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.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Every year at about this same time I look ahead to March and realize it’s coming. During the month of March for at least 10 years, I’ve written a daily post alongside many others for the Two Writing Teachers daily Slice of Life Challenge. I approach March with a sense of dread and excitement. Writing a daily post, looking at a blank page and filling it with something worthwhile, is daunting; however, after so many years of experience, I know that writing in a community of other writers drives me.
This month I’ve been writing with a Facebook community for Laura Shovan’s 13th annual February Challenge. I feel it’s an impossible task until I get it done and look at my collection of poems. Most of them are drifty drafts, but it pleases me to have written them.
The most common denominator I have seen among writers who commit to daily writing is the fear of writing for an audience, and the best feeling is having written for an audience. My students experience the same fear. They don’t know it yet, but I’ve signed them up for the classroom Slice of Life Challenge. Writing out loud for an audience makes us vulnerable, yes, but it also makes us strong and brave.
If you are planning to do the SOL Challenge, let me know in the comments. We can support each other.
Here’s a small brave poem I put on my Instagram yesterday. I was visiting Mississippi where my brother and my mother live. We met yesterday with a very sweet Hospice nurse, and for the first time, I left my mother feeling hopeful. There is a gift in small moments of hope. I’ll take it.
Morning walk encounter with hope rising from the lake like our heroic Hospice nurse who speaks in loving lift, healing hearts.
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
I have subscribed to The Isolation Journals for years and often read the prompts but don’t do them, usually because I read them at a time when I don’t have time to stop and write. They usually speak to me, but perhaps there is a little intimidation happening with me as well. I don’t know. I try to keep my doubt under control, but it’s not always that easy.
I tucked away a prompt from Amber Tamblyn. She used anaphora in a poem titled “This Living”. Her prompt suggested we use this same phrase, “It’s going to be”. As I was driving to school on a particularly foggy day, a phrase came to me, “I could fall in love with”. I played around with it in my Notes app. Autocorrect created the title.
On Love
I could fall in love with someone playing acoustic guitar singing breathy tones.
I could fall in love with a fog bow reaching for a waning moon.
I could fall in love with twinkling lights blue, red, golden on the tall Main Street Christmas tree.
I could fall in love with my own alto voice rising in this small car joining a choir cantata.
I could fall in love with darkness coming so soon– a winter solstice Peace.
by Margaret Simon, draft
Peace has been my One Little Word for 2024. I’m grateful for the way “peace” showed up for me and for this poem. Have a wonderful holiday season!
Last weekend I took my grandchildren to the Main Street library to do Christmas crafts. They enjoyed playing around the fountain. They were full of questions: Can you swim in there? Can I touch the water? Leo genuflected with the water, a move he apparently saw Spider-Man do.
I took this photo, marveling at how the drops of water seemed to dance in the wind.
I offer this photo as inspiration for your writing today. Do you have memories that may emerge? Can you write a small poem or haiku describing what you see? Anything is possible in poetry.
I’ve been writing Advent elfchen. Today’s poem sticks with this form.
Fountain Dances along While children play Splashes of joyful laughter Bubbler
Spiritual Journey, First Thursday is being hosted today by Kim Johnson at Common Threads. This is Kim’s first time to host, so please give her some comment love!
Kim Johnson, our SJT host, has read a new book, Wintering by Katherine May. I have not read this, but I loved reading Kim’s thoughts about how winter gives us some time to read and reflect. I wish I could say that I’ve had that kind of time, but the truth is things have been quite frenzied around my house. But a spiritual journey means even in times of stress, we should make moments in our day for prayer, meditation, and reflection.
I am currently reading The Buddhist Enneagram: Nine Paths to Warriorship by Susan Piver. I heard her on a podcast called The Austin Enneagram by Elizabeth Chapin. The author Susan Piver writes concisely about the enneagram numbers while adding in Buddhist teachings around warriorship. Who doesn’t want to be a warrior? I struggle to embrace the good aspects of my number (four) and tend to focus more often on the negative ones, such as overrun emotions and shame. Working on ourselves and with our personalities is a lifelong spiritual journey.
AI tells me “In Buddhism, warriorship is about being present with what is happening, and not reacting with fight or flight. It’s about facing one’s own neurosis in order to address the neurosis of the world”
I can become a warrior by living in gratitude.
On one of those frenzied days, I became overcome by irritation, so I took a drive by myself. I went to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription. While I checked out, a woman recognized me and told me how her husband was in the hospital. My heart went out to her. Also, my irritation was relieved. God was letting me know, through presence and empathy, I can be selfless and generous. Maybe I can be a warrior who “addresses the neurosis of the world.”
What are you reading on these cold days? How are you being a warrior?
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
My husband and I are on vacation in Portland, Maine. On Sunday my dear friend and fellow Inkling (writing group) Molly Hogan and her husband Kurt took us to the most photographed lighthouse.
Portland Head Light
The views were incredible, but the best part was seeing Molly in person and getting to know her husband. We talked for hours.
The highlight of our time here yesterday was the ferry cruise. We happened upon a ride that carries supplies and mail to the islands. There was a young man who did everything, and one of his jobs was to find us and tell us stuff about the islands. I’m guessing in the winter months there are fewer tourists.
Mailboat Ferry
I like some alone time in any given day, so after shopping at Reny’s (Molly was right; we found good deals), Jeff dropped me at the Novel coffee shop where one can read and have coffee. I picked up a copy of a book I didn’t know existed about a poem that few knew existed.
Live Oak, with Moss
Walt Whitman’s Live Oak, with Moss is not the poem you think it is. The papers he wrote the poem on were torn and put back together into other more acceptable poems. Originally Whitman was writing a love poem to a man (or men).
The book drew me right in and I read it on the spot. Brian Selznick took an idea he had discussed with Maurice Sendak to illustrate the long hidden poem. Sendak never had the chance.
Here are some pages:
Live Oak with Moss by Brian SelznickWalt Whitman pages
Amazing love poem by Walt Whitman
In every vacation there are the things you plan and the happy happenstances. This little treasure was waiting for me, I believe.
Happy Thanksgiving! May you find a small moment to treasure in your heart.
My students and I are reading Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse. In the book, there is a poem “On the Road with Arley” that begins with line “Here’s the way I figure it, my place in the world is at the piano.” It’s been fun to find music of the time period and write alongside it. My students worked hard to create poems using this beginning line. I asked them to use imagery to create a tone. I wrote a model poem about my place in the world.
In a Canoe
Here’s the way I figure it, my place in the world is on the bayou lazing about in a canoe with you.
I’m just a mamere wanting the best time to be outside watching for eagles slipping through slow current listening for Mr. Owl to cook-cook-for-you!
My place is in open toes among cypress knees sniffing catfish air hearing cicadas buzz when the sun goes down.
Here’s the way I figure it, my place in the world is in a canoe with you.
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 