“I’m going on a walk,” I called to my husband yesterday. He nodded back, engrossed in a telephone conversation, and I headed out the door. The sun lit the brilliant blue sky and the mercury hung just below 40 degrees. It was a beautiful day and after a day of driving on Sunday, I was ready for a bit of exercise.

I had no real route in mind, just a desire to stretch my legs and maybe take a few photographs. As I walked down our road, I settled into myself, recalibrating, tuning into the sights and sounds. I listened to the papery rustle of bleached leaves stubbornly clinging to a small tree, and to the faint musical tones of a far-off wind chime. My eyes followed a flash of movement to spot a red-bellied woodpecker high in a maple tree. The breeze kicked up a bit and I tucked my hands deeper in my pockets and dipped my chin into my soft scarf. Hmmm, maybe 38 degrees isn’t as warm as I thought it was.

Picking up the pace, I headed down a local road that dips to cross a small stream. I stopped to listen to the enchanting gurgling of water flowing under and around ice. Looking down at the stream, the variety of icy formations along its length intrigued me. I stepped off the road and crunched through the snow-covered ground amidst the trees, edging carefully closer to the water, wanting to take a few pictures.

Deer tracks–I was clearly not the first visitor to this spot!

Then, as I neared the stream’s edge, I paused, rapt. Oh, my! I’d never seen anything like it. I stepped closer still. Between the moving water and the ice, some magical confluence of time, water and temperature had created swirled icy sculptures–stalactites of a sort. They looked poised to move, icy tops frozen in winter’s embrace. Simply, utterly beautiful. With the water babbling about me, I stared, watching the current swirl and flow about them and the light flicker and move through their depths. I wondered idly what process had formed them and tried to identify the border where ice ended and water began, but mostly I just marveled at them. I lingered for some time, ignoring the chill, thankful to be exactly where I was in the presence of such unexpected wonder. A gift from winter.

Brrr! It’s cold here. Winter is nipping at our  heels and the ice will not release its hold on driveways and walkways. The local lakes are studded with ice shacks. Our old house struggles to stay warm and the creaks and ticks of the radiators are a constant background static–White noise in a white world. Yesterday, temperatures were well below zero in the morning and only reached the single digits or teens in the afternoon. Last night after washing up from dinner, I checked the thermometer again. It was 4 degrees. Inspiration struck.

“Hey, do you guys want to go outside and blow bubbles?” I called to my daughters, both of whom are home from college for a few more days.

“Sure!” they answered. I was a bit taken aback, not expecting such an immediate positive response.

“Well, let’s make sure I can find the bubbles. I may have thrown them away in a fit of organization.”

“That’s why those are dangerous,” Adeline opined from the adjacent room.

Smiling and crossing my fingers, I opened the trash cupboard door and looked at the top shelf. There they were, right where I remembered–Three bottles of bubbles, a brightly colored set, still in their plastic packaging. “Here they are!” I called and the girls emerged from the family room. We ripped open the plastic and opened up the bottles then bundled up in our warmest winter gear. Pulling open the door, we quickly stepped outside, executing the New England Quick Step. (This seasonal body contortion is well known by antique home owners and involves exiting a building as rapidly as possibly by squeezing your body through as little an opening as possible to ensure as little heat as possible leaves the building.)

Once outside, the cold briefly took our breath away. The moon, a ripe waxing gibbous, shone brightly overhead and the snow sparkled with moonlight and from the spill of light through the windows. We quickly pulled out our plastic bubble wands and started blowing. At first the bubbles formed, sparkled in the frigid night air and then burst gently upon hitting the ground. “Maybe the bubble solution is too warm,” I said, expecting something more dramatic.

“Maybe it’s because our breath inside the bubbles is warm.” Lydia suggested.

“Oh, look!” Adeline said. She pointed to a bubble resting on the snow-covered table, its shiny surface transformed to a waxy sheen. She picked it up intact in her hand, laughing, then we watched it swiftly melt in her warm palm.

“Here are some on the ground!” Lydia called, a moment later, pointing to several bubbles by her feet.

We continued blowing and soon had accumulated several bubbles on the table and watched a few burst in air into frozen tendrils of solution. Our calls of “Look at this one!” “Here’s another!” and “Oooh! That’s a good one!” echoed through the night.

We didn’t last too long in the winter cold. Soon we blew our last few bubbles and hurried indoors, welcoming the blast of heat as we slipped inside and out of our heavy coats.
I had hoped for temporary bubble magic, but what I found was more enduring. As bitterly cold as it was outside, I tucked away this moment with my girls to treasure as a warming memory when they are back at school. Now, that’s magic.

I love my commute! To get to work each day, I drive on back roads through small towns and rural landscapes. The light and scenery changes with the time of day, the weather and the season, and I’m constantly surrounded by natural beauty.  Even though I travel this route five days a week, it never bores me.

At this time of year there’s little color in the natural landscape and changes are more subtle. Trees are stark sentinels, tall and bare when not draped in snow. But this week I had one of those wonderful moments–a time when I saw something usual in a new and unexpected way.  Against the backdrop of early morning skies,  I saw some birds gathered and silhouetted at the end of a branch of a tree. The phrase “birds blossomed into a bouquet” popped into my mind. Here’s the resulting poem:

Winter Bouquet

At first light
winter sun lingers
under the horizon.
Barren branches silhouette
against indigo skies.
Birds perch in a feathery cluster,
and a branch is transformed,
blossoming into
a bouquet of crows,
each sleek black head
a burgeoning bud
against the blushing palette
of dawn.

Molly Hogan (c) 2016

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Linda Baie at her wonderful blog, TeacherDance. Be sure to stop by to enjoy some poetry.

An old fashioned bubble light softly bubbles and illuminates our Christmas tree. I like the contrast of the crisp pine needles and the soft glowing light.

I’ve been following Kim Douillard’s Thinking Through My Lens blog for quite some time now.   Each week she chooses a focus for her photography and weaves her thoughts and fabulous pictures together into a thoughtful and engaging essay. She then invites others to consider that focus as they take pictures during the week. This week I finally took up one of her challenges and focused on Light.

I’m an early riser and love to watch the morning greet each day with a revelry of light. The rising sun regularly stops me in my tracks, even if only briefly. Some days I can’t resist the temptation and turn my car on a detour into town to watch the colors dance over the bay, delaying my arrival at school but lifting my mood. The reflection of light on water never fails to captivate me.

Other times I view dawn’s light show from within my house. In this picture the sun rises through the antique glass on my transom. The three wooden slats that divide the panes are almost camouflaged as trees, but you can find them if you look. I love the combination of seeping colors and glowing light seen through a screen of trees.

And some days the moon still shines brilliantly in the early morning sky. On this particular morning, I was intrigued by the way the moonlight lit the clouds, turning them into celestial smoke and an eerie hour glass formation.

As I considered light this past week, I found myself more and more intrigued by shadows, the dark area created when light is blocked. In the picture below, the shadow tree cast on the old smoke house seems to link with the tree behind it. Without that shadow tree, the image would be far less interesting.

Low in the sky at this time of year, the sun casts interesting shadows at home, too. I found myself stopping to admire and photograph my shadow cat. (In search of affection, she wasn’t the most cooperative artist’s model.)

The winter sun plays in my kitchen as well. Late in the afternoon it shines brightly through the windows, highlighting this star, revealing its intricate pattern, something I seldom notice at other times of day or in other seasons.

As I’ve tuned into light and shadows, I’ve become more observant: I notice the light and then look for the shadow. In this case, I love the accompanying star-shadow my glass star cast on my fridge. The contrast between the intricately lit star and its flat shadow fascinates me.

Finally, on a recent visit to Nashville, there were far more lights than I’m accustomed to in rural Maine. Although I was frustrated by my limitations as I tried to capture this nighttime scene, I do love the energy and light of the final result. Note the waxing crescent moon slinging low next to the clock tower.

What I noticed most by focusing on light this week was its interplay with darkness and shadow. I’ve come full circle, back to my recent thoughts on gratitude, and to the idea that looking to the “light” helps one shift focus and see more positives in life.  But now my thoughts are more nuanced. While focusing on the light is rewarding, perhaps contemplating the shadows helps one understand where there’s a need to cast some light. Or perhaps the point is to notice and appreciate the presence of shadows and how they enhance the light. Either way, this photographic challenge reinforced for me that the two are irrevocably bound.

I’ve written before about Laura Purdie Salas’s weekly 15 Words or Less Poem Challenge and my responses.  I so enjoy accepting her low pressure invitation to “wake up my poetry brain” each week. You can check out the guidelines here.  It’s continually fascinating to discover how people move from picture to poetry and how varied the responses are from one photo. (If you’re interested, click on the link under each photo to visit Laura’s blog. You will get the backstory on each photo and can enjoy other responses.) Laura emphasizes that these are “first draft poems” so I typically limit my drafting time to around 10 minutes or so. I can’t even convince myself that I don’t have time for that!

Here are a few recent photos and my responses.

Jigsaw photo credit to Laura P. Salas

Sunrise on the Pond

Golden rays caress
rippling balsam reflections
and drifts of lily pads.
Blue sky peeks through.

Molly Hogan (c) 2016

Prelude to a Kiss

Beneath the pond
her golden ball
shimmers
awaiting the intrepid frog

Molly Hogan (c) 2016

This week’s photo prompt:

Losing Perspective Photo credit to Laura P. Salas

New Year

At the precipice
the bow pauses,
poised above swirling seas,
then plunges
into unchartered territory

Molly Hogan (c) 2016

Wishing you and yours a year filled with the wonder of words and poetry. You can start right now by clicking here to visit Poetry Friday Roundup. Donna Smith at Mainely Write is hosting this week and you’re sure to discover something to start your year off right!

Last night I found my dusty 2016 gratitude jar under a pile of odds and ends on my bedside table. A few dozen yellow quarter-sheets of paper rested inside. When had I last written one of those?  I remembered starting the jar early in 2016 and had anticipated opening it on New Year’s Eve and savoring the memories of the year that was slipping away. Somehow, though, once I ran through my stack of pre-cut paper, I stopped adding to the jar. I suspect my last entry was written well before February ended. Clearly, I wasn’t fully committed to the endeavor. Looking at the jar now, I’m disappointed that I didn’t stick with it,that this habit never formed, and that I let it slip away so easily.

This morning I read a blog post about a daily gratitude practice. Again, I felt the tug to do this–to make gratitude a part of my daily life. One of the things I value most about writing is that it pushes me to take the time to notice and reflect upon what is happening in my life. It seems to me that practicing gratitude offers similar rewards along with a push to “accentuate the positive.” There is power in deliberately shaping how one sees the world, and I can certainly use a daily reminder to notice how much I have to be grateful for and to shift my focus to a more positive vein.

In a few days, on New Year’s Eve, I’ll open that dusty jar, take out those slips and arrange them into a small stack. Then I’ll read through them one by one. Other than one or two entries, I can’t remember much of what I wrote and I’m looking forward to revisiting those past thoughts. Perhaps there will be a pattern to my written gratitude.  Perhaps I’ll find memories stirred. It won’t take me long to read these, but I’m savoring the idea of spending the last night of 2016 focusing on positive thoughts about the year. After reading through them all, I’ll take a bit more time and pre-cut a much larger stack of paper for 2017.

And in the spirit of accentuating the positive, I couldn’t resist adding this link:

P.S. Thanks to Dan Rothermel and his inspiring blog post about his gratitude list!

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. I walked through the icy snow, my feet slipping in the rutted frozen ridges. The sun had set long ago and the only light out back was a yellow block of light spilling from the window in the first chicken coop onto the glittery snow. I’d just gotten home from work and was headed to the coops on chick duty. I would much rather have been headed toward the couch with a glass of wine in hand, but we’d just installed a heater for the water container, and I needed to ensure that it actually worked. I also had to check for eggs. With temperatures in the negatives at night and lingering in the teens during the day, it’s easy enough for both water and eggs to freeze.

After making my way through the snow, I peered through the window into the first coop, the one with the light. “Hi, girls!” I called out. The chicks  ruffled their feathers and cooed as I opened the door and checked things out. No problems! The new heater seemed to be working fine and water pooled in the bottom of the dispenser. Now it was time to go around the back of this coop to the other one, where they tend to lay eggs.

Darn it! I’d forgotten the flashlight. I paused. There is no light back here. None. Not feeling like making the trek back to the house and back again, I decided to work in darkness. Carefully I walked back to the second coop and felt around until I found the metal latch. Pushing it upward, I began to tug the wooden door open and then stopped, as a sudden vision from this past autumn intruded–a vision of the body of a small rat, pecked to death lying in the chickens’ nest. Oh, I’m really not sure I want to do this without a flashlight. I stood in the cold night air debating what to do. Hmmmm… should I go back and get the flashlight?   I vacillated a bit and finally decided to go for it. The odds had to be in my favor, right?  I’m still not sure if this was optimism or laziness at work.

At any rate, I opened the door and carefully reached into the nest area, feeling something soft brush against my fingers. A loud hissing sort of “GRAWKKKKKKK” filled the air. I jumped backward and shut the door. What the h#$L was that? For some reason the whole thing suddenly struck me as hilarious. I started laughing. I leaned against the coop and laughed and laughed. Pulling myself upright, I laughed the whole way back to the house, crunching through the snow.

At the house I grabbed my flashlight and trudged back out to coop. With my light held high, I slowly opened the door. Sitting on the nest regarding me with a baleful eye was one Rhode Island Red. She wasn’t budging and I ceded: There was no need to push this issue. Still smiling, but with no eggs in hand, I stomped back through the slippery snow to the house.

A friend recently posted a photo of Andrew Wyeth’s painting “Master Bedroom” on Facebook. I’ve always loved this piece but for some reason this time I saw it in a new way. My experience reminded me of the book The Salamander Room where the child’s walls eventually  melt away as his room transforms into a perfect salamander habitat. You may not have the same experience, but forgive me my flight of fancy.

Master Bedroom by Andrew Wyeth

Gazing at the painting
my eyes slide away
from the sleeping
white dog,
the shadows shift,
the bed fades,
the walls disintegrate
into distant dappled forests
a wintry scene
light puddles on a blanket
of fallen snow
and flakes drift
like lace
in the lower
left
quadrant.

Molly Hogan (c) 2016

For more poetry,visit Tabatha Yeatts at her blog,  The Opposite of Indifference.

These balloons look innocent, don’t they?

It was 3:30 pm on Friday afternoon after the longest week ever.  I’d been looking forward to the weekend with a ferocity that was slightly alarming. (You can read my purging poem, “Report Cards, Sisyphus, Christmas Carols and Questionable Sanity, if you want the full story about that.)  The kids were safely loaded onto the buses and after briefly chatting with colleagues, I settled down to finish up the last task of the day. With solid potential for a snow day on Monday, things were looking up. I only had to organize materials for an upcoming science exploration before I could head home, pour my glass of wine, put my feet up and breathe.

Almost two hours later, I sat in the middle of my classroom surrounded by the debris field of a 4th grade Matter unit explosion. Everyone else had already left the building (probably at a run–the traitors!) Around me were strewn deceptively happy-colored balloons, streaks of flour, and scattered grains of rice. Next to me a blue puddle of liquid soap detergent soaked slowly into the carpet. There was a strange low sound coming from somewhere in the room. It took me a full minute to realize that it was me….moaning.

Have you ever tried to fill balloons with rice and flour? It’s annoying but do-able with a bit of determination and some reasonably cooperative balloons. I had started out almost two hours earlier fully determined and relatively optimistic. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that the balloons in the kit were less than cooperative. In fact, they were clearly manufactured by some sadistic-minded person–probably someone who still holds a grudge against his fourth grade teacher. These balloons were of the tough latex not-easy-to-tie variety. This difficulty was compounded by the teaching manual’s explicit statement that I must ensure there was no additional air in the balloons. Each balloon needed to contain only one specific matter–flour, rice, water, etc. I poured and pushed and prodded to get the solid materials into the balloons. I squeezed to get out extra air, sending powdery fireworks of flour exploding into the air and drifting onto the carpet. A river of rice spilled from the opened bag and small grains were sprinkled like confetti all around me. Oh God! The custodians are going to kill me!  The minutes ticked by one after another, my labors continued and the start of my weekend retreated with each tick as I struggled to fill the balloons.

After a fair bit of effort and a lot of ticking minutes, I finally had 12 balloons filled with solids and neatly placed in a tub. I was on to the liquids and heaved an enormous sigh of relief. This should be so much easier! I quickly grabbed a balloon and funneled in some dishwashing soap, removed the funnel and began to tie off the balloon, again being mindful of the admonishment to avoid leaving air in the balloon. Did you know that one of the properties of dishwashing liquid is that it’s slippery? Very slippery? And it doesn’t stay neatly nestled in the bottom of the balloon but moves around like a…well, like a liquid you might say. So, as I attempted to tie off the balloon (with no extra air), the liquid soap slopped up and over the edges and created an insane situation. Try as I might, I could not tie it off. I kept losing my grip. I grabbed a handful of paper towels and tried gripping the neck of the balloon with them. As soon as I thought I had it neatly tied into a colorful umbilicus, it would slip back through. It was a moment worthy of an I Love Lucy episode. Soon, mounds of blue soaked towels joined the debris around me.  I tugged. I twisted. I swore. I pulled. I pleaded. My fingers ached from continuous balloon tourniquets. Finally, after about 5 long minutes of solid effort, I achieved success: One balloon filled! Now I only had to repeat this procedure. Five. More. Times.

I sat still amidst the chaos for a few long minutes. This preparation was simply insane–completely unreasonable. But it had to be done. There wasn’t another option. So after a few more heaving sighs, mewling noises of distress and some choice words, I buckled down and I did it. I’d like to report that things changed and everything slipped neatly into place, but let’s just say my standards slipped along with my fingers and my dignity as the process reached completion. By 5:30 I was finished and sitting on the floor- not triumphant, just really, really tired.

Where does it come from, I wondered, this extra something that we so often pull out of thin air? When our bootstraps are threadbare, and fray and snap at our desperate tugs, how do we manage to come through time and time again? Because we all do it. We sit in the midst of evil balloons and science materials, or next to a mountainous pile of ungraded essays, or up to our eyebrows in grading and report card narratives, on the brink of manic laughter or desperate tears. Then we somehow take a deep breath, pull it together and get the job done. And if necessary the next day, we just do it again. And the amazing thing is, most of us love our jobs and feel lucky to have them–Lucky to work with kids and to work with colleagues who are committed, collaborative and resilient. Lucky to work in vibrant, engaging environments with common goals.

Sometimes the teaching life really does defy explanation.

When I get a chance I like to participate in author Laura Purdie Salas’s weekly 15 words or less Poem Challenge. Each Thursday she posts a photo prompt (guidelines here) and an original poem. She invites others to write a 15 words or less poem in response to the photo. She considers it a “first draft exercise” and, as she says, it’s a “low pressure way to wake up your poetry brain.”  Participating this week was a real upper for me in a downer of a week. It was also a reminder that I can carve out time to write and, even if it’s only a 5-10 minute endeavor, I feel better for having done so.

Her photo prompt on Thursday was this:

Photo credit: Laura P. Salas

In case you can’t tell, Laura explained it was a photo of a cupcake decorated with Cookie Monster eating a cookie. Fun!  I mean who doesn’t love Cookie Monster?! You can read Laura’s poem here along with other contributors. I find it fascinating to read the variety of responses and to see how differently people are inspired by the same photo prompt.

Here is my contribution:

Lessons from Cookie Monster

Dive in with gusto
no regrets
Spray crumbs
Smile blue toothy grins
Embrace your inner cookie!

Molly Hogan (c) 2016