2017 SOLC Day 31: Tending the field

"Whatever we set our days to might be the least of what we do, if we do not also understand that something is waiting for us to make ground for it, something that lingers near us, something that loves, something that waits for the right ground to be made so it can make its full presence known."

--Clarissa Pinkola Estes, The Faithful Gardener

We've made it to the last day of the annual Slice of Life Challenge!  For thirty-one days, almost two hundred and fifty participants have been showing up and writing, supporting each other in the process.

I finished reading Estes' book, The Faithful Gardener, this morning.  Her final thoughts are on the lessons learned from her foster family:

"Through the lives we lived, I Iearned the harshest gift-lesson to accept, and the most powerful I know--that is, knowledge, an absolute certainty that life repeats itself, renews itself, no matter how many times it is stabbed, stripped to the bone, hurled to the ground, hurt, ridiculed, ignored, scorned, looked down upon, tortured, or made helpless."

There have been some hard stories shared in my fellow Slicers' posts, and joyous tales, too.  A lot can happen in thirty-one days.  Just by showing up each day, we've made space for what Estes calls "this faithful force", "that which can never die".  That force has shown through our words and our stories, even on the days when we had nothing to write, but wrote anyway.  

Thank you, fellow Slicers, for holding this space with me this March.  May our fields of words continue to grow into forests of stories, producing seeds to inspire our learning communities to do the same.

2017 SOLC Day 30: I got nothin'

Source: CC0 Public Domain

Day thirty of this March blogging challenge, and I've hit the writing wall.  Every idea that flits through my mind gets summarily dismissed as mundane and deflated:

• an ode to my morning coffee (seems silly to me this morning, don't feel like being silly)
• the clutter I face at my desk (already written/ moaned about)
• recent, important child event (not my story to tell)
• the pain in my neck (blah, humbug, un-expandable)
• my love of nail polish (beauty-blog-ish, not feeling it)
• my personal quirks (just how much personal info do I want out in cyberspace?)
• "Just the Way You Are", the Bruno Mars earworm that won't stop playing in my head this morning (already wrote about earworms in a previous SOLC)
• library happenings (We had state testing this week, and my library schedule has been caddywhompus.  Testing is, frankly, boring, not to mention that we all signed oaths not to talk about the details.)
• seasonal allergies (not exciting, would be a whiny post)
• the ghost supposedly haunting our school (great topic, not a whole lot of details to write about)

So there you have it--a post about basically nothing. I'm hoping the writing Muse lands on my shoulder before tomorrow and whispers a fabulous topic in my ear, so that I can wrap up this challenge with a flourish! 

2017 SOLC Day 29: New moon days

The clouds have been obscuring much of the sky since yesterday; the hours just before my alarm were punctuated with thunderclaps and lightning flashes.  My lunar phase stickers in my planner tell me there's no moon viewing to be had, anyway.  It's the week of the new moon.

New moon days are for taking stock of what is and planning for what we'd like to be.  I find myself taking a harder look at my home (cluttered), my finances (stretched), and my health (diet and exercise routine derailed).  I feel the urge to make changes; the challenge lies in making attainable goals with specific deadlines.  Both are hard for this Piscean dreamer, as I tend to overplan activities and underestimate the time it takes to get things done.

Paying attention to the lunar cycle seems to help, when I remember to look at those moon stickers.  There's something comforting in tapping into the monthly rhythm of planning (new moon), doing (waxing moon), celebrating completion (full moon), and resting (waning moon). My planner has space for doing end-of-month reviews and next-month planning, but tying that in with the new moon near the end of each month makes the process seem more holistic.

I believe women, in general, are drawn to cyclical patterns by virtue of our biology. Now that I am in my crone years, I can let the moon be my guide.

Image from Pixabay, CC0 Public Domain

2017 SOLC Day 28: Time well spent

I knock on the door.  My white-mustachioed neighbor answers.  "Come on in!" 

"Actually, I was wondering if Becky would like to join me on my porch," I reply.

"She's working right now, but--" He gets interrupted by his wife.  "I'll be done soon.  Be there in a few minutes," Becky calls from her seat, momentarily pinned down by her laptop.

I head back to my house, catalogs and magazine in one hand, libation in the other.  The afternoon sun is beginning to strengthen, reaching farther into the recesses under the eaves.  Tiny flying insects of varying shapes flit about, and I'm thankful that for now, mosquitoes aren't among them. 

I'm a few pages into the first catalog when Becky joins me, her own beverage in hand.  She takes the other seat, and we proceed to get caught up on each other's day.  Talk of students, testing, the political climate--sticking mostly to climate, not politics--and future plans of travel and learning.  That's one of the many things I love about Becky--she is always learning, always reaching for that next new experience to broaden her horizons and her knowledge.  She glows when she talks about learning something new; that radiance doesn't just come from the knowledge itself, but from her appreciation for those who teach her.  A bit of that glow rubs off on me, after hearing her stories.

Porch time with Becky is always relaxing and refreshing. It is time well spent.  It is the stuff of memories.

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." --Maya Angelou 

2017 SOLC Day 27: Different can be frustrating

Change in our routines can be jarring.  When we moved into Army barracks in Germany, I remember almost coming to tears one night when I wandered into my parents' bedroom in search of the bathroom.  In our old house, it was down the hall to the right of my bedroom; in the barracks, it was on the left. This morning, a change in routine might have rudely awakened my husband.

On Saturday night I was frustrated, my fingers crawling up and down the dial with the tiniest of movements on the wheel, attempting to find a radio station to awaken me in the morning.  No such luck; the receiver had given out.

Luckily, my husband had given me a new alarm clock several years ago when I thought the old one was dying.  Just when it seemed completely gone, a station would appear loud and strong, as if the machine was taunting me.  So the new clock had stayed in the box on the floor near my bed, until Saturday.  I plugged it in, read the instructions, and set the alarms.

I awoke unusually early on Sunday, and turned off the alarms so as not to wake my still-slumbering husband.  Turning the alarms completely off is easy; there are sliding buttons on the far left and right, and I know they are off when the lighted dots go out.

This morning I awoke to the alarms for the first time, and had a moment of panic when I realized the reset button is a bit harder to find in the dark.  It's tiny and located in the middle of the clock's top, so there were a few second of fumbling and feeling around before I figured it out.  I can only imagine what my husband was thinking, knowing his alarm goes off an hour and a half later than mine.  I will have to study the buttons tonight and imprint locations in my memory, or risk having a crabby spouse later!

2017 SOLC Day 26: Root bound

The Meyer ferns on the back porch were in a sad state.  The fern in the eighteen inch container had never recovered from the frost; there was nothing left but the stubs of dead branches I had cut back a few weeks ago.  The other plant in a twenty-four inch pot had a half-dozen new green branches, but the dead stubs of several years' growth threatened to crowd out any newer shoots.

I decided to work on extricating the smaller, dead plant first.  I didn't want to just dump out the pot because I wanted to save some of the soil.  So I dug in with pruning shears and a trowel, cutting into the roots and pulling them out.

An hour and a half later, I was able to remove the heart of the plant.  It took me another hour to cut and pull the rest of the roots and their large nodules. The fern had been rootbound twice over; last summer, this container had replaced one which cracked open from the forceful underground growth.

I couldn't help but find a life lesson as I hacked away on this project for hours.  As important as it is to have roots, we cannot afford to become rootbound.  Old ways of thinking and doing can become as restrictive as old pots. Every once in awhile, it's good to examine our long-held beliefs and habits, see what fits and what's holding us back.  We need to give ourselves room to expand and change and grow.  

It may take some pruning, as I did with the other fern, cutting away the dead woody bits and half the root system and separating it into two new plants, with plenty of room for each to grow and spread with fresh new soil and fertilizer to feed them.  I left plenty of roots alone, of course, to continue feeding the new growth. We need to feel grounded enough to have the courage to reach for those new ideas and habits. 

Are you feeling rootbound?  If so, what can you do to change those feelings?  What things, beliefs, relationships, situations need to go, and what needs to stay?  I'll be thinking about those questions today.

2017 SOLC Day 25: Light chatter

"Bioluminescence is the most widely used form of communication on the planet."--W.H. Beck, Glow: Animals with Their Own Night-Lights

I've read this sentence ten times this week, as part of my Book Nook time with our kindergarten classes. There are some weird and wonderful facts presented in this great nonfiction book, but the quote above is my favorite pause-and-comment point during the read-aloud.

Think about what this sentence means, I tell the students as I repeat the words.  

It means that that are more living creatures who use light to talk with each other than there are

people who use words

lions that roar

dogs that bark

cats that meow

crickets who chirp

birds who tweet

all the sounds that creatures make to communicate with each other.  

Light wins over sound, mostly because at least half of the living creatures on earth exist underwater.  I find these facts fascinating, leading to thoughts of the dark, silent depths of our oceans and the amazing creatures scientists are finding there.  I'm also looking forward to the return of the fireflies in our yard and park beyond.  

Bioluminescence--light chatter-- is the word of the week.