Thankful
28 Nov 2009 4 Comments
in all about me, poetry
This is the same thankful poem I posted last year, but I love it, and so I’m posting it again. Hope you all had a lovely holiday– I think I’ll have a full post of memories from mine, but not yet.
Thanks
by W. S. Merwin
Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
smiling by the windows looking out
in our directions
back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you
with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is
From Migration: New & Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2005). Copyright © 1988 by W. S. Merwin. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Flashing Back
24 Nov 2009 8 Comments
in all about me
Today, in the second half of a no good, very bad, horrible day, I came to a stop at a red light in the misty rain and very shortly thereafter heard the sound of breaking glass as someone crashed into my rear bumper.
As car crashes go, it was relatively minor– no real damage to my car past some scratches, and while the other car got the worst of it, the other driver was not hurt. I’ve got some soreness in my neck and right shoulder that I’m hoping goes away tomorrow, and I was the only passenger in my car. But I’m still a little weepy and trembling about it, because it made me flash instantly back to another accident.
If you’ve been a reader of mine for a long time, you know that a little over three and a half years ago, I was in a car accident, also not my fault, but one that totaled my car, activated my airbag, and shattered my right forearm. I still have a steel plate holding the bones together, and while it took me surgery and months of physical therapy to regain the use of my hand, it took me even longer to be able to drive a car again without a panic attack.
Today, when I felt the impact, felt my car jolt forward, I revisited a moment I thought I had forgotten in the blinding flash of pain when my arm broke. I got out in the rain and dealt with the trade of information and assurances that I wasn’t angry at the poor out-of-towner who’d gotten lost looking for the freeway (I even gave her directions), and then I got back in my car, because my sister was waiting for me and needed me to be there. And part of why she needed me entailed me taking her to the same hospital in our old neighborhood where I’d taken Lucy at five weeks to get a spinal tap for possible meningitis, where I’d stayed with her overnight at seven months while she rehydrated after a bad bout of rotavirus, her so tiny in one of those cagelike hospital cribs and me crying beside her because my baby was sick and I was away from the other baby for the first time and oh Lord, how was I going to deal with how heartbreaking being a mother was. And then where I had an emergency appendectomy, and then later where I came with my shattered arm cradled in front of me and more tears running down my face.
When I finally got home, hours after I had expected, I managed to keep myself barely together, making macaroni and cheese and listening to stories of dancing and science experiments, until my husband got home and I collapsed on his shoulder in the kitchen, where my girls couldn’t see me. And now I’ve talked to friends and eaten dinner and some cheesecake brownies, and I’m snuggled into bed and feeling better.
But oh, how long these heartbreaks haunt us.
Moving Forward
15 Nov 2009 5 Comments
in all about me, teaching
My Unbloggable Issue has not exactly resolved, but I’m moving on nonetheless. Because sometimes as a grown-up, that’s what you have to do, to keep on keeping on despite whatever might be holding you back.
And there have been exciting things happening too, as often happens in life. A colleague of mine and I gave a long-planned presentation at the AIMS annual conference, and it was well-received. Scratch that– it was received with applause, high praise, and incredible feedback from friends and strangers alike. I joined a new committee at school and am very excited about the work we are undertaking, and the fact that I was accepted from many to join. I’ve had some great classes with successfully planned lessons, and am more and more excited about the trip to Denver I’ll be making in early December to go to a conference on leadership and diversity, along with some of my favorite colleagues, some I’d like to get to know better, and some wonderful students. As fast-paced as my first full-time year has been, I’ve had some amazing opportunities and accomplishments already, and it’s been thrilling to feel myself becoming a valuable and useful member of the school community.
On the home front? Things are humming along, with Brownie meetings, some classroom volunteering, math facts and library books and lunchboxes. The house is definitely too messy, but we’re halfway through Half-Blood Prince, and my sister and I took the girls roller-skating for the first time, which they loved! I made my first chocolate-peanut-butter brownies, and all the Girl Scout cookies are gone, gone, gone (stress eat? me?). I am still loving Peapod. I also wish someone would come over and sort through the kids’ clothes so I can finally donate a bunch of them, and I’d like to clean out my own closet too. Did I mention that I wish my house was cleaner?
All in all, I’m a little tired, a little messy, but completely content with all the patched-together parts of my life.
A First
05 Nov 2009 6 Comments
in all about me
The time has come, the Walrus said….. to not talk about my very first Unbloggable Issue. It’s on my mind a lot and there’s not much else I feel like discussing, so that puts me on the blogging bench for a short while.
It’s nothing to do with anyone in my family– no harm has befallen us, so don’t worry. I just need to go quiet for awhile. See you soonish.
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