SOLSC '25 Day Six: Where do you feel whole?

I am participating in The Two Writing Teachers' Slice of Life Story Challenge, writing every day during the month of March.  My theme this year is "Outdoors".

Another writing group to which I sporadically contribute writings has given us a prompt of "wholeness".  I am cheating a bit by combining my Slice and my contribution...

I have never described myself as an outdoorsy person.  I prefer cabins with flushing toilets to tents and a trek to the bathroom, temperatures neither too hot nor too cold (though I'll take the latter over the former), and seasons featuring the minimum of biting and/or flying insects--except for butterflies.  They can flit by anytime.

More and more, however, I am being drawn to fresh air and sunlight.  When the weather is cooler, I take advantage of a cabin franchise (formerly Getaway, now called Postcard Cabins) and enjoy the four hour drive to the Piney Woods of Texas.  Sitting outside in an adirondack chair in jeans, flannel shirt, and hiking boots, looking into a glade of trees so thick that I can't see the next cabin, I can disconnect from electronic buzzing and consumerism and just...be.  It is enough to be present and a witness to the birdsong and rustling leaves in the breeze.  

Fresh ocean air and moonlight have the same pull.  I felt at peace sitting on the second-floor patio of a beach-y A-frame, across the street from the Emerald Coast of Florida.  It's been years, but I can close my eyes and transport to those evenings with clear starry skies and the sounds of the never-ending  waves lapping on the beach.  No words needed to be spoken, no tasks needed to be attended to.  It was enough to be present and small under the sky that seemed to meld with the watery horizon as the night deepened.

Old trees and ancient waters remind me that I and the rest of the human race are but newcomers on this speck of dust floating in a vast universe.  My inadequacies, worries, and burdens become as weightless as a crumb carried by an ant, viewed from on high.  Through this lens, I am whole.

SOLSC '25 Day Five: Blue skies and gray possum

I am participating in The Two Writing Teachers' Slice of Life Story Challenge, writing every day during the month of March.  My theme this year is "Outdoors".

Just like that, our skies were blue today, as if the greige of yesterday never happened.

I enjoyed some time on the front porch after leaving work before four-thirty (gasp!).  It was nice to sit in the sunlight, listening to the birds in the distance and people-watching.  I felt a twinge of guilt as those with sneakered feet took their exercise habits a bit more seriously than I obviously do, sitting on my patukus and sipping strawberry prosecco.  (It's my birthday, so I did not feel any guilt over the strawberry prosecco, mind you.)

Unfortunately, my allergy meds starting waning, breathing became a bit more like coughing, and I headed indoors.  Not much later we had a visitor in our backyard, nosing about the leftover birdseed under the feeder.  I caught some pictures through the kitchen window; I was not about to play hostess with the mostest and greet him (her?) in person.  I tend to leave wild things with sharp teeth alone.

I am glad we still see the occasional wild animal in our very suburban backyard.  They are wonderful reminders that we are the latecomers to this land that belonged to them long before the foundation to our home was ever laid.  We are just four brick walls and a roof away from living outdoors.

SOLSC '25 Day Four: Hazy shade of...spring?

I am participating in The Two Writing Teachers' Slice of Life Story Challenge, writing every day during the month of March.  My theme this year is "Outdoors".

There is a saying here in Texas that if you stick around for five minutes, the weather's bound to change.

I woke up to rain spattering the dining room window.  My thoughts immediately went to the conversation I had with a student about the forecasted red flag warning for today.  "This rain should really decrease the fire hazard," I thought as I made my pre-dawn coffee.  It was still dark and misting as I walked into school two hours later.

This is what I walked out to at five pm:

The sky was a monotone greige everywhere I looked.  Smoke? Saharan sand?  I couldn't tell, but it brought back memories of El Paso brown-outs, winds whipping the dust under our windowsills and into eyes and mouths.  Only there wasn't any dust I could feel now, just the wind gusting and that dull, eerie sky.

There was a pileup next to my driveway at home:

My son swears it was sunny most of the day, but since I work in the "bomb shelter", I didn't get to see a single ray of sunshine.  The wind was still blowing when we headed to IHOP for our traditional Mardi Gras pancake meal...and the lights went out while we were there.  Five minutes later, they came on again to cheers from the packed restaurant.  One of the waitresses said it was the second time that had happened today.  Weather related?  No rain now, no lightning...

Just a weird weather day here in Central Texas.

SOLSC '25 Day Three: The drizzle didn't do

 

I am participating in The Two Writing Teachers' Slice of Life Story Challenge, writing every day during the month of March.  My theme this year is "Outdoors".

I put on the wrong jacket this morning.  There was a light mist falling as I walked to my car, so I turned around, unlocked the front door, and traded fleece for my raincoat.  Murphy's Law, you know.

If you know me, you know I work in what I affectionately call "The Bomb Shelter".  My library lies at the heart of the school, surrounded by hallways and other rooms; no natural light enters the space.  I am oblivious of the weather on most days, unless a downpour falls so hard that I can hear it on the roof.

I love it when I get the chance to have hallway duty outside of the library in the morning.  I make it a point to greet each student on their way to the third and fourth grade wings.  This morning, one stopped to inform me that we were going to be under a red flag warning for fire danger tomorrow.  I remarked that there was some drizzle on the way to work, so maybe the rain would mitigate the possibility.

I left work at five pm under the same gray, broody sky--but without any precipitation.  Home in just a few minutes, I tossed my raincoat on the chair in the study and headed back outside to sit on the front porch for some fresh air.  The breeze blew like yesterday, rolling those gray clouds on by, the sun trying shyly to push its way in.

But there was no rain to be had from those traveling puffs of water vapor.  One of my plants echoed the desperate need for water, 

while another is merrily making its way from covered pot to earth, little green florets defying the waving red flag.

SOLSC '25 Day Two: A walk in the 'hood

 

I am participating in The Two Writing Teachers' Slice of Life Story Challenge, writing every day during the month of March.  My theme this year is "Outdoors".

Eschewing the crunchy gravel of the hike-and-bike, I

Choose the sidewalk instead, my sneakered feet softly padding

A straight path, then following the curve of a cul-de-sac

Where the wind pushes against me, gusting and 

Sweeping winter's detritus away, brown leaves 

Skittering across the pavement.

A little free library stands bravely against the breeze

I should stop and check the contents, but my life

Is already full of books

Barren trees tease me; are they dead, or just 

Biding their time, waiting for the wind to tidy up

Before decorating our skies with green once more

Neighbors still have their Christmas lights up

I don't fault them one bit

We all need more light in our lives

And more prayer

As St Francis attends to a bird

I'm sure he's happy spring is on its way

Rounding a corner, and there is the garage

Boldly painted in avian blue

Decades-old art gracing the street

The swell of the sidewalk over a toddler-sized hill

There will be bikes, and skateboards

Enjoying the small thrill soon, I imagine

A fairy-sized log cabin of a mailbox

Proudly waves the flag

Against the light blue sky

This giant rock grabs my attention when I pass

I always wonder about the ribbon of stone 

Running through the middle...but never stop to investigate

Almost home, and there is the bush

That once was a mighty oak, felled by ice

Chopped to pieces, and moved to the back patio

Where a lizard can rest in the warming sun.

SOLSC '25 Day One: Scaly sign of spring

 

I am participating in The Two Writing Teachers' Slice of Life Story Challenge, writing every day during the month of March.  My theme this year is "Outdoors".

I filled the birdfeeder hanging from our old, rundown playscape a little later than usual, and kept looking out the kitchen window to see if I had any takers.  I spotted something small and brown moving quickly from the playscape to our back patio.  It seemed to walk on top of our yellowed, winter-weary grass and not through the blades, so I thought it was a bird...until it climbed up on one of the logs from our fallen oak.

It was a lovely spring-is-coming day, perfect for a lizard to warm up its cold-blooded little body.  Almost camouflaged against the wood, it cocked its head in my direction as I said my hellos through the glass.  It didn't rest long.  Maybe the sun was a bit too hot today, and it skittered down the log and out of sight.  

After a few minutes, I heard my son call out to me from his bedroom--"Come here, quick!".  He had opened his curtain to let the light in, and there was our scaly friend, peeking in for a few minutes before making its way to who knows where, on this balmy springlike day.

Tuesday Slice: Strawberry moscato in February

 

It was a long work day, stretching from seven in the morning until five...in the afternoon?  Evening?  What does five p.m. qualify as, anyway?  To my weary mind and body, it was twelve-plus hours and seven energetic classes-- spanning kindergarten through fifth grade-- after my pre-dawn alarm, so it was late.  I trudged to my car in the falling temperatures, glad that I brought my winter coat today.  I realized that late nights were going to be the norm for the next week-and-a-half with our spring book fair happening next week, and it made me feel preemptively exhausted.

The wind chimes are singing outside my window as I type, announcing the onset of our coldest night yet this winter.  As much as I would love a late start or an ice day, the thought of what it would do to my schedule and preparations gives me pause.  I missed two days last week due to the flu, and I'm still recovering both in body and in the tasks that have to get done.

I am bone-tired.  Maybe it's my age.  Maybe it's the barrage of bad news, much of it about education, that's wearing me down.  Maybe it's a sign that I'm a candle about to burn out, sputtering as the wick whittles down to the last bit of wax.  I think about retirement daily, vacillating between holding on for a teensy bit more financial gain and getting out while the getting's good.  I can't stop working altogether, not just yet.  But does it have to be at this pace?

And then there's the valentines I received last Friday from students and parents, kind notes attached, declarations of "Best Librarian Ever!", when I know that even a second's worth of comparison to my colleagues would quickly demote that status.  I must be doing something right, or at least making a really good show of it, for students to still like coming to the library.

So many thoughts swirling in my head...I tamp them down a bit with a cold glass of strawberry moscato, a summery drink out of step with this wintry weather, but sweet on the lips, nonetheless.

Tuesday Slice: Comfort

"What are you doing?" my husband asks.  "Looking for a book," I replied, sifting through the dusty stacks by the couch, "I bought in in August..."

"That makes it even funnier," he said, chuckling at me.  I am blessed with a husband who tolerates my ever-growing TBR piles.  

"I didn't have time to read it then, and then I wanted to re-read the first book before reading this one, and I just finished the first one again...here it is!"  I pulled the slightly dusty hardback out from under two other books and tossed it on the bed for my send-off to la-la land.

******

I am reading again, just like I am writing again.  I avoided quite a bit of both during the last half of 2024. I blame overconsumption of social media; exhausting changes to my job and the overwhelming, almost constant pondering of retirement; the election; and an overall negative attitude.  With a short attention span and a base desire not to add more pessimism to cyberspace, I bowed out of my reading life and my writing community.  Oh, I still read kidlit for my job, managing to push through a middle grade novel here and there, but the stamina was gone.  Laying on the couch to read usually resulted in a nap instead of a book coma, no matter how good the material.

Now, I am turning to books for escape.  I just finished re-reading The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune; its companion, Somewhere Beyond the Sea, is waiting for me to finally crack it open tonight.  Another series I read chapter by tender chapter was Becky Chambers' Monk and Robot.  I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment of that hope-filled, thought-provoking sci-fi story.

The Cerulean Sea series carries a strong message about overcoming fear of "the other", making room for everyone in this magical world for the betterment of us all.  Monk and Robot is a futuristic view of what life could be like if all of our basic needs were met through communal sharing, leaving us free to contribute what brings us joy.  Is it any wonder that both authors happen to be queer, writing about the need for acceptance in a kinder, gentler world?  Isn't that what we all want?

I'm off to bed, to drown out the current horrific political chatter by burying myself in a book, hoping that someday in the not too distant future, our world will look a bit more like the one I find between the covers.

Avoidance

 

January twentieth, two thousand twenty five..."Hey, it's nine o'clock.  Are you ready?"  My son ambled from his room to the couch, snuggling in under a fleece blanket while I clicked through the options on the Firestick to get to the Disney channel.  Our wifi is super-laggy, and it takes awhile for streaming video to load.

We settled in for a day of binge-watching "WandaVision".  Neither of us had seen it yet; he seemed to know more about the premise than I did.  I didn't take me long, though, to figure out that this was a story about immense grief and the lengths we can go to avoid the pain and heartbreak.  Having superpowers can't shield you from the agony, but it can amplify the actions of the aggrieved to Marvel-movie-worthy proportions.

The irony did not escape me.  There we were, avoiding all mainstream television and most social media--avoidance as an act of self-care.  We will continue to work towards an inclusive, kinder, more loving world where people are judged only by their character, and those who lack it are no longer in places of power...but in the meantime, we rest, Firestick in hand, in lieu of a magical force field.