Writing in Faith

Skywatch Friday: It's Not Polite to Point

2009-11-05T10:00:00.000-05:00

The branch of this tree always seems to be pointing an accusing finger at the Episcopal church, which is just beyond the antique (meaning ancient) strip mall to the left in this photo. Every time I climb out of the car at the library parking lot, I wonder what secrets this tree keeps. Finally, a took a photo of this character on Tuesday evening.

Skywatch Friday

Wordless Wednesday: Takes One to Know One

2009-11-03T14:00:00.001-05:00

Wordless Wednesday

My World Tuesday: At the End of the Day

2009-11-02T11:00:00.000-05:00

This guy really does have it all buttoned up. He has survived a few torrential downpours over the past few weeks and is still standing. What goes beyond me is how those crows have fared as well. Perhaps this guy's more of a carecrow than a scarecrow.

The same downpours denuded most of the trees around here so that there is no canopy; the sky is wide open. Nevertheless, there are a few tenacious trees who are not ready to let their leafy robes fall tot eh ground. So it goes. We're all different.

My World Tuesday

Today's Flowers: Call it Love

2009-11-01T10:00:00.001-05:00

In Litchfield Friday afternoon, I came across a rosebush that bore this blossom and three others bobbing in the cold wind on a hilltop. This time of year, roses outside remind me of my grandmother, who died on October 29 twenty-eight years ago--17 years to the day my daughter was born. On the day we said good-bye to her, a red rose bloomed outside her door. I remember my dad cutting the flower and placing it across her urn. And I remember standing there and wondering how so much beauty, love, and vitality could be gone from the earth. That was a painful time.

Before she passed, I wrote her a letter telling her how much I loved her. I had begun the letter as an essay. I was a sophomore in high school and had the incredible good fortune of an English teacher who cared about writing and cared about turning students into writers. "If you can write, you can do anything," Mr. Charles Phelps told us. And he did. He was the first English teacher who ever taught me anything, and he was a stern and tireless taskmaster--one who brought me to a place where I could say what I felt to my grandmother. I turned that essay into a letter. My Gram told me it was the nicest letter she ever received. In that moment I felt how good it was to love and be loved, and I felt the agony of letting go of that love. It is hard to learn to live it in different ways.

I saw this rose on Friday and thought of my grandmother, Mr. Phelps, and the power of prose.

Today's Flowers

One Single Impression: Shift in Time

2009-10-31T19:00:00.000-04:00

"Most of the amber that exists today is between 30 and 90 million years old."

This piece you hold

Has endured forever

Which was yesterday

Which is your life

And the history of the world.

You see the remains

Of an insect or dust

On a foggy day

In that semi-precious

Bit of history

Set in a ring

Around your finger?

So it is.

So it will be.

Such is life.

We endure.

Blog Your Blessings: Quiet

2009-10-30T19:44:00.002-04:00

After school today, I went to Litchfield to do some video work for some good friends. On the way home, I found myself detouring for a little walk around Topsmead. There I spent a few minutes in silence shaken only by the breezes caught in the folds of the brittle leaves that had yet to let go of their trees.

No what-ifs, I-wishes, if-onlies. No disappointments or hurts or hungers. No problems, no pleas. No punishing words of any kind. Nothing. For as long as I was out there and alone, the universe was fine. I was not inadequate. I had not failed. It was all good.

I walked around and around as I fell in love with the silence, the soft autumn light running parallel to the hilltop, and old, old apple trees that twist and turn toward the light, bear their fruit, and lean into the hill even as they reach for the light.

I felt so good after a little while that I invited the quiet home to stay for a while. A lovely guest.

Blog Your Blessings

Skywatch Friday: Morning Light

2009-10-29T10:00:00.001-04:00

Out and about early Sunday morning, I found myself just plain enjoying the way the morning light moved horizontally across the landscape and played with my perception of depth and dark. Looking up was a visual adventure.

Skywatch Friday

Wordless Wednesday: Blue Dreams

2009-10-27T14:00:00.000-04:00

Wordless Wednesday

My World Tuesday: Fire, Ember, Ash--the Blur of Autumn

2009-10-26T10:00:00.000-04:00

October is a blur for me. So much goes on at work and at home with my daughter's sports and activities and school work that the beautiful autumn fires in the treetops become the cold gray ash of winter before I know it. When I was out for a walk on Sunday morning, the startling changes in the season were clear to me. She woke up with a temperature 9no surprise--102 kids were absent from her school on Friday), so all her activities for the day were canceled. Suddenly there was time for a walk and to take in the light. So it goes.

My World Tuesday

Today's Flowers: Shy Girl

2009-10-25T10:00:00.003-04:00

Today's Flowers

One Single Impression: Elusive

2009-10-24T14:00:00.000-04:00

Years ago

He was aloof

Every morning

Alone

On the shore

And if you so much as

Looked

His way

Even from the other side

He would blink himself

Into flight

And he was gone.

So unlike

The pair of his kind

Who have no idea or care

Who else is there

They are together on edge

Complete

And that is enough for anybody.

But that elusive grey giant--

He is alone

And he should stay

Because he is always alone

And so am I

And I wish he would.

One Single Impression

Blog Your Blessings: Smiling? No Way!

2009-10-23T16:07:00.003-04:00

My kid got busted for smiling in math class.

Twice. Once, the teacher called her out in front of everyone else. Once again, she and two of her friends were hauled into the hallway by the math teacher, who said the three (high-achieving, mild-mannered) girls' smiling made her uncomfortable.

***

The above has left me dumbfounded for the past day or two. "Lady, I wish I had your problems," was my first thought when I heard this tale of gross insubordination.

My curiosity got to me and I thought I'd give this lady a call and hear it from her perspective and maybe even find out how hard it is to deal with smiling students.

I suggested to my daughter that I do this. She was good with it at bed time. When I awoke her the next day, her first words were, "Mom. What are you going to do?"

"You don't want me to do anything."

"No. I don't."

"OK, then. Just look as sour as humanly possible in school today. Live the joyless life."

***

But the math teacher was out. I guess the happy people got to her.

***

Moral of the story: smile anyway.

Blog Your Blessings

Skywatch Friday: You Can't Touch This--Maybe

2009-10-22T10:00:00.000-04:00

Here is a sky view from Topsmead State Park in Litchfield, Connecticut, on the Sunday before the Incredible Weirdness came and dashed and dashed and dashed snow all over us before it disappeared without a trace--beyond the incredibly late-November-like cold. The sky was a terrible tease. The clouds seemed within reach, but there was no taking hold of them.

Skywatch Frida

Wordless Wednesday: A Marriage

2009-10-20T15:00:00.000-04:00

Wordless Wednesday

My World Tuesday: At the Shop

2009-10-19T10:00:00.000-04:00

I noticed these objects of art while my car was undergoing an emissions check not so long ago. The top image is a fence made of cast-off tools. The fence is outside the office to the mechanic's office. The sport's car in the bottom shot was getting a little work done while its antique relation stayed out of the sun and out of the spotlight. I expected ol' Gomer Pyle to come round the corner and offer to clean my windshield.

My World Tuesday

Today's Flowers: Loves Me, Loves Me....Not

2009-10-18T10:00:00.001-04:00

This is actually a late summer lovely that caught my eye while passing through Vermont to pick up my daughter from camp. After last weeks mad dash into the World of Winter, I found myself taking a few giant steps backward into summer to even out the temperature (in my own mind).

Today's Flowers

One Single Impression: Conquer

2009-10-16T19:01:00.003-04:00

Their voices summon the day
And the day arises

Almost immediately

They will the death of a squirrel
And one sacrifices himself

Under the tire of the next car

They land on a branch in any field
Cry out whatever they please

And own the growing repast
Of the farmers

Who are perhaps wisely elsewhere.

They cry into a snowfall
And the snowfall stops.

They are crows.
They believe what they say.
Their prophecies come true.

Their conquests begin
Whenever I open my eyes

And think
Where are the crows

To speak to me today?

One Single Impression

Skywatch Friday: Apple Country

2009-10-15T07:00:00.000-04:00

Though many of the apples we picked on Sunday were dinged-up or pock-marked from te hail storm that had kicked off our summer, they were nonetheless juicy and sweet--and perfect. There's nothing better than a sun-warmed apple straight off the branch--except watching my daughter and nephews do the picking and holding up each apple like a treasure. Every autumn, it's the same old thing around here. Thank God.

Skywatch Friday

Wordless Wednesday: Double Stuffed

2009-10-13T19:45:00.000-04:00

Wordless Wednesday

My World Tuesday: Corny Moments

2009-10-12T10:00:00.000-04:00

My World Tuesday

Today's Flowers: Fading Fast and Falling

2009-10-11T10:00:00.000-04:00

These aren't flowers, of course. But they are the color that is on offer in this part of Connecticut right now. We had frosty temperatures sent shivers up our few remaining flowers. Won't be long before the color season is over.

Today's Flowers

One Single Impression: Talisman

2009-10-10T16:00:00.002-04:00

The distant fragrances

Of forgotten apples

Of cooling wild grapes

Of fallen leaves crumbling

Envelop me

In the early dark

of October and--

There is no reason for this--

Make me turn my gaze

Just enough to take in

A white heron

Blessing the lake

With silence and flight.

Shadows darken.

Stars appear.

There is no looking back

No turning away

If you are the heron.

I've been doing a lot of dictionary work with the kids, and I have been loving it. Every word in our language has a story that takes us deep into another time and place. I found talisman to be irresistable:

From Merriam-Webster:

Main Entry: tal·is·man

Pronunciation: \ˈta-ləs-mən, -ləz-\

Function: noun

Inflected Form(s): plural tal·is·mans

Etymology: French talisman or Spanish talismán or Italian talismano; all from Arabic ṭilsam, from Middle Greek telesma, from Greek, consecration, from telein to initiate into the mysteries, complete, from telos end — more at telos

Date: 1638

1 : an object held to act as a charm to avert evil and bring good fortune

2 : something producing apparently magical or miraculous effects

— tal·is·man·ic \ˌta-ləs-ˈma-nik, -ləz-\ adjective

— tal·is·man·i·cal·ly \-ni-k(ə-)lē\ adverb

One Single Impression

Blog Your Blessings: 63 Kids

2009-10-09T16:00:00.000-04:00

I love my job. My job has shifted from teaching remedial reading to 235 kids to teaching it to 63 kids. I have fewer students in a more intense environment, and I am charged with helping them improve their reading skills in a big way. That translates one level on the state's annual standardized reading test.

There's no way a kid will read unless he or she has a passion for it. Kids have to believe that something is in it for them. It has to be pleasure--the pleasure of discovery and identification and possibility.

Currently we're reading S.E. Hinton's classic, The Outsiders. On the surface, this story is about the price poor kids in western Oklahoma pay at the hands of rich, vicious spoiled brats whose chief form of entertainment is picking on their poor counterparts. A deeper look reveals a story about growing up and realizing there is ample, promising truth in that cliche that we are all the same inside. In fact, the story shows just how complex that truth is.

The thrill for me is that these kids get it. They can relate to the story. One boy asked me if the poor kids, the Greasers, were Puerto Rican. "Why do you ask that?" I replied.

"Wait. Am I in trouble?"

"Nope. You're asking a great question. I just want to know what makes you ask it."

"I asked that because it's like here. And Puerto Ricans are like the Greasers."

"OK. And who are the Socs?"

"White people....mostly...."

"Fair enough."

There began a conversation about identifying with characters, connecting text to the world we live in, feeling the truth of the text.

It also began a conversation about Romeo & Juliet and West Side Story. (They want more on West Side Story.)

Another child asked how Ponyboy, the 14-year-old narrator and a central character, could talk to "a dirt bag" like Randy, a Socs, or one of the rich kids.

"Why do you call him a dirt bag?"

"Because he beat up Ponyboy."

"He did, and that makes him a dirt bag, but what has he realized?"

"That fighting doesn't pay off."

"So what does Ponyboy have to do in his heart to be able to talk to this dirt bag?"

"Forgive him. I guess."

"What's he call Randy the Dirt Bag in the end?"

"Just a guy."

I guess I could have replaced dirt bag with cruel person just to help this little guy expand his vocabulary. It seemed to me then that the truth of dirt bag was not worth giving up right them.

These kids are smart. I love every last one of them.

Blog Your Blessings

Skywatch Friday: Delicate and Moody

2009-10-08T20:34:00.002-04:00

I caught these clouds from a hilltop in Watertown, Connecticut, at a beautiful place that reminded me all over again that heaven is hear and now.

Skywatch Friday

Wordless Wednesday: Future Doctor?

2009-10-06T21:03:00.001-04:00

Wordless Wednesday