Tuesday Slice: They see me, and think of books

 

They see me

and think of books.

Books in their backpack

they need to return.

Books I recommended

that they really like

or don't.

Books they've lost, or damaged

with money owed.

Books we've read together, voting after 

with thumbs up-sideways-down

because it's important to know what you like.

Books that are their favorites

that I've put in special places.

Books returned in carts, and

books they get to keep.

Books they will meet because

 "Today we have library!"

and I am the lucky librarian.

Tuesday Slice: FOMO vs FOCO, another COVID diary entry

FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out

FOCO:  Fear Of COvid

I have to make a decision soon about attending our state's annual library conference.  It was canceled two years ago, virtual last year, and is planned for in-person this April. 

Reading through the conference health and safety protocols is not reassuring me.  Yes, they are requiring proof of vaccination or a negative test just prior.  But...  Masks are encouraged,  not mandatory. Presentation room caps are vague. Banquet arrangements don't seem to be different from past events. 

At school, subs are in short supply.  This translates to the probability that if I attend the conference,  the library will be closed for four days while I'm gone.

I love what I have learned from this conference in years past. There's the FOMO.

I haven't eaten inside a restaurant since March 2020. There's the FOCO.

Which will win out?

*****

Postscript diary entry:

Talking heads outside of the educational field who pontificate on the effects of learning loss on the future economy and advocate for full return to the way things were in schools make me scream at the television.

 

COVID is the problem, learning loss is a result. We ARE back in person, and are dealing with the fallout of sick students, sick staff, and no subs. Teachers are working in a viral environment (in more ways than one),  and it is taking its toll.

Fix this pandemic, and the learning will happen again. Stop pointing fingers at the educational system, and start focusing on how to keep everyone healthy enough to teach and learn.

Tuesday Slice: I'm just not there yet--another COVID diary entry

 

I'm Just Not There Yet

People in my circles 

are catching COVID

my Facebook newsfeeds

and text messages on my phone

filled with the sighs of the quarantined

thankfully, just sighs

as the triple vaccinations

do their job

leaving hospital beds unclaimed

by these people I cherish.

Many of the sighs come on the heels

of large family gatherings

trips on planes and friendly reunions

pictures of crowded bars

with glasses raised

and barefaced smiles.

I look at those stories

those pictures

they seem so foreign to me

as if they come from

another planet, 

unburdened by pandemic,

a silent "What are they thinking?"

throbbing in my head, on my tongue

I do not wish this illness on anyone

so I mute my thoughts

"like" the stories and pictures

because I hope

their momentary happiness

was worth their sighs

and know that 

even my avoidance

of such blithesome carousing

may not be enough

 to keep me from the same lament. 

Spiritual Journey Thursday: My OLW--Believe

 

Margaret Simon is leading our Spiritual Thursday this month, and has tasked us with thoughts on our One Little Word.  Her prompt post can be found here.

Like Margaret, I've been choosing a word for a yearly theme/ lens/ focus for awhile.  Some years I had to ponder for days before it came to me.  This year, it landed in my lap, literally, on the cover of my Plum Paper planner.

Believe.

It wasn't only on the planner.  It was popping up in memes on my social media, in the goal planning work I was doing, in personal growth and Spirit books I was reading.

My epiphany, written on this Epiphany, was discovering the most likely reason my yet-achieved goals haven't changed much for several years.

I didn't believe they could be accomplished.  Truly believe, deep down.  And that had to happen before the goals would be met.

Mind you, my 2022 to-do list is very mundane stuff.  Saving money, losing weight, moving my body, decluttering the house.  The problems had been around for so long that at some level, I accepted them as the status quo.  I didn't believe things could change, so they didn't.

So my focus this year is to truly believe that my goals can be accomplished.  Believe that I can do the work.  Believe that the changes will have a positive impact on my life and my family's.  Believe that at some point, this pandemic will become manageable, and we'll be able to go on a vacation without the underlying anxiety of viral spread.

It's not easy, this believing, when faced with the numbers on my scale, the piles of clutter, the nightly news.  But it will be worth it, I think.

Here's to believing in a better year ahead.

Tuesday Slice: And.....I'm back...sort of.

 I decided to take a break from Slicing, and a month went by in the blink of an eye.

The week that I decided to take a break, I was drowning.  I had been sick the weekend before with God-knows-what infection (tested negative for strep, flu, and COVID).  I had to get better quick, because my son graduated from college the weekend after.  In between, I had a Zoom author visit to host and end-of-semester library checkouts to manage, as well as the detective work involved in chasing down overdue books.  I missed a fabulous monthly librarians' meeting on Monday (hadn't been fever-free for twenty-four hours yet), and spent three hours on sub plans for Friday, when we left for Denton to prepare for our son's 8a Saturday graduation.

So yeah, a Tuesday Slice wasn't a priority that week.  Nor was it the week after, as I prepared for our read-aloud marathon and book giveaways and the usual end of semester chaos.  Or the week after that, on Winter Break, when I was either zoning out on NORAD's Santa Tracking arcade games, Jacquie Lawson's beautiful Advent calendar, or cleaning in a mad rush to make the kids' rooms livable for their holiday return.  (On a tangential note, have any of you empty nesters noticed your stuff spreading out into the no-longer-regularly-occupied bedrooms in your house?)

You would think the week after Christmas, I would have had something to write about.  A Christmas memory, perhaps, or the cute antics of my new grandpuppy.

There were sweet moments, and we had a lovely family holiday.  I was still too tired to write.  But the nagging guilt was gently tugging at my conscience, to put my "butt-in-chair", as some of my favorite local authors refer to the physical act of placing oneself before a blank screen or page and have at it.

Which is what I've done this Monday evening. Nothing epic here, nothing particularly memorable...but I put my patookus in the office chair, my fingers on the keyboard, and words on the screen.

Whew.

Winter Solstice 2021

I was up before dawn yesterday, which was not a particular feat given the circumstance of the shortest daylight of the year.  There was a bit more energy in my oldish bones this morning, most likely brought on by the looming deadline of Christmas in four days.  In an astounding similarity to last year's situation, I am nowhere near ready to celebrate.  There are piles of clutter everywhere, moved from their usual spots to make way for the still-bare pine tree in our living room.  Plastic tubs of cookies, some waiting to be iced, are positioned precariously on the dining table.  They were supposed to be baked and shipped along with family Christmas cards a week ago...then Monday...then yesterday.  Now it's looking like a scramble to the post office before it closes at noon tomorrow, or the extended family is getting to celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas as we do, and receive their gifts before Epiphany.

I was pondering all this as I stood at my kitchen window midday, midway through my to-do list (yes, that energy did kick in a bit).  I was also birdwatching, a lovely way to avoid tasks made convenient by the bird feeders hanging from our children's old playscape in the backyard.  The feeders have been popular this week:  bluejays, doves, cardinals, Bewick wrens, sparrows, titmice, chickadees, woodpeckers, and European starlings have been stuffing themselves for a winter that doesn't seem to want to arrive.

Yes, our forecast from now until January 2022 calls for short sleeves from here on out with highs in the eighties. Santa may have to trade his boots for flip-flops, one meteorologist joked on tv.

As I watched the birds, my gaze drifted down to the patio, where a butterfly was flitting about my scrawny looking milkweed plants.  A queen, by the looks of it; could have been the caterpillar that was munching on those same plants a few weeks ago.  An odd sight for Winter Solstice, I thought, as the butterfly sampled the flowers.  Wait a minute, they don't eat from milkweed flowers. They...

Sure enough, it bent its abdomen to the underside of one leaf, then flew to another, did it again...and again...and again. 

Butterfly eggs on Winter Solstice.  And they just may survive, given our sultry days ahead.  It's been another odd year of pandemic circumstances; why not add winter butterflies to the mix?  

Waiting in the dark--Spiritual Journey Thursday

 

I'm hosting this month's Spiritual Journey Thursday.

Inspired by Henri Nouwen, I chose the theme of waiting.

"To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life.  ...The spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, trusting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination, fantasy, or prediction.  That, indeed, is a very radical stance toward life in a world preoccupied with control."

--Nouwen, "A Spirituality of Waiting", 1993.

 

Lady of the Sea statue, Anacortes, WA

Sit with me, and wait.

Wait in the darkness, 

lingering in the mornings, 

stealing our afternoons.

Sit with me, and wait.

Wait as we wrap gifts

Sing to beckon redemption

Light candles to illuminate the night.

Sit with me, and wait.

Wait as the Mother 

pregnant with Hope

content in knowing it will arrive.

Sit with me, and wait.

--Christine Margocs, 2021

*************

"There is not enough night left for us.  We have lost our true instincts for darkness, its invitation to spend some time in the proximity of our dreams.  Our personal winters are so often accompanied by insomnia: perhaps we're drawn towards that unique space of intimacy and contemplation, darkness and silence, without really knowing what we're seeking.  Perhaps, after all, we are being urged towards our own comfort.

...Over and again, we find that winter offers us liminal spaces to inhabit.  Yet still we refuse them.  The work of the cold season is to learn to welcome them."

 

--Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, 2020.

I awaken long before dawn.

Night-black windows 

guard against the intrusion 

of the day's demands.

My movements are slow, 

shuffling down the hall,

remnants of dreams like spiderwebs in my hair

I treasure this time

when I can be me

beyond wife, mother, worker

When those dreams are more real

than the unseen world outside.

--Christine Margocs, 2021

************** 

And so we wait. We wait for the cookies to bake, the packages to arrive, the family to gather.  We wait for the longest night and the lengthening days beyond.  We wait for stuffed stockings and phone calls from home.  We wait, knowing that things will get better, because we have been given the Promise in Love's form, bringing Light to the darkness of Winter and weariness of Soul.

We wait in Hope.

  

 Thank you for taking this Spiritual Journey with me this December!