Into the Wild Wood and Home Again

The news cycle swirls on, and we, on our tiny "skiff made of paper," are sucked onward between Scylla and Charybdis. John Hancock knew the dangers of disruption, and the American public --and the world-- are caught up in a tempest as well.  Trump has been indicted in New York. We wait for news from the other cases, most notably (in my mind) the one coming out of Georgia. One person, even this bloated media-hungry carbuncle, is not the entire story of what is wrong in our country, but he is the self-selected figurehead of much of our political unrest. I am tired of games. We cannot hope to move forward to tackle the difficulties ahead that form a real existential crisis without removing the distractions. And he is a full-on distraction. The fact that the GOP is rallying around him in order to insulate him and their repressive/regressive posturing on all things that affect human existence is despicable. We should be adult enough to be able to discuss and negotiate, but to cling

Another night of weird stress-dreams. Why is it, I wonder in my waking moments, I am always in charge of whatever chaos is erupting? At least this time, it was not school-related. Instead, there was a major event, some sort of reception, and my family and extended family were involved-- and being really hard to work with and around. The food was a mess, too-- fondant peeling off cookies, brownies that were burnt and flat, and the caterer would not listen or fix things. The oddest thing? My husband had ordered a strange maharajah-style jacket that was hot fuchsia and black, and clearly a size or two too large-- it was hideous, and I recall telling him in my dream it looked like a bathrobe. To which statement, of course, he got angry and quite put out when I told him he needed to at least send it back and order the right size. Aghhh. It all seems rather comical in the half-light of morning with my coffee beside me, but believe me, that was no joke of a dream. It was one of those that, ev

I am disgusted and furious about how Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) has declared that there is nothing to be done about school shootings and gun violence, and that this is just the way it is. His answer to a reporter's question about how to keep children safe is that he homeschools his daughter. His biggest "solution" is to have a Christian revival in this country. I wonder if, as a Christian, he'd be dismayed if Christ himself had looked at the crowd and said, nah. Not gonna fix it.  It's time to do something radical, like thorough national background checks, increased focus on and treatment of mental health, and restricting access to high-powered assault-style weapons? Mandating that guns be locked up or stored elsewhere? There are, after all, other countries that do these things, and they are not starting the morning news with "another mass shooting..." every few days. The shooter in the Tennessee school tragedy was under a doctor's care for emotional

The rise in antisemitism-- and its apparent normalization by some far-right figures-- is extremely worrying. Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, has pledged 25 million dollars to continue monitoring antisemitism through his Foundation to Combat Antisemitism and the #StandUpToJewishHate Blue Square campaign: "The Foundation to Combat Antisemitism is establishing the blue square emoji, which is already on all smartphones, as a 'simple, but powerful symbol of solidarity and support for the Jewish community.' During the campaign, the blue square will take up 2.4% of television and digital screens, billboards, and social media feeds. That number symbolizes that Jews make up 2.4% of the American population, yet are the victims of 55% of religious-based hate crimes" ( cbsnews.com ). Then we take a look at the horrifying protests that are taking place in Israel; Netanyahu's far-right coalition has a draconian plan to hijack the nation's judicial system,

Sometimes I wonder if I'm just an imposter in this wide world of poetry; I know I like to read it, but I also love well-written fiction and certain types of nonfiction and memoir. I am drawn to write poetry, partly because I fail miserably at writing fiction; my characters are flat, and I get bored with the narrative really quickly. Dialogue is really hard to write, too. That all said, how do I claim the title, "Poet" with any degree of certainty?  Yes, I have over 50 poems published, but not many of those publications are "household name" journals (are ANY poetry journals really familiar, outside this echo chamber of poets?). I have a chapbook I'm sending out, but I don't know if it's any good. I know what my other neophyte-level poetry pals think, but will it find a publisher? My New England roots run deep: probably not. I will not pursue self-publication because I want the validation of having someone else think it's worth paper and two covers

I'm trying to get my "welcome, Spring" vibe going, but we woke up to a dusting of more snow. And more mixed yuck in the forecast pretty much every other day this week. Walking through TJMaxx yesterday, I was disheartened at the options: sleeveless, gauzy, cropped, flimsy. Our North Country Easter season is usually anchored by mudboots and sweaters.  I remember growing up in Rhode Island, when I was quite small, when pink or lemon-yellow dresses, white tights, and shiny white patent leather mary-jane shoes were the fashion. Tiny purses with a quarter for the collection plate, white handkerchief, and maybe a little "straw" hat would finish the ensemble.  Not here. I'm thinking about flipping my closet next weekend; that should ensure more snow. I'm getting really weary of beige, grey, black, and brown. I love my flannel shirts, but I'm fairly bored with them. And I'm really getting tired of wool socks-- those cute little red sandals I have are beck

This incredible scrubbing of all cultural artifacts from the curricula of this country is really troubling. The most recent foolishness, the dismissal of a principal in Florida in connection with students (gasp) seeing Michelangelo's classic sculpture David , is clearly just another step toward enforcing complete stupidity as the general rule. Is an outsized marble statue from antiquity going to titillate the minds of young people? This was part of a Western Civilization class. Y'know, the celebration of All Things White and Male. If that is not the "standard" for these folks, what is?  The Bible itself has descriptions of all sorts of naughty behavior. There are naked people, disrespectful of elders types, adultery, and violence galore. AND HAVE THEY EVEN READ THE SONG OF SOLOMON? (I have, and it's lushly gorgeous. Give it a read.) It even has a mandate to help foreigners and the poor. O my. Importing one's own disturbed and warped view of the human and natur

When adults expect kids --yes, they are young adults, but still kids-- to plan large undertakings with no experience doing so, it's always a chaotic mess. Always. Whether it's senior trip, winter carnival, prom, or graduation, letting the participants make the decisions and take care of the details means something critical gets forgotten and feelings are hurt, and thus the event is tarnished for everyone.  The kindest and wisest thing adults can do for kids is put up the guardrails. That way, they can learn how to do these big things without crashing and burning us all. In our society, even most weddings are not that formal, and few people know how to do these events well. How, then, do some adults expect that kids can do this monumental task? Some things should be standard: Pomp and Circumstance , graduation gown colors, the expected format of the ceremony should not be negotiable. There are enough other parts of the event that can be personalized to reflect the wishes of the

I came across a post in a local online forum from a person who wanted to know if there were any book swap groups in the area for "clean" and "Christian" books for children, and has the poster went on to say, "better than what the  library has to offer." My heart sank, thinking of all of the wonderful librarians who are busy curating a wide range of books for children, who want to use their limited funds to create a world of words and pictures that not only engages kids' imaginations but also represents them and their lives.  I grew up with a few of those "clean" and "Christian" books-- the ones that made sure all little girls were prim and proper, decently dressed in gender-specific clothing and colors, who were not allowed to be altar servers, who had white hankies in their tiny little purses. Those books made sure to showcase white children; any children of color were either infantilized or stereotyped to such a degree that they d

The swirling detritus of social navel-inspecting continues in the morning news. What a desperate circus. Now, there are lawsuits that include, as part of their core argument, whether the pandemic was an "unprecedented" occurrence in modern times. There we go again; revisionist history. I suppose we can assume it was not unprecedented; after all, great swaths of humanity have died over and over again with plagues and even in the 1918 Flu and its rebound waves.  So-- if those are the precedents, and if we followed how those were handled, even more people would have died. Would continue to die. But those who are asserting that there were precedents are saying so because they believe shutting things down was the wrong plan to follow.  Ugh.  Anyhow, that's one of those words I honestly do not ever want to hear again (unprecedented)-- it's taken on a cachet of ignorance and a hollowness that only comes from misusing a word in too many contexts.  Like new and improved. Or i

Some days, it seems we are living in another Dark Age, only we really don't see it. The news is full of dire things: colleges getting rid of the books in their libraries to cut costs, books and other learning materials being challenged and removed from schools at all levels, misinformation, deep fake videos, AI Chatbots creating "papers" filled with inaccuracies-- how will we move forward? How can we depend on anything, if it's all so impermanent or banned?  In his 1951 classic novel Fahrenheit 451 , Bradbury writes, “If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew

It is 14 degrees and dark. The calendar tells me that it's the vernal equinox, and the weather forecast tells me that it is supposed to be in the 40s all week.  OK, get on it. My poor crocuses are the symbol of bravery lately: they are up, valiant little plants that they are. They are trying to bloom-- if it would only stop snowing on them. Maybe today. It makes me sad to see the shriveled, frost-burnt tips of the daffodil greens. They are trying, too.  Must be a message in that. Keep trying, no matter what cold, wet reality keeps burying you. I'm disgusted by the news cycle, for the most part. The strange disconnect between "hooray for Teams X" in the basketball tournament followed by "Hey, it's 20 years since the war in Iraq" then followed by "woohoo, maple syrup" and "wonder what that nasty dictator X is up to?"--- it's a bit hard to follow. We certainly do need a change-- of season, or the world drama--whichever comes first. A

Will someone please tell TFG that the sequel rarely does as well as the first movie?  Here we go again: bragging about the likelihood of arrest this week, TFG is calling on supporters to "save America." He's looking towards Tuesday for the premiere--stay tuned. Will we be calling this go-round The Insurrection: New York? Or The Insurrection: Georgia? The story continues, I guess.  I am so damned tired. We have real issues to work on, but this never-ending prurient swamp makes it really hard.  In local-ish news, we have a state rep who has publicly declared that she does not answer to her constituency, but to a higher power. I'm absolutely all for running one's life by a moral code, but then that's not really the point of public representation in this country.  Yet. Yes, I worry about Christian Nationalism. Weaponizing religion has never ended well. I don't intend to be caught up in that mess. I've read the history books. As they say, bought that tee s

Yesterday, I mentioned to one of my classes that I'm taking a writing class today--yes, on a Saturday. Yes, it's a class. One student was shocked: "You still have to take classes?" I reassured him that yes, I was doing so willingly, more than willingly, as it's a poetry writing class, and it is with a poet I know and admire. What I hope he --and the others listening-- got out of this short interchange is that when you really like to do something, and you can learn to do it better, it's fun to take classes. Lifelong learning, eh?  Too often, students who are not that academically inclined (and why they are that way has myriad reasons, I think) are just itching to get out of school. Daily. Weekly. Forever. And that makes me sad, because they have had that light switched off for them, by someone, some event, some difficulty not remedied. By the time I get them in their junior and senior y- factions that are yelling at women about "knowing their place" a

I arise today Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity, Through the belief in the threeness, Through the confession of the oneness Of the Creator of Creation. I arise today Through the strength of Christ’s birth with his baptism, Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial, Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension, Through the strength of his descent for the Judgment Day. I arise today Through the strength of the love of Cherubim, In obedience of angels, In the service of archangels, In hope of resurrection to meet with reward, In prayers of patriarchs, In predictions of prophets, In preaching of apostles, In faith of confessors, In innocence of holy virgins, In deeds of righteous men. I arise today Through the strength of heaven: Light of sun, Radiance of moon, Splendor of fire, Speed of lightning, Swiftness of wind, Depth of sea, Stability of earth, Firmness of rock. I arise today Through God’s strength to pilot me: God’s might to uphold

Busy week, eh?  Equal Pay Day, Ides of March, Pi Day, St. Patrick's Day-- no wonder it feels like someone stuffed a few extra days in there. Locally, for the town I teach in, it's been Town Meeting Day, School Meeting Day, and today is Open House. Why we've managed to pack so much into one week in March is beyond me.  Of all of these, there are a couple that are more deeply meaningful to most folks. I have not yet heard how the school meeting went last night; that's always a little angsty and stressful. Many of the costs of running a school are literally not within our control; line items related to federal and state mandates are not negotiable. Fuel costs and maintenance costs are influenced by outside factors. Our teachers are relatively reasonably compensated for our efforts, but we really do not have any "extra" staff: for example, in the high school, two of us are part-time English teachers. Small schools are struggling, to be sure, but we are doing our b

Does anyone else wake up with a song in their heads? I mean, before full consciousness? For me, it's often a church hymn, and I'm not sure why. Could be it is the strong, repetitive melodies.  Today, it was the T&A song from Chorus Line, " Dance: Ten; Looks: Three " Yep. One of my favorite Broadway musicals, but not usually this song. Who knows what my subconscious is working out? Hope it gets sorted out. Have a good day, C

Were we happier when we were not so connected to world events? Misery in real time, doom-scrolling, the screaming and groaning headlines...it wears on the soul.  It's entirely too easy to " wail, for the world's wrong " these days. It's really hard to find any joy; I suspect it is because of our constant diet of disaster. Not that we can turtle up and ignore it all-- unfortunately, much of the horrible stuff will and does affect us on some level.  Sometimes I wish we just did not know. Know all of it, to be honest. I tend to get too invested, and feel things far too deeply, to maintain any sense of proportion. Rotten politics, world climate disasters, children suffering, rampant stupidity and hate and anger and... it's exhausting.  Right now, it's dark outside, thanks to the hour change. And it's snowing, yet again, rather heavily and I have to slush my way to the town municipal building and vote. And I will vote; it's the least I can do to try to

Another week, another snow storm predicted. I don't know that I'll ever get used to this shift in the seasons, when we have mild Novembers and snowy Marches. It's time for softball, baseball, and planting things, isn't it? When I was quite young, and living in Rhode Island, the "wisdom" was planting peas on St. Patrick's day. Yeah. Not happening this year, not here. While we have had some gloriously warm teases of days like yesterday (50 and melting!), it's not over yet. I don't have any plans to take off the winter tires from my car until the end of April.  Spring's coming, but seriously, not soon enough for me. I don't even mind the mud so much; I'm tired of slogging around in boots and heavy coats and gloves. I did see a second crocus yesterday, so that's reason enough to believe the the soil is warming, even if it is in spotty areas mostly close to the foundation of the house. The leaf-buds on the lilacs are swelling a bit, too.

Yesterday, my quiz bowl team hosted 8 other schools in the state for a round-robin tournament, at which we had 14 teams. Academic and current events questions were asked in ten minute rounds. This sort of competition relies heavily on quick recall of subject-matter information and on collaborative skills. My students are great kids, but they are not really good at the quick recall part of things.  This is not their fault at all. Education depends on building schema, and we tend to focus more on the metacognition these days: why are we doing this, how are we doing this, and then, what do we do with the information? This is the process for solid learning. That said, we rarely expect rapid-fire recall, unlike how I went through school. We used to have the spelling bee, the mad-minute math, etc. You either knew your stuff or not. That is the general format of quiz bowl, just like Jeopardy and a host of other quiz shows. If you have been watching those quiz shows, it seems like the questio

Today, just a short (hurried) note-- The first crocus of the spring popped up yesterday! Trust me, it's there-- tiny, lavender, and hopeful.

St. Patrick's Day is celebrated next Friday, mostly here in the United States, and more specifically, in such busy places as New York City and Boston. The story of Irish immigration is a fraught one, born of hope and poverty, will and willfulness, and richly layered with both faith and prejudice. Irish Need Not Apply is not that many generations back that the sting has faded completely. Yet now people flock to concerts, dance presentations, and...bars. I am not a fan of the overtly kitschy in any aspect of celebration. Okay, I did go with a pink flamingo theme for my 30th birthday, but that was intentional (and kind of fun). But all these waggly headbands and blinking green glitter glasses-- yep, that's tacky. There is no place in this world for green beer.  And the celebration is on a Friday. Our Cardinal and our Bishop have not given us a dispensation from meatless Fridays, and it's Lent. So--salmon it is. I'll make the "traditional" dinner on the weekend--

Yesterday was Women's Day, but I've never really given it a lot of thought about which women, if any, I've admired enough to be called role models. I know a lot of people look up to family members, or political leaders, or other iconic figures. I can't think of any single one that I could unreservedly state, "she is the person who has been my shining beacon..." or something of that sort.  I don't think it's because I've grown up in a male-centric culture, because I haven't invested myself in any male icons either. There are authors I admire, there are even movie and book characters I admire. But no one person. Maybe that's a good thing; heroes/heroines tend to let us down when they show themselves to be mere mortals.  So it looks like this: I admire civic dedication, especially to causes that reflect a genuine interest in children and underserved populations. In that, I like John Adams, Mother Teresa, Eleanor Roosevelt. I appreciate a degr

I woke up this morning from a dream that I have some version of fairly often; who is going to teach what, and what is going to be taught in my tiny little school, in the micro-tiny-English department. We don't have a full time English teacher in the high school. We have three of us, each doing a little here and there. It really feels fractured some days. That said, it's not so much who is teaching that I try to solve in my dreams, but the what . There's such a push-pull between what we would like the students to be exposed to, learn, and be able to do, and what "the world out there" says that they need. And in many cases, we are not really encouraged to do a both/and type of curriculum: instead, we are tasked with figuring out how the students will pass standardized tests, whether they are digitally literate, whether they can communicate clearly (but not creatively, o heavens no).  This focus on utilitarian skills is making students hate English. Not every kid is

Tonight, a friend and inspiration of mine, Baron Wormser, is going to be reading from his new collection of poems and from the reissue of an older memoir of his at the Norwich (VT) bookstore. I was super bummed that I would not be able to attend; while Norwich is only about an hour from me, it is a "school night" and traveling in the dark is not something I can do easily. So I was super excited to find out last night that the reading will be livestreamed as well !  Baron is a far different writer/poet than I am. I tend to mine my interior life, and I work in a more lyric mode almost exclusively. But Baron has had a profound influence on my life as a writer. I met Baron in 2000 at the very first Conference on Poetry and Teaching held at The Frost Place in Franconia. I saw a clip and send in the newspaper announcing the conference, and I was elated. I had a small child and I couldn't really travel to conferences, professional development options for English teachers were fe

Today, I head back to work after the February vacation week. As "restful" weeks go, this one was not really all that restful. I usually plan a few projects around the house and slip in a few fun things to do, but that was not how this past week went. Still, as I take a look back over the last few days, I can honestly say that it was a welcome break in a lot of ways. I did get some house cleaning things done--not all I'd hoped, but a good start. I did get some writing things done-- again, not all I'd planned on doing, but something. I watched a few movies which were generally entertaining. I finished a book that was also generally entertaining. The high point was making a snowman with my grand-daughter and daughter--that was a bluebird day, for sure: warmer temps, fresh snow, and blue skies. Her giggles and wonder were a gift in themselves.  So I go back to work, back the classroom, back to lunch duty, back to the litany of writing errors that must be fixed, back to th

Yes, it's the last day of my vacation-- well, the first day of the new week, and I'll be back to school tomorrow. And yes, there's a stack of papers I have not graded. Did I kick that metaphorical can down the road? Likely. Though I have known that they were there, marinating in my tote bag. I'll get them done today, and none the worse for the wait. That said, there are other projects I've been creatively putting off for a while, and that's where I'm wondering if it's truly procrastination, or if it is just my brain needing some time and space to think about approaches to the tasks. I've got three things on my literary horizon that I should be poking away at, and I will. One is going through a friend's manuscript to make suggestions for edits and so on. I've read it through, and I know what I want to say, but I have not done so yet. In my defense, she said it's no rush, but I will get that done within this coming week. Similarly, I have m

I generally tend to want to watch well-crafted, beautiful movies, with rich plots and convincing acting. I like to get sucked in, and I truly feel satisfied by a film when it both makes me cry and makes me think. Then, there's the other sort of movie I like: the ridiculous movie.  Last night, I was fully entertained by the silly 2022 movie, The Lost City, which starred Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe, and had a great cameo with Brad Pitt. The premise is pure bubblegum: a romance novelist is dissatisfied with the way her life has gone and she walks out of the venue where her book tour is launching. She is kidnapped by an amoral rich dude who believes her most recent book demonstrates that she has a unique skill set to help him find a long-long treasure in a remote island. Her cover model then tries to rescue her, aided in part by a former military special-ops guy-turned-meditation-guru.  They find the "treasure," the bad guy gets punished, and they find lo

I've been thinking a lot about boundaries, both physical and verbal. It could be because we have a tiny house lot, and we have neighbors-- decent enough sorts, but sometimes it feels a little cramped, as if we are on display. That said, a forsythia hedgerow does the trick, most of the time. We have a "shared" driveway, too-- not shared because the properties are under one owner, shared because the prior owners allowed the paving company to just keep a-goin' and there's no clear line of demarcation. Sometimes, I just want to paint a line down the middle and make a stand.  Those are irritations of location, to be sure. Other boundary encroachments are minor, very picky little things, silly to most, but the things that rankle a bit. Like the other day, someone had turned my calendar at work to March. It was not March. It was not going to be March for several more days. ugh. And when the pencils on my desk disappear. Or when students leave their stuff on my desk (I sh

 Hooray for dentists who actually stop and listen! I had to have a molar removed yesterday; it was fully cracked and there was no saving it. The last time this happened almost two years ago, the experience of removal was traumatic. I don't mean that adjective in any hyperbolic way; I literally started to panic when I was told that this tooth had to come out. The pain and fear were both very real. My usual dentist does not do any nitrous oxide or other anaesthesia, so he insisted I go elsewhere. (Well, fine, then.) I ended up going to another highly-recommended dentist in town, and the experience was far different. Yes, getting a tooth out still sucks entirely. But the office manager was super nice, the hygienists I met were personable and caring, and the dentist took the time, both in the first consult and yesterday, to hear my story, and he was able to put together a plan of care that helped reduce my stress and anxiety. The little details, too, were a welcome surprise. All of the

I'm no expert on government or business models, but it seems a little strange --and scary-- that Florida Gov. DeSantis has mounted what appears to be the start of a hostile takeover by his state government of a private business; in short, he's put his acolytes in charge of Disney World . Not only is the special district that has been the arrangement with Disney for decades dissolved, DeSantis has proposed putting his acolytes in charge of the development board. This new board includes major donors, an election lawyer, and an ultra-conservative school board member. They are committed to returning the theme park to what they believe Walt Disney envisioned-- cue Song of the South ? That ship sailed--we, as a culture, should reject racism and exclusionary practices. The fight against inclusivity in Florida (and elsewhere in this country) is rampant, and ultimately, it will turn hurtful, not just financially, but to a large portion of the visitors who would like to go to the "