Shortly after my daughter left for six months to study in England,  I was bumbling around on the internet reading poems about traveling. I stumbled upon reference to a poem entitled  “The Traveling Onion” by Naomi Shahib Nye. I’m already a fan of her work and that whimsical title hooked me, so I checked it out.

Naomi Shahib Nye prefaces her poem with a quote from the Betty Crocker cookbook that details the travels of the onion from India to Egypt (where it was apparently revered and a symbol of eternity–who knew?) to Greece and into all of Europe.  As I poked around a bit more, I discovered that there is some dispute about the actual origin of the onion that we cultivate, but most agree it probably has Asian roots.

Once again, I must lament my lack of awareness and curiosity. It’s so easy to be focused on the end goal (dinner!) and forget to be open to the possible wonders of the process. Nye, like every gifted poet, reminds me to pay attention and to consider different aspects of everything around me. I had never considered the onion much before, except to dread the stinging pain in my eyes whenever I cut into one. Nye’s poem has made me reconsider even this aspect of the onion and opened my eyes to others. Her words pay homage to this “small and forgotten” vegetable that disappears “for the sake of others.”

“When I think how far the onion has traveled
just to enter my stew today,
I could kneel and praise
all small forgotten miracles,
crackly paper peeling on the drainboard,
pearly layers in smooth agreement,…”
(click on this link to view the poem in its entirety)

I’m not sure what I love most about this poem.  Perhaps it’s the idea that there are many “small forgotten miracles” in our world if we just take the time to look. Perhaps it’s the lovely image of “pearly layers in smooth agreement” or the mouth-popping fun of the phrase “crackling paper peeling”. Certainly in part, it’s the gift Naomi Shahib Nye has for focusing on the banal and then shedding light on it so that it transcends its seemingly ordinary existence.  I, for one, will never cut into an onion again without thinking of these lines.

Please be sure to visit Reading to the Core for this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup!

Last week, prior to launching our Opinion Writing unit in my first grade class, I asked my students to write an opinion or claim and tell reasons why they have that opinion. I planned to use this piece as a pre-assessment to inform my teaching. One student, A., chose to write about ballet. Here is a page from her piece:

For those of you who don’t read first grade, I’ll translate: Ballet practice can be hard. But you don’t just dance. Dance with a joyful heart. (And for those of you who know first grade well, did you notice the beginning uppercase letters and ending punctuation?  Yeehaw!)

I’ve thought about these heart-warming words a lot since I first read them. My initial reaction was something like, “Oh, how sweet!  I love that phrase, “a joyful heart.” Then later on I thought, “I bet her dance teacher uses those words.” And later still, I began to wonder, what are the words that my students take away from our time together?  Are there phrases that I’ve instilled in them, deliberately or by chance?  Are they all positive? 

A’s piece reminds me to be mindful of the messages, spoken and unspoken, that I send each day to my students and to maximize the joy and the sheer fun of learning.  If my first graders leave my class with the message that even when things are challenging, you try your best, persevere and keep joy in your heart, well, I would be quite delighted with that. (In fact, even more delighted than with beginning uppercase letters and ending punctuation!) What a lovely, powerful message to cultivate.

I intended to use this writing to guide my teaching, I didn’t realize how much it would do so. A has also reminded me that one of the joys of teaching is learning from our students.  

I wake snuggled in a cozy tangle of fleece and down with my cat’s warmth pressing against my side. The radiators softly tick-tick-tick and in the distance the tires of a passing car hum on pavement. A typical start to the day, but the house feels foreign this morning, operating on a different frequency.

Over the past two weeks my children have returned to their rich, busy lives: Adeline heading off to England for six months of study, Connor returning to his final semester at college, and Lydia safely ensconced in her dorm again late yesterday afternoon. Our old house sighs and settles in the cold morning and so do I. My thoughts wing outward to linger gently, like a blessing, on each of my children.

Over the years at times of parting I’ve learned to speak a sort of code to my kids, encapsulating vast emotions in catchphrases like “Drive safely” and “Make good choices.” At times they roll their eyes affectionately when I repeat these phrases, and they have become a bit of a household joke. But to me, these phrases are mantras, heartfelt repeated prayers. They are shorthand for “I love you and when you go out and about in this world, I’m proud and excited and so, so vulnerable. For you are my heart. So be careful and be kind and live your life to the fullest. Oh, and have fun but don’t be stupid. You are not invulnerable and you have enriched my life and simultaneously sent it careening wildly out of my control. So, please, please remember I love you and always will and sending you off with a smile on my face is a huge act of trust and faith in both you and the universe.”

And this morning as I lie in my warm, soft bed, in the newness of their absence, my thoughts touch on each of them in turn, envisioning them where they might be…missing them, loving them, hoping against hope that this morning ritual, this mental caress, will keep them safe in this wild, wonderful, unruly world. And softly, like a prayer, I think, “Drive safely. Make good choices.”

I stepped out into the cold of an early January morning in Maine, dragging my feet and feeling a bit grumpy about heading to work. The eastern sky greeted me with banded hues and the car was bedecked with frosty flowers. I turned the key in the ignition, making sure to click on the seat warmer, then stepped back, shutting the door. The squeal of some loose belt or other briefly filled the chilly air then subsided. I took a deep breath and stood still, admiring the sunrise and feeling the cold air rush through my nose and into my lungs. After a few moments I crunched across stiffened grass to fill the chicken’s dish with warm water. They cooed and rustled sleepily in the coop. Apparently they were not quite ready to face the day either.

Almost 12 hours later I headed home, stepping back out into the dark. The roads were coated with snow and my headlights highlighted a meteor storm of snow bombarding my car. I drove slowly, appreciating the show, pulling over twice to allow other more intrepid (or impatient or foolhardy) drivers to pass me.  A smudge,not quite a shadow, in the road ahead of me transformed into a deer as I neared. And then another and another, their hooves slipping beneath them as they scurried across the slippery road. At my slow pace, I merely lifted my foot off the gas and watched them cross the road before me, thankful that I was driving slowly, enjoying the moment. After they passed, I pressed my foot lightly on the accelerator and continued the slow drive home.

My day began with beauty and ended thus as well.

How can finding one little word be so hard? Last year I noticed some of the discussion about OLWs and was intrigued by the idea of choosing one little word to define my year. Sure, I’ll do that next year, I thought.

Once in a while this year a word has drifted through my mind as a possible contender. Focus? Clarity? Embrace? All considered and rejected for one reason or another. As the end of the year approached, my search intensified. I frequently turned words over in my mind, exploring their nuances, considering their potential impact on my life in the year ahead, which feels charged with a potential for change. I wanted to come up with a word that was unique, inspiring and layered (and preferably multi-syllabic). A “wow!” word! Looking back, I think I wanted the discovery of my OLW to do all the work of the year for me in advance—to be an epiphany of sorts which would chart out a clear course. I think I was missing the point.

At any rate, somewhere through the process I realized it was important to me to choose a verb. I wanted an action word. I’m too apt to go with the flow and follow the path of least resistance and I’m determined to make active, conscious choices this year. And, there it was, I realized, my one little word: Choose.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that must be it. It’s not a “wow” word to be sure. It’s nothing too fancy, rather pedestrian really, but it’s a one-syllable word packed with potential. Because to choose, you have to make a decision. Even staying where you are is a choice, but this year if I choose inaction, I want that to be an active, conscious choice. I want to know that I’m setting my foot on a certain path, or choosing not to set my foot there, because that’s the path I want to follow. Or not to follow. I want to pack my choices full of intention.

Choosing is powerful.

My OLW for 2016: 

With everyone home for the holidays, I’ve spent more time than usual in the kitchen. Even though I’m delighted to have my children home, I’m not always thrilled to be cooking, cleaning, cooking, cleaning…. The other night I discovered a wild musical mix on youtube and with the volume blaring, I set out to make dinner. I expected drudgery but the music, from big band to zydeco to gospel, transformed the chore into a sheer delight and inspired this poem–my own version of a dinner dance. 

Dinner Dance

My finger taps the button
And music starts to play
I crank the volume higher
And quickly start to sway

Upbeat and lively only
no dulcet tones today
The cupboard doors start rattlin’
Dinner is underway

I can-can to the cabinet
retrieve some garlic there
Then shut it with a hip bump
Fists pumping in the air

R-E- S- P- E- C- T
Aretha belts it out
While dicing up the tofu
I sing and swing about

I jitterbug with ginger
’til grating is complete
Then mince the yellow onions
gyrating to the beat

I salsa while food simmers
I cha cha while I chop
While waiting for a boil
I do the bunnyhop.

I jazz-hand in the spices
Then add a wee bit more
Choreographing wildly
I hip hop ‘cross the floor

I bump my hips in tempo
While stirring my sauté
Bellowing out a chorus
I improvise ballet

I twirl around the island
Dancing with my spoon
Happily cooking dinner
This December afternoon

Mary Lee Hahn at A Year of Reading is hosting today’s Poetry Friday Roundup. Make sure to stop by to enjoy some poetry to bring in the New Year.  May your year be filled with unexpected moments of joy and sparkle, like an impromptu dance around the kitchen!

I’ve taken a lot of pictures over the past six months or so. We live in a beautiful place and it’s hard not to find a spectacular natural scene.  I’ll wake to the drama of a red-streaked sky or sparkling frost and off I’ll go. Some mornings I just get into the car and drive, keeping my eyes open to whatever may be there. And something always is.

This December we’ve had a lot of rain and chilly, dreary weather. It’s not particularly inspiring, and like many others, I’ve been lamenting the lack of snow.  There’s something magical about the hush of a fresh snowfall and those sparkling blankets of white cover the brown, muddy detritus of fall and seem to promise a fresh start. And after the snowfall, when the sun comes out and the skies clear… Is there anything more beautiful than a brilliant blue sky over hills and valleys of fresh fallen snow?

One day last week it was yet another misty moist morning with a haze of fog. The colors were muted. No dazzling snow, or crimson leaves, or brilliant azure skies. I set off with my camera, anyway.  I drove the back country roads aimlessly, and eventually parked by a bridge over the river. Out of my car, I looked intently around me, walking, pausing, noticing. And the more I looked, the more I noticed: an intriguing alignment of rocks, the impressionistic reflections of tree trunks in the river behind blowsy cattails, the unexpected splash of green moss mounded around a white-lichened trunk, a trio of contorted trees mirrored in shallow water, and the golden tones of a marsh of cattails. Slowly, surely, the quiet wonders of nature unfolded around me.

This seemingly unpromising morning yielded great beauty that was perhaps even more rewarding for its gradual revelation.  Once I tuned in and adjusted to its nuance, it was everywhere. It makes me wonder how many times I’ve missed the subtleties when dazzled by the spectacular.

When I was in middle school, I distinctly remember looking out the school bus window at a random pedestrian and thinking, “Wow, she’s ugly.” And then, for some unknown reason, something shifted inside me and I was suddenly aware of (and ashamed and horrified at) my own thoughts. Was this how I wanted to see the world? Did I want to be someone who casually picked apart everything, derisive and smug?  What an ugly way to live. From that point on, I made a deliberate attempt to change my outlook, or at least my conscious reaction to my world. I worked to see the positives and the potential, rather than to mock and dismiss. And yes, I realize this all sounds a bit PollyAnna-ish. And no, I wasn’t always successful. But I’ve always thought of that moment on the bus as helping me to positively change the way I responded to and interacted with the world.

But lately, I haven’t been comfortable with myself. My thoughts and my internal dialogue have been dark and unkind and I’ve felt vaguely uneasy. Then, yesterday, something shifted again. I recalled that long-ago pivotal moment on the bus and realized that, so many years later, I’ve once again tuned in to the radio frequency “Negativity”–quick to complain rather than to compliment, to see ugliness rather than beauty, to denigrate rather than too celebrate and to dwell on loss rather than on good fortune.  I have allowed pessimism and fear to seep back into my world like ink wicking into cotton paper, coloring my outlook in unsightly blotches. But more importantly, yesterday I also remembered that I have a choice. I can turn the radio dial and change the frequency.

And so that’s what I’m doing. I will seek to compliment rather than to complain, to seek and acknowledge beauty even amidst ugliness, to celebrate rather than to denigrate and to treasure my good fortune rather than to dwell on what has been lost. I have promised myself to embrace the positives and reject the negatives and to be thankful for all that I have and hold in my rich, comfortable life. For there is so much.  

My cousin’s e-mail subject heading caught my attention immediately. “Some pics of your mom.”  I opened the e-mail, skipped the message, then clicked on the digital attachments eagerly, one by one. The first two pictures were familiar to me. They both show my mother, a vibrant bride, gowned in antique lace on her wedding day. She was 19 years old, and so much, that I know of, still lay before her.

The third picture was new to me. 34 years after her death,  I don’t often encounter a new picture of my mom. She was 38 when she died unexpectedly and I was 14.  She died unexpectedly. I just realized that I always link those words when I speak of my mother’s death.  Perhaps I just want everyone to know, without going into details, how blindsided we were and that we never got to say goodbye.

This third photo framed in a golden oval is a candid shot, close-up, of her smiling. It looks like it was taken not long before she died, or at least she looks like I most remember, warmly familiar, but also somehow like a stranger in this new context. A beloved stranger. How odd. How unsettling.

Now, a decade older than my mother ever was, I study this new photo. I look into her eyes, so similar to mine, and wonder about all that never was. I realize that my grief isn’t static–it’s dynamic–constantly evolving in a way my mother never had the chance to do. I never knew all the women my mother would have been and was. I knew her only as my mother. When I miss her now, I’m missing not only who she was, but also my version of who I think my mother would have been, and a relationship that I am only imagining. How odd. How unsettling.

We settled into our balcony seats at the University of Maine Yuletide Concert, looking forward to a couple of hours of holiday music and a chance to touch base with our youngest child. Shortly afterward, the lights dimmed and a recorded announcement thanked everyone for coming and noted the location of emergency exits.  Pretty standard. Then, the recording added that in case of an emergency, audience members should stay in their seats and listen for and follow instructions which would be announced over the PA system. Not so standard.

Immediately, my thoughts skittered to San Bernadino, Paris, Roseburg, and to the sites of other recent shootings. I shuffled uneasily in my seat and looked around, noting others doing the same.  What kind of world are we living in that we gather to hear music and wonder if this gathering could be a target? The warm glow of expectation dimmed and I felt besmirched with awareness. And throughout the performance I remained aware–of opening and shutting doors, shuffling exits and entrances. Just slightly, peripherally aware.

My daughter’s choir performed in the second half of the show. Stage lights dimmed and the choir members revealed small lights that blinked slowly, off and on, twinkling on the dark stage. After a few moments of expectant hush, they began to sing and the beloved glistening notes of “Silent Night” spilled into the air. As their voices soared to fill the hall, my eyes unexpectedly filled with tears. I was moved by the beauty and energy of these united voices, my daughter’s amongst them, but also by a concurrent sense of loss and sorrow.

The echo of that earlier announcement and the resulting awareness still lingered.  How has our world become one in which the shadow of terror has managed to penetrate even this small performing arts center in rural Maine?  I looked at my daughter. I looked at all the beautiful young students, with their beautiful young voices weaving together with such power and glory, and I was simultaneously thrilled by their amazing potential, and frightened by the uncertain future that lies before them. Before us. And my tears spilled over.