Anticipating
slender spears of asparagus
emerging from the moist garden soil
thick tart rhubarb stalks
lumbering from the earth
waving elephantine leaves
the swollen purple buds of lilacs
scattering sweet scent in the warming air
spiky bursts of yellow forsythia
and coral-hued thorny quince
punctuating the landscape
with brilliant exclamations
a cobalt ocean of scilla undulating,
carpeting the hill to home
blazen, blowzy poppies
dipping and nodding
heads heavy in the breeze
scarlet, bold and gaudy
and glowing ruby jars
of strawberry preserves
cooling on the counter
Anticipating

Our house smells like death.  Even after a long day at school, it’s hard to get excited about coming home when a miasma of decay smacks you in the face as soon as you open the door.  Foul.  It is indisputable.  Something is rotting.  What creature died in these walls this winter?

“You should check the basement,” Kurt says. 

“Me?”  I squawk.  “No way! You should.” 

We still haven’t. 

Last night, fortified with a glass of Malbec,  I opened a few cupboards with trepidation.  “Why would it die now?” I ask him. 

“I think maybe it died this winter and now it’s finally getting warmer outside.”

“So, it’s thawing out?” 

“That’s what I’m guessing,” he said.

Eww.

I stopped opening cupboards.

On the upside, it’s not too bad once you’ve been inside the house for a while.  “Is it a good or a bad thing that we can adjust to the smell of death?” I wonder aloud. Kurt just looks at me.

The weekend is here.  Should I add “look for the dead body” to my growing to-do list?  It’s not-so-surprisingly hard to get motivated to go corpse searching.  Odds are the body is inaccessible, lodged in a crawl space or even in the walls.  So, I’m probably doomed to failure before I begin.  And I know from experience that this is one of those rare problems that will eventually go away if we ignore it.  Time is our ally.  Eventually. 

For now I’m just thankful that we’re not missing a cat.

I had one of those moments this morning.  I was driving to work, along the curving back country roads I love so much.  It’s lighter now in the morning so I can enjoy the view but unfortunately, it was snowing… again.  And I was trying really hard to see the beauty of the flakes though I was tempted to shake my fist at the sky and curse.  Then suddenly my new favorite dance-pumping song came on the radio and my mood elevated.  I cranked up the music and started singing along.  Seeing movement in my peripheral vision, I glanced up and saw two geese flying silently silhouetted against the glowing morning sky.  The truck in front of me was traveling at the perfect Goldilocks speed.  The driver, obviously well acquainted with the roads, expertly wove around frost heaves and bumps.  I followed in his wake, singing at the top of my lungs, tapping my foot to the beat, enjoying the smooth ride and felt for just that moment, that all was right in my world.

When you drive through the Maine countryside you occasionally see abandoned farmhouses gradually losing the battle against time, gravity, neglect and nature.  I always feel a bone-deep sadness when I see them.  I wonder about the families who lived and died in these old homes—who used to take pride in them.  I imagine children running in the dooryard, a dog barking, chickens scratching in the dirt, laundry flapping in the Maine breeze.   Now, a tattered curtain hangs at a broken window and the wind almost echoes with faint voices.  What circumstances left each building empty of current life, yet resonant with the vibrations of centuries of inhabitation?  These buildings speak to me.   

 is for busy

I’m drawn to busy like a bee to nectar
Something about the whirl and tumble
of deadlines and due dates
must emit some hue or essence
that entices me
as I buzz here and there
briefly stopping and then relaunching
into sun-warmed skies
bobbing and weaving
laden with pollen
lured toward the next heady blossom
encumbered in flight
yet flying on.
Busy as a bee.

What was I thinking?  I’ve hopped straight from one writing challenge into another.  During conference week!  I should know better, but I was enjoying the Slice of Life Challenge so much that I got carried away and in a burst of enthusiasm signed up.   I’m also supposed to figure out how to put the above badge in my sidebar and link back to the hosting blog. Way too complex for me right now. (Thinking in complete sentences is way too complex for me tonight!)   I’ll just put that item on my growing to-do-as-soon-as-possible-after-conferences list.

The reality is that two twelve-hour plus days during conference week following a March writing challenge have drained the creativity pot. I can muster a bit of physical energy to actually sit in front of the computer, but the mental energy is just not available. So, for tonight, with my apologies, mark me present in body, but absent in spirit.

Slice 31–Last day of the challenge!

One of my students arrived a bit early this morning.  His mom dropped him off in our classroom as she was subbing in our building for the first time.  He was bright and cheerful, full of plans for the day and chatty as could be.  He kept up a running commentary as I finished up some last minute prep; sending a few quick e-mails, jotting down some last-minute notes for parent-teacher conferences, gathering pattern blocks for a math lesson, finishing up an anchor chart, and setting out morning work.

“I’m the first one here today!  I’m going to get out all the chairs for everyone….You know what my mom asked me today?  She asked me what she should wear and I said, “Wear what you want.” and she said, “No, I want it to be appropriate for school.”…”Now I’m going to get them their long dates.” …”You know what my mom says when I do something bad?  She says, “Wah! Wah! Wah! Wah!”

He continued on for several minutes in the same vein, requiring no real contribution from me, when out of the blue, he said, “Mrs. Hogan, your job is really easy.”

“It is?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, “I was thinking your job is really easy.  All you have to do is tell people what to learn.”

Oh.  Good thing he cleared that up for me!  😉

Day 30

CRASH!
BANG!
BOOM!
Yes, that’s me
hitting the proverbial writer’s block
with a vengeance
Liberal handfuls
of Skinny POP Popcorn
(Open mouth…
insert…
GOBBLE!
GOBBLE!
OINK!)
have not improved
the situation
But hey,
It was worth a try!
Why is it that the clock always ticks
LOUDER
when deadlines loom?

TICK!
TOCK!
TICK!
Time’s up!
Turn in your work.

Day 29

I ran today for the first time in a long time.  When I run, I notice my surroundings but also pay heed to my inner voices.  It’s a time for mental house cleaning.  Often I consider what I might write about—the thoughts that have been lingering, churning and inviting or demanding a deeper examination.  Other times I merely focus on the sensory feast—the cold air burning my lungs and whipping color into my cheeks, the stretch of my muscles, the thud thud thud of my feet hitting the pavement accompanied by the whooshing sound of my working breath.

Today I was optimistically looking for signs of spring as I ran.  Instead, along the edge of the road I saw shards of red and amber glass, a wrinkled package of cigarettes, a broken branch stabbed into the earth, paw prints, a discarded beer bottle.  At first I was discouraged by the trash, carelessly strewn along the dirty snowy berm and by the lack of any hint of impending spring.  But then it struck me that within each piece of trash or debris resides a kernel of a story.

The branch.  Perhaps it was javelined into the earth during the heart of a winter storm.  Did someone lying awake one night hear its mighty crack and fall or did it jolt someone awake with a shot of adrenaline?  Or was it unacknowledged, muffled by the falling snow and howl of the wind?   The empty cigarette pack.  Was it thoughtlessly discarded or perhaps flung out a car window with another desperate vow to stop smoking?   The broken bits of automotive glass hint at yet another tale—someone driving in a hurry after an argument, or racing against curfew, on the brink of violation.  Or maybe it was simply icy, bad luck or a visitor unfamiliar with winter driving.  There are stories here, potential treasures to be found among the trash. 

I continued running, putting one foot in front of the other, wind-whipped and weary, watching and thinking, finding stories along the side of the road.