Some prompts are meant to be transformed and that’s what happened with Stacey’s prompt over at #verselove for me today. Her prompt was about memories from mama’s kitchen, but instead I picked up on her “I’ve been writing this since…” line.
When I think of kitchens, I think of my husband. He’s the resident chef in our family and the one who makes food happen for me and our extended family. But I didn’t really write about food or the kitchen, instead that refrain conjured the power of the ordinary and its translation into love.
The Joy of the Ordinary
I’ve been writing this
since the day you walked into my life
making conversation easy for once
as we talked through that entire first evening
everyone and everything disappeared
but you
I’ve been writing this
for decades
through our youth and childrearing
sickness and health
frustration and excitement
boredom and change
learning from each other, with each other
embracing the inevitable messiness that life serves up
I’ve been writing this
as I’ve learned to value the ordinary
daily dependability
Love
I taste in the meals you make day in and day out
Love
I hear in days that start and end with I love you
Love
I smell in freshly mown grass or the flowers you decided I needed just because
Love
I see in your attention to detail about all things family
Love
I feel in the warm hugs that defy distance
packed in a text, a phone call, a note in my lunchbox
For more than a decade, I have taken and posted a photo a day. (You can see my collection on Instagram @kd0602). I have to be honest, some days taking those photos feels easy and inspiring. The tough choice is which photo to post. But other days, especially days when I am mired down in work or find myself in the head space where everything feels mundane–the same ol’ same ol’–it’s hard to even find a photo to take.
To push aside that malaise, I try to find something ordinary to look at from a new perspective. Maybe the light is different or I try another angle. Some days I get low, other days I move in close. Sometimes the variety comes in the editing process where I try different colors or remove all the color as I experiment with black and white.
I like that I need to force myself to find something interesting to photograph each day, that I have to push beyond that feeling of sameness and explore the world, even the very familiar not so exciting world of my everyday life to find something worthy of a photograph.
This week I’ve been in that “I can’t find anything interesting to photograph” funk. A busy schedule, dreary weather, and uncooperative tides have kept me close to home. The dandelions on my around the neighborhood walk have been interesting, but how many dandelions photos can one person take and post? I took some dandelion photos on today’s walk, but when my husband mentioned the “six foot high weeds in the backyard,” I headed out with my camera in hand (actually my phone, which has a pretty good camera).
I started with the weeds. More dandelions. I wasn’t finding success capturing the tall perspective. But I leaned in and noticed the seed hanging onto the yellow blossom. Interesting.
But then I noticed the texture of the trees and the play of light and shadow on the bark.
I came around to our “wild garden,” my affection term for the plants that have been relegated outdoors. They are the plants that have outgrown the kitchen window garden or are trying to die from overcare. Somehow, when sent outdoors, they seem to thrive. My eye was drawn right away to this composition of delicate and sturdy, highlighting a variety of greens.
This pool that had formed in the pot holding another succulent drew me in. Will it survive the overflow of water? Looking closely, I also notice the shadow of other plants reflected in the water along with the fallen leaves floating on the surface.
The aloe vera has grown prolifically since moving outdoors. It has spilled out of its pot and now grows along the patio. My husband has pulled off pieces and thrust them into other pots and they thrive too. It’s almost become a forest of aloe vera.
And the colors! Orangy-reds or reddish-oranges tipping yellowish green succulents. I think they may be showing off after getting all that nature-fresh rain. (I don’t think they like tap water nearly as much.)
When you look really closely, you’ll see buds getting ready to open and scabs or spores on the meaty lobes that invite questions and wonderings. I don’t even know the name of this plant. Guess I have some research to do!
I am once again reminded of why I take a photo each day as I experience the joy of discovery. Taking daily photos is my way of taking care of myself, making sure I enjoy the small stuff and avoid being overwhelmed with the negative stuff. I doubt I would have even headed into the backyard without my daily photo practice. Now the question becomes, which photo do I post on Instagram?
So what do you do to infuse beauty and purpose and the appreciation of small things into your life? How do you keep yourself accountable for this self-care practice?
Not setting the alarm clock and sleeping in on Sunday morning. (Or at least not getting out of bed when you wake up even though there is no alarm going off.)
A walk on the beach with my sister who is visiting from the northern part of the state. And the sun even decided to come out to play after two days of thick, gray marine layer over the coast.
Dinner cooked by my husband (that part is not unusual) for my mom, my sister, and me–complete with a from scratch chocolate cake dessert. He manages to cook with love and care, even at a moment’s notice. He’s definitely a keeper!
Trader Joe’s flowers: tulips and daffodils to bring spring inside. And because I am planning an art project with my students tomorrow that features tulips, I wanted to bring the real thing into the classroom.
So I indulged and bought both tulips and daffodils. Last week we read a poem that included daffodils and my students didn’t seem familiar with them–so I was on the lookout for those inexpensive bunches that are around every spring at Trader Joes. And I had to have the tulips, even though they were only available in the larger bunch that was a bit pricier than I wanted. But…I have enough of each type of flower to bring some in the classroom and leave myself the bright beauty of spring on the dining room table!
Any small things bring you joy and appreciation today?
Today my students were introduced to odes. We began with the picture book, Ode to an Onion: Pablo Neruda and His Muse by Alexandria Giardino. The book shows Neruda finding inspiration in an ordinary onion from his garden.
After reading and discussing the book and thinking about the ways ordinary things are often overlooked and under appreciated, my students and I headed out to the school garden in search of the ordinary, knowing we would return to the classroom to write after snapping a few photos.
While Neruda’s original Ode to an Onion was a bit intimidating–it is a LONG poem for 8 and 9 year olds–they were excited to elevate the ordinary subjects they identified. We had poems about a roly poly, a stump, ice plant, a bucket, pea pods, a pine cone, and so much more. My own featured dandelions.
Today was one of those gloomy, gray days. There wasn’t quite rain, but the air was saturated and left a fine mist of droplets on everything…including me. A busy work day left me leaning on a short form for today’s poetry: Haiku (with some literary license).
Yesterday my students used Valerie Worth’s poem Safety Pin as their mentor text. This is a poem we had studied earlier in the school year–when I discovered that many of my students didn’t know what a safety pin was! Luckily, I had some safety pins in the classroom to show them.
With this poem in our remote learning environment, students were invited to craft a poem about an ordinary object–as defined by each individual. I am absolutely loving watching my young poets find their poetic voices!
D chose a spoon as the ordinary object:
E took on the power of paper:
And M–although I wouldn’t use ordinary to describe a clam, chose a clam as the ordinary object:
I’m definitely feeling the poetic struggle as I reach mid-month. My mind is on my students and figuring out how to support them in this distance learning emergency. I’m housebound with little outside inspiration. My neighborhood is nice–but it really isn’t evoking poetic thoughts right now.
So instead…I turn to thoughts of the coffee I drink every morning. The coffee I crave…want…need… And I know it’s not about a caffeine addiction, I switched to decaf more than a decade ago. So today’s poem is an ode…to decaf.
Rain sang me to sleep last night. And I woke to a damp morning. As I headed out the door, overloaded as usual with this bag and that one too—along with my lunch and coffee—I nearly stumbled as I spied the tiniest snail crawling near the doorstep. I just had to stop, pull out my phone and photograph the snail and the damp trail behind it.
As I thought about that snail I found myself thinking about those trails I leave, will anyone notice that I have been here? I hope I leave trails for my students. Those that they can turn to even when I am not around. Can they locate a mentor text for themselves when they have something they want or need to write? Will they remember to start with what they know when faced with an unfamiliar math problem?
Maybe those songs we sing in the morning help. Perimeter Around the Area by the Bazillions is a fun way to keep area and perimeter from crossing paths. And who doesn’t love singing the FBI (fungus, bacteria, and invertebrates) by the Banana Slug Band to learn about decomposition?
Getting to know Naomi Shihab Nye through poems like Kindness or Famous or A Valentine for Ernest Mann helps us explore the power of language. Books like Love by Matt de la Pena and Wishtree by Katherine Applegate help us see our own experiences and those that are different from ours.
Making stuff…from art to slideshows to videos to bridges made of cardboard and construction paper allow schoolwork to slip into the realm of play. Playing together and laughing and those long deep conversations about important topics just might leave those trails I’m thinking about.
And I know for sure that my students leave trails of their own, for their classmates to follow, for younger brothers and sisters and most definitely those etched deeply on my heart. They remind me that the ordinary matters, that caring is more important than any test score or report card and that if we pay attention we can find the pathways that matter most.
Today is Poem in your Pocket day…and I wasn’t in the classroom with my students today! But, they were all prepared. Yesterday they picked one of their own poems (they had quite a selection since they’ve been writing a poem a day since April began), revised it, and copied it on a piece of paper to put in their pocket today. And lucky for me, my teaching partner encouraged students to share their poems…both in the classroom and beyond.
I did collect a few poems yesterday so I would have some to share with you today. Alice wrote a poem about a crummy old nail…maybe inspired by some of the ordinary poems I’ve written and shared.
Crummy Old Nail
Crummy old nail
served many
purposes
Crummy old nail
dented and
bent
Crummy old nail
proud and
historic
Crummy old nail
brave and
cautious
Crummy old nail
old with
wisdom
upon a
shipwrecked mast,
red
like a
cherry covered
in
rust.
Her brother, Luca, also played around with the ordinary–using the still life structure we explored the other day.
Stool: Still Life
That small stool
standing in the corner,
sulking throughout the day.
It’s surprising when someone
comes his way.
He stops sulking and stands up straight
and if he is lucky,
they sit.
When they leave
he straightens up
and waits for others.
When the sun sets,
he stoops and sits
and lets sleep overpower him.
Snoooooooooooooooore!
I’m not sure what inspired Caleb’s poem…he wrote it on the still life day after he tried a still life poem.
Rocket
Getting ready for launch
fueling the tank
cold on the outside
warm on the inside
a big heart driving
not a robot!
5…4…3…2…1…blast off
you jump into the sky
like you’re on a trampoline
from day to night
in a single flight
in the starry sky
time to attend to dreams
And I’m still fooling around with paint chip poetry. I pulled out some in the orange/yellow family today: fresh squeezed, chamomile tea, and yellow brick road. Here’s today’s attempt:
Thinking Through My Lens 