During the sermon she bends over her notepad, writing down unfamiliar words so she can look up their meanings later:
These are my oldest granddaughter’s notes while listening to my son preaching.
She is seven years old.
In a word: awe.
*******
with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge
and to my daughter-in-law
for sharing the photo and the story behind it
Imagine my recent astonishment on sitting down to compose a blog post and finding a question already typed into the empty template…I wrote about this occurrence in The question.
Every day since, a new question has appeared in my empty post template, as if my Muse has suddenly taken control of WordPress. Some magic or benevolent ghost is surely at work here…thank you, whoever and whatever you are. I am compiling your daily questions for future use. I shall respond to today’s: “What skills or lessons have you learned recently?”
I am learning, Oracle-esque Blog, even as I write this post with a dozen windows open behind it, how to operate a Dobsonian reflector telescope.
Here’s why:
December nights
Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn
shine bright
beckoning:
Mere mortal
made of stardust
(for all humans are)
—come and see
our infinite mystery…
And so I must
before my temporal self
sleeps in Earth’s crust
Stay tuned on this astronomical adventure, friends…
It is said that
instruction should begin
at the edge of understanding
I know this edge
where the solid ground ends
and the unknown begins
all certainty suspended
as the mists roll in
obscuring the chasm
before me
I would linger here
until the end of my days
on the foundations that
sustained me thus far
if not for the Guide
speaking one step
at a time
into being
only materializing
when I place my foot
forward
to find a firmness
beneath
before I can
fully see
a little
of the mist clears
while the edge
on which I’m standing
under construction
is expanding
At the Edge of the Caldera… ER’s Eyes – Our planet is beautiful. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
On the final day of the August Open Write at Ethical ELA, Scott McCloskey extends this intriguing invitation:
“Have you heard of the saying, ‘I was today years old when I found out about…’? It’s what we say when we find out something surprising, something new that we’ve just learned…Think of the most recent (most interesting /startling) thing that you’ve learned…You could examine the fact. Interrogate it. Expand on it. Or simply just share it with the rest of us.”
I return to the hummingbird.
Inside the Skull
When I was
ten or eleven years old
supermarket tabloids
ran story after story
of UFOs
and alien abductions.
I half-believed
these ridiculously weird
narratives…
at today years old
I sit at my kitchen table
looking through the window
at a hummingbird
hovering in midair
like an otherworldly thing
looking right back at me.
I wonder what it’s thinking
this tiny iridescent creature
that mesmerizes me
takes over my brain
controls me for hours
compelling me to read
everything I can
about its kind
which is how I learn
a hummingbird’s tongue
is so long
that it coils
around and around
its tiny skull
and rests behind
its ever-bright
and curious eyes
-ridiculously
unbelievably
weird
I say to myself
as I lose all track
of time…
Resharing my photo of my hummingbird with her tongue extruded
Let us be about
imagining the bridges
we could be building
At a kindergarten soccer game this weekend, I noted how the coaches let the kids keep kicking the ball even when it goes out of bounds. This is probably because the ball is so often out of bounds; the kids might never get sustained playing time otherwise.
At one point, the ball rolled over to where my family was sitting. A little boy—the littlest, in fact—came running after his teammates, yelling: “Out of balance! Out of balance!”
We spectators giggled amongst ourselves: “Out of balance. So cute.”
The tiny guy stopped to look at us in all earnestness: “Out of balance means the ball is not on the court.” And he took off across the field after his kindergarten teammates, who’d managed to get the ball back in bounds, momentarily.
As we wiped the mirth streaming from our eyes, I thought about something a former mentor told me years ago about accepting approximations. It’s clear this little boy knows what he’s talking about. The ball was beyond the boundaries of the playing field. Never mind there wasn’t actually a court…basketball has a court, tennis has a court…he is learning. He’s in kindergarten. He will soon learn the word is bounds and that soccer is played on a field.
Certainly he will need to know the right terminology. But for now, let him develop some stamina and skills. Let him learn to be a team player. Let him love the game.
Truth is, in order to grow, sometimes things need to be kicked out of balance.
Soccer. Ashelia. CC BY-NC 2.0.
*******
with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the weekly Slice of Life Story Challenge
My family loves to tell stories.
Mostly on each other.
At every gathering, my husband and our two sons continually try to one-up each other with their own versions of stories, all of which are calculated for maximum comic effect followed by boisterous laughter.
My granddaughter Scout, age six, is used to this now. She smiles, shakes her head, sometimes smacks her forehead with her palm, and sighs: “C’mon, Franna, let’s play.” She doesn’t have to ask me twice…
Micah, five months old as of today, is just beginning to take notice of conversations by shifting her gaze from speaker to speaker. She’s probably wondering the baby version of These are my people??
It so happened at a recent family gathering that as I was telling a funny story about Grandpa, I noticed little Micah, sitting with her dad on the couch, watching me with rapt attention.
I paused. “Goodness,” I said, “look how Micah is listening!”
“Oh yes,” said my daughter-in-law, “she loves a story.”
I had a sense, then, of something meaningful in the making. Something of great significance. Something being recorded deep in Micah’s baby brain, before she even has words for it, long before images and moments become archivable memories. She may not understand quite yet that I am Franna, her grandmother; she hasn’t yet learned words and attached meanings; but she could tell by the cadence of my voice that I was communicating something. She watched me intently, absorbing it.
It made me mindful.
It also reminded me of her dad’s little brother, who, before birth, stopped moving around whenever the piano was played at church. He’d kick back up afterward. He’s listening to the music, I told his dad at the time.
And he was. He’s our musician-mortician son. He’s loved music all of his life and can play anything he wants on the piano and guitar. Without sheet music. The patterns and chords are all in his brain.
Which brings me back to his baby niece, who bears a strong resemblance to him in many ways, especially in this serious manner of absorbing of things.
Micah loves music, too; we’ll see how that plays out…
What I know for certain is that, at five months, she loves story before she knows what story is.
I predict she’ll be the greatest storyteller of us all.
Micah with her preacher dad, my oldest son, while he works
*******
with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the Slice of Life Story Challenge every day in the month of March
cold cold classroom
how can anyone learn
teacher, wrapped in a blanket
kids wearing their coats
the teacher lights a fire
as good teachers always do
in some way or another
even if this one gives no warmth
it calms them, she says,
just the sound of it
popping and sparking—
like magic, the children get to work
the fire blazes, there on the screen
bright and merry, not consuming
—if not brought by Prometheus himself,
certainly sent through his Board
Lulling the learning: A Promethean Board casts its calming spell
in a cold classroom while the heat is repaired.
Today on the Ethical ELA blog, teacher-librarian-poet Linda Mitchell kicks off a five-day Open Write invitation by using lists for composing poetry (read her beautiful “Wishing Well Price List” poem and other inspiring offerings here).
Now, I am a notorious list-maker, so much so that my husband once asked: “What are you writing now?”
To which I replied, absently, while hunched over a scrap of paper: “A list.”
“ANOTHER list? For what?”
I hesitated to confess, but I did, in a decidedly small voice … “A list of lists I have to make.”
So. If I am going to base a poem on one of my myriad lists, I must choose quickly or I’ll never begin.
The first thing I turned to in my scrawly notebook idea-keeper was a list of rhyming words based on the phrase “learning decay.” I heard a fellow educator use it recently, expressing concern for children returning to school in the fall after having been out for five months (or longer) due to COVID-19. That idea has been sitting dormant … maybe waiting for just this moment, this prompt, as a lens to lend focus. What can I make of this list? What would help prevent “learning decay” for kids? For ANYONE? For me the answer is always twofold: Read. Write. Always.
One last thing: Kids need to know that writing is more than an assignment and generally hateful chore. They can do it anywhere, anytime, about anything. There are no limits, only endless discoveries. A notebook is a gateway for making sense of the world and discovering what you think and feel … a safe haven, a springboard, a sounding board, a lifeline, a reliquary for housing fragile new ideas, precious fragments of self. It can be on paper. On a screen. It can be a recording. A drawing. Any means of capturing thoughts, impressions, expressions. I use multiple mediums, myself. You’re reading one now. To me, moments spent writing are never wasted; growth is inevitable.
Here’s my rather rapid-fire poem based on “learning decay” and the list of rhyming words in my notebook:
Learning decay?
No, not today.
Strive to allay.
So invite play:
a word ballet,
a thought bouquet.
True soul portray,
not self-betray.
Notebook away,
the cost defray –
Recoup the day.
Can’t recall when my family last had Chinese take-out. Don’t remember ever seeing this “fortune,” much less saving it.
Found it while doing extensive spring cleaning, otherwise known as pandemic purge. A bit of ephemeral prophecy, biding its time, waiting for the right moment to resurface:
We are made to persist. That’s how we find out who we are.
That is all for today.
lit bits and pieces 