Family History

Today is my grandfather's birthday. A man who married and had children a little later in life, he was born 124 years ago, in 1896. Granddaddy was 66 when I was born, and despite his energy and independence, he seemed pretty old to us when we were kids. He smoked cigars and a pipe and always wore a tie and a fedora when he left the house; he was a past commander of the local American Legion post, a big booster of youth baseball (there is a league named for him in Maryland), and he thought Archie Bunker was hilarious.

My granddad died the year I was 20, and when I think of him now it seems impossible that I could personally have known and loved someone who was born such a long time ago. He served in WWI, lost a business after the stock market crash of 1929, scrabbled hard to make a living during the depression, and moved the family to Washington, DC at the beginning of WWII, when my grandmother got a job at the Pentagon.

He was in his early twenties during the last pandemic. In fact his mother died of influenza, but not until 1928. She was only 60 then, just a couple of years older than I am now. And the 95 years that separate us in time somehow don't seem quite so unbridgeable as they might have just a few months ago.

Mayday, Mayday

The first of May rescued us from the coldest, wettest April I can ever remember. I'm sure part of the problem was that we were home with nothing to distract us from the weather, but when going outside is one of very few recreation options, you begin to take the rain a little personally. This new month dawned as gray as its predecessor, but by 3 PM blue sky was clearly visible behind and in between clouds more white than gray. And as I write, the sun is shining and a light breeze is riffling through the trees. All that rain really greened up the place, too. Tomorrow is set to be the jewel of the spring so far, temps in the high 70s and sunshine to spare, but the rain is predicted to return on Sunday, and May is actually forecast to be cooler and damper than usual. But that? Is a worry for another day.

Not Quite

My students and I celebrated Poem in Your Pocket Day safely and at a distance this year. Rather than the usual fun and revelry of everybody reading poetry for a few days before and choosing poems we love, then transcribing and decorating them to carry in our pockets and share throughout the day, this year we posted our selections on our online learning management system, and then read and commented from afar. 

It wasn't the same at all, but it was still poetry and it was still pretty moving. Here are just a few of the poems my students chose, along with part of their explanation why:

Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too, by Shel Silverstein, "because it has been a classic to me all my life, I used to have a lot of Shel Silverstein books in my home" 

Sisters by Lucille Clifton "I liked these lines because they represent a strong friendship, and because I hope that can be me and some of my friends." 

The Road Not Traveled by Robert Frost " I think it sends a message that it is ok to be different. To take a different path." 

Veils by Witter Bynner "I also chose this poem because in one of the sentence in this poem it says “And this of a purple moon ”I wish there was a purple moon it would look so pretty." 

Paul Revere's Ride by Longfellow "It’s really cool how Henry Wadsworth Longfellow makes the entire poem rhyme and how he tells the story." 

Phenomenal Women by Maya Angelou I think that sometimes people are ashamed for who they are. This poem is the opposite.

Gosh, I miss my class!

Stretching those Muscles

In an effort to use my virtual office hours a little more productively, today I planned an online quiz game to review the poetry vocabulary students have been using all month as they write their poems. It wasn't too difficult at all to use screen share so that the kids who showed up for the conference could play the game. Just as we do in school, I was able to praise the knowledge they demonstrated and take a minute to clarify after questions where there was some confusion.

I had just finished explaining the difference between literal and figurative language with a few silly examples and the observation that many people literally use the term "literally" as the opposite of what it means, which is actually using it figuratively, when I looked out at the six faces in their little boxes and smiled. "Wow!" I said. "Was it me, or was I just actually teaching?"

They nodded, and we laughed.

"That sure felt good!" I continued. "I didn't realize how much I missed it!"

Praise the Writers

I've written in the past about the praise poems my students compose as part of our poetry challenge. I've been assigning them since 2013, and every year I am blown away by the honesty and beauty of the writing.

Praise Poems come from Western Africa and celebrate an individual's identity. They are often call and response, with the audience chanting a chorus between lines.

The formula I suggest is to write six lines and a chorus. The first line is your name, the second about your place of birth or ethnicity, the third about your family, the fourth and fifth compare you to natural elements or entities, and the last chooses a positive, defining quality about you and repeats it three times. The chorus is an expression of what you hope might be said of you by your community, and so it is written in third person.

Here are some of the choruses from this year:

Rhythm is in her soul.
Dance skips in her heart.
Her light shines through.
Nature is in her soul.
Competition is in her blood
Animals are in her heart.
Outside for life
Intelligence runs in her veins.
Happiness is her strength.
Determination in every step.
Singing is in her heart.
True to myself.
Sports are in his soul.
Playing with his dog every day.
Happiness in her soul.
Free soul
Friends in her heart
Kindness in her soul
Gymnastics in her veins
A true pessimist at heart
Perfection is what she strives.
Kindness in her heart
Being loud is in her soul.
Drawing is her soul.
Helpful is her heart.

It's a shame my time with these kids was cut short, because they really deserve the praise.

Pandemic Purchases

Here at home-bound, online shopping is always an option. In fact, when I look back at the deliveries over the last month or so, I definitely see a trend, particularly in the items I probably wouldn't have bought had I not been re-thinking the way we spend our days.

an oximeter
face masks
a remote control caddy
a 2" thick gym mat
a standing desk
a play-anywhere ping pong set
a mystery jigsaw puzzle
a Hunt-a-killer subscription
a compost bin
raised bed corners
corn, squash, and bean seeds

Newton's First Law

We grumbled more than a little this morning as we headed out the door and into a light rain to fulfill our promise to pick up a friend's dog and entertain him while she completed an online training session. We had originally planned to walk the mile and a half over to her place, and after a little debate we drew up our hoods and trudged in that direction.

Soon, though, the softness of the day, the cotton-batting clouds swaddling the sky, the pink dogwood and green grass, the goldfinches flirting in a boxwood hedge, and the wide empty sidewalks won us over. Chins up, breathing deeply, our pace quickened, and we were nothing but glad that we had left the house.