December | 2013 | Reflections on the Teche

Archive for December, 2013

Lagniappe at the Fire and Water Festival

Posted in Creativity, Slice of Life, tagged Acadiana Wordlab, Arnaudville, arts, Deaux Bayou Gallery, Fire and Water Festival, found poetry, Little Big Cup, NuNu's, posy on December 10, 2013| 6 Comments »

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This weekend I was invited by the Acadiana Wordlab to read at a poetry reading for the Fire and Water Festival in Arnaudville. I walked in to The Little Big Cup, a quaint restaurant that even has blue china in the bathroom. The cake balls are just the right size for a sweet treat, along with a cup of your favorite hot drink. There was a large table full of poet friends and poet-friends-to-be. Ten poets gathered to read! I wrote down lines from each poet, added a few of my own, and created this found poem.

Visions
Last night I dreamed the moon was burning.
She smelled of incense, indeed as special as a single snowflake.
There is no exhale on nights like these.

The moon sees everything in red,
eyes wild like the river.
Blooming ginger stalks, waves of fragrance paint the sky
All the way down.

Our vision is often smeared.
We don’t see the signs, or ignore them.
While poets print their poems on the back pages of a calendar,
our soft necks hold them dear.

–Margaret Simon and poets of Acadiana Wordlab, all rights reserved

Before leaving the town of Arnaudville, I stopped at Nunu’s to see what was up. There were demonstrations all day long, cooking, crafts, etc. I happened on a woman making posies. Do you know what a posy is? Karen explained it’s a small bouquet. She had a table full of greenery and carnations. She showed me how to make the bouquet in my hand. “Start with the lightest color at the top. Twist in each stem. Arrangements in threes are pleasing.” I made this sweet bouquet to take home.

The next station I visited was a book making one. The artist, Juliet, and I had an immediate connection. She helped me make a book using mat board and duct tape. I sewed pages together using a needle and dental floss. She called each set of pages a signature. We told each other of our father-artists and the artist journey. She even identified me as a fellow Leo.

Juliet Lockwood, artist in residence at Baton Rouge General, and Karen Willingham of Deaux Bayou Gallery, were my gracious instructors.

A day of poetry and lagniappe!

Acadiana Wordlab
Deaux Bayou Gallery
NuNu’s Art and Culture Collective

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Celebration Saturday

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Teaching, tagged Gelli plate art, Illuminate, Lemuria, The Shadows on December 7, 2013| 6 Comments »

Celebration Saturday is here once again. Do the weeks fly by for you? I have much to be thankful for this week.

1. Last Saturday I had a book signing at Lemuria in Jackson, MS with my father. We were signing our book Illuminate. The biggest treat was to see old friends and to share the joy. We even sold one to a stranger.

Here I am with a high school friend sitting under photos of Eudora Welty and Walker Percy among other famous authors.

2. Tuesday night I rode in the Christmas parade all decked out in a vintage red dress and white wig.

My best queenly wave!

3. On Wednesday, my students went to the Shadows to rehearse for their play. Every year, the gifted students in grades 4-6 perform a play for the first graders in the parish. This program based on the history of the plantation home has been going on for 30 years. Some of my students have parents who performed in the play when they were younger. This is a great experience for my students. They all learned their lines and behaved well. We went to lunch downtown on Main Street at Victor’s cafeteria. This is an iconic place in New Iberia. They have a sign that reads “Dave Robicheaux eats here.” My students did such a good job at paying and figuring out tip that they were complimented by the cafeteria staff, so I let them have a play time in Bouligny Plaza. They played a vigorous game of hide and seek. Down by the bayou, I showed them a sculpture garden, another fun place to play and take ~~group~~ family pictures. A great day!

Girls in period costume

4. On Thursday evening, I took an art class. I learned how to use a gelli plate for printing. The instructor, Marcie Melancon, had made a mold from gelatin for me to use. You can purchase a gelli plate, but since I didn’t have one, I used the homemade one. I was very pleased with the resulting prints. The process was fun and easy. Just squirt out paint, roll it on, and print. We used a variety of found objects for printing, like toilet paper tubes, bubble wrap, leaves, string, etc. The one I liked the most was a double print rather than a mono print. So the images layered to create a beautiful mystical image. The woman figure was a magazine cut out that was laminated with packing tape.

5. On Friday, I found $50 that I had lost somewhere in my purse. I thought it was gone forever, but it surfaced miraculously when I was looking for something else.

This was a wonderful week, and I am working hard to avoid getting into a holiday frenzy. I want to continue to find blessings in every day.

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Crows on the Playground

Posted in Poetry Friday, tagged crows, playground, poetry on December 6, 2013| 10 Comments »

See more Poetry Friday with Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons. Click on image for link to original image.

One early morning this week when I sat down at my desk, I became aware of a murder of crows on the playground outside my window, so I wrote a poem about it. Poetry is everywhere.

A flock of crows in the school yard
perched on the basketball goal,
side by side on the swing set,
cluttering the picnic table.

Like children who will come out later,
they chatter, peck, and flit.
Tag, you’re it. Hide-and-seek,
Treasure hunt.

Some are flying alone.

Some are gathered together.
Crows on the playground.
–Margaret Simon, all rights reserved

A Poetry Friday friend, Donna Smith, posted this video in response to my crow poem. Funny and clever, a crow snowboarding.

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Technology Rocks!

Posted in Slice of Life, tagged facetime, Slice of Life, texting on December 3, 2013| 8 Comments »

Join the Tuesday Slice of Life!

Some people say technology gets in the way of real relationships. Put down that device and talk to me, will you? However, this Thanksgiving holiday I was grateful for new technology: Facetime and Texting especially. Only one of my 3 daughters was able to make the trip to my parents’ home in Mississippi this year. Traditionally, this is where we spend Thanksgiving, but as they have grown and have lives of their own, it has become more and more difficult for all of us to be together.

Daughter #1, Maggie, was attending an Indian wedding in North Carolina with her boyfriend. Using group text, she was sending updates with pictures of all of the events- henna tattoos, painting the groom, the ceremony, the reception. Vicariously, we all experienced the wedding with her.

I love this picture of my daughter, Maggie, dressed in traditional Indian clothing with her boyfriend, Louis.

On Thanksgiving night, we did Facetime with daughter #3, Martha, who was celebrating the holiday with her boyfriend’s family in Wisconsin. She’s in school in Chicago, so this was a treat to see them both from so far away. We even met Bailey, the boyfriend’s beautiful collie. The next best thing to being there is Facetime, an amazing invention in my book!

The last night I was with my parents, we went out to eat dinner at a restaurant where my brother was entertaining. As he was singing along with his 2 daughters, ages 11 and 14, I was missing my girls. But then came a new group text:

Maggie: We had mint choc chip dippin dots during the ceremony.
Kat: Write that down for your wedding!
Kat: We just put the Santa gnome on Wayne’s tree.
Martha: Home alone making banana bread and listening to Love Actually soundtrack.
Maggie: Ha ha perfect!

Even without them physically present with me, I was in a circle of love.

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