The Isolation Journals | Reflections on the Teche

Posts Tagged ‘The Isolation Journals’

Poetry Friday: On Love

Posted in Gratitude, Poetry Friday, Writing, tagged Amber Tamblyn, Lory Landry, The Isolation Journals on December 20, 2024| 11 Comments »

Poetry Friday is hosted this week by Jone MacCulloch

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!

Christmas tree on Main St. by Lory Landry

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Slice of Life: Lucky Day

Posted in Slice of Life, Teaching, Writing, tagged Alpha Delta Kappa, daily elfchen, Padreg O Tuama, The Isolation Journals on March 10, 2024| 15 Comments »

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

What is luck? The right place, the right time or something we can put an effort toward? In Pádraig Ó Tuama’s weekly newsletter, he writes about the contronym of the word want. Want can be a wish or a lack of. He asks what word are you thinking about this week? For me, it’s luck.

I attended my sorority’s state convention yesterday (Alpha Delta Kappa for educators), and I felt lucky four times. I was a first timer, so I went up to get a little prize. I had received a classroom grant, a certificate. I won a door prize. And I raised the most funds for the International Altruistic Foundation, the Alzheimer’s Association, another certificate. A combination of luck and hard work.

Door prize, lemon tea towel and scented hand soap and lotion.

I have to admit I was overwhelmed by the attention. It was all so unexpected. I know we teachers work hard to make the best experiences we can for our students. We don’t do this for recognition. We do it because we care about kids.

My Friday was a rough day. My students were tired from the week of holding all the expectations that are placed on gifted kids. All they really needed was a brain break. I need to remember this and lay a more gentle hand on them and on myself.

Do you know about the junk bug? Another weekly newsletter I receive is Suleika Jaouad’s Isolation Journals.

Rhonda Willers writes about the junk bug, how it carries the carcasses of its prey on its back and transforms into a lacewing.

The sensation of fear is a reminder not to stop, but instead to be aware, slow down, to notice more.
Rhonda Willers

Maybe this slice is going all over the place, but my mind feels like this at the moment, a strange combination of luck (blessings) and fear. Standing on a line between, balancing and hoping to stay stable, calm, and okay.

Lacewing
fragile balance
lime body lifts
shaking off dead skin
Begin
Margaret Simon, elfchen of the day

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National Poetry Month 2023:

Posted in Poetry, Progressive poem, Writing, tagged #verselove, Ethical ELA, haibun, NPM 2023, The Isolation Journals on April 1, 2023| 2 Comments »

A collaborative calendar for NPM with Molly Hogan.

Happy National Poetry Month! I’m excited (and a little anxious) to start a new blog journey today. Last month I wrote a post every day in March for the annual Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge. You’d think after 31 straight days, I’d be ready to stop. But the practice of writing gets better and in many ways easier the more you do it. I am joining a community of teachers, poets, and bloggers who commit to National Poetry Month.

For starters, take a look at the first line of this year’s Kidlit Progressive Poem with Mary Lee today. She is setting us off on a long road to an amazing collaborative feat, 30 days, 30 poets, 30 lines.

Suleika Jaouad has an email newsletter, The Isolation Journals, in which she prompted “The Open Palm.”

Your prompt for the week:

Close your eyes, and slowly trace the outline of your non-dominant hand on a blank page. Take your time. Pay attention to the physical sensations. The sound of pen on page. The feel of paper against palm, pen between fingers. Surrender any illusions of control. Any attempt at getting it “right” or “perfect.”

Write a creative intention inside your palm. Around it, begin writing things that will invite you back to your practice—encouraging words, activities that inspire you, different ways of approaching your intention, small steps to get you closer to your goal.

Outside the hand: Allow yourself to daydream about what lies ahead. Write about where your intention could bring you. What it could help you discover. Record any new revelations and realizations, dreams or ideas that you want to carry forward.

Reflect on what happened in your mind and in your body at each step of the process, and how that awareness can guide your creative path.

Suleika Jaouad

This open palm feels like my opening up to this new month of writing daily, the practice of being open to what flows, without judgement, discovering the creativity that already lives in me. Thanks for being here. This haibun is from a prompt at VerseLove at Ethical ELA. I decided to abandon grammar rules and Flow.

Write, Just Write

Write fast she says without judgement keep the pen moving
across the page you can do this with one hand tied behind
your back standing on one leg let the flamingo in you blush
with delight until the timer stops ticking then rest breathe in
the feeling of success of soulsearching of secrets revealed
in your own abandon you are in charge here Be Be Be who
you want to be embrace her for she is yours forever.

Find a soft place
to land your soft body
sing yourself home.
Margaret Simon, draft

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Slice of Life: Grey is the New Blonde

Posted in Slice of Life, Writing, tagged Grey hair, The Isolation Journals on March 15, 2022| 22 Comments »

I don’t remember who introduced me to Suleika Jaouad’s Isolation Journals email. Each week a prompt from a well-known writer is featured. This week the prompt comes from Elizabeth Benedict:

Hair is elemental. It can define us, confine us, refine us, and when we’re faced with losing it, through age or illness, it can undo us.
Write about your relationship to your hair: how it shapes your own self-image. How others see you. Or how, when you lost your hair or changed it, you learned something—about yourself or someone else.
Elizabeth Benedict, Isolation Journal #186

I started letting my hair go grey a few years ago. I had gotten to a point where I could color my hair and within just a few short weeks, the white strands around my temple reappeared. All my life I have told myself I wanted white hair like my grandmother. But when it came time to stop fighting the change, I wasn’t sure how. I decided to go cold turkey and totally stop coloring my hair.

My hair is pretty much all grey and white now, but I don’t see it that way. To me, it still looks blonde in the mirror. I am shocked by photos of me that show such stark white.

People in general compliment my hair color. Who knew that so many like grey hair? Google grey hair and you get an article from Glamour titled “Oyster-Gray Hair is the Coolest New Color Trend.”

My stylist recommended a purple shampoo to use once a week. At Christmas a friend “complimented” the lavender in my hair. As if it was purple on purpose. Yikes! So I cut back on the purple shampoo.

I think most women have a love/hate relationship with their hair. I grow it out then cut it short. Go all one length, then layers. But most of all I am grateful for my hair. I finally look like my dear grandma, Nene.

What is your relationship with your hair?

Me with “Cat in the Hat”, our librarian.

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Slice of Life: I Dwell in Possibility

Posted in Slice of Life, Writing, tagged being grandmother, The Isolation Journals on June 1, 2021| 5 Comments »

I don’t remember who recommended The Isolation Journals by Suleika Jaouad as a place to find prompts for writing, but on Sunday morning I was sitting with this idea of dwelling in possibility from Rhonda Willers.

Saturday had been a full afternoon of Leo, my 2 1/2 year-old grandson. With his mom, my daughter, we attended a party in a small town, a gathering attended by some of Maggie’s high school friends, there with lots of young children. So much happens in 15 months of separation. Babies were born. Babies became toddlers. Toddlers became children. And they were all so happy to see each other.

At first Leo held up the wall.

There was a yellow school bus parked in front of the building, a wonderful playground for toddlers who love to pretend to drive and fix things, curious and full of possibility. Where are we going? Who’s coming along. “The wheels on the bus…”

“Go round and round,” an echo from a nearby grandpa.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I’m a little obsessed,” pointing at Leo in the driver’s seat.

“I am, too,” he replied pointing to the toddler opening and closing the bus door with the handle.

Each of us knew what a bus was for. We shared that we were both elementary school teachers. But today, we were filled with the possibilities of where our grandchildren will take us.

A teenage girl with braces was painting faces. Leo stepped up shyly and sat completely still as she painted a Spiderman mask over his eyes. Looking around there were about 4 or 5 boys of various ages all wearing Spiderman masks. They were transformed into super heroes able to run, climb, fall and get back up with newfound confidence.

I was chatting with a former boyfriend of Maggie’s, now a father of two, about his kids. He pointed them out and said, “He’s two and she’s almost six. This is the best time.” Whether he meant being past the scary baby stage or beyond worries about pregnancy or being free to go to parties and take your kids with you, he was right. Even for me, as the Mamere tagging along. This is the best time, dwelling in possibility.

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