SOLSC '25 Day Ten: I do not like this bright 5p

 

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".

We were all tired.  I had a hard time falling asleep last night, and woke up several times worried that I would ignore my alarm.  I gave myself an extra fifteen minutes of snoozing before getting up.  When I saw how dark it was outside at 630a, I left a note for my son, asking him to fill the birdfeeder when it was light enough to see it.

I didn't have to tell a single child to walk down the hallway when the bell rang at 720a this morning.  They shuffled by, some talking in muted tones, many looking like they had been dragged from bed five minutes prior.

My first three classes were fairly sedate...then the tired-wired stage of sleep deprivation set in.  Students who were usually quiet and rule-following became chatty, wiggly, unfocused children. I had to use my mean teacher voice, which I'm sure was made a bit sharper by my own tiredness.

I finally left work at 5p, and the sun was blazing hot.  I sat on the front porch to finish my NYT crossword, and went back inside the house as soon as I was done to escape the heat and glaring light.  It felt weird to eat dinner without having to turn on the dining room lights.

If anything good comes out of this, it's that I am repeatedly yawning as I type.  I hope that means that sleep is not far behind.

SOLSC '25 Day Nine: Mother oak

 

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 call her "Mother Oak"

watching over our yard

home to squirrels and possums,

doves and bluejays,

titmice and chickadees,

and the occasional hawk

She must have been here for decades

before the thirty-five years we've shared her land;

my arms reach only half 'round her trunk

The skies were blue with cottony clouds today

so I sat outside and visited with her

the stark reminder of the loss of a tree-mate

left on the porch with me, prompted me to rise

and take Mother's picture, from this angle and that

just...in...case

But I can't bear that thought for long

The hole in the yard, in the sky, would be too big

I think my heart would break, if I were to lose 

another mother

So I sit, and listen to the wind blow the chimes

hanging from the eaves, and tussle the branches

holding Mother's leaves.

SOLSC '25 Day Eight: Swinging temps and hairy logs

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'm going shopping with you today," I told my husband.  "I need to get snacks for my Battle of the Bluebonnets team."  The weather forecaster had mentioned that we would get a cold front coming in, so I dressed in jeans and a light sweatshirt.

I was sweating before we even got to the store.  When we got home and unloaded the groceries from the car in the bright sunshine, I contemplated changing before running errands this afternoon.

I'm glad I didn't.

My son and I drove to Michael's to buy tee shirts for the aforementioned team.  It was warm when we walked in...and cold when we walked out.  One more stop at the Hallmark store to use my birthday coupon, and the temps had dropped even more, the wind whipping so hard that I had to grab my shopping bag tight on the short walk to the car.

As they say around these parts...if you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes.

*****

I still needed a breath of fresh air, so I stepped out to the backyard despite the chilly gusts.  The sun was shining at the front of the house, and the gray clouds were looming at the back.

We never saw a drop of rain.

What I did notice was the odd texture of the bark peeling from some logs.  When our old oak in the front yard fell in an ice storm, I insisted on keeping some of the sections.  They've been sitting on our back porch for two years now.  I've never seen logs peel spontaneously.  The texture of both the inside of the bark and the exposed log looks more like fur than wood.

Maybe this is Mother Nature's way of telling me it's time to do something with this wood.  Bench legs, perhaps?  Maybe the base of a birdbath or two?  Anyone know a good woodmill and carpenter?

SOLSC '25 Day Seven: Some days are just like that

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 needed more than "One Little Word" this year.  So I did "know better, do better" and another directive:

Sometime in January, I lost the bracelet that said "know better, do better".  This pictured bracelet has survived two-plus months of daily wear.

"Go outside" is my sanity saver.  For most of the hours between 715a and 5p (or later), I work in a room that has no windows to the outside of campus. In deep winter, it is not unusual for me to arrive and leave in darkness.  This has taken a toll on my psyche and my sleep schedule.  Without daylight to help set my circadian rhythm, I tend to stay awake too late, given my 420a alarm.  So I am trying my darndest to get at least 15 consecutive minutes of open-air daylight after work each day.  If I am conscientious, I can be home at 5p or before and spend a few minutes on the front porch, at least, basking in the waning sunlight.

It didn't happen today.  After a full day with six classes, I stayed after because I thought I was the team rep for a PTA meeting.  I worked in my windowless room until 515p, then headed over to the cafeteria to see the PTA moms setting up the family movie night that I thought came after the quick meeting.

"It's just a movie tonight--no meeting," one of the moms informed me.

Drat.  I could have been home, sitting on my porch before my husband arrived for our weekly restaurant date.  As it happened, I was home for just a few minutes before he showed up, so it was a quick turnaround to leave.  By the time we came home at 7p, dusk was happening and the bugs were flitting about the door.  

No outdoor time today.  But the weekend has begun, and there is forecasted sunshine to be had before going back to work on Monday.

 

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.