On Children

The wound in the wood

/ Fran Haley / 13 Comments

A little slice of memoir

*******

I was five when my dad bought the house where I grew up.

There were good things about the house. A Big Bathroom and a Little Bathroom. Having two seemed luxurious to me, a child accustomed to apartments. Cloud-like swirls on the ceiling that my mother said were made by twisting a broom in the plaster while it was wet. A huge picture window in the living room, through which I could see a very tall tree behind the neighbors’ house. To me, the tiptop of the trunk appeared to be a lady sitting and gazing across the earth like some kind of woodland princess. Day in and day out, she sat there atop of her tall tree-throne, a regal silhouette, never moving.

There were things I didn’t like about the house. The red switch plate on the utility room wall that my father said to never ever touch. I believed that if anyone touched this switch, the furnace would explode and blow us all to smithereens. Even after I outgrew my terror, I steered well clear of that red plate. I didn’t like the thick gray accordion doors on the bedroom and hall closets. Bulky, cumbersome, and stiff, they didn’t really fold. They came off their tracks easily. These hateful doors eventually disappeared; one by one, they were discarded. Our closets were just open places.

The linen closet stood directly across from my bedroom door in the narrow hall leading to the Big Bathroom.

It wasn’t a true closet, just a recessed place with wooden shelves. I don’t remember an accordion door ever being there.

What I do remember is that one of those linen closet shelves had a terrible gash along its edge.

It looked like a raw wound that might start oozing at any moment. A gaping slit. When I pored over pictures of how to do an appendectomy in my parents’ set of medical encyclopedias (and why did we have these—? An exceptionally persuasive door-to-door salesman—?) the pulled-back human flesh and tissue made me think of the wound in the linen closet shelf.

This shiny-pink raw place bothered me. It was ugly. Almost…embarrassing. Something that shouldn’t be seen, shouldn’t be exposed…why had the builders done this? Couldn’t they have turned the shelf around so the wound wouldn’t show? It was an affront to me as a child, before I knew what taking affront meant.

I know now that the flaw is a bark-encased scar. The shelf came from a tree (maple?) that was injured, somehow. Maybe by a cut or fire. An online search produces this AI-generated explanation:

The tree’s cambium layer, which is responsible for producing new bark and wood, starts to grow new cells around the wound, forming a protective layer of tissue called callus. 

As the tree continues to grow, the callus tissue can expand and eventually cover the original wound, creating a scar that is encased within the new bark.

In short: The scar is evidence that the tree worked to prevent inner decay and heal itself after being wounded, and that it went on living for a good while before it ended up as the shelf holding our towels and washcloths beside the Big Bathroom.

I never touched that raw-looking wound in the wood. I averted my eyes from it, even hated it for existing.

Now, when I return in my mind to the rooms and halls of my childhood home, they are always empty, and that old scar in the shelf is the thing I want most to see.

How strange.

Maybe I am drawn to it out of kinship. I do not know the story of the tree’s life, only that this remnant is testimony to its suffering and ability to overcome. I could liken the scar to the ways adults damage children, having been damaged as children. I could see it as a symbol for my mother, whose early wounds festered long, the extent of which would eventually be revealed in addiction.

That’s the real red switch, for it blew us all apart.

Maybe I just want to place my fingers on the old raw place at last, tenderly, in benediction. I would say that I understand now about layers of callus tissue expanding, covering, and absorbing the deepest of cuts over a long, long time…it is always there, but it hurts no more, and I am no longer ashamed to see it or to let it be seen.

In the shelf or in myself.

Image by Wolfgang Eckert from Pixabay

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

Lobster power

/ Fran Haley / 9 Comments

The children notice it right away:

The giant lobster on top of the cabinet in our Heroes’ Hangout reading space.

They are elated:

Look! A lobster! Why is it here? Where did it come from? Look! He has hearts on his cheeks! He’s so cool!

Truth is that a colleague gave the lobster to me when she learned that I sometimes let the smallest, wiggliest students hold onto a stuffie “friend” so they can focus on listening to their volunteer reading a book to them.

But this is what I tell these second graders:

He’s a reading lobster. He wanted to be here in the Heroes’ Hangout.

This sets them off again: What’s a reading lobster?

Well, Friends, you will have to decide that for yourselves… why would a lobster like reading?

More chatter. We may never get to the lesson.

A few days later I remember a hat I have at home. Perfect for the lobster!

I bring it to school and put it on his head.

The kids notice right away: Look! The lobster has a hat! It says ‘Fight Evil, Read Books!’

That’s right, Friends. Maybe he’s a Superhero Reading Lobster.

Maybe we will create a Superhero identity for him and a backstory and possibly write some adventures starring our Superhero Reading Lobster who fights evil by reading books…I mean, anything is possible after Dog Man…

But for now, when my group of second graders finishes their guided self-portrait lesson with me in the Heroes’ Hangout, I say: All right, time to put away your materials and line up at the lobster.

They form a quiet line.

I say, Bye, Friends. Lobster power all the way.

All eleven kids jump up to touch the lobster as they pass by. I watch them walk down the long hallway to their classrooms in a straight line, without a sound.

Not one student has ever asked what I mean by “lobster power all the way.”

That’s how powerful our lobster is.

*******

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

For more about the Heroes’ Hangout, click here.

The Heroes’ Hangout

/ Fran Haley / 27 Comments

Do you believe in fate/destiny?

That’s today’s WordPress prompt.

It’s beguiling, like the sword in the stone: Dare I grasp that jewel-encrusted hilt? Even if the sword should slide free of the rock (wonder of wonders!) will I have the strength to heft its ponderous weight, to actually use it? And to what purpose?

Here is what I believe: With every challenge comes opportunity; you cannot know the outcome until you seize it (ever how cold, heavy, terrifying the opportunity may be).

And so I put my hand to the hilt here with bits of a destiny story:

When I was a child, reading and writing were practically my life’s blood. Invaluable gifts for life’s journey. When the path took terrible turns through the darkest regions, strewn with loss…I could always read and write and pray my way through. Some encouraging soul, some sage, would also appear at every critical juncture to help guide me along, before I lost my way entirely.

Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to be a pastor’s wife (nor, most certainly, did many of my young acquaintances and their parents). But here we are, my husband and I, thirty-eight years in the ministry, standing on the the cusp of our fortieth wedding anniversary, with two grown sons and two granddaughters who are the joy of our days.

I never expected to be a teacher. I quit college at twenty and didn’t go back to finish until after my youngest started school. The way was circuitous, full of obstacles…impossibilities…even loneliness and more than a little despair…until the sword called Opportunity appeared, glittering there in the gray stone of Challenge. I put my hand to it, finally graduating from college with a teaching degree when my oldest was taking his first semester college exams. Today I work with students in the very things I loved best as a child: reading and writing.

Do you believe in fate/destiny?

I see the hand of God at work in all of it…that doesn’t discount destiny, now does it?

In this, my seventeenth year of teaching (a latecomer, oh yes, but it doesn’t matter, the story begins anew every day), another opportunity presented itself: Setting up a program and a space for volunteers to come and read books to students. The challenge: Where? Every space in the building was in use, except for a recessed area at the top of the stairs, where black-draped tables once housed student “artifacts”… with a little time, imagination, and the generosity of our PTA, this has become our Heroes’ Hangout:

In this space, children fall in love with books and stories. They laugh. They learn. They experience. They ask questions. They observe. They imagine. They are at the beginning of their own hero-stories.

For, after all, are not the ideas of fate, destiny, and hero inextricably intertwined?

I have had the opportunity to guide students with writing in this space. Here’s a cento poem (cento meaning “patchwork”) composed of completely borrowed lines, my favorites from poems my second-grade heroes have written:

I worry about me and heights
I cry over the iPad because Mom said no
I understand my dreams tease me
I see a fairy in the forest
I say mermaids are real
I wonder why people think Ohio is strange
I dream of going to Ohio
I try to be kind
I worry about animals dying
I hope all the endangered animals survive
I wonder if Dodo birds are still alive
I see a baby goat getting milk from its mother
I hope people never litter again
I understand that palm trees are not trees
I want ice cream for life
I try to be a better sister
I pretend I am brave and smart
I think Heroes’ Hangout is the best
I pretend I am the fastest thing alive
I worry I am going to lose my gravity
I touch Dog Man’s hat and it feels like victory
I hear my future.

Do you believe in fate/destiny?

You tell me.

I can just tell you that if you are looking for heroes…you will find children.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the annual March Slice of Life Story Challenge. This is my ninth year participating alongside fellow teacher-writers, as a means of continually honing the craft.

Confession: For the first time in nine years, I’d decided to not take up the Challenge.
Writing every day doesn’t seem sustainable right now. And maybe it isn’t.

But this morning, without any kind of plan, I got up and did it anyway.
Opporunity is here. WordPress provided a prompt. I reached. I pulled.

Your hand is on the hilt, my friends. You can do this!

Huh?

/ Fran Haley / 16 Comments

For Sunday’s Open Write at Ethical ELA, host Katrina Morrison invited participants to craft poems about their mondegreens.

What, pray tell, is a mondegreen?

In short: mishearing and misinterpreting song lyrics or lines of poetry read aloud. Katrina gave several of her own examples from the Eagles’ song “Hotel California.”

Our pattern-seeking brains are forever trying to make sense of things… I’m sure each of you out there has some hilarious lyric “mishearings” (hint: these make for fun writing, fellow Slicers-of-Life).

While there have been many mondegreen moments in my life, one of my favorites comes from my son when he was little.

My poem tells the story…

Why Would the Lord Look at THOSE?

Music is his thing.
Even as a little kid
he counted the beats,

making untallied
tally marks on his whiteboard.
At five, he joined me

at choir practice,
singing the hymns and medleys
with greatest gusto

and remarkable
musicality for one
so young and solemn.

Around Eastertime
he looked perplexed.
He finally asked:

“What does it mean, Mom?
This part: He looked beyond my
fault and saw my knees?“

When I stopped laughing
enough to breathe, tears streaming,
I told him, “That’s NEED.”

“Skinned knees“. QT1p. CC BY 2.0.

One does have to admit little knees are precious…

*******

Composed for Day 19 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers

Universe of possibility

/ Fran Haley / 20 Comments

Children
we realize
behind those eyes
lies a universe of
possibility

My granddaughter, Micah, age 2.

As educators, writers, human beings…let us not fail to see the value and potential of every child.

Let us not fail to help them see.

With thanks to two fellow Slicers in the daily March challenge:

Margaret Simon, for continous inspiration with the elfchen or “elevenie” poem form; and Thomas Ferrebee, for the phrase “universe of possiblities” in his post yesterday, describing a Chilean rhubarb plant.

With special thanks to my precious Micah-roni for exponentially expanding my universe, and who spent all day Tuesday with me, which explains the brevity of this post.

*******

Composed for Day 6 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers

Of foxes, finches, and Franna

/ Fran Haley / 11 Comments

Today I celebrate language.

Let me begin with the fox.

Last Friday I arrived at a hotel ballroom for a breakfast buffet in honor of educators and volunteers who had read aloud to children throughout the year. We had concluded a program built on developing positive relationships and instilling a love for reading in the kids.

There at a table, greeting folks upon arrival, sat the fox.

The Poetry Fox, to be precise.

A guy in a furry fox suit, typing away on an old-timey typewriter.

Turns out that if you gave the Poetry Fox a word, he would type a poem for you on the spot.

I nearly forgot the breakfast altogether; I had to stand in line for a poem.

Two women in front of me gave him the words daughter and twins (who are leaving the nest to go to college). Within two or three minutes, Poetry Fox tapped out each poem, stamped his “official” seal on the pages, and read them their poems.

I can hardly describe the looks on these women’s faces. Radiant. Smiling, slightly open-mouthed. Eyes wide, misting. The air about them even seemed to glow…

My turn.

“It’s National Poetry Month,” I said to the Fox.

“Indeed!” he replied with glee.

“As I love reading and writing poetry… that is the word I give you. Poetry.”

“Wow, no one’s ever asked me to write about the word poetry before,” said Poetry Fox. “I get creativity and inspiration but not poetry…okay, let’s go!”

He rolled a sheet of paper in the old typewriter and pecked away.

Here’s the poem:

In a word: awe. It’s my life-word anyway… those last lines, especially.

all language
reveals itself
as poetry
the only language
that ever
means anything

The glow of this poem, and the wonder of the Poetry Fox whipping it out on the spot, stayed with me for the remainder of the day…to be honest, it hasn’t left yet.

Early the next morning I was still thinking about poetry being the only language that ever means anything when the sound of loud, melodic chirping echoed through the house. The finches nesting in my door wreath, feeding the hungry babies. In the beginning, before their eyes are open, the babies sense a presence and open their mouths in silent cries for food. They do not yet have voices. They do now. They chorus like tiny Oliver Twists: Food, glorious food! We’re anxious to try it…three banquets a day, our favourite diet! Except that they consume more than three banquets a day; Mama and Papa work hard to keep the babies fed.

I decided to chance a photo when the parents were out fetching… when I neared, speaking quietly so they could hear me coming, the babies fell silent at once. They do not know what I am, but they know I am not Mama or Papa with food and instinct tells them don’t make a sound.

I am happy to report that all are presently doing well (you can see all five baby beaks here):

The baby finches deepen my awe of language and poetry. They are language and poetry to me, with their musical chatter and even in the cessation of it. So tiny and new, but so infinitely wise.

Which brings me to my granddaughter, age eighteen months.

She came that afternoon to stay with my husband and me. We marvel at the new words she’s acquiring every single day, how she studies our faces for responses, how she mimics actions. She now says Grampa quite clearly, to my husband’s utter delight. I’ve tried and tried to get her to say Franna, but she only grins; is she teasing?

But on this afternoon, she stopped playing with her favorite musical toy to walk over to him where he sat in the recliner. Looking up at him, she patted his hand with her tiny one.

Grampa, she said. Grampa.

It was a holy moment. I don’t know how else to say it. She was naming him, claiming him. A sacred act. My eyes welled.

And before I knew it, she was standing before me where I sat on the couch, looking at up me with gleaming brown eyes.

She patted my hand.

Franna, she said.

Pure poetry.

The only language that ever means anything.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the weekly Slice of Life writing share
and Lionel Bart for the song “Food, Glorious Food” in the Broadway musical Oliver!
and Poetry Fox
and the finches
and my beautiful Micah

X-ray expert

/ Fran Haley / 20 Comments

Here’s a story about my oldest granddaughter, then age five, told to me by her parents (also known as my son and daughter-in-law).

One night while watching the game show Jeopardy! an answer came up about a substance to be swallowed before a certain kind of X-ray.

Our then-kindergartener instantaneously responded: “What is barium?”

Which is correct.

“How do you know that?” asked the astonished parents.

“It’s in Franna’s Curious George book,” said my granddaughter.

And so it is. I’ve read it to her countless times.

George being prepped for an X-ray after swallowing a puzzle piece in Curious George Goes to the Hospital,
Margret and H.A. Rey, 1966.

She never tires of this book and asks me to read it to her even now when, at age seven, she can read anything she wants on her own. My son once found one of his theology books in her bed.

I recall that that one of the greatest Jeopardy! champs of all time, James Holzhauer, said that he prepared for the show by reading children’s books in the library: “I don’t know why more people don’t do it.”

My little X-ray expert’s future looks so promising.

Lord, let me be here to see it.

*******

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

Unfare

/ Fran Haley / 26 Comments

a slice of memoir

I am standing with Aggie Ray at the bus stop. I don’t know why we are here or where we are going. Aggie Ray, big as a mountain with black hair parted in the middle and a face like a storm cloud, has brought me here. We had to walk a ways and I’m tired but one thing I know: don’t whine to Aggie Ray. She’s my babysitter and, somehow, my relative, but I am not sure how. She is keeping me while my parents paint the house they just bought, near the school where I will go to kindergarten in September.

I do not know when is September. I know it is summer now. The sidewalk is hot and Aggie Ray’s face is red like a rose, and sweaty. Still. Storm cloud. Warning.

I am not the only kid she keeps. There are others but they’re all bigger and they run around and sometimes knock me over. I try not to cry any more because Aggie Ray just calls me a crybaby. She shames me in front of the others for not being able to tie my shoes. And for other things…

Daddy says she sometimes eats a stick of Blue Bonnet margarine for snack and I have tried to watch to see if that’s true but I haven’t seen it yet. I don’t want to get in more trouble.

But today it’s just Aggie Ray and me when the bus pulls up with its loud WHOOSH and nasty exhaust. I gag and cover my nose; I am funny about smells but I remember Aggie Ray and pull my hand down.

It’s a good thing, too, because just then she grabs hold of my hand, bends low, and looks at me with them dark eyes that feel like knives although they aren’t even touching me. She growls: “When we get on this bus, you tell them you’re four years old.”

She’s made a mistake. I had a birthday not too long ago.

“I’m not four. I’m five now,” I tell her, but she squeezes my hand, hard.

“I don’t care. You tell them you’re four, hear me?” she hisses, as the bus door folds open.

I can’t help it.

I start to cry.

She hauls me up the steps and drops her fare in the box, as the bus driver says:”Well, now, what’s the matter with you, little girl?”

Oh, I can feel the steam coming from Aggie Ray’s big body and the power of her big, hard hand.

I am just so proud to be five. I don’t want to say I’m four.

It’s a lie.

And so I blurt it out to the friendly-faced driver…

“I AM FIVE.”

Gimpo bus fare box. Wikipedia Commons. CC BY SA 3.0

Suffice it to say I survived.

I realize now that Aggie Ray didn’t want to pay my fare; riding was free for four and under. And I wasn’t much past four.

I still don’t recall where we were going, or why, only that I was being told to lie. Usually kids have to be taught to tell the truth. I really was so proud to be five. To have to say I was four seemed more shameful than not being able to tie my shoes, or the other things…

I have no remembrance of a consequence. It is best. Aggie Ray is long gone now. She did have redeeming qualities, as well as a difficult life. Last time I saw her, she was ill and frail, but she came to hug me with a big smile.

Perhaps it’s unfair that this is my clearest childhood memory of her.

But it was unfair to me, and I knew it even then.

Perhaps I should say “unfare.”

Be that as it may… fare-thee-well, Aggie Ray, in your final destination.

I didn’t use your real name.

I didn’t think it was fair.

*******

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

Remember these days

/ Fran Haley / 29 Comments

Remember these days
write them on your hearts always
little beloveds

Sunday Friends, painted by my daughter-in-law, on display at the local art gallery.
My husband purchased it for his study at church.
Our granddaughter is on the right.

******

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

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