Slice of Life | Reflections on the Teche

Archive for the ‘Slice of Life’ Category

Slice of Life: Star of Wonder

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life, Teaching, tagged collaborative poem, student poem, Welcome to the Wonder House, Wonder poem on December 26, 2023| 9 Comments »

Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating an amazing community of writers and a safe, welcoming space to write and share.

Georgia Heard won the NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry. She and Rebecca Kai Dotlich wrote Welcome to the Wonder House, an anthology of poems of wonder. At NCTE in November, I attended Georgia’s workshop. She had us group together to write a collaborative poem based on the question, “What does wonder mean to you?” I shared that workshop here.

I took this question and created a door decoration for my classroom at Coteau (one of my two schools) inviting teachers and students to add a star. My student John-Robert presented the idea to his classmates, and they added stars to the door. On Friday, our last day before winter break, John-Robert gathered all the stars and create a found poem.

The Word Wonder

Could it mean dreams?
Could it mean eternity?
Could it mean imagination?
Could it mean caring?
Could it mean hope?
Could it mean earth?
Could it mean sight?
Could it mean beyond?
Could it mean love?

What could wonder mean?

If it could talk, what would it say?
Would it wonder things ?
Would it have dreams ?
And would it be like you and me?

The word wonder

Could it mean heart?
Could it mean curious?
Could it mean beginning?
Could it mean endless?
Could it mean questions?
Could it mean change?
Could it mean wonder?
Could it mean me?
Could it mean brightness?

What could wonder mean?

Could it mean all these things?
Wonder would be me and you, wouldn’t it?
It would truly be and belong to you and me
While it makes all our dreams come true.

Wonder–the hope of something new,
the feeling of awe and curiosity like seeing
a breath-taking sunset. I find wonder
in the depths of the ocean
and in my imagination
and fantasies.
Collaborative-found poem by Coteau Elementary (compiled by John-Robert, 6th grade)

After John-Robert wrote the poem, he clustered all the responses together into a new design, a new poem, a poem of Wonder.

I hope your winter holidays are filled with joy and wonder.

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Slice of Life: A Visit with my Mother

Posted in Gratitude, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged Alzheimer's, mother, spiritual journey on December 12, 2023| 11 Comments »

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.”

It is time to sign up for hosting Spiritual Journey in 2024. We post on the first Thursday of the month. If you would like to host our round-up one month, please fill in this Google Sheet. Email me if you would like more information before signing up. (margaretsmn at gmail.com)

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Slice of Life: The Story of the Story

Posted in Books, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged Anne Simon, Blue Gray and Black Blood, Civil War, historical fiction, Iberia Parish, Louisiana, Phebe Hayes on December 5, 2023| 11 Comments »

On Sunday afternoon, the rain had stopped, the air was a perfect 70 degrees, and my house was full. Full of people with great admiration for my mother-in-law, Anne Simon, who once served as a district judge in a three parish area of Louisiana. She was not holding court, but the respect and honor was present. Minga (her grandmother name given by my oldest daughter) was signing her 5th book. Her first book Blood in the Cane Field came out in 2014. She has only been a writer for 10 years. She is 92 years old.

Actually, Anne has been working on being an author for a long time. She graduated from Wellesley and was the token woman chosen from her class to attend Yale Law School. Mona Lisa Smile was a movie based on her Wellesley class. At Yale, “They didn’t even have female bathrooms,” she told me. At Yale, she met Jerry Simon, a young man from an exotic place, New Iberia, Louisiana. In 1956, she was the only woman law school graduate in her class at LSU Law School. Jerry had swept her away from Yale to plant her firmly in Louisiana soil. From 1956-1984, Anne and Jerry practiced together as partners in a law firm. My husband Jeff joined the practice in 1981. In 1985, Anne ran for District Judge and became the first woman to hold that office. In her retirement, she served as an ad hoc judge for the Louisiana Supreme Court. All that time, she collected stories.

On Sunday, Anne told the group gathered in our home about how she came to write this latest novel, Blue, Gray, and Black Blood: The Civil War in the Bayou Country. She was interested in Civil War history. In her studies, she found that farm boys from western Massachusetts volunteered for the Union Army. She knew this area of the country well (Wellesley is located in Massachusetts) and imagined that they might have crossed paths with French speaking African Americans in Acadiana.

This photo shows Anne talking with Phebe Hayes, a historian and founder of the Iberia African American Society. Phebe was studying her family’s genealogy when she had lunch with me and Anne on the back porch of Anne’s house. I was there when the two discussed Phebe’s discoveries about her ancestry. Her ancestors were French speaking Creoles who joined the 52nd Massachusetts volunteers heading west. Through Anne’s thorough research, she wrote a historical fiction book “so you could imagine what it would have been like to live during that time.”

Phebe Hayes, left, and Anne Simon, right, celebrate the publication of a book that shares their history.

“We need to know every group’s history, not just our own. They intersect and we understand more when we know more,” said Anne to the crowd gathered. I was honored to be able to provide my home for the book signing. And many thanks to the people who helped with the event.

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Slice of Life: Notice and Note

Posted in Slice of Life, Writing, tagged Community poetry, Georgia Heard, NCTE on November 21, 2023| 8 Comments »

Poetry is a tool to unlock magic in the ordinary.

I spent the weekend in Columbus, Ohio at the NCTE conference. What a whirlwind of feelings! Anxiety over my presentation, awe when seeing and hearing Jacqueline Woodson and Tom Hanks, and pure joy hobnobbing with my fellow wizards. Now that I’ve had a few days to download and process the experience, I am feeling gratitude and inspiration.

The sessions I enjoyed the most were those in which an invitation to writing was given. Georgia Heard, the 2023 winner of the Award for Excellence in Poetry, led us into a community writing about wonder. She asked, “What does wonder mean to you?” and “Where do you find wonder?” Each of us wrote our response on a sentence strip and then gathered together to make a group poem. I want to take this idea to my schools. I imagine strips flowing down the hall creating a community poem.

*Simon Simon*, the sloth helped me write my line. I find wonder “in the voices of children.”

I find wonder in the ephemeral bloodroot that peppers
the forest floor with white blossoms.
The coyote who crossed my path
In an egg in a nest in a quiet place
In the voices of children
In the depth of memory that pop like champagne bubbles
on my heart’s surface.
Wonder leads me down the rabbit hole
in search of more.

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Slice of Life: Write Out Field Trip

Posted in Gifted Education, Photography, Slice of Life, tagged #writeout, Andy Goldsworthy, art in nature, National Writing Project, NCTE 2023 on November 14, 2023| 8 Comments »

Write Out is a National Writing Project event that takes place for 2 weeks in October. Using the concept of getting kids out in nature and writing, I planned a field trip for our district’s gifted students to Palmetto Island State Park in Vermillion Parish. We arranged for a park ranger to lead the kids on a hike, but we wanted to do something creative.

Prior to the field trip my colleague and friend Beth called with an idea–Andy Goldsworthy art. Andy Goldsworthy creates designs with things he finds in nature. His idea is don’t take anything in and don’t take anything out. Whatever he creates, he photographs and leaves it to melt, decay, fly away, whatever may be. A wonderful teaching video can be found here.

The park worked out perfectly for this project. Our students, as well as the parent chaperones, spent time looking at fallen leaves, seed pods, acorns, etc. through a creative lens. Every child that I talked to was proud of the artwork they created.

Back at school on Monday, my students turned to poetry to express their thoughts about their creations.

Green and brown leaves

With a yellow leaf on top

And little red leaves and a very tiny fern

Shaped so perfect

To make the right art

Everything in nature is beautiful
Marifaye, 4th grade

Creating something, looks like a portal,

Even if destroyed, it remains immortal,

Standing strong through the test of time,

Eventually destroyed, fell out of its prime.
Max, 5th grade

Working with Georgia Heard’s idea of messages to the earth, each student wrote a 6 word message on seed paper. They took these hearts home to plant.

In my humble opinion, I think these kids will look at nature as art, a palette for creativity. They will see with artists’ eyes, finding an arm in a seed pod, a mirror in a leaf, and a kingdom in a circle of sand.

This week I am heading to Columbus, Ohio for NCTE. I hope I see you there!

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Slice of Life: Silent Retreat

Posted in Slice of Life, Spiritual Growth, tagged Jefferson Island, notebook, silent retreat on November 7, 2023| 16 Comments »

A perfect day that started in a sweatshirt with yoga practice under a canopy of oak trees and ended with a sound bath in a Japanese tea room. We first met in the Japanese tea room where you take off your shoes and your status, all are equal. Introductions were brief, then we walked to an oak grove for yoga. My dream day had begun.

My friend and yoga instructor Susan offered a 5 hour silent retreat on Jefferson Island, a place that I’ve been to a number of times over the years, for field trips to weddings, but never to soak up the spirit of silence. This was a gift to myself that I knew I needed. That I took the time and money to do.

Noble Silence

Silence becomes noble when it is an inner silence. Inner silence makes us available for ourselves, our loved ones and the wonders of life…breathing in…I become aware of my body. Breathing out…I let go of tension in my body.

As we traveled from place to place, Susan gave us cards with spiritual messages on them like the one above. We were encouraged to contemplate their messages; however, nothing felt forced at all. I felt as though I could be myself totally and free to accept or reject any message that came my way.

I embraced the blank journal she gave us and wrote as I was inspired. One of those entries:

I’m falling in love with silence, easy love.
I love the slight breeze.
I love the majestic peacocks.
I love being present, accepting, and open.
I love the lake, the solace of pilings where birds are nesting.

I am a nest, a place of rest,
a place safe and calm.
Wisdom waits at the door
to be discovered, molded into inner power.
I am here.
I own courage.
I’ve conquered the darkness.
God’s light is on in me.
notebook draft, Margaret Simon

The Lotus Pond
The lotus is a flower that grows in muddy ponds and swamps. It is a symbol of spiritual growth and enlightenment. In the midst of chaotic circumstances, one can remain grounded and find inner peace and clarity.

My hope is that in this small post, I have passed on a peace that passes understanding. That you are feeling the knowledge and love of God (or your own inner spirit). We are all loved. We all have the silence that gives us strength. Namaste.

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Slice of Life: Spiritual Journey and a Beauty Emergency

Posted in Gratitude, Photography, Poetry, Slice of Life, Spiritual Growth, Writing, tagged #haiku, #poemsofpresence, #smallpoems, nature poetry, renewal, spiritual journey on October 31, 2023| 21 Comments »

“Joy is an act of resistance.” –Toi Derricotte

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.

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.

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”

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Slice of Life: #WriteOut

Posted in Gifted Education, Poetry, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged #writeout, Fanschool, Nature poems, student writing on October 10, 2023| 11 Comments »

My students and I have been looking forward to the National Writing Project’s Write Out, a writing event that takes place in October. NWP partners with the National Parks to create videos and writing prompts designed to get kids outside to write. Last Friday, I handed each student a 5×7 blank book and told them it would be their Write-Out notebook. What is it about having a new clean colorful book that makes you want to write?

After watching a short video from Ranger Chris from the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, we went outside to the playground to observe nature and write haiku poems. I wrote alongside them. I shared how I sketch in my notebook. Sketching is low-stakes art. Sketching helps to motivate and enhance writing while making their notebooks a safe place to explore.

Back inside, students were enthusiastic about sharing their poems. Because I teach multiple groups at two different schools, we use Fanschool for sharing our writing.

If you have a minute, it would be exciting to my students if you wrote comments on their first ever haiku poems:

Max wrote “The Daytime”

Kailyn wrote about a butterfly in the grass.

We found moth caterpillars near the trees. Adelyn and Sadie wrote about them.

Carson wrote about the sugarcane field.

John-Robert’s poem.

Give yourself some time today to be outside and observe nature. Share your haiku with us.

I am sharing my poems on Instagram.

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Slice of Life: Music Memory

Posted in Slice of Life, Writing, tagged @storytellersgallery, Alzheimer's, music on October 3, 2023| 10 Comments »

Music is my mother’s memory. She was a pianist. When I was a teenager, she went back to school to get her masters in piano. She was always teaching and playing piano and singing in the choir at church on Sundays.

Last weekend my sister, my niece, and I drove up to Mississippi to visit her. She recognized us as people she loved dearly. Her conversations were choppy, a thought would begin but derail before she could finish the sentence. But music is still her love language.

Watching the LSU game together in the hotel lobby, we started “bom, bom, ba-bom, ba” the tune for the fight song and she joyfully joined in. At church she popped up from sitting to sing the service music in perfect tune. My sister played a song she knew Mom loved on the radio, so we could all sing along.

NPR did a report recently about a son who plays the guitar and sings for his mother with Alzheimer’s. (A four-minute listen at this link.) My brother is a musician. He plays keyboards with a band, with another artist, or alone. He makes sure Mom gets to as many gigs as she can, especially the ones he does in senior living facilities.

I was a little wary of my visit this time because my brother had reported that she is worse (She had a bout of Covid a month ago.), but her light is still there. It comes on when she hears familiar music. It shines when she sees my face. My sister and I are baffled by how one minute our mother seems far away, out of touch with the world. And the next she will say something completely logical and true. We are blessed that our mother is getting good care, and she is mostly happy. I admit to tearing up, though, when she was singing. It was then that I saw the person I long for, the one I miss.

I follow storytellersgallery on Instagram. He posts a photo and poem daily. This one spoke to me.

Already Gone.

i wish i could understand
how you feel
i wish i could feel
what you’re missing here

i always feel like we’re doing okay
that no matter what
i know it could be worse

but i’m getting the idea
that maybe you don’t agree
i think you know i would give you
anything and everything
but i’m learning that maybe
that’s not enough
and maybe that’s why
it feels like you’re already gone
Brian Fuller
bfullerfoto.com
Kosse, TX
May 2020