I love the way water ripples. Something disrupts—a pebble, a water droplet, even a wave—changing the course or disturbing the calm and ripples move out. Layers and layers in movement. Energy in motion: palpable, visual, sonic.
I’ve been feeling those ripples in my life this week. The connection to another blogger’s post that has me sharing the post with this person and that person…because they HAVE to read it. They will want to try what this blogger described. The email from a colleague about the conference session I presented on Saturday and used her book as a mentor text…and then she learned about it from those in attendance who were so excited to meet her at a different event. The friend I haven’t heard from in months who reached out because she happened on yesterday’s post and felt that closeness we used to share when we lived in the same city.
I can feel that energy driving me, encouraging me to reach out and connect too. That ripple of touch continues to spread, the concentric circles widening until it spills into the milky froth of foam sliding along the shore.
For nearly 14 years I have been taking a photo (nearly) every day and posting it to social media, specifically to Instagram (you can find me @kd0602). In many ways it is a part of my writing practice. The camera helps me pay attention and when I pay attention words begin to flow. (I also started my blog at about the same time)
I’ve gotten in the habit of sharing my photography practice with my students, specifically teaching them some techniques to try on in their photography. Last week I showed first graders examples of photos taken from a bug’s eye view, a bird’s a view, and using the rule of thirds. They were excited to try this out! We headed out to our school garden where students were to take three photos using each technique. (And to try not to all take the same photos!). We returned to the classroom to take a close look at the 9 photos and select the one that would then become the basis of the writing we would do.
I was pleased with these photos taken my 6 and 7-year olds. I can see the bug’s eye view, the rule of thirds, and the bird’s eye view (and my students were eager to explain their perspective to me!). We are so fortunate to have such an amazing space to practice our photography.
Before we began writing, I read Kwame Alexander’s How to Sing a Song,a beautiful book filled with figurative language. We’ve been working to add metaphorical thinking to our writing (similes and metaphors). After reading and talking about the book, we began thinking about how to write about the photo we had taken.
The student who took the photo of the orange nasturtium wrote:
How to Grow a Garden
First you put a seed in a ground like putting a baby in its crib. Then you water it with care and let it grow for a little while. Now you have an orange flower. Inside there is yellow, black, and very light green. The petals are crinkly and bumpy. It has little yellow gold flaky things inside like crumbs from crackers.
The student who took the photo of the sky wrote:
How to Love the Sky
Look up and listen. Hear the birds, don’t just listen to them, listen to them from your heart. Then hear the sky talking to you. See the blue of the sky and the white of the clouds and love.
My own photo was of our cherry tree with the sun peeking through.
I only managed a sentence before students were calling me over to read their developing drafts. I borrowed the first word from How to Sing a Song.
How to Grow a Cherry Tree
Hush! Focus your eyes on the softest pink, gently dancing in the light afternoon breeze.
Maybe I’ll continue the piece one of these days, but for now I’m excited to watch my students become confident and accomplished writers…with a metaphorical flair!
Tuesday Treats: a burst of protein (deviled eggs, cheese and crackers), some blue tortilla chips with salsa, and a spoonful of pastel M&Ms. The perfect boost at recess (for teachers) for energy to manage the rest of the day. (Our students did NOT see their shadow in February and they are in full spring behaviors!)
Afternoon recess duty: sunny and mild with a view of the blue Pacific Ocean. The PE teacher wrangling the competitive basketball boys to an organized line shooting baskets, so I didn’t need to put my attention there. Instead, I rescued the many basketballs that had rolled off the blacktop. As I tossed them back I noticed a couple of girls retrieving them and putting them back on the ball rack. I love when kids are helpful just for fun. A relaxing and non-stressful recess for me!
My daily walk: getting home in time to squeeze my walk in before my Zoom meeting. A chance to reconnect and debrief my day with my hubby, mentally clearing space for the complex thinking needed for planning a collaborative project with colleagues from the California Reading and Literature Project (CRLP).
Comfort Food: Yum! Spaghetti dinner prepared by our resident chef (not me!). Perfectly filling, hot and savory, satisfying without feeling heavy.
I was talking with my sister last weekend and she mentioned she had done a color walk with a friend at the beach. I’ve done color walks with my students around the school, often picking a color that I think they’ll have to look hard to find. I like the way that a focus on something: a color, a shape, a something…opens up new possibilities for what you might notice.
Of course, for me a color walk is also a photography walk…and lately a poetry walk as well. The tide has been low this week during my walking times, so the tide pools have been calling my name.
The color of giant kelp (macrocystis pyrifera) kept calling my name. An amber, goldish, kind of orangish color. And weirdly enough I felt like it was echoed in the landscaping I walked by (I did have quite a trek since we had summer over the weekend and parking also felt like summer–like looking for a needle in a haystack!).
With orangish on my mind, I pulled a small collection of photos from my walk, and then used them to inspire some small poetry. To be honest, I dreamed poems all night on Sunday, tossing and turning, writing and revising in my head. And then when I woke up it was all gone.
So, in the spirit of orangish, I’m going to try again. (Although I doubt I can conjure what seemed so urgent and perfect in those busy, persistent writing dreams.)
Calendars are interesting. We start our new calendar year on January 1st (happy 2026 everyone!), we start and end fiscal years (in schools anyway) at the end of June/first of July, and school begins in August now, ending before June begins for some of us. All of these beginnings and endings offer opportunities for reflection, setting and resetting of goals, and resolute moments to improve ourselves, our lives, our practice.
Somehow, though, it is the January 1st occasion that prompts the most drastic of declarations. My husband, a self-professed gym rat, detests the infusion of well-intentioned exercisers that arrive in January. But, then again, they are mostly “done” before the month is over. So many of us declare an end to our vices, vow to improve our health and fitness by pushing away alcohol and sugar, promise to read X number of books by the end of the year…the list goes on. Unfortunately, these traditional resolutions don’t work for many and are often abandoned shortly into the new year.
There’s a group of people who moved from resolutions to finding a guide word for the year. I tried this for a few years. The first year (when I declared my word “play”) worked out well–I really did frame my actions through the lens of play that year. But then again, maybe that was where I was heading anyway. After a few years, I struggled to find a word that resonated and I let the practice of looking for a guide word fall by the wayside.
Last year, on New Year’s Day, I stumbled upon a new muse for my year and declared 2025 the year of the sea star. And all through the year sea stars and other tide pool critters inspired me, greeted me, taught me life lessons, and generally kept me moving forward with more joy than I expected. I continued to learn more about the qualities of sea stars–their propensity for self-healing, their flexibility and tenacity, and the ways they evoke wonder and awe in those who see them.
So how do you top a sea star year? I continue to spend plenty of time in our local tide pools and have been treated to so many amazing tide pool creature sightings: octopuses, sea hares, brittle stars, giant sea stars, bat stars, nudibranchs, wavy turban snails, and the list continues. So of course, as the King Tides returned over New Year’s again this year, I was on the beach. I feel like my heart lives there, beating in and out with the rhythms of the waves, salt water flowing through my veins, my breaths mingling with those of migrating whales and playful dolphins. And as I turned to walk back toward my car on the other end of the of the beach, I saw it…
This heart reminds me to cherish what is right in front of me: my family and friends, the ocean and other fragile natural places, the work that fills me with purpose. Maybe this is a sign to pay careful attention this year. To notice what others miss, to share my insights, to care with my full heart.
Even with a full heart, I know there is room for more generosity, more empathy, more love. That is how I am stepping into 2026.
What does 2026 hold for you? How do you find your muse? I’d love to hear about your journey into the new year.
Sometimes a prompt inspires me. That was my experience when I read Padraig O Tuama’s prompt– the one that arrives in my email inbox each week. After reading a poem by Jane Mead, O Tuama suggested describing a place you go to. I’m a beach goer–and this week offers low-tide walking beaches timed to fit in after I finish work each day. So instead of taking my daily walk around the neighborhood, I’m heading to the beach each afternoon–my favorite beach–to walk and breathe and appreciate this place not far from where I live.
Today I decided to go with a Haibun–that form that allows for some meandering prose followed by Haiku. And while the beach is always enough, it is such a delight when I come across something special. Today it was a wavy turban snail–one of those hearty sea creatures that thrives in the intertidal zone, a harsh place that is exposed during low tide.
The puzzle of tides keeps me guessing as I walk the shoreline. Familiarity interlaced with mystery, each day brings new treasures to discover. Fall, summers’s sister, opens space to breathe, mixes heat with edges of crispy coolness, feet immersed in the translucent turquoise only the sea can offer. This is my place, ordinarily extraordinary.
Sometimes Ocean roars in like a dragon, frothing and swirling, energy radiating from every salty drop, tossing boats, leveling cliffs, chasing swimmers to shore. Every scale and feather ripples in this self-induced storm, power is the name of the game. Other days Ocean is a mirror, calmly reflecting the world around, inviting bare feet, sand castle builders, and sunset seekers. Still waters run deep and Ocean is seldom still and often deep. Beneath the surface lies worlds unlike those we know on dry land. Curiosities are common. Ocean makes a home for the octopus who is a master of disguise, changing shape and color at will. Pelican skims the surf above, joined by its squadron overseeing the shoreline, pouches poised for a quick snack. Ocean reminds us that water is everything: power and life and home. Whether dragon or mirror, to preserve life on our planet Ocean requires our respect and protection. Now is our time to roar.
Some days a prompt is meant to be reinterpreted. That was today for me. Susan at Verselove offered a prompt called Lingering Lines that was born of lines from plays, movies, music… Those lines that linger in your mind and replay themselves without you consciously pushing replay.
But for some reason, lingering lines became literal lines for me today. I spent some time at the Safari Park and it was the long lines of bamboo reaching for the sunlight that lingered in my mind…and inspired today’s poem.
Last night I woke up in a dream reaching for color. I could see it, just beyond my fingertips. Words pushed and pulled in my brain, like poetry chewing gum, stretching to capture the colors in that narrow slice of sky sandwiched between the black of night and the shadows of the ocean. Vermillion chased crimson and burgundy, playing tag with golden amber, marigold, and coral until the purples came out to close out the night. Violet swallowed lavender, fading into magenta before allowing indigo to close the colorful show. I tossed in the colors of the dreamy sunset, reveling in their taste and smell. I wrapped myself in the warmth dripping from my dreams, painting images visible only to my mind’s eye. Colors lullabied me back into slumber, settling me, soothing me, refreshing me. I slept. The morning dawned gray, color drained. But my brain danced with the colors lingering, tucked safely away to carry me into the day.
Imagine my surprise when my alarm went off this morning, with just a wisp of this dream still lingering and found today’s Verselove prompt. Brittany suggested writing a poem about color in nature. Did I manifest this prompt–or did she manifest my dream?
A prose poem seemed like the best vehicle to try to capture my dream search for color. And of course, I can’t resist including a sunset photo–one of my favorite things to photograph!
Thinking Through My Lens 