Ms. B’s Thoughts

As I was wiping chocolate off of the face of my soon to be four year old, I made the comment…It’s a good thing you are washable!.  He piped back at me, finger proudly in the air…Yep–It’s a good thing I’m not permanent!

I have to write this story…but to remind me…picture my five year old, clinging to my legs, as a police officer approaches the garage sale we are at…he looks up at me, eyes wide–Remember the suckers, Mom?

I had a really long day today…good, solid, filled with a bit of everything I love.  My kids are amazing and despite the hand they have been playing the last two years–are remarkably well adjusted.  They are strong, smart, witty, fairly confident youngsters.  What more can a mom ask for?

She has a beautifully organized very cute journal that she takes with her.  It is filled with her perfect penmanship and has the most amazing stories.  I love her words…love her smile.  She is an absolute doll…and yet I despise the ease at which she stays so completely organized!!  I have started a few marathons with new journals..in an attempt to recreate this wonderful place I can collect all of my writings…only to stomp around my house the morning of a marathon trying to find that journal.  I started writing on my laptop instead.  Even then I wanted all of my writing in one place…using the WORD notebook feature…I couldn’t even find the documents I started in previous marathons–they aren’t even saved in the same folders!  UGH!  A-ha!  Technology to the rescue!  I decided tonight to cut and paste the writings I could find from various UPWP sessions and other writing moments…and put them on my blog!  Voile! I do write…a bit. Rereading it all in one place inspires me to write more…(at least it did tonight…we will see what tomorrow brings!)

Lake Superior

Crash…is there any other word I could possibly start with?  The waves pound the shore in great gasps gushing up and over the rocks.  It is cool, but not cold.  Autumn leaves hang sparse from tired branches.  They begin to sleep.  The cold air slows their breathing.  Peacefully they will wait, dormant, until they wake with the warmth of the spring air.

Winter can be cold, dark and still.  Sometimes we live in that place.  Tired and weary, we wait for spring. Feeling invigorated from the rest, we wake, happy, peaceful with a new vision.  Like the trees, sometimes we are given a chance to start new.  To grow new leaves, green, healthy and full of life.  Reaching up to the sky, we feel the warmth of a new day.  A new beginning.  Wonder fills our hearts.   I capture the feeling in my smile.  Your face, your words, your love…all keep me warm…peaceful like hot apple cider, filling me with hope

Peter White Lounge–NMU Campus

I wonder if Lincoln’s feet were really this big?  Is this a life size statue?  Seems almost possible.  Who knows what the artist was thinking.  That’s the funny thing about art—the interesting, captivating thing about art.  I almost want a narrative to go with the pictures.  The word story to go with the picture story.  I am a visual person…but somehow…I want the story.  Where were you?  What were you thinking?  What do you dream to be?  How long did it take you?  Were there drafts, revisions?  Final projects seem so flawless…what were your struggles?  How many pictures did you take before you captured just the right shot?  Do you have a favorite pencil brand?  Where do you work?  How did you get to be so good?

I compare the art to the familiar process of writing.  We both create.  Writing, story telling, poetry.  It is all an art form.  Expression.  Creativity.  Taking what is in your mind and releasing it.

I can’t even draw a straight line…my circles rarely ever meet up in the same place.  But give me words….or let me talk…that’s my expression.

ICU-MGH

Funny how a room can take you so many different places.  In May I came here for the first time since my mother-in-law died.  To see my Granny.  She had heart surgery and after weeks of trying to recover, we lost her.  Even as I type the words…lost her.  I don’t really mean that.  Do I miss her?  Terribly.  She was my Granny.  But I am 35 years old and I spent countless hours with her, baking, sewing, digging worms, playing games.  Did I really “lose” her?  McKenna was just 8 weeks old when she “lost” her Gramma.  I think that is a loss.  Me?  I gained so much from my Granny.  Define Matriarch?  Definitely Granny. She was very wise—living a full 78 years.
She had six children, 27 grand children and 25 great-grandchildren…wow.  Full of spirit, faith, love…she gave us so much.  I do miss her.

Words from previous stops on the Marathon fill my brain—

Lessons from the Marathon

Fill your life with positive people.
Practice Passion
Find yourself in your heart
Write, force yourself—it brings you to new places.
Be kind to those you love–Keep them close.
Continue to grow, gain wisdom and learn.
Share—for when you do you receive back—tenfold
Take risks…but take them with those that love you, know you.
Have courage to do

I am posting here a letter I wrote just over a year ago to one of the best people in my life…she just got hired as a Pre-K teacher at Father Marquette.  Yipee!  It has been a LONG time coming!  Congrats!May 5, 2007

Angela Claire Turcotte Beauchamp—

From the day I met you, I knew you were destined for great things…you bounced into my room like a little redheaded firecracker, ready to go, to change, to challenge, to take on the world.  I also knew that day, without a doubt, that you and I would get along famously.  I have always seen in you, a younger version of me…smart, sassy, confident and caring… always in the lead, never content to just follow.  When I asked you to read at my wedding, I asked you because I knew the words you would write would speak from my heart as well as yours…I also knew, deep down that my little brother would fall head over heels in love with you…(I am just so very smart!)

And now look at us…almost six children between us, miscarriages, a pending divorce, different jobs, different houses–life has taken us down a path…one filled with some tears, some heartache, but so many more blessings.  I remember that day we were driving around talking about you and Roo…how we would get to raise our kids together, share holidays, days at the beach and trips to Disney World.  We are so very blessed…to share our lives.

As if we didn’t have enough in common…now we get to share a profession!  Welcome to the world of teaching!  There are so many teachers in this world…some good and some bad and some that fall in the middle.  What excites me most is that I know in your heart you are a teacher.  You have been teaching without a license for so very many years…like me, you were born to teach, to guide, to nurture, to instill in every student the love of LEARNING.  You are entering the field in some of the most tumultuous times in the history of education.  I am counting on you, your courage and strength to stand strong in your convictions and fight for what you know in your heart is great teaching practice.  Don’t be swayed by nasty lounge talk or negative attitudes.  Don’t be discouraged by mounds of binders containing the latest information on GLCE’s or MEAPS. Don’t get caught up in the financial strains our state is suffering. Keep in your heart the faith…the faith that each day you are touching lives, changing minds and giving hope to children.  Believe that things will change.  That in time people will come to appreciate our schools and change will occur.  I truly believe that teaching is a calling.  We never know the impact of our interactions with children…we just have to believe we are making a difference.

I love you.  I look forward to the day you get your own classroom…the day the children who walk into your room will have their lives changed forever by knowing you.  I look forward to sharing many years discussing, debating, and learning with you.

Congratulations, my dear!

Forever,
Sara

(Written at the UPWP kickoff 2006!)

We have heard many reference the writing project as a life changing event.  It is a transformation of sorts.  I wrote at the end of my summer experience last year, “It was the best thing I did for MYSELF in a long time.”  Life moves at a fast pace.  Changes occur and force us to reevaluate who we are, what we want.  Writing is deeply personal.  It can be a vehicle for self-reflection.  For me, last summer gave me the opportunity to look at my life, to look inside myself, to reflect upon all that life had thrown my way in my 34 years.  The pieces I chose, while I hope not as a legacy, but perhaps as more of a life lesson, are a random puzzle piece and my word rock which simply reads patience.

The puzzle piece represents the many things in life we must figure out, the twisting and turning of the pieces to fit into the bigger picture.

The word rock…one of Jan’s famous lessons…

I have taught writing for 20 years, and had taught it blind until the Writing Project.   Until I wrote with my peers and truly experienced what it felt like to be a writer, I didn’t fully understand how my first graders felt.

–Marsha Page   May 13, 2006

(Written sometime this past winter…)

My eyes see a man with a heart,
full of passion
a heart that desires, wants, needs
clearly there is a hole,
torn, shredded,
trying to mend.

Relief appears
across the wire
something to distract
something to get lost in
make it stop for a fleeting moment,
so he can breathe.

In his eyes I see such depth
a soul so sensitive
encased in a body so strong
imagine the pain
only a lover can inflict
dishonesty, betrayal, ultimate marital sins
trying to heal,
a sadness remains, so deep
your self is lost

He is desperate for relief.

Reach out-
compassion and understanding
are a whisper from your finger tips.
Let the distraction help,
stitch, repair the gash-
it can’t do anymore harm-
only good can come,
Believe that,
hope and optimism are powerful drugs.
Let her shower you.

Yesterday as I was scrambling to quickly check emails, I glanced at my Google Reader and saw that a favorite blogger had posted a couple of new pieces…quickly I scanned them, then grabbed my computer and sat down to read them…I was drawn in to the darkness.  In what felt like an instant, I was interrupted by screams, fighting, my 3 and 5 year old at it again.  Who knows who did what to whom this time…I shut my screen and went to don my zebra stripes.

As a single mom, my days are filled with all sorts of adventure.  (Code, I guess for stress, fun, frustration, amazement, occasional swearing, wonder and yes, more stress…)  This day wasn’t any different.  Nothing spectacular, more out of the ordinary than usual.  You never can tell what a day will bring.  Energy.  It takes a lot of energy to keep up with my crew.  I’m a happy positive person–that’s my nature.  I’ve been described as strong, brave, courageous–also bitchy, stubborn and pushy…I prefer independent.  As we went about the trips to the grocery store, stops at the park, eating lunch, having snacks, reading stories, wiping butts, and moping up spilled tadpoles, the darkness vision kept creeping back into my mind–time and time again.  I just watched The Incredibles with my kids the other night and there is this one scene where Mr. Incredible is being held by ??? (the bad guy) and he gets trapped by these globs of black goo that keep shooting out from the walls…he fights them off over and over again until they finally pile up too quickly and cover him, growing into an oozy mess until from his perspective the lights go out–black–darkness.  That image along with the writing I read played like a movie clip over and over in my head throughout the day.  Why?  I think that the struggle…this last year (or more) has brought–has been just like that vision at times…overwhelming.  The way my friend described the darkness…it feels like that at times.  Not knowing when it is going to stop.  My worst times are at night…beaten by the day, the exhaustion of the bed time battle, my 15 trips up and down the stairs (I should be 20 pounds lighter!) then somehow sleep washes it away and when I wake it is lifted–and doesn’t return until sometimes…an hour, a day, a week…it all depends. I keep up with the battle.  Most days…most nights too…it doesn’t get me…that black goo.  It stays at bay, sometimes tugging at me heels, lapping at my knees, occasionally getting a hold of my wrist.  I can handle those days.  It is when it falls from above–and lands near my head first–enters my brain–that’s the most difficult to handle…getting inside my head.

I guess…the point?  Good piece of writing.  If it stuck with me all day and made me think…it must be good.  He has far more talent than he gives himself credit for.

June 18, 2008-A day with Mark, Amy and Heather

Dead River Coffee House

Back together with good friends.  Our trip begins to a new location for an old local favorite.

Can we use this chair?  I say to the gentlemen sitting in the chair.  Certainly.  He looks up from his work and under his baseball cap I see familiar eyes and a smile from my childhood.  Hello!  I exclaim.  The smile broadens as he recognizes me too.  Not just high school classmates, but Skandia school alumni.  A tight knit group, bound by years of Little League, late night basketball games, motorbikes and skinny dipping. We exchange the usual pleasantries, and then ask more meaningful questions.  Marriage?  Not any more.  Kids—still good.  Who do you keep in touch with?  20 years ago who would have thought—we chat about Facebook and MySpace, emails, and upcoming reunions.  I am reminded that I am not the only one with changes—and not the only one who feels good about them.

Gallery-by Presque Isle

…I tell my stories.

How do you tell your stories?
Cozy blankets, snuggled deep.
Eyes bright.  Attention captured.
There was a little blue-eyed boy…a brown haired girl
living in Negaunee.
•    On Rock Street, Mom!
They had a little brother named Shane.
•    Shane—That’s you! The two point at one.
Grand adventures; exciting escapades.
•    What’s an escapade, Mom?
They liked to ride bikes, hike in the woods, catch tadpoles.
•    Did you feed the tadpoles, Mom?
•    Lettuce, they like lettuce, Beau.
Puzzles, books, drawings and playdough.
Dress-up, puppets, tic tac toe
Rain or shine they always had something to do.
•    Can we bring our umbrella to the store, Mom?
•    It thundered loud last night, Mama!
Never bored, the trio played, laughed and danced the days away.
•    Dance Party!  Let’s do a dance party, Mom!
Soaking in the tub, splashing the ceiling and walls
Dry them off, pull on the pj’s,
a few moments to jump on the bed
•    I can do tricks-really high jumps, Mom!
Then stories, always stories, before bed.
•    Don’t forget the lullabye, Mom!
Yes, stories, then lullabye’s before bed.
Tres amigos.  Siblings for certain, friends for sure.

I pause.  The end.

How do you tell your stories?

Tell it again.  Tell me another.

Not a book Mom—those other kind.
When you were a little girl-was I like you?
Did you like to jump rope?  Will my hair be curly like yours?
One time Uncle Sam took his bike apart-
Uncle Matt got stung by a bee,
You are a lefty like Uncle Roo.
Grandpa John cut his knee in the river.
Grandma was afraid to walk to school.

When I grow-up, when I get big, when I am older…

Family ties.

How do you tell your stories?