Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

May's poem is definitely a very rough draft of a poem that kept nudging at me during a meeting today. I tried to participate in the meeting, and I think I did a pretty good job of listening and responding to my colleagues while at the same time jotting down words/ideas for the poem. Still some work to do as I feel like I'm just scratching the surface of what I really want from it. Alongside the Path Yesterday on my way to work, as I cycled along the path where last week I'd come across a beautiful dead bird, a long-beaked, feathers of golden brown and black bird, maybe a Long-Billed Dowicher, not known for these parts, but somehow here and maybe, hopefully, just reached the end of its time, I spotted a bicycle chain in the grass and slowed, but then kept going, thinking I would retrieve it on my way home. But I didn't. I forgot about it. This morning on my way to work, as I cycled along the path, I remembered the broken bicycle chain and looked for it, spotting...

Fifteen years ago, I became a single mom with three kids. It was a chaotic, painful, stressful time in my life, but I thought then, and I still believe today, that I made the right choice for me and the kids. I don't talk about this time of my life much as I simply don't want to dredge up memories that sadden me. This past weekend, though, I had to face some of those memories, one of which still bothers me all these years later. When the kids' dad and I decided to part ways, one other person in the mix got left behind. A little girl. The kids' half sister. My step-daughter. I agonized over leaving her, often trying to figure out a way to bring her with us, but I simply couldn't since she wasn't mine in a biological sense or a legal sense. Not long after we left, Spunky Step-Daughter found herself without a home. Her own mother left and made it clear she didn't want to be found, and her dad, my ex, stepped away as well, turning the care of his daughter over...

And another semester has come to an end. Grades are in. Self-eval has been completed and sent to my boss. Just a few odds and ends, tidying up some paperwork matters remain. Nothing pressing. Ahhhhhh. While I'm happy to have reached the end of the semester and am more than ready to launch into summer, I know for a few days I'll wander around in a daze, feeling like I don't know what to do. This happens nearly every May. After five months of being in overdrive then suddenly finding myself in neutral, the no demands on me throw me into a sort of limbo, as if I'm floating slowly and haphazardly through space. Usually I need a week to find my bearings. To help myself get a grip more quickly this go-round, and to get some mileage in place before my "real" ride begins June 1, I committed myself to getting up early and going out for 25-30 miles each morning this week. Yesterday was Day 1, and I couldn't have asked for a nicer morning. Though it was on the c...

I was very daring today. I took two buses to get home instead of getting off at the transfer station then walking the mile from there to the house. Because I was so brave, I only had to walk three blocks instead of the mile, not that a mile walk is a horrible thing. It's not. In fact, I enjoy the walk very much. Yesterday, I got off at the transfer station, went to the used book store and bought two books, then went to a diner and had a burger while I read one of my new books. The walk home not only helped my digestive system, but it also gave me the opportunity to find a treasure on the curb. I lugged said treasure home and will make something for the living room out of it. But I digress. Back to taking not one but TWO buses to get home. From work to home, by bike, it's three miles, and I usually ride the three miles in 15 minutes. Half of the ride is trail, so I don't have to deal with traffic, and the other half is mostly residential streets with low traffic. The rid...

This week I've been conferencing with my English 102 students over their final papers. I love having these conferences as it's an opportunity for me to take time with each student, being able to sit back and enjoy the student's work followed by listening to the student explain the choices made for the papers. I learn so much from the students. When I do these conferences, I try to compile some passages from various papers. Passages that speak to me, make me uncomfortable, fill me with sadness, or evoke joy. I try to keep these passages close by to remind myself of why I teach. Here are a few from this semester I'd like to share: --from a student paper in which the author explored her cousin being born with Maple Syrup Urine Disease and having to undergo a liver transplant. The liver came from a little girl who had died in a car accident. This is from a scene of Evan's third birthday where he had two cakes. "But the next set of candles was not for Evan; ...

This morning I awoke early, just after daybreak, and sleep just wasn't going to come back to me as I was too curious about the bees. I needed to check on them. When I did, all was quiet. No sound came from inside the hive. The image of floating goldfish came to mind. Surely I hadn't killed them all so quickly, I thought. Hubby came out and bent down to listen. He heard a scratching noise. I leaned in but heard nothing. Dismay began to well up inside me. I figured all I could do was wait. Wait for the sun to come up to warm the hive. Wait to see if the bees began humming. So I turned to other things, like . . . planting some flowers in pots and in a pair of old rubber rain boots that had belonged to Funny Delightful Son when he was three or four years old.  putting out my new angel statue, officially putting myself in the "old people who garden and buy silly statues to place here and there."  getting on the road bike and going 10.5 miles, starting slowly since ...

I woke up at the usual time this morning, 5:30ish, and though I didn't have to get up, I couldn't go back to sleep. The bees had arrived, and I had to go get them and bring them home to their new hive. Excitement along with trepidation propelled me out of bed to get ready for the trip. While I went through the basic beekeeping course and have been reading beekeeping books since then, I still wondered if I could actually take a cage that seemed to contain upwards of a thousand bees and transfer them to the hive. I wondered if I could get the queen safely nestled between two of the frames where the bees could then eat through the sticky plug and allow her to enter into their new home. Hubby teases me about my not-so-successful attempts to have goldfish, saying he hopes the bees last a bit longer, and this makes me wonder if I will end up, sadly, killing an entire hive of bees. I certainly hope I don't. (Hmmmmmm. I have no idea what happened here, but I had a paragraph abo...