In the new year, I’ve returned to a daily notebook practice with my students. Little did I know the Stafford Challenge would appear and reaffirm my commitment. I adopted this practice years ago after an NCTE panel I coordinated which included Naomi Shihab Nye. We talked about William Stafford’s daily writing, and I adapted the steps to fit with my young students. For whatever reason (maybe Covid) I haven’t been leading my students to write daily in their notebooks. Now I’m reminded of the importance of a daily writing practice. These first few days of the Stafford Challenge, I have opened up more and more on the blank page and worried less about perfection.
Notebook page on Thursday, our first day of school all week.
Our notebook steps:
Date
Quote
What’s Up
Poem-ish
Pretend Play Elfchen
Pretend no script Play echoes life. Their light, my delight –Shine!
I have driven past this church for 16 years. It resides on the same country road as one of my schools. On the left is a small cemetery. Sometime this year I noticed a carpenter I know (I’ve nicknamed him Saint because he is selfless and kind.) doing work on this church. I assume it is an active congregation, but for me, it is the safe haven for our school’s safety plan in case we have to evacuate. We would meet a bus here that would take us to a high school down the road. Does this little building know its job? I’ve been wanting to take this photo for a long time and finally stopped last week. Notice the crooked stop sign, the high cirrus clouds, the simple steeple. Where does your mind go? Please write a small poem today and share it in the comments. Kindly respond to other writers.
I found out about the Stafford Challenge yesterday on Barb Elder’s blog post. I signed up. There is a Zoom gathering tonight with Kim Stafford. I had the pleasure of writing with Kim years ago at a writing marathon. His father William Stafford inspires writers everywhere to practice a daily poem. Whether you join or not, I think this is a good commitment to daily writing.
I wasn’t planning to post for Poetry Friday today, but I’ve been playing with the elchen form (also known as elevenie), a challenge from the Poetry Sisters. Mary Lee shared the Wikipedia definition of the form. I wrote one last week for This Photo Wants to be a Poem.
While my family has been vacationing in the mountains of North Georgia, coincidentally the words of the day in my email inbox have worked for elchen play.
slippers warm toes on cold mornings this winter’s saving grace hygge*
Word of the day: hygge- A quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being (regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture).
Pack suitcase, car drive all day family voyage to mountains viator*
*Word of the Day 12/26/23 Viator traveler, wayfarer
Light still shines in your eyes sea glass blue joy luminaria*
*Luminaria is a lantern typically used at Christmas.
Leo (5), Mamere, Stella (3), Thomas (4)
Wayward wanders hopeful small mountain town ice cream with sprinkles gallivant*
*Word of the Day 12/29/23 Gallivant: Go around from one place to another in the pursuit of pleasure or entertainment.
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Maybe there comes a point in the Alzheimer’s journey as in any journey of life, a time when we have accepted the new normal. I thought I had accepted it, come to an unemotional understanding of who my mother is now. We made the 4+ hour trip on Saturday. My brother, a saint in my book, brought Mom to lunch with all of us, my husband and me, my daughter and her 3 year-old daughter, and my sister. The table was alive with conversation, all except Mom who sat patiently as Hunter ordered for her, cut her food, and asked her if she liked it. She was content. But she never spoke.
There was a time not too long ago when she would try to be a part of the conversation. Her words would come in and leave off. Like the thought that created them had shorted out, the energy waned. This time, only a month or so later, she doesn’t even try anymore. Her silence was loud to me.
On Sunday morning, my husband helped me get her to church. It wasn’t easy, but we did it. I sat holding Mom for the service. She fell asleep a few times, but when the organ played, she jerked awake and listened, sometimes singing along. She can still read the hymns and her voice is as beautiful as ever. I told her so in her ear, and she turned and smiled, “Thank you.”
Another time during the service, she turned to me and said, “I miss…” I’m not sure who she was missing, my father, my brother, or one of her favorite priests. For a moment, she was present and missing someone.
We brought her back to her memory care home. She was whisked away by the kind receptionist. I turned away in tears. Every time I visit, it gets harder to leave.
Here is a photo of her holding up a tacky Christmas sweater that my daughter gave to her. She follows directions well, “Hold it up and smile.”
I am grateful for so many things: My brother who deals with all of my mother’s needs, my mother’s contentedness, her amazing care, and the sparkle in her blue eyes. Grief is with me always. I will learn to hold its hand and feel its softness. Someone once said that deep grief comes from deep love.
My mother, Dot Gibson, with her tacky Christmas sweater. “It’s pretty.”
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What is bringing you joy? In her newsletter The Good Stuff, Maggie Smith wrote about finding beauty. She called it a “beauty emergency.” An abundance of beauty is available to us everyday if we choose to notice. Even on my sickest days this summer, I could look out my window to find the great white egret who daily feeds across the bayou. Even now I can see a flash of white as he flies by. Sometimes I watch him slowly wade through the water. Something about that presence of purity renews me.
Renewal happens even if we forget to ask for it. God knows how to renew all life.
“To find a new world, maybe you have to have lost one. Maybe you have to be lost. The dance of renewal, the dance that made world, was always danced here at the edge of things, on the brink, on the foggy coast.”
― Ursula K Le Guin
I am still in the process of renewal, walking a fine line between dark and light. I have to find the strength each day to see the light, to look for it, all the while knowing darkness is close by. Illness does that to a person. The fear of it all coming back again is real. I notice the fear, name it for what it truly is, then let it go. I must do this to bring joy to the forefront. And renewal comes as I find beauty in ordinary days.
Full moon peeking out from the clouds
A colleague complained to me about an incessant vine that climbs her brick walls. “The guy has to come every 3 months to deal with it, even in this drought.” We can complain about the onslaught of weeds in the yard, or we can take pictures of them and find their beauty, their life, the way they insist on being here.
Weed in the grass insists on being noticed!
I believe that God gives us access to beauty all the time. We are meant to feel curious, to wonder about ordinary things, to be present and renewed, touched by beauty and joy.
Goldenrod, photo by Margaret Simon
Solidago*
Meadow soul soother I turn toward your day light Don’t go. Don’t go.
Margaret Simon
*scientific name for goldenrod, solidus meaning “to make whole”
Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.
Have you ever loved a dog? Or the more important question, has a dog ever loved you? Dogs tend to love without any conditions. Of course, they want their treats. Charlie would almost hyperventilate when it was pill pocket time. And how did he know to tell time? 6:00 AM and 6:00 PM, he would start with the begging.
“Lord, help me be the person my dog thinks I am.” I bought this bumper sticker years ago and taped it on the utility room cabinet. Charlie thought I was delicious. He wasn’t a face licker, but show him your bare toes and he would lick till it tickled.
Strangers were new friends to Charlie. The repairmen that visit our house look for Charlie so they can toss him the tennis ball. He would play ball 24/7 if you let him.
Charlie loved a walk. Sometimes he would get out, and the way I coaxed him back was showing him the leash and saying, “Petey’s here!” Petey was my mother-in-law’s dog and we walked together for years after my father-in-law died. These walks made Petey and Charlie best friends, and Anne “Minga” and I grew closer, too.
This week is Ethical ELA’s Open Write. When I read the invitation to write about food from Stacey Joy, I thought of the cinnamon bread my neighbor (and fellow dog lover) left at my back door. Another neighbor who I walk with these days, Shirley and her lab Claire, made me oatmeal cookies. If you’ve had a dog, you can relate to the empty feeling. When I get up in the morning, I go to the back door, turn the lock, and look for Charlie. He’s not there.
Charlie lived a wonderful life. We got him in the fall of 2007 and named him one of our boy names, after my grandfather Charles Liles. It was the perfect name. He was the perfect dog. I miss him, but I have no regrets. He was 16 and in renal and heart failure. He gave me the look that said, “Let me go.” I will sprinkle his ashes in the butterfly garden.
Cinnamon Bread
Lisa brought me cinnamon bread when my dog Charlie died. Shirley made oatmeal cookies as though sweet carbs could fill me, help me forget the lonely
walk without holding a leash, opening the door without the wag of tail.
Can I take a taste inside to keep sadness away?
Can I drop a crumb and not look down for the dog to lick it up?
There are days he lived only to comfort me. Little ankle licks to let me know I was loved.
Familiar becomes foreign until time adjusts us, keeps us upright ready to be crushed again.
When was the last time you wrote a card or letter and put a stamp on it and raised the little metal flag on your mailbox? With emails and texts, it’s easy to send a quick message to a friend. But when someone is sick or going through a tough time, many (women for the most part) turn to the old-fashioned card in the mail. I have quite a collection of cards from my multiple health issues. And many of them came from my blogging community.
I recently got a notice from WordPress: Happy 14th Anniversary! I have been blogging for 14 years. When I started, I had no idea what I was getting into. A writer friend was doing it, mostly to review books. So I tried it out. Found Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge and through that community found Poetry Friday. I coordinate the Spiritual Thursday group and This Photo Wants to be a Poem.
All along the way I thought I was self-serving, getting my writing out in the world, craving comments and recognition. But something entirely unexpected and beautiful happened. I built a community of friends. Friends who see me, know me, care about me, and send me cards when I’m sick.
Today I celebrate You! You are a buoy, a gift of friendship, and my circle. Thanks for the comforting words, the beautiful cards, and especially for the thoughts and prayers. I am healing and taking each day step by step. I believe my experience will help me be a better friend to my widest of circles.
Cards left to right, top to bottom, from Connie Castille, Dani Burtsfield, Michelle Kogan, Linda Mitchell, Laura Shovan, and golden plant butterfly from Jan Annino.
(Message from Jan)
Down near the bottom of the crossed-out list of things you have to do today,
between “green thread” and “broccoli” you find that you have penciled “sunlight”
Patricia sent the Spiritual Journey bloggers (all are welcome) her topic for September: “Life at the speed of grace.” This topic is fitting for me as I have been forced to slow down to a full stop because of illness. I have moved beyond why and into acceptance. Each day in September I am posting a photo on Instagram of #Septemberbeauty.
I’ve never thought of September as a beautiful month. It’s still hot. The school year is usually moving along quickly after Labor Day. But when I stop, when I look, notice nature and my immediate surroundings, I can see beauty.
Hummingbirds come in September. Since I’m home, I can sit for a while and watch them frolic. Yesterday, the male and female at my feeder mated right before my eyes. It was like a hummingbird tornado, how they twirled in a fury dance. Then flew off in separate ways.
Patricia wrote a small poem here. I’m borrowing a line to do a quick write of my own.
Grace is Here
Grace abides here– a hummingbird mating dance a flutter of evening owl.
Grace fills me– supermarket flowers a friend tells a story.
Grace heals me– words in a poetic card light from the window.
Today is the first day of September and it comes with a full Blue Moon and slightly cooler temperatures pointing the way to fall. Ah, me! I breathe in deeply and sigh.
August has been a dark month for me, and I am just beginning to emerge from the cocoon of illness. When I asked the Inklings to study and use the tool of enjambment in a poem, I had no idea how my whole life would be enjambed. My hysterectomy in June had the worst possible complication, an opened and infected incision. I had a second surgery on Friday, August 18th. I was in the hospital for 5 days and in bed at home for 10 days following. As I begin to feel better and the cloud is lifting, I am cautiously optimistic that I am healing.
For the enjambment challenge, I offered my friends a model poem from former Louisiana poet laureate Jack Bedell.
Ghost Forest —Manchac, after Frank Relle’s photograph, “Alhambra”
1.
Backlit by city and refinery’s glow these cypress bones shimmer
on the still lake’s surface. It’s easy to see a storm’s
coming with the sky rolling gray overhead and the water
glass-calm. Even easier to know these trees have weathered
some rough winds, their branches here and there, pointing this
One early morning this week, I sat outside (at the urging of a close friend) and watched the bayou. This small draft of a poem came to me. I offer it here because it’s the only thing I have and doing this makes me feel normal again. Thanks to all of you who have expressed concern and sent cards and messages.
Is it the play of light on the surface or air bubbles moving over glass-calm
water I watch still, quiet bayou breathe, like me, slow and deliberate taking in life- giving oxygen.
We are trying to survive, bayou and I, trying to make this day meaningful all the while knowing breath is all that matters.
Margaret Simon, draft
Bayou Teche Sunset, by Margaret Simon
To see how other Inklings used enjambment, check out their posts.
Inspired by Denise Krebs at “Dare to Care”, I am writing a quick post on my phone at a coffee shop near the beach. Denise’s poem begins with These hands.
Margaret Simon lives on the Bayou Teche in New Iberia, Louisiana. She is a retired elementary gifted teacher who writes poetry and children's books. Welcome to a space of peace, poetry, and personal reflection. Walk in kindness.
