hulling of each strawberry and the soft thunk as it landed atop the growing heap in the large, white bowl. The sticky red coating my fingers. The soft squishy sounds of mashing berries together, and the rush of juices. I savored the grit of sugar against my finger as I swept it across the top of the measuring cup. Watched it spill into the pot. Marveled at how the color transformed and intensified. Heard the steady thump of the spoon as I stirred, and the eventual gentle burble of a rolling boil. The heavy scent perfumed the kitchen.
All these sensations intermingled with reminiscences of previous jam making adventures with my mother in law and my children. Even as I tried to stay in the present, grounding myself in sensory experiences and willfully turning away from the tug of the future, the past slipped in. I welcomed it. Rather than undermining the moment, it enriched it. I lingered in the sweetness of memories of collaborative berry picking and jam-making. As I worked, I smiled, remembering how a couple of years ago, my youngest daughter and I spontaneously began to recite Bruce Degen’s “Jamberry” in the fields as we picked:
One berry, two berry, pick me a Blueberry ! Hatberry, Shoeberry in my Canoeberry; Under the bridge and over the dam, Looking for Berries – Berries for Jam !
Finally, at the end of this morning, the jam jars lined the island. Row after row. I cleaned up the kitchen as they cooled, somehow enjoying the wash-up as an extension of the creation. I wiped away streaks of strawberry from the counters and scrubbed sticky remnants of jam from spoons and pots. As I worked, every so often one of the jars emitted a soft sealing clink. One of the best sounds ever!
Later, as the day drew to a close, I stacked the jars of cooled jam in the wooden pantry. I admired the soft glow of berries through the quilted jars, and anticipated savoring their flavor on dark winter days.
To an outside observer, this was a solitary endeavor. One moment in time. I know, though, that it was so much more than that. Picking each berry, washing, cooking, cleaning and bottling filled my morning. But making jam on this particular Sunday also, somehow, transcended time. It united past and present, and fused them together into a glorious, sweet preserve–one I know I will savor as time and the seasons pass.
An opportunity to visit the nurse is the holy grail for many students in my classroom.
One day recently, M. had asked to head to the nurse more than once. Considering that she’d been bouncing around both in and out of the classroom, and was silly and smiling between strategic, puppy-eyed requests, I’d denied her repeated pleas. That didn’t deter her though, as clearly, persistence is one of the key traits needed on the quest to the Kingdom of Nurse.
As the day wore on, I wore down and M started to look a bit less bouncy. Maybe. Or maybe her persistence was paying off. At any rate, in a brief lull between requests, I realized I needed more band-aids. I decided to head off yet another request, and to kill two birds with one stone.
“M, would you be willing to go to the nurse and get some bandaids for the classroom? You could also mention to Mrs. G. that your stomach hurts and see what she says.”
M perked right up.
“Okay! Do you need big band-aids?” she asked.
“No,” I replied, “I just need the regular sized ones.” I held up the bag of bandaids and pulled the last three out. “This is the size I need. You can take the bag with you and ask her to fill it up.”
M. took the bag in her hand. She pivoted to leave, then paused and turned back to me. “Do you think I should bring a mentor band-aid?” she asked.
Mentor* what? …… Ohhhhhhh….the light dawned, and after that split second of confusion, I understood.
“Oh, that’s a great idea!” I said. She reached out and I handed her one of the bandaids, which she tucked into the bag. Then she bopped happily out the door and down to the nurse’s office.
I’m happy to report the use of a mentor bandaid was successful. M returned not too much later with her stomach ache mysteriously vanished, holding a bag full of the correctly sized bandaids.
*In case you’re not in the education field, a mentor text is a piece of writing that students can use for many different purposes. Often in our classroom we use mentor texts to explore how authors craft their writing within different genres and to get ideas of different strategies/moves we can try out in our own writing. In a nutshell, mentor texts can serve as examples to guide us. M. clearly has a full and flexible understanding of mentors!
