Month: March 2023

Love notes

/ Fran Haley / 9 Comments

These kids.

First they wanted to know why they have to be in this reading group.

Now they want to know why they can’t come every single day for longer amounts of time.

These kids.

They are so hung up on what is “fair.”

When I ask Why? I am told: Because things are not fair at home.

I say You know I am going to be fair here.

These kids.

They notice everything. They want to talk about nails and where I get my holographic pencils.

They want to know when I will get cooler prizes in my treasure basket (a reward for working hard. I asked them what their favorite candy is. I bought it all and also put holographic pencils in the basket…the first things to go).

These kids.

They want to know if they can have two prizes (-Did you all work hard? -Yes. – Okay, You can have two…yes, all of you).

They want to know what I will do for them when we get to the end of all their reading passages.

They inform me that they want McDonald’s to celebrate. They have already composed their order…although it changes every day.

They want to know if they can eat it in my room with me.

These kids.

They all have stories. Parts I know. Parts I don’t.

I have questions about fair myself.

These kids.

They want to know who has the highest score, who’s going to be first, who’s going to update the group star chart.

That fair thing, again.

I am not going to decide for you, I say. You figure it out amongst yourselves.

And they do. Fairly.

These kids.

They don’t know how much they’re rising above, how many odds they’re beating.

But they can see their own trajectories climbing with every reading assessment.

And they linger in my space when they’re supposed to be going back to class.

When I look up after assessing the last one’s progress, I see why…

They were writing on the board.

These kids.

Love you kids.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

Koala life lessons

/ Fran Haley / 14 Comments

One of my earliest memories is sitting on my grandmother’s lap while she read to me. I recall several of those old books, a favorite being the story of a koala.

I don’t know what happened to the original book, but a few years ago I found a vintage copy online and ordered it.

First of all, check out the 1968 price: 49¢. And secondly…yeah, koalas aren’t bears. Many a year passed before I realized this.

I loved Kobo the koala who sings to himself in rhyme and the story of what happens when he grows tired of living in trees, eating only “leaves for breakfast and leaves for dinner. It’s a wonder to me I’m not getting thinner.”

Kobo decides he will find a new home. Off he saunters (the vocabulary is so rich) for quite an adventure.

He encounters a platypus, another animal I loved at first sight. Kobo meets a number of other creatures: a kangaroo, a kookaburra, and Dingo, the wild dog who chases him back to his tree. Kobo learns in the end that his tree is exactly what he needs; he would not be happy living like the other creatures or having to eat what they do.

This is where Kobo belongs.

So all my life I’ve known where koalas live and what they need to eat…here is what I’ve learned about them in recent years:

They have fingerprints like humans.

They are the only living (extant) member the family Phascolarctidae.

Koala comes from indigenous language meaning “no-drink” or “no-water,” for these animals don’t drink much due to their exclusive eucalyptus-leaf diet. To see one drinking water isn’t a good sign.

In the times of drought and fires destroying their habitat, koalas have approached humans, begging for water.

Koala numbers are in decline due to deforestation, brushfires, vehicles, and yes…dogs.

In some parts of their eastern Australia home koalas are considered endangered.

I can’t help thinking how Kobo’s story would be so different, written today…he couldn’t return home if home is gone.

Of course koalas aren’t alone in this. I see it here on the other side of the world, with more and more land being cleared for neighborhoods. Not so long ago a white-spotted fawn came running through the yard to crash into my house, hard enough to dent the siding and leave a little patch of blood, before pivoting on its gangly legs and streaking back across the lawn to the woods. I never knew what became of it or its mother.

Then there are trees themselves, living things that actually communicate and work together to survive, until they are gone.

And then there are people. Refugees. Borders. Wars. One cannot go home when home is gone…

And children, so needing that sense of belonging…for our childhoods follow us all of our lives.

I suppose that was what was in my mind when I saw the stuffed koala at the store the other day and bought it to keep at my house for my granddaughters to play with when they come. Memories of my own grandmother. The books. The love. The sense of being wanted, valued, sheltered.

Micah, sixteen months old, immediately noticed it sitting atop the toybox in the living room on her next visit. Her face lit up. She toddled over to the koala, picked it up, and hugged it close. “Baby,” she said. “Baby.”

She is a baby herself.

But she already knows something about caring.

Kobo himself might say it’s the beginning of finding the way home, before too much is lost.

Mother and Child. jimbowen0306. CC BY 2.0.

********

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

and to Kobo the Koala Bear, written by Marjory Schwaljé, illustrated by Katherine Sampson

and to Grandma, for all the reading
and belonging

Juncos

/ Fran Haley / 9 Comments

Winter mornings
in the half-light
I leave home for work

out on the lawn
a stirring of birds
so small
I can’t quite see
if they’re actually birds

maybe they’re
gray-cloaked fairies
performing secret rites

or the grass itself
sprouting feet for a night
and ethereal wings
for breaking away
at dawn of day

tiny tufts
of earth, unbound
with promise of
heavenward flight

For a couple of months I’ve tried to figure out what little birds are flitting in the tufts of grass each morning. Gray and ghostlike, they’re elusive as fairies. I finally got a good look at a few of them through the kitchen window. I am pretty sure they’re dark-eyed juncos, which my Merlin Bird ID app has picked up and identified by song. They are sparrows, “birds of the ground,” hopping around on lawns looking for seeds. They even nest in the ground.

To me, they give the illusion of the grass transforming into birds.

I researched them and learned that the junco is a symbol of impending winter weather, nicknamed “Snowbird”.

Merriam-Webster says the first known use of “dark-eyed junco” was in 1974—when I was a child. “Junco” itself seems to have originated from a word meaning “rush”… as in rushes, synonymous with grass.

It just so happens that grass is a personal symbol for my father. I’ve often written of sensing his presence in the scent of fresh cut grass; this is steeped in childhood memories of him mowing the lawn. He was meticulous about it. Daddy enjoyed CB radio when it became a fad born of fuel shortages in the 1970s. I can’t recall his handle, but I recall the one I made up for myself, having never heard it before:

Snowbird.

It seems to have come to me around the same time the name “dark-eyed junco” was first used...

out on the lawn
a stirring of birds
so small
I can’t quite see
if they’re actually birds

maybe they’re
gray-cloaked fairies
performing secret rites

—Maybe they are memory itself.

Dark-eyed Junco. Kurayba. CC BY-SA 2.0.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

I remember these

/ Fran Haley / 17 Comments

I just so happened to see it there in the store window next to the Chinese fast-food restaurant where my colleague and I were picking up lunch:

A big, round, tan-and-brown can of Charles Chips.

“Look at that! I haven’t seen those in years!” I shouted, to my colleague’s amusement.

These tins were delivered by truck to our house when I was a kid, if I recall correctly. Like Dy-Dee Diaper service…only not taking something horrifically pungent away (I remember that, too, up until I was about four; I had a sister two years younger).

Instantly I was thrown back to the 1970s, beginning with this scene:

The sewing room that is supposed to be a dining room. Mama’s Singer sewing machine, threads, pins, patterns galore. The ironing board. Daddy’s shoeshine box and bench in the corner. The distinct scent of Kiwi shoe polish in hanging in this space…the Charles Chip can, long missing its lid, heaped to the brim with socks that had lost their mates. Mama calls it the sock box. How are there so many? The washer (that lasted over twenty-five years) ate them, maybe? Mama tries to keep socks matched by sewing a knot of thread in the toe tips, a different color for each pair… me, age seven, on the day of my baptism, walking down the baptistry steps into the surprisingly warm water, looking down at my white-socked feet, seeing the coordinating navy-blue knots…

All this, triggered by mere sight of a Charles Chip can after so many years.

I was there.

The Statler Brothers had a nostalgic song about things they remembered from their youth, entitled “Do You Remember These?”

Here’s what the Charles Chips started dredging up for me…see if any of you remember these, from the late 1960s to early ’70s:

The Archies cartoon (and the song “Sugar Sugar”)
Penelope Pitstop cartoon
Josie and the Pussycats cartoon
Rocky and Bullwinkle
The Flintstones
The Jetsons
H. R. Pufnstuf show
The Banana Splits show
The Munsters
The Addams Family (our family friends had a black lab named Thing)
The Wonderful World of Disney, Sunday nights
Wild Kingdom
Family Affair and Mrs. Beasley dolls
Easy-Bake ovens
The Wizard of Oz on TV once a year
Paper dolls, such as “Mod Maude”
Squirmles, the Magical Pet (a furry worm that “moved”)
Silly Putty for placing & peeling on the Sunday comics – so fun
The Pink Panther Show
The Partridge Family (how is it I can still sing every song?)
Donny and Marie
The Monkees
sea monkeys
bellbottoms
pet rocks
mood rings
tetherball
jacks
macrame
decoupage
Tupperware parties
Beeline parties
Avon ladies calling
Choco’Lite candy bars
Count Chocula cereal (back in stores now at Halloween!)
upper elementary girls wearing wigs to school
shag haircuts
The Brady Bunch
Gilligan’s Island
Viewmasters and reels
Spirograph art
Romper Stompers
Hippity Hop (ball with handle, for sitting on and bouncing wherever you wanted to go)
Super Elastic Bubble Plastic
rabbits’ feet (I am so, so sorry now, dear Rabbits)
Popeye
Looney Tunes
Star Trek
Lassie

and last but not least
Sonny and Cher

…these are just the first ripples in my memory. There’s a story surrounding each. There are more memories just below the surface, waiting to be stirred… so many, many more.

Funny, crazy, wondrous, strange, sweet slices of life. So long ago.

Seems fitting to end with this song (imagine me singing it with gusto around age five).

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Writing challenge

Herself

/ Fran Haley / 10 Comments

an acrostic

Her style is uniquely her own:
Everyday, all day, wear a coat.
Refuse to let it be removed.
Shoe, one of her favorite words.
Eyes full of determination—
Let’s go, people! I’ve got places to be.
Franna’s favorite fashionista.

My precious Micah, 16 months, being herself.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

Graze academy

/ Fran Haley / 14 Comments

Once upon a time,
there lived a miniature horse
named Man-Man.

Like Mary’s little lamb,
Man-Man went to school one day
to make the children laugh and play

(actually, they had to sit nicely and learn
about Man-Man, after which
they were allowed to pet him).

Oh, he is so soft! the children said.
Oh, we wish we could keep him!
We love you, Man-Man!

Man-Man took all this in stride
while he patiently eyed
all the fresh green grass
on the school grounds.

I wonder, thought Man-Man,
if I might stay awhile
and take my fill
of this delicious stuff?

Oh, Man-Man,
miniature horse,
of course
you can can.

Here’s looking at you, kids

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge
and to Man-Man

Focus

/ Fran Haley / 6 Comments

I am always looking for them.

Hawks.

I see them most often on power lines, easy to spot, as they are so much larger than other birds perched on high.

Alone. What other bird would perch with a hawk?

Some of them have so much white plumage that I think of snowy owls (which do not live in this southern clime).

In recent weeks I’ve seen a hawk in the branches of a winter-bare tree.

Regal. Breathtakingly beautiful.

Raptors, living on prey. Solitary creatures, not socialites. Steeped in symbolism.

Ultimately they are creatures of intense focus, and that is the lens I will use now.

It occurs to me, while contemplating hawks, that what we focus on feeds us.

Not our stomachs. Our spirits. Our souls.

Everything we devour isn’t good.

It also comes out that way, somewhere, somehow.

Somewhere, somehow, I think it was the hawk that inspired me to give up negativity for Lent.

I don’t need to partake of it or serve it (the whole point being repentance and not returning to it again).

I stepped away from social media quite some time ago; not gone, exactly, just…distanced. Able to hone in, occasionally, for what’s really of value.

I’ve stopped dwelling in the shadows of this school year (a work in progress). Perhaps more hours of daylight have helped with this…the hawk doesn’t waste precious time rueing the daily grind of life. It just does it. Concentrating on the task at hand. Never losing direction. Knowing when and where to move; until then, waiting and watching. With wide perspective.

Of course all the challenges don’t just disappear (as the hawk surely knows).

But in shedding unnecessary weights, the heights are easier to obtain. The mental eye is clearer, sharper.

Yes, focus.

Consider this, from Merriam-Webster:

The Latin word focus meant “hearth, fireplace.” In the scientific Latin of the 17th century, the word is used to refer to the point at which rays of light refracted by a lens converge. Because rays of sunlight when directed by a magnifying glass can produce enough heat to ignite paper, a word meaning “fireplace” is quite appropriate as a metaphor to describe their convergence point. From this sense of focus have arisen extended senses such as “center of activity.”

Directed light, channeled energy…being a conduit.

My thoughts spin homeward, to the hearth and heart of my life.

And as I drive at the end of the day, my freer spirit soars like the hawk on high, wind ruffling the embers of its breast.

Red-shouldered hawk. Photo by my friend E. Johnson

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the Slice of Life Story Challenge

Like crows, hawks use tools
to get what they need.

Writing is a tool
for the soul.

A lens
for a better focus
on life.

Eavesdropping

/ Fran Haley / 13 Comments

a pantoum

Under the eaves
a porch
on the porch
a chosen door

a porch
sanctuary
a chosen door
from the other side, I hear

sanctuary:
father finch feeding nesting mother
from the other side, I hear
a song of love

father finch feeding nesting mother
on the porch
a song of love
under the eaves

Short clip of my house finches, which return every spring to nest in my door wreath (the finches don’t know that I purposely put out the twiggy grapevine wreaths they like best). Crank the volume to hear their beautiful voices. You might even catch a glimpse of wings as the father flies off to fetch more food for the mother. He will feed her until their little blue eggs hatch and then they’ll both feed their babies. In listening, it’s easy to understand how “charm” became the collective noun for finches and why they are said to symbolize joy.

House finches have an interesting history. From the Audubon Field Guide:

“Adaptable, colorful, and cheery-voiced, House Finches are common from coast to coast today, familiar visitors to backyard feeders. Native to the Southwest, they are recent arrivals in the East. New York pet shop owners, who had been selling the finches illegally, released their birds in 1940 to escape prosecution; the finches survived, and began to colonize the New York suburbs. By 50 years later they had advanced halfway across the continent, meeting their western kin on the Great Plains.”

also this, from the House Finch Overview, Cornell Lab of Ornithology:

“House Finches feed their nestlings exclusively plant foods, a fairly rare occurrence in the bird world.”

These are things I have learned. I continue to learn the lessons of the finches as they fill my home and heart to overflowing with a rare, almost-otherworldly joy.

House Finch mosaic. wolfpix. CC BY-ND 2.0.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Writing Challenge

Doggerel

/ Fran Haley / 17 Comments

noun

  1. comic verse composed in irregular rhythm.
    “doggerel verses”
    • verse or words that are badly written or expressed.
      “the last stanza deteriorates into doggerel”

Example:

Time for a nap
time to recharge
if only for a bit
on a teeny-tiny pillow
that ain’t a good fit

this is what comes
of living large

My son’s dog, Henry. Well-spoiled.
A master of making himself look “pitemous,” as you can see.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge
and to you, Dear Reader, for enduring this bit
of doggerel.

Crows

/ Fran Haley / 12 Comments

I could hardly wait to try the Cornell Lab Bird ID app during February’s Great Backyard Bird Count.

Especially the sound identification feature.

When you select it, ‘Merlin’ listens and tells you which birds it hears.

I already know the beautiful songs of house finches, cardinals, and Carolina wrens. The low, mournful coo of doves. I know birds of the night by sound: the haunting, onomatopoetic call of the whippoorwill in summer, the hair-raising screech and who? who? who? of owls. What other wonders are hidden in the woods surrounding my home?

And so it was one damp, drab morning that I stepped out on the back deck with my phone and opened up the bird wizard (the name Merlin is too good).

First bird heard:

CAW! CAW! CAW!

The words American crow popped up in the app.

Thanks, Merlin. That’s only the easiest bird sound in the world. I knew it as a little kid watching Kornfield Kounty in Hee Haw.

Globally speaking, however: Is there a bird more steeped in superstition, legend, and lore? Or with more conflicted symbolism?

Harbinger of death and sickness. Psychopomp, spiritual guide for the human soul. A sign of transformation, balance, wisdom, confidence, trickery… crows are even said to carry a person’s prayers to heaven.

They are scavengers but they cannot tear flesh open with their own beaks and have to wait for some other toothed predator to start the process; they’ve been known to lead wolves or other hunters to prey. Crows don’t dine exclusively on meat; they’ll eat “almost anything,” researchers say.

Scientists say that crows have big brains and are aware of their own thoughts. In Norse mythology, two crows (or ravens, depending on the source) whose names meant Thought and Memory rode the shoulders of Odin. Crows act with deliberation. They are keen observers. They use tools like sticks and shells when needed to get their food. They learn to recognize human faces and have been known to leave gifts such as pebbles or pretty shards of broken pottery as a thank you for humans who have fed them…

CAW! CAW! CAW!

Crows also prey on songbirds…

There’s Papa House Finch singing like Tevye on the roof of my house while Mama Finch is nestled on little blue eggs so perfectly hidden in the wreath on my front door…

Don’t even think about it, Crows. The finches are mine.

Yet.

In all my dreams about birds—for there’ve been many—I’ve not seen finches. Eagles, peacocks, owls, and whippoorwills (I think) have appeared.

And one bright-eyed crow, sitting in the gravel beside a car, with a bright green stone or ball, waiting to give it to me.

What does it mean?? That is the question…

CAW! CAW! CAW!

I feel pretty sure about this one thing: If a crow offers you a gift…take it.

AMERICAN CROW. cuatrok77. CC BY-SA 2.0.

One more bit of food for thought: The name Merlin has a controversial origin history itself… possibly derived from French merle, which means blackbird.

*******

with thanks to two fellow Slicers in the Two Writing Teachers community:
Kim Johnson, for pointing me to the Great Backyard Bird Count, and
Ms. Chiubooka (Cindy), for recently wondering what my take on crows would be.

We’re all in the daily Slice of Life Story Challenge together.

Writing life.