Group Poetry

I took a very cool Poetry and Play workshop yesterday, with Lisken Van Pelt Dus, as part of March's Berkshire Women Writers Festival. The following was an exercise we did in the workshop. This poem consisted of six lines. For each line we would receive  word from the person sitting next to us. We then would give a word to our neighbor. The result was an individual poem, but we took it a step further. In a circle each woman would read a line, in order, from one to six. The result, was a group poem. As we had shared words, the poems created through this activity were cohesive. As each of the six lined contains a "gift" word, I consider this to belong to the group.

Blueberries
The streets are crowded
this morning. Angry faces
peer out from store-front
windows. Dogs scavenge for
bones in trash barrels lining
the sidewalks.

Sometimes the future looks
bleak from behind dirt-paned
glass. A little girl scatters
blueberries as she walks,
barefoot in the summer sun.

I can just make out her
calloused heels as she disappears
around the corner, never
to be seen again.

Children are not data

     The following is a question I encountered while applying for a teaching position in  Holyoke. Needless to say,  I won't be called for an interview. I am posting my response. And the lack of punctuation is not my error, but theirs. 

       Please tell us three pieces of data that you monitor in order to plan and deliver differentiated instruction. Your answer should include why you believe that these data points are significant  

It saddens me that you ask for me to provide three pieces of data instead of three ways in which I engage my students. Instead of answering your question I will instead answer the following question: How do you engage your students so that they are invested in their education? I know that you will toss my resume out, but I feel that it is more important for my students to leave my classroom with the desire to learn more, as opposed to becoming a piece of data. Don’t get me wrong, I do track the effectiveness of my lessons. But as this is the only glance you will have of me, I would rather share my love of literature and my desire to find literature that speaks to my students as individuals. Literature teaches empathy. It lets us know that we aren’t alone in this world. If students can relate to what they are reading, it might foster a desire to read more. Now I do live in the real world, I know that not all students will read, not all students can read well. Some have to work to make ends meet, others have made it so far without learning. But I have seen students from different backgrounds fully engaged in a discussion while reading Looking For Alaska, by John Green. I watched students who had previously left a book untouched, engrossed in Green’s words. The book was relatable.  Data is not important to me. A student’s ability to connect a book to their own life, to compare and contrast, to think for themselves, these are the things that are important to me.  Each student is unique, each has a learning style, and what is important is that I know my students as individuals, that I connect with them, that I vary my lessons so that I include as many learning styles as I can. I want students to be able to walk out of my classroom and be able to answer larger questions, to think through issues and to argue different viewpoints. That is what I will strive for as a teacher, not whether my data points are significant. So I hope that you find the perfect applicant for this position. 

Blue?

I need to write today.
maybe it is because
I bought this purple 
pen, or maybe I wish
to hear the scratch
of ink on paper, the 
"swish" of my hand
trailing across the page.

What would happen if
I changed colors halfway
through this poem?
Would I continue writing?
Or would the words
seem to float off the
page - vanished.

I can't go back - I
could continue in blue
or pick up the purple
pen yet again.
What does it matter?
The poem is still here
on the page.

So many times I just
don't know what to do.
Does it matter? After
all, color is color, the
purple ink reminds
me of Spring - Easter
baskets and Sunday
dresses handmade by mom. 

Blue conjures the ocean
on a sunny day - always
near Provincetown.
In both memories I am 
smiling.
But I need to get it write (right).

If I am to use permanent 
ink, colored no less -
If I am to press the pen
into this blank page -
running my hand along
the smooth sheet,
maybe I can sit back
and enjoy the colors,
the memories evoked
and allow myself the
right to choose
either shade.

The Dreaded "If Only"

If only I had a real job, if only I was ten pounds lighter, if only it stopped snowing...they strike again, the dreaded  " if onlies." If only {insert some life event} happened I would be happy. These two little words reek havoc. After all, is happiness truly contingent on change? Eckhart Tolle wrote, "The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.” I know my life is fabulous, I am grateful for all that I have: a wonderful partner and family, I live in a gorgeous home surrounded by acres of wooded land, I am healthy and I have an amazing network of friends I can call anytime I need. So why do I want more? It is hard not to slip into the negative, what is lacking in my life today, a full time job, extra money for luxury products, a newer car, a husband.  I find that if I let my guard down old negative thoughts surface.

I keep thinking, when I get that full time job I will be fulfilled. I have been looking for a full time job in teaching, a field I fell into by accident, a field which makes me happy. I love the creative aspect of teaching, the planning, and creating new ways in which to get information across. But it is a hard field to break into. I have been trying for a few years now, interviewing and receiving the dreaded rejection letter in the mail. If only I could land a full time teaching position I would be truly happy and fulfilled, and be able to pay my bills to boot. But is that statement true? Would a job really change me? Intellectually I know the answer to that question is no. As Tolle points out in many of his books, happiness is an inside job. He wrote, “Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within.” Maybe I have been focusing too much on pleasure and not at all on joy. I practice gratitude on a daily basis, but even my gratitude lists contains many external things: my family, healthy, home, and my friends. Will that new job bring me merely pleasure? Is pleasure enough? What I have found is that externals can be taken away, the laptop can be stolen, the photographs burned in a house fire, the lover leaves, the car totaled. I have learned these lessons already. How do I access joy? I have a feeling that prayer and meditation might be part of that equation, accessing the interior / spiritual world, rather than the external. Is gratitude enough? This post has proked more questions than answered. But life is a process. If only I knew the answer.

Robbed

Not much was taken, a few laptops, some medallions...but I now lock my door. I do not trust my home to passersby. I do not leave my door unlocked when I shower. I do not trust today.
Yesterday I came home to a disturbance: doors and cabinets all wide open, drawers rifled through, my God box violated. He had taken my laptops, one from the edge of my bed, another smaller one that had been tucked away in a bookcase awaiting the next time I traveled. My cats were hiding and my underwear was strewn across the floor. I don't miss the laptops, I miss the sense of security I had felt in my personal space. Now when I walk my dogs at night I wonder if someone is watching me, totally irrational thoughts, but they are there. 

Today, it has been a month, the laptops are still gone. They are forgotten. I have smudged my home and day by day my sense of security has begun to return. I still lock all the doors when I am at home and I am getting used to remembering my keys when I leave the house. Stuff happens, so the saying goes. It is true, what I had thought a crisis is now a memory. What I have learned from this incident, as well as a house fire a few years ago, is that material possessions really do not matter in the long run. What was impacted that truly mattered was my sense of security and peace. And really, when it comes down to it, they are not really lost, just waiting to be accessed again when I tap into them, with the help of whatever deity with whom I choose to connect. I forget that I can pray for peace, I can pray for the feelings of fear and insecurity to dissipate. In the end, what did he take? Absolutely nothing.

Running for Meg

I ran five miles today, nothing out of the ordinary. But today I ran that five miles for Meg, a woman who was struck by a drunk driver on her morning run this past Monday. We runners have all had close calls, we have all jumped out of the way just in time to avoid the distracted driver barreling toward us. But this week we lost one of our own. I do not know Meg, but I know a little about her.

I am her: I am a mother, a daughter, a friend, and a runner. I know what it feels like at the end of a run, when all of my limbs are tingling. I know what it feels like to reach a goal, to shave a few minutes off a race time, or to meet a new mileage goal. I know what it feels like to have something to work toward. I know what it is like to stand at the start line with thousands of others, with one purpose, to run. I know what it is like to run through the finish, with bystanders and faster runners cheering me on. Today, I, along with a whole lot of other people ran for a woman we don't know, and will never meet. We ran because that is what we do when we are sad, when we are anxious or when we need to work through a problem. Runners run. We ran after the tragedy at the Boston Marathon. And we will run the next time we lose someone.

Today I also ran for those who have never experienced the silence of a country road after snow. I ran for those who don't pay attention, who have never noticed the bluebirds sitting atop swaying stalks of milkweed, or great blue heron waiting patiently for a fish. I ran for those who have never stretched out sore muscles, who have never felt truly alive as their bodies moved in time with breath down a back road. I ran for those who don't understand. 

Today I attempted to find compassion for those who value their destination or their text messages over my life. I tried to forgive those who find it amusing to scare me by swerving into my path or those who just don't care. I thought of Meg, and of Jim, and of all the others who have been killed or injured doing what they love to do, run. Today I am grateful, I am grateful to have been given the gift of this day, to run, without my headphones on the back roads of Berkshire County, with snow silently falling. I ran past rabbit tracks and a family of deer. I ran because that is what I do. My thoughts go out to family and friends of Meg today and it is an honor to be part of an amazing, supportive community.

Megsmiles Website

Resolutions, after all, it is a new year

I am going to lose twenty pounds, meditate everyday and work out five times a week. I will give up sugar and caffeine and feel great. It will be a fresh start. The gym? Here I come. 

Wait a minute...this is a set up for failure. I used to teach fitness classes at our local gym and the new year would mean crowded cardio equipment and full classes. But as regulars, a small core group of us would just sigh and say, just wait three weeks and it will be clear again. Why have some of my resolutions stuck while others have gloriously failed? It comes down to execution. Am I reaching for the mighty goal or have I kept it small? Do I overload myself with a huge list of inadequacies I resolve to change as the calendar changes? For me, only baby steps work. My brain will put the breaks on if it thinks the goal is too large. Instead of eliminating all sugar from my diet (huge fail) I instead need to eliminate one thing that I eat on a regular basis, say peanut butter cups (ok bad example, the peanut cups are here to stay.) 

Take my oboe fiasco for example; I decided to teach myself how to play one of the most difficult instruments. I ordered it, bought books, (all classical solos) a plethora of reeds and greedily opened the box when my new shiny instrument arrived. I would practice for an hour everyday, I would be playing "Gabriel's Oboe" by Christmas. I placed the reed in my mouth and blew. It was the most horrible sound, my dog started howling, the cats took off and I tried again. The squawk...well, it wasn't pretty, words do not describe. I had set myself up yet again for failure. Unreasonable expectations of myself. Why? Do I need to make sure I fail so that I don't have to try anything risky or difficult? Possibly. Finally, after three months went by, the shiny instrument sitting inside its cushy box, I asked for help. I took an oboe lesson from a local music teacher. After some pointers on a double reed instrument and warnings about tongue placement etc, he gave me the best piece of advice: start by practicing 5 minutes every day. I did, after all it was only five minutes. Now five minutes is a long time when you find out that your cheeks have weird muscles and your lungs, although you run five miles a day, have some training to do. But those five minutes turned into ten and fifteen and now forty - five. Once I began to have some small successes, playing "Mary Had a Little Lamb," for example, my motivation grew and I was able to carve out more time from my day. I was even able to take another lesson. I am still squawking occasionally, but I have now moved on to work on rhythm and training my fingers to make crisper sounds. 

My "five minutes a day" lesson transfers onto all areas of my life and most of my resolutions. Am I going to meditate for an hour everyday or can I just start with ten full breathes when I am in the shower? Am I going to go to yoga class everyday or is it possible to fit one pose in every morning while I brush my teeth? I need realistic expectations of myself. Once I can hold a half of a tree pose while brushing, everyday, once it becomes automatic, I can add a bit to the routine. Bit by bit, "inch by inch, row by row" I can assimilate healthy behaviors into my day. So although my resolutions might not be great feats, they are attainable.  I kept last years' now it time to start fresh, with ten breaths everyday, thirty seconds of my time. I can do it...