Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
I am spending some time in New Orleans with my daughters and grandchildren. Soon a new grandson will be here. But in the meantime, I took a walk in the neighborhood. A city walk is different from my small hometown walk, so I took some pictures to set the scene. (Don’t forget to add 80+ temps and 60% humidity to your imagination.)
We took grandson Thomas to City Park and walked around the gardens.
Thomas, 5, looks for turtles in the pond. Turtles, turtles…all around…City Park stone bridge
My One Little Word for 2025 is Still. Even in the midst of city traffic and busyness, a moment of stillness can be found.
City Park Haiku
Turtles sun-basking While heat rises from old stone Bridges to stillness
I am finishing up a week of babysitting for two of my grandchildren this week. One of them, June, I kept during the day because daycare was closed. The other, Thomas, I kept after his day camp because his mother had a work trip.
This morning when I was dropping Thomas off for the last time, we had a talk about missing people we love. He started the conversation with “I miss my dad,” which could be viewed as a manipulative ploy for attention, but I didn’t take the bait. I said how much I would be missing him when I go back home.
He said, “Do you miss Papére?”
“Of course, I do. I miss Papére and Albért when I’m here with you, but I miss you and June when I’m home.”
Loving means you’re always missing someone. A conversation with a 5 year old brought me to tears.
This month I have been writing a poem each day using Georgia Heard’s May calendar. The prompt for today was “your favorite kind of silence.” The shadorma form fit nicely with the syllable count of 3, 5, 3, 3, 7, 5.
My Favorite Kind of Silence
Silence comes after summer rain before birds recall sun after a sung lullaby a sleepy child’s sigh
I’ve been writing this month with Ethical ELA’s #Verselove. On Sunday, Susan Ahlbrand led us in a prompt called “Lingering Lines.” We could choose a song from a musical to use as inspiration. One of my favorite musicals is Waitress by Sarah Bareilles, and my favorite song is You Matter to Me. Try to listen to it without crying. I can’t.
My grandson, Thomas (5.5)
This weekend my daughter was visiting with her son, Thomas, who is now 5 and a half. How time flies! He is the sweetest boy with an active imagination and crystal blue eyes. He loves me without condition which warms my mamére heart. I borrowed the song lyric and wrote a short poem for Thomas.
You Matter to Me
I find sea glass treasure in your eyes. You look in my heart as a mirror and smile for the picture frame. You matter to me.
I sing a lullaby love song and you think I’m magical. You say “I love you” like they’re the easiest words to say.
I know your love is true innocence of a 5 year old simple and free, no baggage or judgement. You see You matter to me.
Margaret Simon, draft
Kidlit Progressive Poem Update: Patricia had a family emergency, so Rose is taking her line today (at Imagine the Possibilities). That is one thing I love about this community. We can lean on each other.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
In my book Bayou Song: Creative Explorations of the Southern Louisiana Landscape , I have a Things to Do poem about the alligator snapping turtle. You can see the poem and poem prompt here. On Friday, I was looking at the Barred Owl Cam from All about Birds with a young poetry student. We wrote Things to Do poems. From Ethical ELA, Tammi Belko suggested using random words to write a poem. This prompt fit well with our Things to Do poems. We looked at AI generated words about barred owlets and made a list of words to use in our poems.
On Saturday #Verselove, the prompt came from Jordan Stamper. She asked us to think about food memories. What she didn’t know was that very morning I was making a food memory with my grandson Thomas.
Banana Bread (first line from Billy Collins)
I love the sound of a grandson in the morning finding the muffin tins and demanding to bake with me.
We gather flour, sugar, butter, eggs– Stir the dry. Whisk the wet. Smash dappled sweet bananas.
“When will the banana bread be ready? he whines, melting my heart with his crystal blue eyes. Goodness takes time to rise.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
When I was having children, I never really considered the future and what it might mean for me to be a grandmother. I had three girls. Three daughters who grew into three amazing women. And now I am Mamére to four grands and another one on the way. My youngest daughter is pregnant with her 2nd child. She has a 2 year old, June, and this one is a boy due in July. We’ve had fun calling him “July.”
Pregnancy is not an easy time. There are so many changes happening in a woman’s body. After an earlier miscarriage, Martha was full of fear. I was confident, but I understood her fears. She invited me to the 20 week anatomy scan ultrasound. I sat in awe at the image on the screen…a perfect baby.
Here is my love letter to this new baby boy:
July
I already love all four chambers of your heart, steadily beating showing off for the camera. And those little toe nubs that I can’t wait to tickle. We could see the perfect stairs of your spine curled, floating up in the certain space of womb. I fell head over heals for your tiny nose, the deep eye sockets, the thing that tells us you are boy.
I can wait as you grow and grow, coming to us on a hot mid-July morning wailing for more time inside. It’s OK, my grandboy, I love you already. Margaret Simon, draft
On Sunday I read Maria Popover’s The Marginalian. She wrote about matrescence: “While mothering can take many forms and can be done by many different kinds of people, the process of one organism generating another from the raw materials of its own being — a process known as matrescence — is as invariable as breathing, as inevitable to life as death.”
In Matrescence: On Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood, Lucy Jones writes of her own experience giving birth to a girl. “Time started to bend. I was carrying the future inside me. I would learn that I was also carrying the eggs, already within my baby’s womb, that could go on to partly form my potential grandchildren. My future grandchildren were in some way inside me, just as part of me spent time in the womb of my grandmother.”
I am grateful to be a grandmother, the seed from which my grandchildren sprouted. Honored by my daughters to be beside them as they do their best to be strong women who mother with wisdom and care.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
I’ve crocheted for years, so this year I decided to try to make a garment. I’ve made baby blankets, shawls, and hats, but when I saw a pattern for a baby sweater using two hexagons, I thought this will be easy enough.
We were taking a driving trip with our family to Oklahoma right after Christmas, and I wanted a project to do on the drive and while relaxing at the house. I picked out three colors from my inherited boxes of yarn from my friend Marion who died in 2020. My daughter Maggie, the mother of Stella, said of the three colors, “Stella will wear that.”
I crocheted and crocheted until I realized that it was way too big. The first hexagon would almost fit me! I had not accounted for the gauge of the yarn. I was just following the pattern.
Rather than lose the project all together, I decided to rip out the extra rows to make it fit. Then I spent a while making the other side.
Finally it was ready to block.
Two hexagon crocheted sweater blocked on the ironing board ready for steaming.
I brought it to Stella one afternoon when we were visiting. Stella has her own unique sense of fashion. Her preference is to wear leggings in one pattern and a top in another pattern. Sometimes she wears a dress as a skirt or a costume. Her favorites are skeleton, ninja mask, and Elsa nightgown.
Stella ready to go the art show (pj top, dress as skirt, and Elsa wig)
When Stella first saw the sweater, she said, “Nobody anywhere ever has worn a short sleeved sweater.”
My daughter Maggie explained to her that I had made it specially for her. She eventually came around and posed for a picture in her new sweater. Her dad sent me this picture.
Stella fashion: Hexagon sweater over Christmas pj top and Mardi Gras pants
Currently I am looking at a pattern for a summer sundress. Do I dare?
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
“Welcome to Breaux Bridge”
Happy Mardi Gras, y’all! Today is Fat Tuesday, celebrated with parades and food and fun, the last day before Lent arrives, and we enter a season of penance and fasting. I decided to skip the New Orleans festivities this year and enjoy a quiet Mardi Gras; however, yesterday, my daughter invited me to go with her and her two children, Leo and Stella, to an event in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana.
A few years ago I attended the “Courir de Mardi Gras” with my family in Eunice, Louisiana. I had some trouble with the drunken parade and abuse of chickens. This event in Breaux Bridge changed my view somewhat. It was specifically for the children, so the adults were drinking coffee and water and handing out snacks to their children. There was a chicken involved, but we were assured that the chicken was tame and would not be injured.
Traditional Courir de Mardi Gras mask made from home crafted materials.
The costumes were fabulous and fun!
Children ready for the run!
The history of the courir, which in Cajun French means run, dates back to before Louisiana became a part of the U.S., from a time when the Acadians came to Louisiana without much of anything but a promise of land. The small communities would celebrate Mardi Gras by having a chicken run. The idea was to go house to house to get all the ingredients for the gumbo. The gumbo would be shared by the community.
The Teche Center for the Arts recreated the courir specifically for children. El Capitaine, the leader, assigned the children to groups. It was a wild chase, for sure, but it was quick and usually ended with at least one child crying about being knocked in the head or not catching the chicken or, in Stella’s case, losing a shoe. We paraded house to house and shared in the tradition. This was more my style, watching the children, carrying their catches, and taking lots of photos and video.
I am posting on my phone because I’m having trouble connecting in a hotel room. I’m visiting my mother who is in the end stages of Alzheimer’s. This time is filled with hard and love, tears and joy.
Heidi challenged the Inklings this first Friday to choose a prompt from her Yule calendar. Since I spent last week in the company of my grandchildren, I was drawn to the prompt “Capture the sound of laughter in rhyme.”
I am taking delight in watching my grandchildren laugh. This poem is dedicated to my granddaughter, June, who was two on Dec. 21st.
De-Light
I taste a note of nutmeg on my tongue, a slight burn while I yearn for sweetness, and your song
“Happy Day Day”
your two-ness of delight candles to blow ribbons flow
twisting into this gift of a child shifting,
becoming laughter.
Margaret Simon, draft
June is Two!
To see how other Inklings wrote to this challenge:
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
When I was 12 years old, all I wanted in this world was long hair. My hair was shoulder length with an uncontrollable wave right near my earlobe. But I could not grow long, luscious locks like other girls. So I asked my mother (Santa) for a wig. On Christmas Day, my wish came true. I remember wearing that long blond wig and being humiliated by comments from other kids. Shamed, disappointed, dreams dashed, I never wore the wig again.
Yesterday my now 4 year old granddaughter got an Elsa wig for her birthday. Oh, how Stella longs for long hair. My daughter tells me she wears her swimming cap with the fabric along the sides to pretend to have long hair, so the Elsa wig was an immediate hit. Stella didn’t wear it for long, but not because she was bullied about it. It just wasn’t practical for playing on the park’s ultimate tree house; you can’t roll around on a net without your hair falling off. I wish I could have been more like Stella when I was young.
Elsa “Stella”
I look at her boldness, her wild clothing choices, and her undying spirit of I’m-always-right, and feel hope for this new generation of girls. I hope we continue to raise girls who, like Stella, do what they want and stand up for what they believe in.
At the birthday party, my daughter was dressed like Stella requested, in two different animal prints. She looked amazing. Life is far from perfect these days, but watching my fierce daughter raise an equally fierce daughter gives me hope and delectation.* (Word of the day meaning a feeling of delight or enjoyment.)
At the party, I held the 4 month old daughter of one of my daughter’s friends. This poem came to me after reading the meaning of the word delectation.
Delectation Holding the baby small as a doll seeing through her eyes to the Aegean sea
feeling the weight of her sink into my arms wondering what kind of world we are creating for her.
She smiles anyway, grabs at the print of my shirt rooting toward my breast (a let-down tingles) and I relax, trusting
Margaret Simon lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana. She teaches gifted elementary students, writes poetry and children's books. Welcome to a space of peace, poetry, and personal reflection. Walk in kindness.
Reflections on the Teche 