March SOLC–Day 13

Each year when sunlight is a rarity in our northern clime, the chickens stop laying eggs. I could use an artificial light, but I opt not to. My totally-unscientific theory is that perhaps they will lay eggs for longer if they have a winter respite. Last year,  prior to what we dubbed “The Fox Fiasco”, our chickens were free-ranging. It was hard to determine when the first egg was laid. We first knew they were laying again when we found a nest tucked into a corner of the barn overflowing with multicolored eggs.

This year the remaining chickens are cooped and it’s easier to keep an eye on things.  After the aforementioned Fox Fiasco, our flock is down to three aging chickens. (Don’t ask me how the fox knew which ones were young and tender, but they were clearly targeted!) I had retrieved two eggs over the course of last week, so I knew the girls were laying again. (Yay! Yet another sign of spring!)

Yesterday morning I hastened through my chicken chores. I slopped fresh water in their bowl, topped off the feeding tank and carried on our regular conversation. It goes something like this:

“Good morning, Chickies!  It’s a beautiful day! How are you today?”
“Bawk.”
“It looks like you were thirsty. Here’s some nice, fresh water.”
“Bawk.”
“Enjoy your day!  I’m just going to check for eggs.”
“Bawk! BAWK!” (I swear the pitch and volume changes on that response.)

I opened the door on the other side of the coop to check out the egg situation. And here’s what I found:

A bounty of beautiful eggs and a double yolker to boot! Can you see it?  What an eggs-cellent haul! After a few words of praise: (“What a good job, Chickies! You have been busy! I’m impressed!”), I gather up the eggs, head into the house to clean them off, and tuck them into their temporary cardboard nests. Spring is surely one step closer. Scrambled eggs anyone?

March SOLC–Day 12

The birds seem frisky this morning. Bluejays dance across the lawn, posturing, wings fluttering, involved in some sort of elaborate avian flirting. A pair of cardinals swoops from arbor to apple tree and then zooms off into azure skies. The slate-colored juncos flash their bi-colored fantail of feathers and swoop and swirl. Even the sun rose enthusiastically today, splashing brilliant red on the horizon, blazing through the winter-bare trees.  Everything seems more energetic.  Spring is coming!  My eyes are drawn to the window again and again. I am yearning to get outside and join in the festivities but sternly remind myself that I need to be disciplined. Spring is coming but so are report cards. Sigh.

March SOLC–Day 11

This poem was my attempt to have a bit of fun with one of the less than appealing symptoms of aging. (If you’re under 35 and/or male, you may not be able to relate.)

The Battle

There once was a hair on my chin
undetected when first it grew in
I noticed it there
Adrift in the air
And yanked it out with great chagrin.

Another one grew on my cheek.
(It happened in less than a week!)
I pulled that one too
without great ado
But with a full bellicose shriek.

It’s said that in some far-flung places
Facial hair adorns women’s faces
But I can’t sport a ‘stache
with elan or panache
I vow to remove any traces.

My tweezers now flash through the air
Extracting each invading hair
There is not a thing cute
’bout my face so hirsute
I battle with growing despair.

Each day my reflection as mirrored
Shows renegade hairs have appeared
My expression is grim
As I tweeze and I trim
Not resigned to displaying a beard.

I continue the gods to implore
to vanquish these whiskers galore
They’re more apt to dispatch
A peach-fuzzy soul patch
I win battles but never the war.

Molly Hogan (c) 2016

For more poetry got to Poetry Friday Roundup at Irene Latham’s blog, Live Your Poem.

March SOLC–Day 10
I hesitated about sharing this and still have some reservations. I do NOT want to wade into political waters and I tried hard not to do so. But I also know that it’s important to write about those things that linger in our hearts and minds. And what I heard on the radio yesterday has lingered. So, I’m taking a deep breath and posting.

Though I vote regularly, I hate politics. I’ve given up listening to the radio on my morning commute and picked up a pile of audiobooks at the library. Rather than tuning into the unrelenting coverage of coarse and vulgar political discourse, I’ve chosen to listen to a thriller featuring an Israeli assassin group. Really it seems much more civilized. But tension was building in my thriller this morning, I was getting stressed anticipating the imminent violence and having to lower the volume to “skim” through those scenes, so I clicked it off and turned back to NPR. I tuned in just in time to listen to a broadcast about some recent basketball games in the midwest, the so-called Heartland of America. Sounds innocent enough, right? In retrospect, I should have continued to listen to my audiobook.

Here’s the scene. Two midwest towns. Two high school basketball games. Two disturbing incidents. Four days and 400 miles apart. Both games involved one team that was heavily minority and another that was not. During one game one team brandished photos of Donald Trump and chanted “Trump! Trump!” and “Build a Wall! Build a Wall!” at their heavily Hispanic opponents.  During the other game, there were no signs, but “Trump! Trump! Trump!” was shouted over and over at the minority team.

I am bone-deep disturbed at the image of high school students chanting hatefully and using a presidential candidate’s name to intimidate and insult. Is this what today’s youth is learning from our political process?  I am appalled that political candidates have been modeling divisive, argumentative and crass interactions rather than demonstrating how to create a meaningful, civilized dialogue. Where is their sense of responsibility?

My colleagues and I often remark that the dialogue in America’s political arena would not be acceptable in our classrooms. As I pulled into the school parking lot today, deeply disturbed by what I had heard, I was struck again by about how important the work is that we do with young children everyday.  We work so hard to teach our students to get along, to accept each other, and to solve disagreements respectfully.  We teach tolerance and empathy. We say, “You don’t have to be friends, but you can still be friendly.”

My school has invested a great deal of time and energy into developing a cohesive school-wide approach to peer-to-peer aggression and to building a positive culture that supports and includes all students. “We don’t do that here!” is our school’s refrain when faced with inappropriate behavior, like persistent taunting, name-calling, and intimidation/threats. (And, yes, there are protocols and rubrics in place when that is not sufficient.) With scenes like those basketball games and recent political events in mind, I want to stand up and proclaim “We don’t do that here in America!”  But sadly, right now, it appears that we do.

March SOLC–Day 9

Circulating around my classroom during Readers’ Workshop, I stopped to listen in to a partnership of three.

Sitting in the middle, J was reading smoothly and then stopped suddenly at the word “celery”, her brow furrowed.
She reread, “He chopped the …..” She frowned, concentrating.
“Kel..ur.. eye? Kelureye?” She shook her head.
One partner (Partner 1) said, “You can use the picture.”
“I already did that!” she said. “There are only onions.” She pointed to the word. “That’s not onions!”
“Well, you can look at the whole picture. Like this part here.”
They looked together, pointing.
“I see carrots.”
“Those are potatoes.”
“I don’t know what that is.” (Of course it was very indistinctly illustrated celery.)
Partner 1 continued, “Maybe you can think about what’s happening in the book.”
Partner 2 spoke up, not unkindly, “I know what it is, but I’m not going to say.”
J said, “That’s because partners don’t tell, they help!”
“Well,” Partner 2 said, “You can try two sounds. Remember c can make two different sounds.” She paused and then said in a sing-songy voice, “Sometimes it sounds like another letter.”
J looked at the word again. “sel.. uh.. ree….sel.uh.ree…celery!” Her face lit up. “It’s celery!” she shouted triumphantly!

After congratulating them on all their hard work, I left the group, smiling. It’s lovely to see readers work and grow together.

March SOL Challenge–Day 8

Yesterday was one of those days. When my kids were little and had a bad case of the “can’t help its”( when nothing was right with the world and whining and tears reigned), we’d say, “If they’re crabby, put them in water!” And we’d pop them in the tub. It was pretty much a no-fail intervention. They loved communal tub time and 3o minutes in the tub got rid of the grumpies and some sand, dirt and general crustiness as well.

So  last night when I came home from school feeling as surly and prickly as a sea urchin, I took my own advice and headed for the tub. Book in hand, I filled the tub with steaming water, shut the bathroom door, and shut out a less-than-fulfilling afternoon in the classroom. It had been one of those days. Lessons felt awkward or unfocused, students were off task, even a bit sassy, and my stress level hovered in the red zone. A looming teacher visit, approaching grades, conferences, umpteen meetings and the general work load just felt like way too much. So to detox, I headed for the tub.

Back in those long ago days when my children were young, I also headed to the tub for stress relief. I’d hand the kids over to my husband and sneak to the bathroom with my book. What followed inevitably went something like this: I’d immerse myself in the tub and feel the stress begin to recede and my breathing begin to deepen. Ahhh. Then someone’s little footsteps would patter down the wooden hallway.
“Mama?”  Bang! Bang! Bang!  “Mama?”
“Mama?  Mama! Mama! Mama! Let me in!” Bang! Bang! Bang!
Then, my husband would yell, “Leave Mommy alone!” and
Thud.  Thud. Thud. come remove the child from the door. Crying ensued and quickly amped into screaming. Sobbing.
“Mama! Mama! Mama!”
In the bathroom I would close my eyes and sink slowly down, down, down into the tub. Until my hair floated in a cloud about my head. Until the water seeped up, over and into my ears, muffling all exterior sounds, and then lapped at my cheeks.
Patter. Patter. Patter.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Mama!”
Relaxing it wasn’t.

Last night I was able to sit in the tub and read for as long as I wanted. No small hands beat at the door. No warbling voices called for me to let them in. My hair stayed dry and the house was silent. I let the stress of the day ease away as I steeped in hot water. It was wonderful…but also not. My surliness evolved into sadness. I miss my babies.

It was just one of those days.

March SOL Challenge–Day 7

Skinny Pop Moment
(A Tale from an Addict’s Life)

Sure I’ll have a handful, but that’s
Kind of a small one. Puny, really.
I‘ll take another, maybe just a wee bit bigger.
No cholesterol! No trans fat! No guilt!
Nom, nom, nom!
Yikes, they don’t put much in here! It’s
Puzzling how the contents dwindle so quickly.
Oh, my…the bag is almost empty!
Perhaps there’s another one in the cupboard?

Day 6 March SOL Challenge

In August my youngest daughter went to college and bought a plant for her dorm room. She opted for a succulent and it looked something like this:

When she brought it home at Christmas, it was a shadow of its former self. She set it down in the kitchen. Several leaves tumbled off, landing damply on the table.

“I don’t think we get enough light in our room,” she said, eyeing the plant.

“I don’t know, Lydia. It looks like it’s rotting to me.”

Over break the plant remained in the kitchen. Day by day the leaves released their tenuous hold and dropped onto the table. If someone brushed it, multiple leaves plopped off and sometimes you could just walk by and a leaf would softly tumble down. The remaining leaves looked bruised and slightly wrinkled.

After a bit of research, we decided it had been overwatered. We set it on the living room table in front of the window, and bit by bit, most of the few remaining leaves fell off. The naked stem looked plucked and diseased. There was still a smaller plant at the base of the main plant. Perhaps it might survive?

Lydia left for school, abandoning her plant. We didn’t water it. We didn’t really look at it. If anything, we politely averted our eyes as we walked by it, like trying not to stare at a scar or missing limb. The plant sat there day after day. A silent reproach.

Last night I was immersed in work, overwhelmed by the hopeless task of getting it all done. I glanced up from my computer and something caught my eye. What was that? There, at the end of that mottled, leprous-looking stem was a delicate new set of leaves, a miniature plant, dangling like a dewdrop. I pushed my work to the side and looked closer, examining the plant from top to bottom. The stem seemed harder now–still unsightly, but not so damp and pulpy. In the soil at the base of the plant, delicate threadlike ruby roots and new growth emerged from fallen bruised leaves. Look what had happened when I wasn’t looking!
I’d given this plant up as a lost cause but it surprised me with its tenacity. I’m sure there’s a message in this somewhere.  Seemingly impossible things can happen? Never give up? Spring will come? Don’t overwater your succulent?  Regardless of the message, my spirits lifted and I returned to work, smiling and feeling more hopeful. Maybe I can actually get my work done.

March SOL Challenge–Day 5

Inspired by Alan Wright‘s slice about what he found on his morning walk and looking for my own slice inspiration, I set out on a walk early this morning. In my enthusiasm for writing material, I didn’t fully factor in a few critical details. One, Alan lives in Australia and I live in Maine. There’s a bit of a seasonal difference. And 2, I forgot to consider today’s temperature. It’s been such an odd, mild winter that I guess I’d forgotten that 16 degrees with a bit of wind feels like…well, misery.

I set out with grand intentions, focused on the nature around me. The morning light spilled onto fallow fields. Chickadees chirped, crows cawed and a small flock of unidentified birds fluttered away as I approached. Two roosters duetted at a nearby farm. I smiled when I noticed the maple trees along the road garnished with tubing and large plastic bucket. The sap’s flowing!  Spring’s on its way. This was such a great idea!

As I walked, I stopped to take a few pictures: a bird’s nest camouflaged in a bush, a friendly woodpecker, reflections in ice. After a few photographs, my fingers ached with cold.  After a mile or so, the wind picked up. I pulled my scarf up higher on my neck, ducking my chin into its fleecy warmth and rubbed my gloved hands on my thighs.  My cheeks stung and my thighs felt like two frozen hams, still capable of moving but slightly detached from my sensory system. This is not fun!

Ceding defeat, I turned around, leaned into the wind and trudged toward home, not noticing nearly so much on the return journey. After another 15 minutes or so, with fumbling, frozen fingers, I opened the door and tripped into my house, greeted by the warmth. Thank goodness that’s over with!

Spring may be coming, but it’s not here yet!

March SOLC – Day 4

The sun shone through the palm trees, gloriously warm on my New England winter-pale skin. The on-shore breeze stirred the palms into a rustle and their shadows danced over the surface of the pool. In the background the constant surge and swish of the ocean sang and the pelicans dove in the surf.

Sitting by the pool in Puerto Rico, I surreptitiously wiped tears from my cheeks, and my heart ached. Slowly I closed the book I had just finished reading, setting it gingerly on my blue and white striped beach towel. I had to get up. I had to move. Something felt cracked or bruised inside of me. I walked over to the edge of the patio and stared blindly out into the brilliant turquoise of the Caribbean Sea.

I was bereft. I wanted to throw my head back and howl into the tropical wind. To ululate. To keen. To wail with grief. I fought to stifle the sobs welling within me.  How? How can people be capable of such atrocity? How can people be capable of such bravery? How is it that the worst in man can inspire the best? And, oh sweet Lord, how can humans be so incredibly resilient?

Two days ago I wrote about books and how they have impacted my life through the years. Stephen King believes that writing is telepathy. In On Writing he wrote that “All the arts depend upon telepathy to some degree, but I believe that writing offers the purest distillation.”   On the morning I described I hadn’t been in Puerto Rico, I’d been moving through war-torn Europe, witnessing the heights and depths of humanity, transported through space and time by the pages of my book.  There is surely magic in the ability of an author to craft words about the horrors of war and the triumphs of individuals into a reading experience that sent tears streaming down my cheeks in the tropical sun and simply put, overwhelmed me.

After some time spent staring at the ocean, struggling to regain my equilibrium, I stuffed those feelings deep within me, incapable of fully wrestling with them, at this time, in this setting. But before returning to the sun and the surf, I bowed my head, bearing witness to the past and acknowledging the power of Kristin Hannah and the written word.