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Slice of Life: Lovely Owen Liles

June 6, 2017 by margaretsmn

Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for the Slice of Life Challenge.

Every year I judge a state writing contest, LA Writes!  Teachers gather to choose finalists to send to author judges.  I never judge the elementary entries since that is the level I teach. Laurie was reading a stack of 5th grade poems when she came to me and said, “I have to share this with you.  It’s not a winning poem, but the first line is so hilarious that I was laughing so hard I had to take a puff of my inhaler!”

Then I noticed the title, “Lovely Owen Liles.”  My cousin Andrew has a daughter named Owen, and they live in New Orleans.  Wait!  I turned over to find the entry blank and sure enough, the poem was written by my cousin Amos who is in fifth grade.   Laurie was right, it wasn’t contest winning, but it certainly won my heart and made me laugh out loud!

Lovely Owen Liles
by Amos Liles
 
You make me laugh when you toot, and it smells like dead possum.
Have I told you that you make me laugh when you make that face
where you wrinkle your lips.
Have I told you that you are so cute even a princess
puppy is not cute.
Have I told you that you are so generous you get me a
lollipop everytime you go swimming.
Have I told you that you are so fun like when you make 
me laugh when I’m sad.
You are the best.

My cousin Andrew Liles with his daughter Owen, the lovely Owen Liles.

Posted in Poetry, Slice of Life | 11 Comments »

DigiLitSunday: Celebrating Story

June 4, 2017 by margaretsmn

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

Find more celebration posts at Ruth’s blog.

Some weeks call for combination posts. Today I am celebrating story in my DigiLitSunday post.

I am privileged to be in a family of writers. After her retirement as a district judge, my mother-in-law started writing crime novels. In each of her books, she fictionalizes actual cases that came across her bench in the courtroom. Sunday I am hosting a book signing for her third book, Blood of the Believers.


In this book, Detective Ted D’Aquin is struggling with the disappearance of his wife. But after a year and a half of leave from the St. Martinville Sheriff’s office, he returns to investigate two homicides. I know from my mother-in-law, Anne Simon, the parts of the cases that are real and which ones she made up. Sometimes real life can be crazier than fiction.

Reading her latest book, I could hear her voice. Even though she was writing as a male character, some of her ways of saying things came through. The average reader may not recognize these idiosyncrasies that our family lovingly calls “Minga-isms.” (Minga is her grandmother name.)

My father has published his first novel, Into the Silence. He’s been writing this book since 1975 when I was still a young teen. I encouraged him to get it published with my friends at Border Press. He will have a book signing in my home town of Jackson, MS at Lemuria Books on June 16th at 5:00.  Diane Moore wrote a glowing review on her blog, A Word’s Worth. 

When I was home last weekend, I got one of the hot-off-the-presses copies. I read furiously, couldn’t put it down. The protagonist is Todd Sutherland, a cardiologist, but to me, he is my father. Dad admits that he wanted to be a cardiologist. He was a radiologist by profession. Interspersed in the story of how Todd falls in love with one of his patients and is faced with her certain death are parts of my father’s life story, the death of his own father to Parkinson’s and his intense study of shamanism, Greek literature, and theology. The fictional story is intriguing, but I will hold on to the parts of my dad that live on in this story.

Why do we write? For both my mother-in-law Anne and my father John, they write to reveal the deepest parts of themselves while creating a strong compelling story. I am blessed to be among such mentors.

If you have stories about stories, please leave a link below. Click to read more DigiLitSunday posts.

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Digital Learning, Writing | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments »

Poetry Friday: Summer

June 2, 2017 by margaretsmn

Poetry Friday is with Buffy today.

I don’t think of myself as any kind of poetry expert, but I do love poetry in many ways. When my Voxer friend, Dani Burtsfield, asked for help with writing a poem for her mother, I was honored and humbled. Yesterday she went for a walk in the mountains of Montana where she lives and sent me a message about the lilacs and how their blooming means summer. “I think I feel a poem coming on.”

Thus began our late night discussion of her poem. This is what poetry should be, a walk in the woods that leads to talk that then becomes a poem. Jane Hirshfield writes in her poem, Mathematics, “Does a poem enlarge the world/ or only our idea of the world?” I believe that poetry and your own expression of it does enlarge the world. We experience the experience in a new and loving way. Please go to Dani’s blog and read her poem, her first brave contribution to Poetry Friday.

Our discussion of summer made me think about how summer reveals itself differently in different parts of the world. For Dani, it’s in the lilacs. Here in South Louisiana, the landscape is different. My poem attempts to capture my own summer landscape.

Summer

Summer waits
like the rope swing
hanging
from the old oak.

Summer welcomes
like sunflowers
opening
a morning

Summer vibrates
like cicadas
buzzing
at twilight.

Summer lingers
like the sun
hovering
the horizon.

–Margaret Simon, all rights reserved

Posted in Poetry Friday | Tagged | 21 Comments »

Spiritual Journey: Finding Joy

May 31, 2017 by margaretsmn

Today, our Spiritual Journey blogging group is writing about Joy, Finding Joy.  I am gathering the posts in the Link button below this post.

I find joy on my morning walks.  Over the years I have joined different gyms.  I’d wake up in the dark, pull on some tights or other fashionable exercise wear, and go to a class or climb on the treadmill or rotate among the machines when Curves was around.  Last year I gave up all memberships and just started walking.  During the school year, I try to get out by 6 AM.  But now that it’s summer, and the days are getting warmer, and I don’t have to be anywhere, I’m out at 7 AM.  Charlie on the leash.  I carry my phone in a pouch that fits over my pants and stays in place with a magnetic grip.  Sometimes I talk to my Voxer pals.  Sometimes I listen to a podcast, and sometimes I run into a neighbor to chat with or who will join me.

These walks have become my Joy.

I find joy in the songs of birds.

I find joy in watching Charlie explore.

I find joy in waving to neighbors.

I find joy in the flowers, the trees, and the bayou beyond.

Another source of joy for me is poetry.  For this poem, I turned to one of my favorite collections, The Woman in this Poem.  Georgia Heard signed my copy with these words, “For the joy of poetry–and life!”

 

Happiness

by Jane Kenyon

There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form

for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful

hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
                     It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,

to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

From The Woman in this Poem Selected and Introduced by Georgia Heard

Posted in Blogging, Photography, Poetry, Spiritual Growth | Tagged , , | 8 Comments »

Slice of Memorial Day at the Lake

May 30, 2017 by margaretsmn

Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for the Slice of Life Challenge.

At the lake, the Canada geese lead the parade
while the great blue looks on.

There is always something
happening at the lake.

Woodpecker tap, tap, tapping
on a hollow tree.

Mallard daddy duck pacing,
waiting for the ducklings to hatch.

Three men fishing
passing the time
in friendship

There are always turtles
out for some sun.

There are always reflections
of sky on water.

There is always peace
watching from the deck.

Posted in Photography, Poetry, Slice of Life | Tagged , | 9 Comments »

DigiLitSunday: Better

May 28, 2017 by margaretsmn

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

My email inbox is filled with ways for me to improve myself from reading recommendations to Enneathought (how to improve my personality and spirituality) to Choice Literacy.  It was this month’s Choice Literacy email that caught my eye and my idea for this week’s DigiLit topic.

This quote from Atul Gawande was the epigraph to Matt Renwick’s letter.   Quoting from the Gawande’s book Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance, Matt outlines 3 ways for us to be better as teachers.

  1. Don’t complain
  2. Write something
  3. Change

These three directives immediately resonated with me.  This school year has ended, and I was having lunch with a colleague in our gifted department.  She said, “We have to do better next year.”

We then began a long discussion of how we could.  One way is we are going to meet together even if we don’t get paid.  As the years have gone by, the education budget has gotten smaller and smaller.  We were once able to meet weekly to plan for the next year and get a stipend.  Does the stipend matter?  Not when we are talking about doing our best for the kids.  We will meet anyway.

I am reading Dynamic Teaching for Deeper Reading by Vicki Vinton.  Vicki challenges our current thinking about the teaching of reading.  She calls for a change to embrace reading as the complex act that it is and teach the whole child-reader. I am convinced this book will not only improve my teaching, it will improve me.

The only way to make sense of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance. –Alan Watts

Summer break is a time to rejuvenate and renew what we believe about our own lives as well as our selves as teachers.  This year was my thirtieth year in education. Yet, I’m not best yet.  I continue to talk, write, and change to meet my own needs and those of my students.  Won’t you join me in doing the same?

Please add your links below.  Click to see more posts about Better.

 

Posted in Digital Learning, Teaching | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments »

Celebrate Ancestors

May 27, 2017 by margaretsmn

Find more celebration posts at Ruth’s blog.

I grew up in Jackson, MS.  My father grew up in Jackson.  Mom moved to Jackson when she was 15.  Even though they both lived in Jackson, they didn’t meet until they were attending LSU.  I love to tell the story about how they met at the Episcopal Student Center and that Jeff and I met at the same place.

I came home yesterday for the Memorial Day weekend.  Dad showed me that his cousin had given him a thorough book about his mother’s ancestry.  Reading through genealogy is interesting to me.  I spent some time last night and this morning reading.  My father was interested in the murder story.  Apparently a brother of his great grandfather killed the mayor in an argument over back taxes.

The story that interested me was about his great grandfather’s wife, Malvina. My father’s great grandfather, William Yerger, was a prominent man in the history of Mississippi.  He became Chief Justice of the State and worked toward the state’s reconstruction after the Civil War. But I took interest in the quality of character that his wife upheld.  A tribute to Malvina appeared in a Jackson newspaper after her death on Dec. 4, 1914.

 

For a southern woman to have passed through the bitter years of war, and the bitter years of sacrifice after the war, to have given up her beloved ones to fill the ranks of gray clad youths, and then to give up all else–home, land possessions, everything save honor and loyalty and love, meant that she had been burned as with fire, and in the case of Mrs. William Yerger, the fires had marvelously purified a nature already of the finest, and it seemed that the years since then, have in consequence, been one long season of benediction to the world about her, where her example has oftentimes encouraged those who have suffered loss and grief, and others the heavy burden–to think upon the life of this noble woman and thinking, it lift up the heavy heart and go forward with renewed courage and faith.

I wish I could go back in time to know her.  Having such a strong woman in my ancestry comes with empowerment as well as responsibility.   Maybe some small part of Malvina is in me, and with whatever fire may occur, I will be able to encourage love and honor and raise up the suffering.

 

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Writing | Tagged , | 7 Comments »

Poetry Friday is Here!

May 26, 2017 by margaretsmn

Poetry Friday is here!

Sorry, my Poetry Friday folks!  I forgot I was hosting.  You see, yesterday was our last day of school, and there were other things occupying my limited brain space.  But here I am and here you are.  Link with the button at the bottom of this post.

Each month on the first week of the month, a group of us bloggers post for Spiritual Thursday.  We are a group of open-minded thinkers who enjoy exploring what God means in our lives.  Irene Latham coordinates our group.  Last month she wrote this in her post about Reaching. 

Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam.” What beauty there is in that breath between those two fingers! And what makes it beautiful to me is the anticipation of touch, the reaching, the beauty and openness of that moment– before we know what happens next. –Irene Latham

Those words moved me.  A poem appeared as response.  I love when that happens. Thanks, Irene.

 


Breath of God

Breath–
one small space
as God reaches
to Adam
hanging high
above
turned up heads.

Eyes cannot focus
on such a small space
so far away,
yet Michelangelo
placed it there,
an inch between them.

In that space
I can rest
suspended,
floating between
God’s hand
and my own.

Nothing
becomes
everything.

–Margaret Simon

 

Posted in Poetry Friday | Tagged | 25 Comments »

Slice of an Ancient Oaks Bike Tour

May 23, 2017 by margaretsmn

Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for the Slice of Life Challenge.

Grab your bike and go on tour with me through the town of New Iberia, the city of live oaks.  Jim has been leading this tour for years, but I joined for the first time last weekend.  I was amazed at what little I knew about live oaks and their history in our town.

The above picture was one of our first stops at the fire station.  Jim pointed out the resilience of oaks. They fight to survive even while people try to control them with trimming as well as the abuse of concrete and traffic.

The New Iberia oak

In the early 1930’s a local historian Glen Conrad sought to register live oaks in New Iberia that were 100 years or older.  This massive oak lies on a corner of Main Street near McDonalds.  The property is abandoned so this oak has been allowed to sprawl and spread its wings.  We were moved to clean up trash while we stopped to admire this majestic tree.

Armond’s oak, Main Street, New Iberia

Jim stopped at this home on Main Street to talk about Armond’s oak.  Armond Schwing doesn’t live here anymore, but in 1992 he called Jim after Hurricane Andrew damaged this oak.  Jim asked Armond to be patient, the tree would recover in time.  And now, almost 25 years later, the tree has grown a new branch to balance itself.  To me, this is the magic of nature.  The magic of our trees.

Steamboat House, Main Street, New Iberia, LA

Just a few months ago a large draping branch from this majestic oak fell.  The owner has already refilled the blank spot with a pagoda and new driveway.  Jim was called to consult on this incident, too.  His advice to the owner was to build the driveway at a slight incline near the tree to allow the root system air and space. One of the things most people do not understand about these trees is that the root system is as large below the ground as the tree is above.  This is imperative to the survival of a tree.  This one was already endangered by losing a large root for the construction of the house next door.  Jim wanted to ensure the surviving roots were given the attention they deserve.

Feel the energy. City Park, New Iberia, LA.

This live oak lives in City Park.  I walk in this park often and I’ve never paid attention to this tree.  Jim explained that he calls it the Energy Oak because it has been struck by lightning numerous times.  He told us to relax against the tree and feel the energy.  After all that biking, I needed a touch of live oak energy.

We are blessed to have an oak of 250+ years in our own backyard, but this one just down the Loreauville Road is bigger by circumference.  This tree is tucked in a grove of live oaks.  The space feels like a forest.  The bayou just beyond completes the magical setting.  Unfortunately, Jim explained that this tree is at the end of its life.  Years ago an owner tried to keep the tree from splitting, so he roped it together.  This was a fix that worked at the time, but it is now constricting and damaging the tree.  I felt privileged to be in the presence of this ancient oak.

This tour of live oaks created in me a cause.  I want to speak for the trees.  I want to give them my love and attention.  Hand in hand with my 2017 One Little Word: Cherish.

 

 

 

Posted in Photography, Slice of Life, Travel | Tagged , | 16 Comments »

DigiLitSunday: Cleaning

May 21, 2017 by margaretsmn

Please use this button on your site for DigiLit Sunday posts

I didn’t tweet out a topic for DigiLit this week because I’m in an end-of-the-year funk. In some ways I’m ready for this school year to close. I’m tired. I want to have time to relax, read, write, visit my parents, etc.

However, this time of year sends me into a sadness that I don’t really understand. The classrooms around me are loud. The teachers are out in the halls talking. Announcements over the intercom are warnings about the things we teachers need to turn in. Learning, questioning, quiet reading have all stopped. This week brings award ceremonies, splash days, and early dismissals. It’s time to pack up and put everything away for the yearly floor waxing.

“The classroom is so empty!”

While I was packing up, I filled a bag with books to take home. Some are middle grade books I haven’t read, a few poetry books to inspire my writing, and professional books I haven’t gotten around to reading yet.

Cathy Mere and Michelle Nero lead a Cyber PD each summer. I didn’t join in last summer because I was traveling a lot. But this summer I’m ready. They are asking teacher bloggers to share their professional book stacks on the Google+ #cyberpd page.

Michelle’s post here explains how to participate. They will announce the chosen book on June 3. The reading and posting will happen in July.

If you are writing a post today, please link up. If you are reading my post, please click the link to read more #DigiLitSunday posts.

Posted in Digital Learning, Teaching | Tagged , , | 8 Comments »

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